A basket of Triscuit

About a year ago, Nabisco introduced five flavors of Brown Rice Triscuits (which also contain wheat flour and such odd ingredients as red beans and sweet potato). There were already something like eight flavors of regular Triscuit crackers, in addition to reduced-fat Triscuits, Triscuit Minis and Triscuit Thin Crisps (cut on the diagonal to about the size of half a regular Triscuit).

Clearly the nation needed more. So now there are Brown Rice Triscuit Thin Crisps, in three flavors. If that is insufficient, Mr. Tidbit is confident that Nabisco is capable of producing Brown Rice Mini Triscuits and, eventually, Brown Rice Mini Triscuit Thin Crisps.

Thin but puffed

Of course we need more Wheat Thins, too. We were subsisting on only a dozen flavors of regular Wheat Thins, abetted by several flavors of Wheat Thins Toasted Chips, Wheat Thins Flatbread, Wheat Thins Stix and Big Wheat Thins.

So now there are three flavors of Popped Wheat Thins, which are slightly puffy, and so more delicate in crunch (and slightly lower in fat) than regular Wheat Thins. The box of regular Wheat Thins contains 9.1 ounces; the bag of Popped Wheat Thins contains 4.5 ounces — half as much — and sells for the same price.

Added pop

And we don't have enough kinds of Chex Mix, either. General Mills has been letting this line of snack mixes, based on its Chex cereals, limp along with only 19 varieties.

So now there's Popped Chex Mix. (The Chex aren't popped; the two varieties contain popcorn in addition to the cereal, pretzels and whatever.)

No shell game

Sweet-loving Mr. Tidbit finds himself less dismissive of additions to the line of Russell Stover Easter eggs (and hearts, Santas, pumpkins and other shapes at other holidays). Alongside the many familiar fillings (marshmallow, maple cream, raspberry whip, etc., some coated with milk chocolate, some with surprisingly good dark chocolate), a tasty Red Velvet debuted at Halloween. And for Easter there's a whole crop of silly-sounding introductions, including Brownie, Birthday Cake, Carrot Cake and Wedding Cake, all substantially resembling their namesakes. The latter two are covered in genuine white chocolate. At the typical 59 cents, every egg is a steal.

Al Sicherman