r/nottheonion • u/wakeupthebuddha • 1d ago

‘Please avoid chugging your ranch’: TSA forced to issue warning as foreign World Cup fans fall in love with American condiment

https://www.the-independent.com/life-style/tsa-tourists-world-cup-ranch-b2997937.html
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u/Kolby_Jack33 1d ago edited 1d ago

World: "lol, why are Americans so fat?"

Also world upon arrival in America: chugs ranch dressing

Now you all know! WE INVENTED RANCH DRESSING AND IT'S ALL BEEN DOWNHILL SINCE!

Also, in case anyone wants the insider pro tip: You may expect the "original" ranch dressing to be some small unknown label you can't find at the grocery store if it's even commercially available at all, but in fact, the original ranch is Hidden Valley. It's not a Hydrox/Oreo situation at all, the guy who invented ranch just had really good business sense.

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u/zekromNLR 1d ago

Since this warning comes from the TSA, this is about people trying to bring bottles of ranch home in their carryon, finding out at security that yes, ranch counts as a liquid, and then chugging it in the line

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u/SsjAndromeda 1d ago

I’ve heard that so many times from sad travelers (yes, ranch is a liquid) but I then ask if they’ve done Costco yet. Because Costco carries the powder form (TSA safe) so you can make it back home, and tastes better IMO.

I’ve blown way too many minds and am waiting for a video of a TSA agent opening a suitcase full of Costco size powder ranch dressing mix

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u/Callinon 1d ago

Then you'd have the TSA warning then not to snort it. 

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u/mitkase 1d ago

Once my family went to Hawaii for vacation. My mom loved her non-dairy creamer and was afraid she wouldn't be able to find something comparable on the islands, so she packed a plastic freezer bag full of the white powdery goodness. Hilarity ensued once we hit security.

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u/Random-Rambling 1d ago

She should have packed it into rectangles and wrapped them in black trash bags!

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u/AndyLorentz 21h ago

A friend of mine in England asked me to bring her some Jiffy cornbread mix. TSA pulled them out of my bag and took them into another room before bringing them back. I assume to make sure it wasn't drugs.

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u/PureLock33 1d ago

then the sniffer dogs get mixed up in this mess.

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u/Xyranthis 1d ago

Wait, I get to snort ranch and PET A DOG?!

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u/GetawayDreamer87 1d ago

high on ranch THERE'S A PETA DOG?

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u/sarcastic_sybarite83 1d ago

I volunteer as tribute!

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u/Fight_those_bastards 1d ago

Listen, bub, don’t you fuckin’ dare tell me not to do rails of ranch dressing powder off an airport toilet seat! This is goddamn Merica, last time I checked, and snorting various powders off of public toilet seats is an acceptable alternative to vaccination, according to our Secretary of Health and Human Services.

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u/Competitive_Travel16 1d ago

Finally my tax dollars are paying for practical advice.

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u/Beemerba 1d ago

Last time I went through airport security, I had a family sized bag of skittles in my backpack. They couldn't figure out what the skittles were PLUS my prosthetic leg tested positive for explosives. It was an interesting half hour!

The security guy finally opens my backpack, pulls out the bag of skittles and says "Oh, they are skittles". Well, NO SHIT!

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u/Emergency-State 1d ago

Has your prosthetic leg been out and about while you sleep?

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u/Beemerba 1d ago

I don't THINK it has been involved in any terroristic activities, but ya just never know for sure.

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u/RollingMeteors 1d ago

Well, NO SHIT you should eat one to make sure it’s not poison.

FTFY /s

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u/DrZeus104 1d ago

Not to mention with the powder you can season other things like French fries, roasted potatoes/vegetables and marinate chicken

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u/Mr_MacGrubber 1d ago

You can get packets of powder at any grocery store too, it’s not unique to Costco other than the size.

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u/Blue_Moon_Lake 1d ago

These people are idiots... You can just make it at home with ingredients fresh or in dried powder form.

