Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights to Ricky Sanchez, and can be followed on X @dan_olinger. We don’t know that much about him yet, but we do know he’s brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.
I knew what I signed up for when I joined Team Ricky.
My food takes have garnered far more hate from friends and family than anything I’ve ever said about basketball. They won’t even make this list, but I’ve gotten into heated arguments with loved ones about how ketchup is the only good condiment in existence and why it’s fine that I’ve eaten fewer salads in my life than Ben Simmons has made threes in the NBA.
20. Nature Valley Bars
The perfect breakfast item in every way, shape, and form. I’m not a person who can skip breakfast, but I also don’t need it to be any significant meal that takes time to prepare. A Nature Valley bar can be downed within a minute of getting out of bed, well before I’ve finished brewing my morning coffee. It also has just enough peanuts and almonds to trick myself into believing it’s a healthy breakfast option rather than just a glorified cookie.
Other food items taste better, but Nature Valley bars get on the list for the amazing convenience they’ve provided me in life.
19. Cookies & Cream/Oreo Ice Cream
This will be a recurring theme on my list, which is, “This food item tastes otherworldly, but I do feel like a despicable human being after I eat it.” Not a single ounce of nutritional value to be found here, but man does this ice cream slap. It’s not overly rich like a lot of chocolate ice cream can be, but the Oreo bits throughout make it far more enjoyable than plain vanilla. I’ll go months without ever having ice cream as I try to pretend that I’m better than that, but every time I give in it tastes like one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
18. Chocolate Chip Cookies
Basically copy and paste the above defense, though I’ll eat a chocolate chip cookie far more often than I’ll have some ice cream. Doesn’t matter the quality or pedigree of the chocolate chip cookie. Could be a homemade recipe whipped up by my Mom, could be the store bought pack from Costco. It’s nearly impossible to screw up a chocolate chip cookie, which tastes pretty perfect every time you have it.
17. Bananas
While I can’t say I’m crazy enough to put cantaloupe at the No. 1 spot on this list like my predecessor did, I do enjoy fruit. However, I’m not really one to seek out fruit. I’ll have an apple or some strawberries if they’re made available to me, but I won’t walk through the grocery store think I need to buy some.
Only bananas —the best fruit in existence — get that treatment from me. Alone they taste pretty great, but they’re also a quintessential ingredient for my favorite blend of post-workout protein shakes. I can’t lie and say that bananas taste better than most of the other foods on this list, but they’re certainly up there as the most healthy and versatile food option to crack my top 20.
16. Wawa Strawberry & Banana Smoothie
Bananas are definitely more convenient and I’ve eaten them more often, but I have a fondness for the Wawa strawberry & banana smoothie given how often I ordered it after a taxing high school basketball game.
Please don’t @ me saying that a smoothie shouldn’t qualify for a top 20 foods list. The ingredients at play here — strawberries, bananas, yogurt — would all qualify for the list, and if you get a smoothie big enough, it can sure count at one of your three meals for the day. Anyone who disagrees with me is also someone who agreed with Doc Rivers that Isaiah Joe wasn’t good enough.
15. Tortilla Chips
One of the most horrific snack options known to mankind, seeing that I can down an entire bag in one sitting if I’m not careful. But man these chips are delicious.
Especially love these if I’m sitting down to watch a big game and just one a savory snack while I drink. If I didn’t feel the need to go on a 10-mile run the following day after eating tortilla chips in order to atone for my sins, they would probably crack the top 10.
14. Chocolate Pretzels
My affinity for chocolate pretzels is a more recent development. For those who don’t know I lived in Indiana for a few months this year (long story), and I had to get pretty much all of my groceries from the Kroger (a.k.a. their GIANT). The chocolate covered pretzels they sold there were addictive enough to warrant an FDA label warning.
Perfect blend of sweet and salty, never once is there a bad time in the day to eat them. Similar to tortilla chips, the only thing keeping them out the top 20 is my moral conscience as someone who doesn’t want to eat an entire bag of chocolate pretzels each day and die at the age of 35.
13. Trail Mix
The perfect snack where you can lie and pretend it’s healthy because there are almonds. I love M&M’s dearly (they soon might be making an appearance on this list), but sometimes I don’t need my snacks to be overwhelmingly rich and sugary. Having some salted nuts and raisins mixed in blends the tastes together perfectly.
And while, yes, trail mix is in no way a healthy eating option, it is better than potato chips of any kind. At the very least I’m full and no longer hungry after downing some trail mix, even if I just consumed 900 calories worth of fats and sugars.
12. Goldfish Crackers
Continuing with the “snacks” division of this list, it’s the S tier food that your Mom packed for you in a plastic bag for your lunch at school that day.
Even as an adult, I can’t think of a better snack to eat while I’m working. Not too messy, not too calorie-heavy, and the salty taste is to die for. Not to mention, Goldfish also had the best commercials of any snack that I can remember from watching Saturday morning cartoons. The saga where the one Goldfish got lost in the vacuum cleaner over a number of years was wild.
