Tag: Ritz Crackers

Purchased Price: $3.00 (on sale)
Size: 13.7 oz. box
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Same crispy, buttery texture as regular Ritz. There’s a new limited edition Ritz. Made with dehydrated onions. When they goes away, I can say I was one of the few who had them.
Cons: Onion flavor is mostly noticeable with the first cracker and then fades with each cracker after, so perhaps they should’ve called it Neutralized Onion Ritz. Not sure I’d call what I taste as caramelized onion. Crumb makers. Made with partially hydrogenated oil. Why does it smell like meatloaf? Burger recipe on the back of the box seems like too much effort for an appetizer.

Nutrition Facts: 5 crackers – 80 calories, 25 calories from fat, 4 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat*, 2 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 1 gram of monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 125 milligrams of sodium, 20 milligrams of potassium, 10 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 1 gram of sugar, and less than 1 gram of protein.

Other reviews: So Good Blog

*made with partially hydrogenated oils

I can’t think of sandwich crackers without thinking of grade school day care. Unnaturally bright neon orange crackers with some sort of peanut-related substance smeared in between. I’m sure they don’t serve those anymore, since some kid named Billy who eats his boogers has a peanut allergy so severe that just being in the same room with something that barely qualifies as peanut butter sends him into anaphylactic shock. Kids are such sissies these days.

I’m also pretty sure I haven’t had sandwich crackers since those grade school days. I think time has shown that I’ll eat some pretty juvenile shit – I was about to write that I’d eat Dunkaroos if they still existed, but Google just told me they do, so now I’m conflicted – but there’s something about sandwich crackers that makes me wince. Perhaps there’s a deep-seated feeling of abandonment caused by having to go to day care after school. More likely it’s that my friends and I used to scrape all the peanut butter out of the sandwiches and use it like a greasy substitute for Play-Doh. I once made the perfect sculpture of a nose. It was the pinnacle of my artistic career.

These Ritz Crackerfuls Big Stuff Colossal Cheddar aren’t sandwich crackers, however. These are filled crackers. At least, according to Ritz, that’s what they are. But I can see through Ritz’s facade. Look at that packaging. The cracker looks like it’s sitting on a pristine marble countertop. The “k” in “Crackerfuls” is sprouting a stalk of wheat from its head, presumably indicating that it is natural or healthy. And yet, for the menfolk, it is made clear that there is 75% more filling, so nobody will make fun of you for eating wimpy, under-filled sandwich crackers. I mean, filled crackers. No, I mean sandwich crackers.

In size, they certainly aren’t your kids’ crackers, coming in at 4.5 inches long by 2 inches wide, with a generous amount of filling. I’d say almost too generous, but the ratio of cheese-to-cracker is just about right, although the cheese does squish out the sides when you bite down, making for a less than tidy snack.

The crackers have a pleasant buttery taste, just like regular Ritz, but they aren’t flaky and are much more sturdy, helping to compensate for the heft of the filling. The cheese, when tasted by itself, has a bit of a grainy feel to it, but when eaten as a sandwich, the cracker seems to cover that up. The cheese has the consistency of a soft cheese spread (hence the squishing out the sides).

It also tastes a lot like a processed cheese spread, which is my biggest complaint. Ritz seems to be marketing these crackers to a more adult market, and while the cracker is quite tasty, the cheese filling tastes too artificial for most adult palates. I still eat cheese-in-a-can, but I’m not exactly “normal”. I also think the cheese is too soft; most adults don’t want cheese spread squishing out everywhere, and the consistency adds to the feeling that you’re definitely not ingesting actual cheese.

Ritz Crackerfuls Big Stuff Colossal Cheddar filled crackers seem caught between two demographics. Too large for a child’s snack and lacking the flashy packaging that would make a kid scream at their parent until it wound up in the shopping cart, and yet too unrefined and artificial-tasting to appeal to most adults, who would probably take the individually-wrapped sandwiches to work and then find themselves embarrassed to be wiping processed cheese spread off their faces. Ritz got the cracker right, but the cheese all wrong, and with 75 percent more of it, that just makes that downfall more obvious.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 pack – 190 calories, 100 calories from fat, 11 grams of total fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 2.5 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 4 gram of monounsaturated fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 300 milligrams of sodium, 70 milligrams of potassium, 20 grams of total carbohydrates, 4 grams of dietary fiber, 3 grams of sugars, 2 grams of protein, 0% vitamin A, 0% vitamin C, 6% calcium, and 4% iron.)

Item: Ritz Crackerfuls Big Stuff Colossal Cheddar
Price: $3.29
Size: 5 filled crackers
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Crackers were buttery and held together well. Using peanut butter as a substitute for Play-Doh. Sandwich was large enough for an adult snack. The opportunity to watch a co-worker eat a messy sandwich cracker.
Cons: Cheese tasted too processed. Kids screaming for junk food at the grocery store. Cheese was too soft and messy. Being that adult eating a messy sandwich cracker.

Through my experiences, I’ve learned if you’re at a party that’s serving Ritz crackers as hors d’oeuvres, you should walk out as soon as possible. Because it’s probably going to be either a party filled with people spitting crumbs while they talk about things that bore you or you’re about to watch a timeshare presentation.

Let’s face it. Ritz Crackers have never lived up to their name. If you live in a wealthy, gated community and you offer Ritz Crackers to your haughty guests, you will probably be punished by the neighborhood association and banned for life from any ritzy activities, like dinner parties, hunting endangered species, orgies, or whatever rich people in gated communities do for fun. They’re a step above saltines and oyster crackers, but many steps below any cracker found next to the Stinking Bishop and Neufchâtel cheeses.

