Why Doritos Suck

As you have seen in a previous article, all of us believe that Doritos are indeed one of the cornerstones of the chip market, and there is little debate over the validity of the Dorito as a genuine chip. Nevertheless, all of us feel that Doritos are a highly overrated and indeed a downright disgusting snack food, the kind of thing casual aficionados will eat as opposed to real chip enthusiasts. I would like to make the case for why Doritos suck and why they should be abolished from the market altogether, as there is no hope for their salvation.

According to the most scholarly source I can find, Wikipedia, Doritos were invented by a man named Arch West, one of the top men at Frito Lay, Inc., who came up with the novel idea of covering a typical corn chip with a morass of interesting flavors, the most obvious of course being Nacho Cheese. Over the years, all sorts of flavors have been added, and in fact the very shape of the chip was significantly re-hauled during a 1993 campaign to define Doritos as different from typical restaurant corn chips. A man named Charles Grady became a national laughing stock in 2003 for trying to sue Doritos because he believed their rigid edges had damaged his throat. Little did he know the bigger problem, which was that Doritos are so oversaturated with artificial flavors and blindness-inducing chemicals that the safety of his throat is almost a non-issue.

I have eaten a significant amount of Doritos in my day, but today I can no longer eat more than four or five of them at a time without getting sick. Part of the problem may be that there is no safe vantage point—there is no such thing as a regular, “plain” Dorito (otherwise known as a tortilla chip). Instead, there is Nacho Cheese, and it gets worse from there. Let’s run through some of them. Cooler Ranch is a particularly popular one, as are Smokin’ Cheddar BBQ and Spicy Sweet Chili, which was immortalized as the sponsor of Stephen Colbert’s presidential campaign on The Colbert Report (if you recall, Colbert barely found the chips palatable himself). Recently, Doritos has outdone itself by offering “Collisions,” wherein two flavors of chips are brought together to resemble something like a meal. So far, we have “Blue Cheese” and” Hot Wings” chips combined, as well as “Zesty Taco” and “Chipotle Ranch.” An excellent overview of virtually every Dorito available (including Peking Duck) can be found here.

Obviously, it would be hypocritical of me to criticize Doritos because of all the unhealthy artificial chemicals they put on there, considering that nearly all chips do that to a degree, but even by those standards, the taste of Doritos is beyond the pale. One criterion for what makes a good chip in my opinion is that it is eminently consumable in vast qualities and doesn’t immediately make you feel awful upon eating it. Baked Lays may be plain, but one can eat a lot of them and feel that they compliment certain meals, such as hamburgers and hot dogs. Nothing goes with Doritos because they try cramming every single taste in one chip, but of course it is a bowdlerized and slightly sinister version of tastes we have had before that were quite superior in their actual form. Compare Nacho Cheese chips with some actual nachos with cheese, and see which one you can eat more of without clutching your insides with pain. While all chips taste better with a tasty beverage on hand, Doritos are the only chips I know that make me immediately go to the nearest water fountain in order to get the intense chemical taste out of my mouth.

I believe I may be actually prejudiced in this regard. In general, I find that artificial flavors are far more palatable on potato chips than they are on corn chips. This is merely an aesthetic choice on my part, and I invite others to disagree. I prefer my corn chips or tortilla chips to be plain or salty, because they are meant to be paired with sauces like salsa or dip. Adding flavors on top of that is a disconcerting practice that does no flavor to the chip itself and only serves to illuminate the quality it lacks.

Finally, Doritos get all over your hands. They aren’t as bad as Cheetos in this regard, but the fake cheese on Cheetos is infinitely tastier than whatever gross ranch dressing-MSG junk that gets on my hand. In general, I prefer washing my hands instead, which won’t be that much of a burden considering I’ll probably be around the sink trying to wash the foul mixture out of my mouth.

I hope that I have empirically proven that, amongst the big six in the canon, Doritos have shown the lowest level of quality through the years, and no amount of significant retooling of their franchise with save them from being known as the kind of chip only laymen (no pun intended) can appreciate.