Ah, the '90s. The era when we were but aspartame-inhaling, hydrogenated-oil-guzzling kiddies. Back then, we thought playing in the Ronald McDonald playhouse was hygienically advisable and Fruit Roll-Ups were an appropriate example to bring up during food pyramid discussions in health class. Somehow we're still alive.
But now, we've been called pretentious food snobs because we bring veggie burgers to barbecues and give Whole Foods gift baskets to unimpressed family members. Still, sometimes we fantasize about those simpler time -- downing a can of Surge, feeding our Tomagotchi, and collecting pogs, all while snacking on Koala Yummies.
Here are five other '90s snacks we secretly love:
5. Stuffed-crust pizza
We know, cheese in pizza crust is, basically, the same thing as cheese on pizza crust. But somehow this felt revolutionary. You could eat pizza backward. You could get your fingers all greasy and full of tomato sauce as you attempted to angle an upside-down triangle toward your face. You could annoy the crap out of your parents while pointing out that all the backward-pizza-eating cool kids in Pizza Hut commercials were doing it. Also, anything stuffed with cheese was automatically awesome during this time (see: Combos).
4. Fruit Stripe gum
We hear that, prior to the '70s, if you wanted two flavors of gum in your mouth, you had to actually stick two pieces of gum in your mouth. So quaint and primitive. Our generation was fancy and ate pieces of psychedelic, zebra-striped gum infused with multiple flavors that came in wrappers that doubled as badass temporary tattoos. We didn't play around.
3. Dunkaroos
In the art of school-lunch-trading, this marsupial-themed snack was high currency. It could get you, like, two bags of Cool Ranch Doritos and three packs of Gushers. The product gimmick was you got to dunk your kangaroo cookie into some icing. Get it? The kangaroo "hops" into the creamy pool. Ha-ha. OK, we see how it got old.
2. Pop Rocks
This weird candy was actually manufactured on and off since the '70s, but the '90s saw the height of its popularity. That's probably because 20 years would be about the time necessary to convince people it's OK to ingest something that feels like tiny grenades exploding in the mouth. Oh, and Mikey from the Life cereal commercials didn't die from mixing Coke and Pop Rocks (he's alive!). Don't you miss chain-email urban legends popping up in your AOL mailbox?
1. String cheese
It is infinitely easy to amuse American consumers. It's cheese! That you can peel off into little strings! Must. Buy. Now.
Runners-up: Bagel Bites, Lunchables, Tab (the "sexy" soda), and those weird white lollipop sticks that you licked and then dipped into a Pop Rocks-ish powder.
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