Promotion: Subway Get Smart sweepstakes, instant-win game

Location: 6843 N. Lincoln Ave., Lincolnwood, IL 60712 (map); phone: (847) 329-8134

Rating: 3 out of 5 – acceptable

I like entering online contests, but some sweepstakes are clearly more giving than others. I was lucky to win more bags of these Flat Earth Baked Veggie Crisps from Frito-Lay than I knew what to do with (thanks, CAG), and the winning e-mails just began to form daily in my inbox like the evening dew. It had been a while since I’d stepped foot in a local Subway sandwich shop, but I knew I was in for trouble when the person working there had never seen my winning redemption e-mail before. Fortunately, the deeper inspections, personal-information taking, and management consultations would come after this initial trip, freeing me to enjoy some free veggie crisps after a brief and relatively pleasant round of counter confusion.

So what’s all this Flat Earth talk about? Apparently, Frito-Lay decided that Baked Lays didn’t take the health quotient far enough for some customers, so in addition to baking these crisps, they decided to meet some of your daily nutrient requirements as well. Emblazoned across every 1-1/4 oz. bag of these “impossibly good” blends of rice, potato, and vegetables is the reminder that there’s “1/2 serving of real vegetables in every ounce” of these crisper chips, which are made up of more rice flour than potato flakes (as listed by priority in the ingredients list on the back). This rice-potato flip-flop seems to produce an almost Pringles-esque effect in taste and drying of the mouth (albeit in a thicker, sturdier, and more ridge-laden package), though Pringles still has more dried potatoes (and vegetable oil) than rice flour.

As for the Tangy Tomato Ranch part of the equation, the ranch component appears to derive from the cheddar and Monterey Jack cheese, sour cream, butter, garlic powder, dehydrated onion, and other natural and artificial flavors thrown in there. There are “spices” and ascorbic acid to help with the tang, but the main flavor that serves to distinguish this instance of the Flat Earth label is its tomatoey-ness. Tomato paste and powder, combined with dehydrated red bell peppers and the ranch factor already mentioned, produced a first impression of dried spaghetti sauce on the tongue. Nearly two weeks later with a second bag (acquired with relatively little trouble, thankfully), the ranch taste seems to dominate the overall flavor more, but the note of tomato still manages to filter through as one of those unexpected sensations near checkout lines typically reserved for SunChips, also made by Frito-Lay and sold by Subway.

All that to say that Tangy Tomato Ranch produces some unique flavors not altogether unpleasant in combination. If you haven’t tried a crisp or two, it could be an interesting new experience for ya. But should you lay down the cash — and not a winning e-mail print-out — to give it a try? Hard to say, so this Ranch will have to remain just within the borders of acceptability for me. At least this crisp can say it’s different.