Then, What, Exactly, Are They?

A High Court judge in England has ruled that Pringles are, in fact, not potato chips.

I'm not kidding.

What adds to the weirdness is that this is exactly what the producers of Pringles were hoping the judge would decide.

Turns out, if Pringles were potato chips, they would be subject to a 17.5% tax, Britain's value-added tax. The producers of Pringles were hoping to avoid this tax because it would make their product more expensive and, therefore, less attractive to the British consumers. The Pringles lawyers (and I can't believe someone got paid a ton of money to do this) argued that since Pringles had a "mouth melt" taste, "regular color" and "uniform shape" that is "not found in nature," they could not be taxed.

The real key to their argument, however, was that Pringles are less than 42% potato. (What, exactly, is the other 58%???)

They actually make Pringles from a batter. (Ew.) This, technically, makes Pringles mini-mini-mini-deep-fried-cakes.

Excuse the pun, but what really has me fried about this is the profound lack of logic in the British tax code. Why do they tax potatoes but not cake? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Is the tax applied in inverse proportion to the nutritional value of the food item? Isn't that somewhat problematic? Are they trying to make their people fat?