11. French Fries
Every time you’re out for a meal at halfway decent restaurant, the waiter will ask you if you want a side of fries or a salad. At this moment, two roads diverge in a wood, but unlike Robert Frost you sure bet I am traveling the road that’s more often taken.
Give me the fries and let me lather them in delicious ketchup. I refuse to pretend that salads taste good.
10. Jimmy Dean Sausage Biscuits
Listen guys, I can’t cook. It’s a personal failing and I need to learn how to do it. But you can get 10 of these sausage biscuits at any grocery store for just six bucks, and it can be your lunch as a college student for a whole week straight. I also will defend the taste of this microwaveable delight, because each biscuit is basically a mini hamburger that only takes 90 seconds to make. Speaking of hamburgers …
9. Hamburgers
The key to a hamburger is that you do not need to do too much. Some places mess up hamburgers by dousing them in way too many sauces and adding too many topping. A standard bun, ketchup, and lettuce is all that’s needed to make a hamburger the perfect dinner after a long day.
8. Peanut Butter
I won’t go as far as Spike and declare peanut butter as the greatest food in all of existence, but he has a great argument. It should be impossible that peanut butter tastes as great as it does but also has the versatility to make a great sandwich or be the key ingredient in a protein shake. If I could just eat 5 scoops of peanut butter and be comfortable calling it my dinner without lying to myself, it would have an argument for the top spot.
7. M&M’s
Teased this one earlier. I just love M&M’s man, they’re so good. I considered going more specific here and putting Peanut M&M’s down here alone as the No. 7 best food in existence, seeing that they’re my personal favorite of the variety. However, I just like all kinds of M&M’s. The mini ones are great, pretzel M&M’S rule, Carmel M&M’s can hit on the right day, I would recommend peanut butter M&M’s to almost anyone, and so on.
Perfect chocolate candy, lack of it being a full meal option the only true thing hurting its case.
6. Chicken Quesadilla
Going back to my college days, there’s a spot in Evanston called Stacked & Folded that is one of my favorite restaurants of all time. I’d always order the blackened chicken quesadilla and never once did it let me down. If you get the seasoning right on this one it really becomes just the perfect high quality dinner meal. I’m a pretty frugal spender but I was more than willing to drop some cash to get an elite chicken quesadilla on a Friday night if that’s what it took.
5. Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich
This one is more sentimental. I was decently chubby in middle school and got a little self conscious about it, to the point I lost some weight in high school and probably got far too skinny for a few years. I’m at a good spot now, but during that time when I was rather slender, a PB&J was the main treat I allowed myself to have. Just the perfect sugary delight to have during lunch to keep you going through the day even though you’re stuck in high school and everything else kind of sucks.
Given that this is basically just two sugary spreads stuffed between two slices of bread, I don’t have PB&J sandwiches nearly as often as I used too, though I’ll still break it out for lunch or a late night snack every once in a while.
4. Chicken Tenders
Stop pretending that chicken tenders aren’t good. That’s a lie. They’re amazing. Some places make them better than others, but I earnestly can’t remember a time in my life that I was let down by a tender. The only disappointing thing could be if there was no ketchup available for me to dunk them in.
3. Pizza (Sausage & Pepperoni Toppings)
Sausage and pepperoni are my toppings of choice on a pizza, but this selection can honestly be interpreted as any pizza that you the reader deems fit. Similar to chicken tenders, pizza has never let me down. The taste is 10/10, as is the versatility and the timeliness of it. You can order a ton of pizzas for any kind of party of gathering and have a great time, or as a broke college student you can order one from the Papa John’s down the street and have lunch/dinner set for the next two days.
We don’t need to overthink food. Pizza is great.
2. Wawa Burrito
This is the meal I’ve consumed the most in my life outside of No. 1 on the list. I’ve ordered so much that I can basically dial it up on the Wawa touch screen blindfolded. Burrito with chicken, rice, American cheese, and lettuce. I would crawl to a Wawa in my last moments if it meant I could order this burrito one last time. I eat it for lunch and dinner, and I’d order is as a breakfast item if I could (I know Wawa serves breakfast burritos, but I never get eggs in my burritos because I have a semi-allergic reaction to eggs whenever I eat them).
The Wawa burrito is a perfect food item and has committed no crimes. I just prefer No. 1 on the list at the end of the day.
1. Chipotle Bowl
Chipotle bowls answer the question, “What if salads weren’t bad?”
Brown rice, NO BEANS (a key for this bowl to work), chicken, fajita veggies, mild salsa, corn, cheese, and lettuce. Over the last four years I would not be surprised if I’ve ordered this over 500 times from Chipotle. It’s the perfect dinner, especially after a long run or weight-lifting session, it’s decently healthy (by my standards at least), and best of all it’s one heck of a cheap meal for how filling it is. Why would I ever learn how to cook and waste my time and energy on all those ingredients when I can walk to the Chipotle near my apartment and get this beautiful combination of meat, rice, and vegetables for roughly nine bucks?
It can’t be topped. Chipotle bowls are the best food on the planet.