Photo: FOX
In elementary school, lunch and recess were the only things we’d look forward to until it was home time. So around noon, when you finally got to unzip your lunch bag, it was always an event to see what mom packed.
While I did love the majority of my lunches, my favorite meal always fell on Fridays, when my mom would bring fast food from either Wendy’s or McDonald’s to the classroom. Yes, I was THAT kid. Every damn Friday.
When I’d enter the classroom with my brown, grease-stained bag full of fast food and a topical children’s film-themed toy, kids would line-up offering their snacks to trade in exchange for some crispy, hot french fries.
Since I wasn’t a huge fan of fries, I’d welcome these trades and would amass a pile of snacks that I’d keep in my desk to discretely snack on throughout the afternoon.
As a result of this trading, I’d become something of an expert on school snacks. I’d rank which snacks were best on a hierarchy to ensure I was getting the best deal from my classmates.
Based on the trades I’d make in the glory days of elementary school lunch, this is how I ranked the best school snacks in our lunch boxes.
The Best Snacks In Your Childhood Lunchbox, Ranked
Now check out this ranking: Ranking The Great Sodas Of Your Entire Life
Best Snacks In Your Lunchbox
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12. Nutrigrain bars
Kids who had Nutrigrain in their disappointing lunches had the parents you never wanted to eat over at. They wanted their kids to eat healthy, and, as such, Nutrigrain bars became the edible representation of shitty dinners at friends’ houses, where the only drink at the table was milk.
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11. Goldfish
These things were gnarly, in a bad way. I didn’t understand why parents though it was OK to dump these shitty crackers into a ziplock bag for kids to solemnly snack on in between bites of their sandwich. They always insisted that they were cheddar flavored, but I never once tasted anything remotely close to what I’ve ever considered cheddar, or even cheese for that matter.
Photo: Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times (Getty)
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10. Fun Dip
The idea of taking a stick made from powdered sugar, licking it, and depositing it in more flavored powdered sugar should have been a warning sign for most parents. Yet there we were, in sixth period English experiencing the dreaded aftermath of the proverbial sugar high day in and day out.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
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9. Fruit Roll-Ups
I personally thought these things tasted like crap, but the creativity behind building your own gummy pizza out of the snack kind of saved it for me. I don’t know if it was like this for all schools, but kids at ours loved wrapping the sheet of candy around their finger then suck on it until it left their finger dyed a dull pink. I still have no idea why these were so popular.
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8. Fruit Gushers
Gushers were good, but they weren’t great. The commercials promised way more than the Gusher could ever possibly deliver, exploding like landmines in our mouths and turning children’s heads into actual fruit. Suffice it to say, the experience of eating Gushers was like being promised Ben Affleck, but giving us Casey.
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7. Fruit by the Foot
There were a lot of snacks that tasted like Fruit By The Foot, but the sheer length of the fruit combined with being able to use the fruit as if it were your own tongue is what made Fruit by the Foot superior to its competition.
Photo: YouTube
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6. Ritz Bitz
These things were like crack for kids, probably because of the amount of sodium in them. But the buttery crackers, topped with diamond-like bits of salt, mixed with neon cheese filling is something that further enforced just how shitty Goldfish were.
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5. Handi-Snacks
Like Ritz Bitz, Handi-Snacks had that same signature artificial butter/cheese taste but on a larger surface, where we were tasked with creating our own cracker sandwiches. These tasted good damn good, but the tiny red sticks they used for smearing were frustratingly useless.
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4. Cheese Strings
Sure, it was just processed cheese with the texture of plastic, but the ingenuity of being able to peel tiny strips off the thing and wrap them around your tongue made eating this snack all the more eventful. Also, this baby was the perfect pairing to a bologna sandwich.
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3. Lunchables
I don’t know what it is about these things, but every kid who had them for lunch were the envy of the class. Sure, they tasted like shit and the ingredients used in them were questionable at best, but Lunchables somehow made the idea of making your own lunch fun.
The pizza kit was by far your best option, but it was still something you wouldn’t expect your dog to eat. It did come with a miniature chocolate bar though, and the packaging was bright, so us kids ate that shit right up.
Photo by Joe Raedle (Getty)
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2. Golden Grahams Treats
I’m not sure if they’re still around, but these things were the fucking BOMB. They weren’t the most popular among classmates, I’ll admit, but I must say when I opened my lunchbox, removed my thermos of boiled hot dogs and saw that signature shiny gold packaging, I was beyond stoked.
Basically, these things were Rice Krispie Squares made with Golden Grahams cereal, but with chocolate so the thing tasted like a goddamn s’more. Need I say more?
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1. Dunkaroos
These babies were THE snack of all snacks when it came to elementary school lunches, weren’t they?
The cookies were good, yes, but there’s no denying how good that sweet, delicious frosting was. We’d all scoop it sparingly with the cookies until the very end, where we’d scrape the shit out of whatever amount of icing was left over with our fingers.
We might not have known what an orgasm was at that innocent age, but Dunkaroos were without a doubt the closest we ever got to experiencing one.