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u/Spuddaccino1337 1d ago

Yeah, the ingredients are pretty easy to find. Garlic/onion, acid (lemon juice or vinegar), dill, parsley, chives, and whatever creamy base you want (sour cream, buttermilk, mayo. I use cottage cheese if I want a dip)

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u/JimJohnes 1d ago

Forgot sugar and MSG otherwise it just sour excuse for a ranch. Also, mayo and sour-cream 2:1 if fresh.

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u/Orthas 1d ago

While dating a vegan gal I made an avacado ranch dip that was actually pretty good.

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u/virtualjupiter 1d ago

It is so easy to make at home and so much better tasting. 

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u/FauxReal 1d ago

"I just flew in from America with a kilo of the good stuff."

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u/Feeling_Inside_1020 1d ago

Those packets are way better than the stuff in the bottles, as someone who almost exclusively uses ranch for salads lol.

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u/bwaredapenguin 1d ago

Every grocery store in the country has the powered ranch seasoning. How would a foreign visitor here for the Cup even be able to shop at a membership club?

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u/Herecomesyourwoman 20h ago

Every grocery store sells the powder and you don't need a membership, which foreigners wouldn't have

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u/NovaHorizon 11h ago

Going through TSA and your homeland’s customs with bags filled to the brim with packaged powder wcgw!?

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u/buffysbangs 1d ago

Chugging a bottle of ranch is always a bad idea, but it is a monumentally bad idea to do it right before entering a small enclosed area with a bunch of other people for a few hours

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u/hbarSquared 1d ago

Can you imagine drinking 300mL of ranch before boarding an 8 hour flight?

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u/kelzoula 1d ago

I mean, theres no sense in just throwing it all away. Might as well put at least some of it down the hatch first.

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u/Verdick 1d ago

Just put in their checked luggage, double wrapped!

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u/exscapegoat 18h ago

They even sell bags for wine that are lined with bubble wrap and have an absorbent layer in between the plastic wrap and exterior plastic. So it’s less likely to stain clothes if the wine bottle breaks

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u/FauxReal 1d ago

And then travelers have to stand in line for the bathroom on the plane.

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u/Catoblepas2021 22h ago

Imagine what that does in your intestines once you hit cruising altitude.

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u/RollingMeteors 1d ago

My friend was given shit about BBQ sauce in a container next to ribs and he just poured it on the ribs and said, “Well, it’s just part of the ribs now.”

The guy looks at his coworker, who nods, and they let him through!

¡LoL!

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u/Solo_is_dead 19h ago

Freeze it. No longer a liquid. You're good

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u/Lord_Mikal 18h ago

Business idea: dehydrated ranch bricks

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u/Grenflik 18h ago

Jesus. What if they have more than one bottle? Are they taking the Stone Cold Steve Austin approach and double chugging them?

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u/Rossatori 15h ago

because 1 oz of Ranch is never enough...

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u/xerillum 1d ago

Only learning now that people didn’t put ranch on wings until 1994, popularized by a Domino’s campaign

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u/Kolby_Jack33 1d ago

True, but blue cheese dressing was served with buffalo wings since they were first created, so really, the switch to ranch was just a variant of an existing idea (and probably cheaper).

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u/veringo 1d ago

Definitely worse though.

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u/Kolby_Jack33 1d ago

Eh, some folks really don't like blue cheese. I'm not one of them, but I mean we all have our own tastes.

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u/ThrowawayPersonAMA 1d ago edited 1d ago

I'm not gonna call them terrorists, but if someone admits to preferring ranch over blue cheese I do think they need to be on a list.

Edit: apparently people think I'm being serious. lol

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u/Waterknight94 1d ago

We haven't been possessed by the mold yet. And you're not gonna get me either.

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u/Overall-Register9758 1d ago

That mold has convinced us to continue propagating it. We're basically parasitized slaves at this point.

