Why Cheese Curls ROCK My World.

Is it wheat-free? Yes. Is it gluten-free? Yes. Sugar-free? Yes. Is that why I adore cheese curls? Not even close.

By and of themselves, those would be good reasons, but then who ever said you had to have a good reason to like anything? We are bombarded daily with things we should do or that are good for us. Is that necessarily how I want to choose my snack food? I don't even want to live my life that way, let alone my guilty pleasures. We all add vegetables, even ones we don't particularly like, to our meals because we know we need them. Fruit is used as a snack food when we are being good. Who hasn't grown up with the propaganda type slogans promoting a junk-food-free diet? "You are what you eat" , "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" , "Carrots will help you see in the dark", and my favorite, "Eating the crust on your bread wil give you curly hair". I think my Polish Grandmother made that one up because my little sister wouldn't eat the crust on her homemade rye bread. I always ate mine and my hair was curly while my sister's hair couldn't have been straighter. WAIT a minute....no, it couldn't be, but I digress. The point is this: A snack is not something you are eating because you need the nutrients it contains to sustain your life. You eat it for enjoyment and in that case you are allowed to indulge yourself. When I am going down the grocery aisle, I want to be compelled by my snack food. I want to anticipate the guilty pleasure.

You will not be able to commit to being a cheese curl fan without also admitting to displaying some OCD behavior at times. I can not help it if the most compelling reasons to love the puffs fall into this category, and the sooner you can come to grips with it the better. Here are a few of my favorites.

TEXTURE. The way a food feels in my mouth will make or break it as a favorite. This is an extremely important feature that can not be overlooked. Cheese curls are very light and airy. When you take a bite, you can let it "melt" between your tongue and the roof of your mouth. I get just as much enjoyment out of HOW I eat it as to HOW it tastes. They are just fun to eat. This added benefit is for the OCD'ers out there. If you eat too many at one sitting, the next day you will have "balls" of skin on the roof of your mouth. You will either know what this is or you won't. You get to play with those with your tongue the next day till they are gone. Fun.

TASTE. They are curl-licious. They are very cheesy, although they are also coming in other flavors now, such as spicy and white cheddar. (Is anyone even talking about jalapeno flavor yet?) This does depend on the brand, but it has been my experience that the higher priced brands do not always deliver the tastiest curls. Price could be a great reason on it's own, because even the name brands are still cheaper than most other types of chips. I find that many times the cheapest, cheesiest (no pun intended) looking bag has the best goods.

COLOR. I added this because whether we know it or not, color affects our moods, feelings and therefore our relationships. The color of your basic cheese curl is going to be orange. Bright orange. According to ThinkQuest.org, there are some very beneficial psychological effects to this color. "Orange has shown to have only positive affects on your emotional state. This color relieves feelings of self-pity, lack of self-worth and unwillingness to forgive. Orange opens your emotions and is a terrific antidepressant." Wow, who couldn't use something that kept you from hating yourself as you stuff your face. But it gets better. There are physiological effects as well. "Orange has proven to be a stimulus of the sexual organs. Also, it can be beneficial to the digestive system and can strengthen the immune system." Need I say more?

VOLUME. Have you ever opened a bag of potato chips only to find that they had all broken and settled to the bottom of the bag? You won't have that problem with the puffed corn. The very nature of the puff prevents it from breaking or crushing excessively. You will start out with a full bag. I am no psychologist, but it isn't hard to see how that affects your perception. As in, "Look how much more I am getting for less money!" That makes you a smart consumer.

UNDERDOG STATUS. Due to the fact that they do not seem to have the same kind of marketing budget as other snack foods, they are overlooked and yes, looked down on by other consumers. What, though, if you live with such a marketing lemming who will only eat Sun Chips or Pringles? This is all to your advantage because then you do not have to share! I put this reason last, but we all know in our hearts that it should be Number ONE.

Some people think that our food choices define who we are and that they reflect our personality. Lisa Rykman said, "There are many things that could be said about people who love cheese curls, chief among them that they have orange fingers and smell like spit-up."

Dr. Alan Hirsch has a completely different take on the matter. When a trial attorney asked to use Hirsch's research about food preferences and personality to help pick a jury, Hirsch had a warning: "I told him not to pick people who like cheese curls," he says. "They're very moral, have very high standards and see things in black and white. You don't want this person on a jury, especially if your guy might be guilty. The one word that describes them is 'integrity.' " "When it comes to compatibility, however, things don't always make sense. Pretzel people, for example, who are quirky, fun, lively and energetic, are most compatible with other pretzel lovers, ambitious potato-chip people or cheese-curl fans. But it turns out that cheese-curl people are most compatible with either potato-chippers or the perfectionist tortilla-chip types."

What we eat and how we eat it are very personal matters. We many not even always understand why we eat the foods we do. We are conditioned to like what we are used to eating, but I say it's time to break the mold. Search out the obsessive-compulsive in your nature and give it something new to chew on. You may not be able to give it up, but then that IS the nature of the beast. If you do venture into new territory, let it be CHEESE CURLS.....Cheesy, Breesy, Beautiful!

Let me know if you agree, or tell me what your obsessive snack food is.