CRISPS IN A TUBE

If you think about, Pringles crisps are strange. I wonder who first thought of the idea- I imagine two guys sitting around eating a bag of mashed up crisps, and saying, "Hey, wow, we could avoid this problem by of creating the funny shape and stacking them in a tube- so NO MORE CRUSHED CRISPS." Nifty, cause, you know, I was losing sleep over having a few broken crisps in my bag…

You'll be glad to know this was a carefully thought out design, though- apparently it took Proctor & Gamble, the makers of Pringles, 10 YEARS to sort out the creation of their stackable crisp. Obviously people like something about Pringles, as they have been around since 1968.
I have here in front of me a tube of Pringles "Right" crisps, which contain 33% less fat than normal Pringles. This is not to say that they contain any less artificial taste and ingredients than fat Pringles. For the uninitiated, let me just clarify: Pringles offer a range of crisps, including the Full Fat variety, the Partly Fat Right variety, and a Fat Free option, in a number of flavours including Sour Cream & Onion, Ranch, BBQ, Cajun, and "Original" which I take to mean good ole plain salted.

I have tried almost all these flavours at one time or another, and prefer the original, if I had to choose. Please note that there definitely is a different taste depending on the fat content, and this review is of the "Right" ie 33% less fat brand.
TASTE:

Very artificial. Each neatly stacked Pringle is absolutely coated with a fine layer of powdery Sour Cream & Onion flavouring. This is fine if you get home, starving and pop open a tube. You can usually eat quite a few before the sickly taste starts to overwhelm you, after which they begin to taste a bit repulsive. They also leave quite an aftertaste. They don't have much of a smell, but it is a distinctive potatoey odour.
Scrutinising the tube at the ingredients, I see I am now currently digesting the following:
Dehydrated potatoes, vegetable oil, maltodexin, starch, sour cream & onion flavour, which includes stuff like MSG and mystery ingredient E471, corn flour, salt and dextrose. I'd say these things definitely taste like they are loaded with MSG, and you should AVOID if you have allergies to this.

Pringles claim to be GM-free as well, although there was some accusations by Greenpeace that Pringles inported from the US to India contained GM ingredients, and Proctor & Gamble withdrew packs from Japan found to have GM potato ingredients. Not the place to enter the GM debate, but just in case you want to know.
There has also been some complaints about the Fat Free variety which contains something called Olean (*shudder) which sounds really nasty, but I can't claim to have looked into it. I really do think people who purchase something like fat free crisps and expecting to have something healthy are going to be inevitably disappointed.

SHAPE:
Possibly the most distinctive thing about Pringles is the shape. Designed to avoid the dreaded breaking, the crisps are cut into the unique shape after being formed from potato dough, then hand stacked by Belgian elves into the special tubes. Ha! Just checking you were still awake.

No, of course they have machines to do this. Loaded onto special Pringle-shaped carriers, the crisps are quick fried into submission before being stacked on top of each other and sent out. Apparently each canister contains 3-4 potatoes worth of real, whole potatoes, although of course by now they no longer resemble anything remotely natural. Though the website claims they contain no animal products, or derivatives, which I suppose is good. Just ignore the vast amounts of sodium that will clog your bloodstream!)
I don’t know exactly how many Pringles you get per tube (no, I am not sad enough to sit here and count them). A tube contains about 175g worth, with 8.8 fat grams per 100g. And the aforementioned sodium. Lots of it.