The Pre-'90s Version Of This Old-School Snack Needs To Return, According To Fans

If you had to choose the best snack cake, which direction are you going? Would you sink your teeth into a Twinkie? Are you down with the Devil Dogs? Maybe you feel festive with Ho Hos. For some, the only answer that rings their bell is the Ding Dong. But even among Ding Dong fans there is some discord. While the chocolate cakes are still available in stores, many fans are convinced they tasted better back in the day when they were wrapped in foil rather than plastic.

Some lay the love of these old-school lunchbox staples firmly at the feet of nostalgia, while others claim there's more to it than that. Fans of the foil wrapped Ding Dongs on Reddit claim the cakes tasted better in foil than they do in modern plastic wrap. The counterargument from some Reddit users is that any change in taste comes from the company using different, possibly cheaper ingredients.

Some claim that the change in packaging was a move to reduce costs and also make them tamper-proof. Doing so may have had benefits, but there is evidence that supports the position of those foil fans. Compared to plastic, foil is better at keeping out air, light, and moisture. Those vintage Ding Dongs really would have tasted fresher and had better flavor thanks to foil.

The Redditor who pointed out that Hostess uses different ingredients when making Ding Dongs now wasn't wrong. An old box from 1967 shows that Ding Dongs used to be made from sugar, shortening, flour, water, cocoa, chocolate, nonfat dry milk, corn syrup, eggs, leavening, salt, starch, lecithin, mono and diglycerides, gelatin, and flavor. So that's 16 ingredients total.

Modern Ding Dongs are made from sugar, enriched flour, water, palm kernel oil, palm oil, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, soybean oil, cocoa, cocoa processed with alkali, glycerin, food starch, baking soda, mono and diglycerides, whey, salt, corn starch, egg, plus 16 more ingredients.

Realistically, it seems like there are two main reasons people remember these vintage Ding Dongs fondly. The most apparent reason would be how they looked — you remember the foil. Most people don't tend to memorize ingredient lists, so they're less likely to notice the difference between how Ding Dongs used to be made and how they're made today.

When we reviewed 14 Hostess snack cakes, Ding Dongs fell right in the middle. Is it possible that the vintage version would have made it higher on the list? We'll never know for sure. Plenty of people wish that they'd make a comeback, but packaging trends don't tend to go backwards so it's unlikely we'll see the foil-wrapped versions ever again. If that's the case, then the only real question left is which snake cakes are better, Hostess or Little Debbie?