Snack Food Smackdown! by Fred Hagemeister

 

                                VERSUS

       

-        Both are fruit chews. Both contain a version of orange, strawberry, & lemon. They differ only in that Mamba shills a raspberry flavor, while Starburst boasts of cherry.

Let’s meet our competitors:

IN THIS CORNER!!!!! MAMBA

Here’s what they have to say.

From the Mamba website:

-        Mamba is one of Storck’s oldest brands. Your Mom and Dad, and even your Grandma and Grandad, used to eat Mambas. The refreshing fruity chews were invented in Germany in the early 1950s. Throughout its 50-year history, Mamba has always kept up with the times. 

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-        Mamba is made in Germany, which strikes me as odd. When I think of the term mamba, I think of the African savanna, a land overflowing with slithering, toxic snakes; if I am to believe everything I see on Animal Planet’s Most Extreme Animals show, and I do.

      

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     The Black Mamba snake

         Photo via National Geographic

           

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       According to the New Encyclopedia of Reptiles, the Black Mamba is a highly venomous snake closely related to the cobra. The Mamba is endowed with a toxic venom fatal to most humans. Without an anti-venom, the bite can rapidly stop the heart and lungs of a man in minutes. The mamba’s top speed of 14 mph matches the average humans! The article goes on to state the snake’s nasty habit of chasing and attacking humans for nothing more than glancing at it the wrong way.

      

AND THIS CORNER!!!!! STARBURST

  

Here’s what they say:

·  1960 The brand is invented in the UK and launched under the name OPAL FRUITS®. The four original flavors are Strawberry, Lemon, Orange, and Lime.  1967 OPAL FRUITS come to America and the name is changed to STARBURST.

Fair enough, but what is a Starburst?

 The Chandra X-ray Observatory website defines a star burst as a generic term to describe a region of space with an abnormally high rate of star formation. It is reserved for truly unusual objects.

     

                A Starburst               Photo via NASA

-                   In a literal sense, if you were to pit a mamba snake against a starburst in space, it would be no contest. That poor snake, for all its ornery ways and lethal venom, would instantly implode after being flung far into the vast and frozen reaches of a vacuum. Still, you know he’d go out fighting. And while the 12-year-old in me hopes the snake’d be bombarded with gamma radiation, grow to one thousand times his size, and return back to earth with vengeance in his heart and lasers in his eyes, the adult in me knows better. But I digress, we’re here to talk about their candy namesakes.....

         

Round 1-MOST BADASS CANDY PRODUCT NAMESAKE:   

Winner: Mamba

Round 2-DIETARY CONCERNS

Starburst is Gluten-free.

Mamba, by contrast, contains wheat.

Mamba is also vegan friendly!

Winner: Mamba

Round 3-SERVING SIZE:

Mamba: a modest 6 pieces

Starburst: one pack. One pack??? One entire package of Starburst. All 12 pieces? Really? Every piece in this pack I can eat and won’t go over my daily healthy nutritional intake according to the US Food and Drug administration? Good news for your waistline. Probably bad news for a diabetic and your  yearly dental bill.

Winner: Starburst

Round 4-FLAVORINGS:

Starburst: natural and artificial flavors

Mamba: artificial flavors only. None of that neurotic American nonsense of the inability to enjoy junk food for its own merits. Refreshingly, Mamba makes no pretenses to health!

Winner: Mamba

Round 5-SURPRISING INGREDIENT

 Starburst: fruit juice 

Mamba: paprika. Yes, paprika. Capsicum annuum, aka dried and ground chili pepper. Huh. Ponder that fact for awhile. You can't taste it, but its there. Paprika. 

   

                      

                                                         

                               

                                      paprika

Winner: Mamba

Round 6-Quantity:

Check this nonsense out:

Where’s the lemon? Well, where is it? Since there’s only enough room for three of these packets, let’s read the instructions again…..

 f   

                  

“Selected from…”

 That means you never know which of the three flavors you’re getting. What kind of nonsense is this?

FOR GETTING WHAT YOU PAY FOR:

 Winner: Starburst

FOR THOSE WHO LIKE TO GAMBLE:

 Winner: Mamba.

Tie.

      Candy fruit flavors are weird. They really don’t correspond to the fruit they are supposed to represent. It’s like ordering a filet-mignon and instead getting grill-flavored tofu. They’re vaguely close, but nowhere near the same.  Does a piece of Alexander the Grape ever really taste like a Concord grape from a vineyard? Or a cherry Slush Puppy taste like an actual cherry? Regardless, let’s see which of the two candy competitors taste better overall....

Round 7-FLAVOR:

Starburst: Their claims are true, each piece is a burst of tart, fruity juiciness.
Candy fruit taste, but fruit nonetheless. 

Mamba: Kind of waxy and more of a sweet taste in equal part to the fruit flavoring. That old school candy flavor that your grandparents liked, in the vein of Beeman’s gum, fruit slices, and ribbon candy.

FOR THE YOUNG, FOOTLOOSE, AND FANCY FREE:

 Winner: Starburst

 FOR THE OVER 75, GERIATRIC CROWD:

 Winner: Mamba

Tie.          

Tallying up:

Starburst: 1

Mamba: 4

WINNER: MAMBA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Honestly, this is a far cooler looking picture than the regular Mamba packaging. You people at Storck should look into using something like this for the younger set. Now you just need to throw some fruit in there, or something. 

 

 There. Perfect. And marketable! Mamba can send that endorsement check care of Fred Hagemeister/ The Signal Moon is Zero.