Crisps Burn, Pringles Melt, Discuss....

The results of the Final were discussed on KLFM's breakfast show on Tuesday morning. The dizzy girlie newsreader who is rubbish at spotting song intros told the world that Pringles were only popular due to their high fat content....

....a little later another KLFM DJ, known only as "Bob", claimed that he enjoyed burning crisps when he visited the pub - apparently "proper" crisps would burn in the expected way, but Pringles (again, due to the high fat content) simply melted.

Was this true? I decided to conduct an experiment. I assembled the kit as below, with a jug of water as an improvised fire extinguisher, just in case....

First up were some "normal" crisps, in this case Pipers S&V. They took a flame rather well (you can see some fat leeching from the crisp, close to the flame)....

But they soon fizzled out and just blackened, smouldering edges remained.

And so it was the turn of the Pringles. Like the crisp, the Pringle started burning quite well....

....and kept on burning (with no sign of melting)....

....and burning, and burning, and burning....

....resulting in a thoroughly charred, Pringle-shaped disk of carbon.

Impressed yet confused by the Pringles inferno I decided to re-test the crisps. Once again they lit up OK, but failed to really burn well for a second time.

For the second time the crisps petered out, with singed edges, glowing ash, but no real burning.

I can only conclude, viewing the evidence of this spectacularly unscientific experiment, that KLFM's Bob is either fibbing, or passing on an urban myth. Far from the higher fat content of the Pringles (34% as opposed to 27%, so not a great deal of difference) leading to snack-meltage (as we in the biz call it), it appears that the extra fat content actually facilitates increased combustion!

Myth busted!