Into the mouths of men go these thin red rods: Slim Jim.

Cap’n Crunch throws his hands in the air. He gazes at the object of his pathological excitement, a bowl of popcorn envlivened with green and red crunchberries. it is the very definition of a mixed bag.

Eating a Triscuit is like eating a snare drum solo: a single note, repeated over and over in endless varieties of timing and intensity. This rhythm, this rudimentary paradiddle, is the heart of its enduring crunch.

A refuge of the desperate, identical in all cities, all places, tonight's dinner is grocery store sushi. Chewy rice, pitifully sparse sesame seeds, and uncomfortably packed tuna and avocado set a grim table. But soy sauce coaxes out the breathy nip of rice vinegar, enlivening every bite with salt and sour, turning cold rations into a meal.

Birthed from the chapped hands of a hungry girl, Lao Gan Ma transcends the western pain circus to touch something deeper. Decades later, that girl is hungry still. Her sauce tells her story.

Popov is the death wish incarnate. The label is a sinister red, dim shadow of the Kremlin gazing demonically behind the all-caps brand name. Drink it and you tempt oblivion.

Quest makes protein-loaded simulations of a guilt-binge desserts: the romance, the texture, the flavor, all Instagram-ready, carbless yet convincing.

Each puff destroyed leaves behind trace remnants, gritty cornmeal and powdered cheese, and if you eat them fast enough that grit accumulates: a tiny hoard of white gold dust, panned through in your teeth, slipping away in the river of your mouth.

A conspicuously invisible cultural infiltrator. A remnant from a past we never had.

On Monster Ultra Fiesta, you will not sleep. Sleep would require a level of psychological safety that is no longer available.