snackdown! - 7.4.11

aw snap! look who's back! it's america's former favorite weekly resource for random bits of snack & drink-related news, the snackdown! i apologize for going so long without providing you with the hard-hitting snack & drink news coverage you'd come to expect from eat!drink!snack! it's shameful. one week i'm telling you about mariel hemingway's new line of snacks & the next i'm in the wind. my bad. i assume you've already forgotten though, so let's move on & see what's been going on this week! hopefully something delicious tasty appetizing scrumptious non-puke inducing. let's snackdown!

• have you jumped on the greek yogurt bandwagon yet? yes. there's a greek yogurt bandwagon. how do you not know about it? it's thick & creamy, runs on diesel fuel & is driven by a man wearing a shockingly authentic zeus costume. anywho, greek yogurt's supposedly much healthier for you than regular ol' yogurt & now that americans have made eating greek yogurt fashionable, chobani (my greek yogurt of choice) is looking to expand their empire to australia. they've gone & acquired bead foods, an aussie dairy company. i'd make a joke about their expansion helping the faltering greek economy, but chobani's an upstate new york company founded by turks. oh well. maybe greece will get lucky & ouzo will become the new jagermeister or something. (wall street journal)


• this just in! if you snack too much & don't get enough exercise, you get fat. i know. it's mindblowing. a recent study by a unc-chapel hill professor determined that over the past thirty years, we americans have gone from eating an average of 3.8 snacks or meals a day to average of 4.9 per day. we sure do love our eating & sedentary activity! the study's now making its way through the news cycle, which is cool because it's been over a week since the last study on the subject came out. fat americans are rejoicing as the stock photos & footage of them from the waist down are getting a lot of use these days. (cnn)


• is there any product that snoop dogg can't lend his face to? he's slowly becoming the KISS of the hip hop world. this week he told the sun that he's coming out with a line of snack foods. although he only mentioned two items (hot dogs & ice cream) to the british rag, it totally makes sense. FO SHIZZLE. dude loves weed = dude loves snacks. details are sketchy & dude says a lot of crazy stuff, so who knows if one day you'll ACTUALLY be able to eat a snoop dogg. if it does become a reality, you're in luck because snoop also promised to release a workout tape to help consumers work off the pounds. oh snoop dogg! you little merchandising genius you. (the sun)


• this past thursday in the gated community of coto de cazo, california (the setting for the real housewives of orange county), a resident called police because there was a dude milling about his property. eventually, the resident confronted the dude & learned that said dude & his friends were pranking the neighborhood by "putting freshly-cooked burritos on people's doorsteps." no further details are available but i'm hoping that this burrito prank quickly & swiftly takes the place of coning. (rancho margarita patch)


• & today, as americans across this sweetass nation celebrated independence day, we here in nyc marked the occasion with an annual event of gustatory gluttony, nathan's international hot dog eating competition. last year's event was marked by former champion takeru kobayashi, who was not participating, crashing the stage. this year, kobayashi stayed away & joey chestnut (not to be confused with cody chesnuTT) took home the title for the fifth straight year, consuming sixty-two dogs in ten minutes. since equality is totally alive & well in america & ladies enjoy hot dogs but a woman eating a hot dog is a completely different thing than a man eating a hot dog, this year was the first ever to feature a seperate women's field. after years of competing with the men, sonya "the black" widow" thomas took home the top prize by downing forty hot dogs. america, fuck yeah. (espn)