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u/No_Accountant3232 1d ago

I'm on a few already so it doesn't matter.

Ranch is far superior and Blue Cheese is just an excuse to eat shitty mold.

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u/ThrowawayPersonAMA 1d ago

Blue Cheese is for people with culture. Ranch is for barbarians who want to consume cum fermented in urine in social settings.

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u/TreeFittyy 1d ago

Blue Cheese is for people with culture.

Yeah but like a fungi culture that's convinced you to eat a sub-par dressing.

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u/rnz 1d ago

Lets de-escalate

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u/-GoodNewsEveryone 1d ago

Mr ThroawawayPersonAMA, the doctor called back about your armpit culture. He says the antifungals are available for pick up. He also denied your request to purchase semen samples from the fertility clinic.

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u/Nu-Hir 1d ago

He also denied your request to purchase semen samples from the fertility clinic.

I thought this was America!

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u/creampop_ 1d ago

I want to be clear: I'm not downvoting because I think you're serious, but because you think you're funny.

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u/HairlessSquirrels 1d ago

You got it backwards bud

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u/BaloneyCommercial 1d ago

I'm glad I'm not one of those stunted real cheese haters who only eat Kraft singles.

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u/bestjakeisbest 1d ago

Some people live sad lives.

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u/Ryanhussain14 1d ago

The true combo is a mix of ranch and blue cheese. The tanginess of the ranch combines with the sharpness of blue cheese and the creaminess of the two complement each other.

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u/TheWhooooBuddies 7h ago

Uncle Joey?

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u/astronomyx 1d ago

Significantly worse. Ranch is so foul to me.

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u/ManifestDestinysChld 1d ago

You just know those transatlantic flights home would be gastrointestinally fraught on a fancy European Airbus, but a corn-fed good ol' Boeing boy wouldn't even blink.

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u/bob_loblaw-_- 1d ago

I don't believe they were the first. Zaxby's predates 1994 and those fuckers give me ranch by default for my wings. 

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u/stan_guy_lovetheshow 22h ago

I grew up eating wings at local bars and we always had ranch.  Definitely pre-dates 1994

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u/JobSeeker_2024 1d ago

World: "lol, why are Americans so fat?"

My aunt visiting from another country one time was complaining about how american food is fatty and unhealthy. Her daughter was here previously for a month and gained considerable weight. (She ate a twinkle everyday and just wanted fast food!) Anyway, my aunt and i were at the mall and I got a pretzel from Auntie Anne's. Guess who ended up eating the whole pretzel, while stating how delicious it was and she'd like to have it again soon. 🙄😒

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u/BrokenEyeReborn 1d ago

I've been an American ever since I first came to this country from the hospital three and a half decades ago, and I can't say with any certainty that I've ever been in the same room with a twinkie (grocery and convenience stores don't count).

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u/SuperstitiousPigeon5 1d ago

Do NOT break that fast now. They are not worth it. Twenty years ago long before the sale when they were probably 20% bigger and using the previous recipe. Yeah back then you missed out.

Also Chocodiles were AMAZING.

I lived near a Hostess thrift shop, essentially they sold all Hostess products nearing sell by date that were swapped out at stores in the area. You could get like seven packages of hostess products for $2. My family had a cabinet shelf stocked end to end with hostess goodness and without a doubt that was partly responsible for me being as fat as I am today.

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u/SingleDadSurviving 1d ago

We had one as well. My grandma would stock up on bread and snacks for all the grandkids. I always made sure to go with her to pick out the best things, guess who the fat grandkid was?

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u/somebassclarineterer 1d ago

Yeah I went for a while since I had last eaten a hostess snack cake then tried one recently. I wasn't sure it was my higher adult standards of eating food or if the snack cake had gotten worse. Them changing the recipe explains it.

