YA and I had some Subway last week and we each got a bag of chips to accompany our feast. We’ve had chips plenty of times but last week was the first time I noticed that there is are lines of colored dots along the bottom of the bags. I checked other bags in my house and about half had dots similar to these, although they weren’t exactly the same colors.
Didn’t take me to long to research this. These dots (apparently sometimes squares) are called “Printer’s Color Blocks” and they are used as quality control markers for the ink used to print on the bag. If there is too little or too much of a particular color, it affects the colors on the dots and the printer (human or machine) and adjust as needed.
The reason that I didn’t see these color blocks on all my chips bags is that it’s completely voluntary. Some manufacturers don’t use them and some manufacturers trim off the numbers after printing.
According to online articles, the most common colors are the four major colors used in printing: black, magenta, yellow and cyan, although depending on the manufacturer (like my bag above) can use more if they want/need.
This was a much more pedestrian explanation than I was hoping for and has absolutely nothing to do with the food inside the bag. I was really looking forward to some secret code that I could learn and apply when shopping. Oh well; if it had, I’d be spending way too much time standing in the chip aisle at my local Cub!
What’s your favorite salty treat?
Trail Baboon 
Popcorn or lightly salted nuts. I don’t dislike chips, I just don’t habitually eat them and if for some reason we have an open bag of chips in the house they go stale before they get eaten.
That’s a lot of color blocks on that bag. The chip company and hence the printers must want to keep a tight rein on color consistency.
Just about anything printed in four color process (cmyk) will have color blocks somewhere, though they may have been cut off after printing. Boxes, like cereal boxes or cracker boxes, often have them on one of the inside flaps.
I’ve never understood and never gotten a satisfactory explanation as to why cyan (c),magenta (m), yellow (y), and black (k) were the standard ink colors used in combination to achieve full color reproduction. I’ve asked printers in the past and a search of the internet asking “why cmyk?” yields explanations of cmyk versus rgb ( red green blue, the colors of light your monitor uses ) but not explanation of the choice of magenta instead of red or cyan instead of a purer blue. Anyway, rgb, as light, behaves entirely different from cmyk, which is ink, so comparing the two is misleading.
With magenta, which is a bluish red, and with cyan, which is a greenish blue, it’s impossible to render a bright, clean orange or purple. The blue in the magenta contaminates the orange and the green in the cyan contaminates the purple. When those colors are called for they often have to be added as a separate custom ink color. With cmyk, only about 50% of colors, as represented by Pantone samples are possible. ( Pantone Matching System is the bundle of color swatches used by designers and printers to communicate to each other precise color choices.)
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I’m going to take your word for it. : )
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Well done Bill. I’ve read a lot about RGB vs CMYK. You know one is additive color mixing (paints) and light is subtractive color mixing. Lighting fixtures can use either. But if it’s technically MIXING the color it uses CMY. It doesn’t need a ‘black’, you turn off all the others and nothing comes out. Some cheaper fixtures use RGB. And LED’s for a long time were ONLY RGB. Lately they’ve gotten lime, amber, violet and other colors to work in RGB.
I just read something recently about why they use CMY. Wish I could remember what I read…
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I figured, Ben, that my comments about color and color mixing would be in your area of interest given your lighting work.
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I’m more of a sweet-tooth as far as “treats” go, but I realize I do in fact eat a fair amount of moderately salty snacks. Favorite is probably Food Should Taste Good multigrain chips, but Costco doesn’t carry them anymore. I like a good, fresh bowl of popcorn but am usually too lazy to put a bag in the microwave. My wife is usually the instigator there.
Finally, one can never go wrong with a big spoonful of peanut butter. (Natural, NOT that sweetened crap like Skippy that we ate as kids. Although, I always bring Skippy PB on my canoe trips in the BWCAW because I can get it in a plastic jar and it doesn’t need refrigeration.
Chris in Owatonna
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You’re right about peanut butter, except we’ve been buying natural PB without added anything, so I don’t think of it as a salty snack anymore. Oooh, now I want ants on a log…
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I know so few country songs that it’s amazing to me when I find a useful one swimming around in my brain!
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I am a lightly salted cashew and pistachio person. I had some Cheetos the other day when we had a pizza party at work. They were good, but I didn’t like how orange my fingers got.
