- We ordered
Pringles in the UK and US to find out the big differences between the two. - While the franchise look similar on the surface in the different countries, there were differences between the sizes, calories, and ingredients.
Following is a transcript of the
Harry: From calorie count to portion sizes, we wanted to find out all the differences between Pringles in the UK and the US. This is "
Portion Sizes
In the UK, our smallest Pringle size is a 40-gram tube. These come as a single tube, as a box of 12, or, around the holidays, we can get a Pringles Christmas cracker, which comes with four 40-gram tubes.
Joe: In the US, the smallest portion of Pringles you can get is this, a snack stack.
Harry: This 19-gram snack stack comes in units of 12, 18, this is super weird, 27, and [grunts] 48 snack stacks.
Joe: Our next size is a 70-gram tube. We also have Pringles in this grab-and-go size, which is 2.5 ounces, or 71 grams. You can get them in single, obviously, or in packs of 15. This isn't even the biggest grab-and-go size, apparently. They have a size that's even bigger, that's 74 grams, or 2.5 ounces. Uh, I ate that on the way here. I'm sorry.
Harry: And then from there we go to a full-sized tube, which is 200 grams. All flavors weigh the same amount in the UK. In the US, our regular tubes are actually small.
Joe: You get about 5.5 ounces per tube, but the flavor actually adds to the weight.
Nutrition
Here's an original Pringles, and this is only 5.2 ounces. Huh. 0.3. 0.3 more for the flavor. But the UK stops at the regular. Not here in the US. Check it out. The party tube. [laughs] 6.8 ounces of chip right there. Seeing as the weights are so similar, we're going to count how many Pringles are in a UK regular tube versus a US party-stack tube to see who's getting more. All right, let's do it. Oh, yeah.
Harry: Yeah, definitely gonna need a bigger tray. I might have to go onto the table.
Joe: This is going to be boring. Pringles, they don't break as easily.
Harry: Oh! I have regularly eaten a whole tube of Pringles by myself. Ah! Quack.
Joe: What, where? Here?
Conner: A little down.
Joe: This one? I'm going to eat them all instead of putting them back in the tube.
Joe: It's taking all my willpower not to snack on these as I'm doing it.
Laura: Most people can't eat that whole thing by themselves:
Harry: Most people aren't me. [laughs] I'm not most people, Laura.
Joe: Party stack holds roughly 104 Pringles.
Harry: So, it looks like a regular tube in the UK contains around 92 Pringles.
How many can I get in my mouth at once? That's what I want to know. Without, like, crunching them all up and breaking them. I'm gonna see if I can do 10. 9. 10 Pringles.
Joe: I'm going for 13. Lucky 13! Ah, ah, ah, ah! Uh-uh. I'm gonna take two off.
[production crew laughing]
Joe: I do not have the mouth for Pringles, apparently. My proverbial hat off to you. The crown is yours.
Harry: This right here is roughly 100 grams of original salted Pringles chips.
Joe: In the US, it contains the following: 535 calories, 32.13 grams of fat, 535.5 milligrams of sodium, and 57.12 grams of carbs. I know you can't tell, but this is, like, two-thirds of the tube, right? And it contains almost half of your fat allowance for the day.
Harry: 100 grams of original Pringles in the UK contains the following: 514 calories, 33 grams of fat, 520 milligrams of sodium, and 51 grams of carbs. That means our Pringles have slightly more fat than the US version, but almost half the saturated fat.
Joe: In the US, a majority of the Pringle flavors have the same number of calories as the original flavor, but there are some changes to some of the other numbers when you branch out.
Harry: Our saltiest Pringle is actually the salt and vinegar. 100 grams of UK salt and vinegar is 40% of your daily allowance of sodium.
Joe: The saltiest Pringles in the US are the Buffalo ranch. 100 grams of them contain 999.6 milligrams of sodium.
Avoid! Avoid! What in the good God?! Oh, man! I can't believe the flavor in these things. I gotta try that again. Oh, my God. These are so disgusting. This might be the worst thing I've tasted on this show. All the salt for all the Buffalo ranch in the factory got condensed into one container on accident, and we bought it. This is so gross.
Harry: In the UK, original Pringles contain the following: dehydrated potatoes, vegetable oils , rice flour, wheat starch, corn flour, emulsifier , maltodextrin, salt, yeast extract, yeast powder, and color .
Joe: Original Pringles in the US contain dried potatoes; vegetable oil, which is corn, cottonseed, high oleic soybean oil and/or sunflower oil; degerminated yellow corn flour; cornstarch; rice flour; maltodextrin; mono- and diglycerides; salt; and wheat starch.
Harry: These are actually very similar. The E471 in the UK is actually the same as the mono- and diglycerides used in the US, just used by a different name.
Joe: The only other notable changes are the yeast used in the UK and the fact that the UK colors its Pringles with annatto, an orange-red
Harry: The longest ingredient list for a classic Pringles flavor in the UK is prawn cocktail. It contains 28 main ingredients, likely with a lot more because some of them aren't fully disclosed, like the flavorings and the spices.
Joe: Now, from what I can tell, the longest ingredients list for a classic US flavor is the cheddar and sour cream. They contain 32 main ingredients. Along with a bunch of subingredients, takes the total to 40. I'm not reading this out loud.