Not even serving the new Ritz Cracker varieties — Garlic Butter and Honey Wheat — could prevent rich folks from getting banned from their neighborhood polo match or losing their opportunity to be a part of a human hunting expedition on a private island in the Bahamas.

Honey Wheat Ritz Crackers appear to be “healthy” because it has the word “wheat” in its name and each cracker provides one gram of whole grain, which allows eaters to physically count the number of whole grain they’re consuming. So if you want to get the daily recommended 48 grams of whole grain by eating nothing but Honey Wheat Ritz Crackers, you’ll have to eat one and a half of the four sleeves in the Ritz box.

Or, if eating 48 crackers in one sitting isn’t your thing, you could also eat six bowls of Lucky Charms.

The Honey Wheat Ritz Crackers have a decent sweet and salty flavor, but I thought the honey flavor could’ve been amped up a little. Its sweetness is light enough that I don’t think a bee would touch it with a 10-foot stinger. I think it tastes like another Nabisco cracker, but because they produce enough cracker varieties to dry my mouth if I were to either eat them all one after another or say their names one after another, I’m not sure which one it is. Also, the whole grain is a little noticeable in the cracker’s flavor and texture.

I think the Garlic Butter Ritz Crackers taste slightly better than the Honey Wheat. Although, at times, the cracker’s garlic flavor confused my tongue into thinking I was eating something slightly burnt. But then again, maybe me tasting something burnt could just be a symptom of a rare medical condition.

Or maybe I watch too much House, M.D..

The pleasant garlic flavor is mild and does linger in your mouth after eating them, so I’d recommend having a mint or piece of gum afterwards.

Or stop being a mouthbreather.

(Nutrition Facts – 5 crackers – Garlic Butter – 80 calories, 4 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat*, 2 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 1 gram of monounsaturated fat, 110 milligrams of sodium, 10 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 1 gram of sugar, and less than 1 gram of protein. Honey Wheat – 80 calories, 4 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat*, 2 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 0.5 grams of monounsaturated fat, 110 milligrams of sodium, 10 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 2 grams of sugar, and 1 gram of protein.)

*Uses partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil

Item: Ritz Crackers (Garlic Butter and Honey Wheat)
Price: $3.00 each (on sale)
Size: 15.1 ounces
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 7 out of 10 (Garlic Butter)
Rating: 6 out of 10 (Honey Wheat)
Pros: Garlic Butter has a pleasant garlic flavor. Honey Wheat has a decent sweet and salty flavor. Honey Wheat provides 1 gram of whole grain in each cracker. Funny cheese names.
Cons: Uses partially hydrogenated oil. Honey flavor could’ve been amped up a little. Self-diagnosing yourself. Can’t stare at Dr. Cuddy’s cleavage on House anymore. Gated communities.

It’s fitting I found the Ritz Crackerfuls Cheddar Cheese & Bacon in Wisconsin — the land of cheese and meats. If only it came with a beer dipping sauce or made with beer bread batter, then it could be the state’s unofficial cracker snack.

The Cheddar Cheese & Bacon flavor is the latest in the Ritz Crackerfuls line and puts an end to the hoity-toity sounding flavors that preceded it, which include Classic Cheddar, Four Cheese and Garlic Herb.

Like small-breasted porn starlets, the Ritz Crackerfuls Cheddar Cheese & Bacon keeps it real. It has real cheddar cheese made with cultured milk, salt, enzymes and annatto extract color. It also has real bacon in the form of rendered bacon fat and bacon bits that have been cured with water, salt, sugar, sodium phosphates, sodium ascorbate and sodium nitrate.

Mmm…You can totally read the realness.

You know what else this cheese cracker sandwich has? Green tea and rosemary extracts. No fo’ realsies. Although I don’t taste either of them. I’d show you the ingredients list to prove it, but you would quickly get bored by its vastness or due to the number of ingredients that end with -ate, you would suffer PTSD (Periodic Table Studying Disorder) and relive the horrors of memorizing chemical compounds in your high school and college chemistry classes.

The Ritz Crackerfuls Cheddar Cheese & Bacon has a smokiness to it, but I’m not sure if it’s from the cheese, the bacon, both or from one of the ingredients that end with -ate. Well, whatever creates that smoky flavor, it makes this cheese cracker sandwich slightly more enjoyable than the original flavors of Crackerfuls. The bacon bits are large enough to be seen and provide a different kind of crunch than the cracker, so if you’re one of those mouthy-feely eaters you might get a kick from the almost crystalline-like crunch.

Just like the original Crackerfuls, this latest variety is also as fragile as a mofo. It’s a crumb creator, so if you don’t have manners, I’d suggest getting some and pulling out a plate to eat these.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 Crackerful – 130 calories, 7 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 1.5 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 2.5 grams of monounsaturated fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 250 milligrams of sodium, 35 milligrams of potassium, 17 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, 3 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein, 6% calcium and 4% iron.)

Item: Ritz Crackerfuls Cheddar Cheese & Bacon
Price: $3.19
Size: 6 pack
Purchased at: Festival Foods (Wisconsin)
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Decent smoky flavor. Real bacon bits. 6 grams of whole grain per serving. Contains polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats. Having manners. Contains green tea extract. Porn starlets. Wisconsin before the mayflies.
Cons: Crackerfuls are crumb creators. Unsure of how it gets its smokiness. Vast ingredients list. Lots of ingredients that end with -ate. Periodic Table Studying Disorder.