Tidbits: Putting on the Ritz Toasted Corn Chip

Presenting new Ritz Toasted Corn Chips, described elsewhere on the bag as "corn & wheat toasted chips," and "oven baked, not fried." So what the heck are they? Mr. Tidbit offers this trenchant description: They are thin, crisp crackers, similar to Ritz Toasted Chips, but triangular and with a somewhat Frito-like flavor. (Ritz Toasted Chips are thin, crisp squares. Neither is much like a regular Ritz cracker.)

Because they also contain wheat, the new Ritz Toasted Corn Chips are not gluten-free.

Whereas a 1-ounce serving of Fritos (about 32) contains 10 grams of fat, an ounce of either of the Ritz chips (more like 14) contains 6 grams of fat. There are two flavors of the corn chips (at the moment): original and salsa verde.

At one store, where the 13.7-ounce box of regular Ritz crackers is $2.99 (22 cents an ounce), and the 8.1-ounce bag of the more established Ritz Toasted Chips is $3.49 (43 cents an ounce), the 8-ounce bag of new Ritz Toasted Corn Chips is also $3.49; that's 44 cents an ounce — twice the per-ounce price of Ritz crackers and a smidgen more than that of regular Ritz Toasted Chips.

In previous postings Mr. Tidbit managed, by inference, to describe the suddenly plentiful "breakfast biscuit" as a thin, cookie-like item not quite sweet enough to be a cookie and (odd, but true) weighing 50 grams per serving. Today's two new entries might round out the definition sufficiently to excuse him from pointing out any further introductions, of which he guesses there will be many.

In the most recent previous discussion, analyzing Quaker's new Oat & Yogurt Sandwich Biscuits, Mr. Tidbit failed to note that the 38-gram weight of a serving of that pair of biscuits with a yogurty filling contradicted the 50-gram rule. But: One of today's new offerings, from Nature Valley (which has three kinds of 50-gram-per-serving breakfast biscuits), is Nature Valley Biscuits, 38-gram biscuit sandwiches filled with almond butter or peanut butter. Thus there is firmly established a second weight class: 38-gram sandwiches without "breakfast" in the name.

The other new entry, Kind Breakfast (nice variation: "Biscuits" isn't in the name) features oats, millet, buckwheat, amaranth and quinoa (they're gluten-free); the box contains four (wait for it) 50-gram (yea!) servings.

Al Sicherman