How Disneyland Food Waste Led To The Creation Of Doritos

Just like superheroes, many of our favorite foods have surprising origin stories. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, for example, were born from the rations of WWII soldiers. Our beloved Reese's peanut butter cups, meanwhile, were created in the late 1920s by an experimenting factory worker. And Nashville Hot Chicken? This was first served as super-spicy revenge.

What do all three of these have in common? People took already popular foods and put them together in a new way. However, this isn't the case for all of today's favorites. Some of our snacks were actually invented to reduce food waste. As the U.S. Environmental Agency explains, some spoiled produce can be safely used in smoothies, casseroles, soups, and other dishes.

Believe it or not, Doritos were originally a solution to food waste. Just like the wilted spinach you tossed in your soup, Doritos used to be something that many would throw away.

According to Business Insider, Doritos originated at Disneyland in California. A Mexican restaurant in Frontierland, Casa de Fritos, routinely threw out stale tortillas. After all, who wants to eat a stale tortilla, right? Kinda crunchy, kinda bland, kinda stiff. But when a salesman suggested Casa de Fritos fry the tortillas into chips instead of throwing them out, the resulting snack was a huge success with customers. Frito-Lay stepped in and started producing Doritos nationwide in 1966. Although they were sold plain for the first few years, taco seasoning was added in 1968, and today's nacho cheese flavor debuted in 1974.

To date, Doritos has featured over 100 flavors, says Taste of Home. While the US has seen some pretty weird flavors like Ranch-Dipped Hot Wings and Cheeseburger, strange flavors in other countries have included Olive and Clam Chowder. We've also had the Intense Pickle Doritos, which were released first in Canada. Who would've guessed that these tasty treasures were almost trashed?