Ever wondered what those ominous green rings on crisps are? 

Well, it turns out they’re a sign that the potato was exposed to sunlight. While that leads to the production of a toxic chemical called solanine, there’s basically no chance there’s enough of it in a standard bag of crisps to harm us.

And now, Redditors have encouraged me to learn more about my favourite snack. 

In a recent post shared to r/AskUK, Redditor u/srddave asked: “Why do we call them ‘ready salted’ instead of just ‘salted’? Just wondering what the significance of the ‘ready’ is...”

Pre-seasoned crisps are a relatively new invention

Ever try those Salt ‘N’ Shake crisps, with the little sachet of sodium in them that you manually add to the rest of the pack?

Well, according to the Museum of Crisps (yes, really), that’s how all crisps worked until the second half of the last century.

It took until 1960 for Golden Wonder to invent a pre-seasoned ― or ready salted ― pack. 

Golden Wonder was founded in Edinburgh and named after the golden wonder potato variety. 

Irish company Tayto went on to invent the world’s first flavoured crisps ― the cheese and onion flavour ― two years later in 1962.

Crisp companies across the world scrambled to buy the rights to the instant hit snack, with Golden Wonder purchasing the method and bringing the flavour to the UK the same year it was launched. 

Redditors were pretty nostalgic about the old-school crisps

Redditor u/WanderingTaliesin responded to the original post by saying that the packs’ “tiny blue sachet with the salt in” was a “vivid childhood memory because my mother wouldn’t let me use all the salt in it”. 

“Getting on enough to remember little paper twists of salt in packets of crisps,” u/Accomplished_Law_945 added. 

“You had to find that twist amongst the crisps to salt them. Hated when they accidentally put two twists in the packet and bit into it to get a mouthful of salt!” 

I’m practically goat-like in my quest for sodium, so I reckon I need to get my hands on an old-school pack...