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Neither of the chip bags here have these circles! I will watch for them now, if only because I like little colored circles.
Popcorn would have to win here, too, esp. when Husband makes the real thing in the pan. And lightly salted cashews or deluxe mixed nuts (w/o peanuts). Most of these are still too salty, so I buy one salty and one unsalted and mix them… Trader Joe’s understands this, and has a half-salt one.
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We rarely if ever make popcorn. I feel bad when the cub scouts hit us up to buy their popcorn and we decline to make a purchase. I have to bite my tongue to also not tell them we don’t support paramilitary groups.
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…don’t make it because you don’t like the taste, etc?
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I don’t like how it gets stuck in my teeth.
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I’ve had a couple of rough experiences with popcorn getting stuck. I pretty much brush my teeth right after eating popcorn…ven if it means going straight to the bathroom to brush and floss after coming home from the movies.
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I get it – I now either floss or use those little tiny brushes..
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When Sandra went into care almost exactly Two years ago I quit snacks. I love anything with salt and fat. Eating supper at 9 covers the snack habit. Last night I bought some medicinal salted caramel ice cream. My daughter says medicinal calories do not count. Normally sweet snacks don’t tempt me.
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I heal with butter pecan
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My mother goes through with drawl if she doesn’t have butter pecan in the freezer
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I can’t resist Loaded Pretzel… (Stone Ridge)
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I love with the Cookie Butter ice cream from Trader Joe’s
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We were doing a lot of cheddar popcorn. I think I overdid it and lost my craving. Kelly is still on it. Last night I had microwave popcorn.
On our honeymoon we found Lays Cheddar chips; wow, are they still good! Thankfully available here. I can eat a bag of them if I’m not careful.
Peanuts: chocolate covered, plain, in M&M’s…
sometimes I can do those new Dot pretzels. Good thing about them is I can’t eat too many. They’re too spicy for me.
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R. Crumb and the Cheap Suit Serenaders…
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Lyrics:
1. My girlfriend’s over but I sent her away
’cause she almost knocked the supper off my TV tray
Bring a loada’
RC Cola
TV Dinner
A plate of Twinkies
It takes a pink burrito
For to keep me clean
(For to keep me clean)
2. TV dinner is the meal that I’m lovin’
Take off the foil, 30 minutes in the oven
3. Don’t like no carrots, can’t stand no peas
But a pack of Ding Dongs bring me down to my knees
4. Girlfriend’s sweet, she ain’t like no other
Lets me spend all day in from of that 24-inch color
5. Only one thing makes me jump up and holler
TV breaks down during Bowling for Dollars
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Bill Hinckley and Judy Larson did a version of this that’s fun too.
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Jerky of all sorts.
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Mmm, salty snacks. I like roasted salted peanuts but I try to stay away from them. There are some varieties of salty almonds at the Coop that I like, as well as curry cashews, which are so wonderful.
I also like corn chips and salsa or corn chips with black beans and salsa and cheddar cheese, baked until the cheese melts.
OT: I’ve lost the keys to my basement door. I hope it never locks inadvertently. I’m sure they’re somewhere but they’re completely evading me.
OT2: My biopsy results finally returned. I had an unusual, multi-colored mole removed a month or so ago. I could say it was magenta and cyan colors, or more like burgundy and magenta with a little yellow for fun. Their levels for “atypical moles” run from mild to severe, then melanoma. My mole was severe. So I’ll be having more chunks cut out of my arm in mid-November. Melanoma runs in my family on my mom’s side. My grandma, aunt, and Mom, all had melanoma. I have been abusive to my skin, going out without sunscreen and not wearing long sleeves. I know better but as the old saying goes, “It won’t happen to me.”
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So you’ve had this done before, Krista? Glad it (sounds like it) is manageable…
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No, this is the first time but from watching my grandma, mom, and aunt, I know it will be ok. I’m going to be a bit mangled on my left forearm but it’s better than the alternative. It will heal.
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While grocery shopping today, I checked – saw lots of these on name brand packages, hardly any on the off brands.
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Buttered popcorn is a favorite. I also like chex mix, but it’s better if made from a recipe than if you get the prepackaged kind. Old Dutch barbecue potato chips are tasty, too.
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