What Is North America’s Favorite Snack Food and Where Did it Come From?

North Americans devour 1.2 billion pounds of potato chips each year, making chips our favorite snack food.

In 1852 at a resort in Saratoga, New York, Cornelius Vanderbilt sent his French fries back to the kitchen, complaining that they were too thick.

Chef George Blum retaliated by cutting new potatoes ridiculously thin, frying them, and sending them back to Vanderbilt, who loved them.

Today, a pound of potato chips costs five hundred times more than a pound of potatoes.

93 percent of Americans snack: 50 percent do so two or three times a day, 40 percent four times a day, and 3 percent five or more times a day.

Almost 90 percent of North American households buy potato chips about every three weeks.

76 percent buy tortilla chips once a month.

86 percent of American teenagers eat candy at least once a week.