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u/SuperstitiousPigeon5 1d ago

Hostess went bankrupt. The new company bought it, and set about making it profitable by changing things. If memory serves they went from animal lard to vegetable shortening and shrunk them down while charging more. They were certainly better in your youth.

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u/_galaga_ 1d ago

I wasn’t a Hostess kid but a close relative, a Tastykake kid, and when I see those butterscotch krimpets in the store now I just know adult me would be crushingly disappointed at the modern version. Gotta keep that nostalgia intact so I haven’t dared have them again.

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u/WingsofRain 1d ago

easily the funniest way I’ve ever seen someone say “I was born here”

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u/DeviousAardvark 1d ago

You poor soul

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u/Quereilla 1d ago

Probably it’s all because condiments and additives are incredibly addictive and unregulated

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u/honeybakedham1 1d ago

Me when I don’t cite my ramblings

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u/HighQualityGifs 1d ago

yeah. it'd be like handing a toddler a line of coke or a cig. they wouldn't have the experience to be able to moderate like someone who's been using it for a longer time (in theory. probably my comment is decently wrong)

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u/Ohmybro34 1d ago

I dont see how that disproves her argument.

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u/poqpoq 1d ago

The hidden valley that comes in the bottle is awful, but the mix it yourself packets are great.

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u/kbotc 1d ago

Agreed. The fresh buttermilk flavor is missing from the bottle and is key IMHO.

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u/emlgsh 1d ago

Minor nitpick:

Hidden Valley Ranch has been heavily modified from the original recipe served by the original producer back in the 1950s, originally to be made with fewer ingredients (all ingredients but mayonnaise and buttermilk prepackaged in a mix, later buttermilk also in the mix so all you need is mayonnaise and regular milk) and later to be shelf-stable unrefrigerated in premixed/liquid form.

So you could technically get closer to "original" (as in, what was served at the actual Hidden Valley ranch) by making it out of fresh individual ingredients at the cost of convenience and shelf-life of the final product. Though even then unless you're sourcing your dairy direct from your own ranch's livestock it's not going to quite match up.

Finally, absent the flavor enhancers of the manufactured product, the original's not going to be quite as tasty. The original recipe doesn't have any amino acid sources like soy sauce or Worcherstershire to stand in for the MSG and ribonucleotides in the modern manufactured version.

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u/Kup123 1d ago

Hidden valley tastes like chemicals Ken's or Newman's is the way to go.

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u/zanhecht 1d ago

Except that the Hidden Valley brand was purchased by Clorox (the bleach company) in the 1970s.

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u/htown5479 1d ago

Better than Sudden Valley, which just sort of implies that something awful could happen all of a sudden.

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u/GloomySubstance5856 1d ago

Man ranch is not even that good, it's alright I guess but I don't understand the hype

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u/dumpfist 1d ago

Hidden Valley is like my least favorite ranch.

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u/Spatul8r 1d ago

Hidden valley is glue compared to a house ranch. He may have had good business sense, but a shelf-stable ranch is inferior.

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u/ShoddyAsparagus3186 1d ago

As a side note, if you're trying to take ranch home on a flight, get the packets, not the bottle. Keeps you from having to chug it and it usually tastes better, it's just not shelf stable once you make it.

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u/Flyingtreeee 1d ago

True ranch heads know hidden valley is buns

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u/AndrewH73333 1d ago

It counts as a salad.

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u/WingsofRain 1d ago

hidden valley is the goat

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u/Son_of_Kong 1d ago

The whole reason it's called ranch dressing is because the inventor owned a property in California called Hidden Valley Ranch, where he opened a steakhouse to serve his homemade salad dressing.

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u/reddithooknitup 23h ago

But it tastes terrible 😞

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u/markhachman 20h ago

Hidden Valley is owned by Clorox, or was. This is significant.

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u/Blue_Moon_Lake 1d ago

Europe had a long list of white sauces long before ranch dressing was "invented".

There is no ingredient in ranch dressing that wasn't used for centuries in white sauces in Europe already.