On that list you'll see, of course, a couple of ingredients that you won't find in the UK Pringles, namely Yellow No. 5 and Yellow No. 6. I'm wearing Yellow No. 7. It's always with the yellow stuff.
Harry: These are also referred to as tartrazine and Sunset Yellow. They were two chemicals highlighted by a study back in 2007 into links between hyperactivity and food additives. The initial results suggested that there was indeed a link between these chemicals and hyperactivity. However, since then, the European Food Safety Authority has backtracked and said that might not be the case.
Joe: Also in that study was Red 40, aka Allura Red, which appears in the ingredients list for the Memphis barbecue Pringles and these, the pizza Pringles.
Harry: Foods using these chemicals in the UK must still bear a warning to say that they "May have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children," which means that most manufacturers will just avoid using them.
Joe: Wait, has he always been bald? Yeah, he's bald. Thought he had hair. No, you're thinking of the guy from the Monopoly thing. No, wait, look! Yeah! Hair. What the hell? Hair and no hair. Julius Pringle! What's going on, dude? Is this weird? This is weird, right? Hairgate 2021. Why does he have hair in some and not on the other ones?
Harry: Here are all the Pringles you'll find in the UK, but not the US.
Joe: These are most of the US-exclusive Pringles. Cheddar and sour cream, jalapeño, pizza, honey mustard, which sounds weird.
Ugh. No, no, no. Oh, those taste like a mistake. Someone screwed up on those. That might be the worst one. The Buffalo one was just too salty, but that is the worst flavor. I mean, this stuff is made for 13-year-old gamers. This is just made to sit and consume while you're staring at a flashing screen. Stimulus, stimulus, stimulus. Like, I'm in awe of how intense these are. [grunts]
Harry: Hey, Joe, can I try one of those ranch Pringles? It's quite, quite splintered. Didn't survive the journey. I like that. That's a good Pringle. Need to get these over here.
Joe: Oh, God. Buff - was it Buffalo ranch? Yeah, I'm not eating these. I'll skip those. Hey, it's the Screamin' Dill Pickle! Arr! What is going, what is going on on this label? Chip is wearing goggles and a snorkel? It would have been better if the chip was just like [yells] You know when you go and get a burger and the fries and they put that wedge of pickle on the side and the pickle's touching some of the fries and then those fries taste like pickles? This is a whole flavor of that. Who wants that?
Harry: Over here we've got prawn cocktail. Now, this is really popular in the UK. For those who aren't familiar with prawn cocktail, there is no prawn in here. What this is, is the sauce that you would normally serve with a prawn cocktail. It's just a kind of tangy, tomatoey Pringle. And, personally, I'm a big fan. Then we're moving on to this one, which is paprika flavor.
In this menacing-looking black, fiery can, we have hot and spicy Pringles, but they're basically just Pringles flavored with some jalapeño extract along with some other peppers as well. They don't smell too spicy. Cheers. I'm getting, like, a little bit of garlic, little bit of tomato. Not getting any heat though. People insist on calling things hot and spicy and then make things that really aren't that hot and spicy.
Next up we've got smokey bacon Pringles. Personally, I love these, but I will say if you eat one they stay on your breath for about two weeks, regardless of how many times you brush your teeth. Then we've got some peri-peri Pringles.
Now, if you've seen the Nando's episode, you'll know that, as a country, the UK is obsessed with peri-peri chicken, and Pringles have capitalized on that with some peri-peri-chicken-flavored Pringles.
According to the UK Pringles website, you should also be able to get steak Pringles and Thai sweet chili Pringles. But none of the supermarkets that I visited actually had any.
Joe: Now, in both the US and the UK, you can get spicier Pringles. In the US, they are called Scorchin'. How hot could these possibly be? Scorchin' chili lime. Not that hot. Actually - yeah, no.
Harry: Instead of Scorchin', our spicy Pringle range is actually called Sizzl'n. Sizzl'n. It's fun to say. And it comes in a Kickin' Sour Cream exclusive or as an extra-hot cheese and chili exclusive, which unfortunately we weren't able to find today. It's sizzle time. Sizzl'n sour cream is a strange one, because sour cream is the thing you're supposed to use to, like, cool the heat down. Definitely attack your tongue a bit more than the hot and spicy ones did. Still not, like, mind-blowingly hot.
Joe: Also in the US we got these wavy Pringles, which look like they're just straight ripping off Ruffles. Classic salted, applewood-smoked cheddar, fire-roasted jalapeño, sweet and spicy barbecue, and something to do with the video game high-low -- [sighs] "high-low." It's something to do with the video game Halo, MOA Burger. All this is for children. This is all for children.
Harry: We might not have wavy Pringles, but we do have rice fusion Pringles. These are Pringles which are made with rice and inspired by Asian flavors. Indian tandoori chicken masala flavor and a Japanese katsu curry flavor. We're supposed to also be able to get Malaysian red curry flavor, a Peking duck and hoisin sauce flavor, and a barbecue teriyaki flavor.
Joe: The last exclusive Pringles I want to talk about are the original lightly salted. Yeah. Perfect. This is how potato chips should taste like. Yeah. Unfortunately, Pringles lightly salted equals normal everywhere else.
It's so bizarre. It's like hair and no hair. Why they made that choice?