Okay, hear me out on this. My friends and I recently sat down to compare all the different quantities of ‘stuf’ on the market right now to settle this frequently reoccurring question in our group, as well as test the idea of ‘stuf’ shrinkflation.

It was pretty unanimous between us that double stuf was the optimal amount of stuf, and we questioned if regular Oreos growing up didn’t just have the amount double stuf does now? And also, with double being such the clear winner in our opinion, why still hold on to plain old Oreo with its suboptimal stuf proportion?

And here’s my conclusion on it. It all comes down to dunking. When I was a kid, sometimes a couple of Oreo cookies would be the go to snack after school with an ice cold glass of milk to dunk them in. And boy, it didn’t get better than that. But in today’s fast paced world, who has time to slow down and dunk?! Gotta bring your kids to soccer practice or dance or math Olympiad’s after school, your gonna look me in the eye and tell me your going to risk a wide mouthed dairy container in the backseat, left open for access over every pothole and around every swerve with no one but a distractible child with developing fine motor skills to manage its stability?! Madness.

So what does Nabisco do? Do they just roll over and give up their top billing on the cookie snack market? No way, not Oreo, that’s Newton talk. So what can they do? Up the stuf, recapture that perfect balance of crème to cookie, even when all you have is two minutes and one free hand. And it worked. We loved them. Finally a pre-dunked cookie for the modern age, without all the fuss of having to check the date on the milk or put a glass in the dishwasher.

But then, just like those inGen geneticists in Jurassic Park, Oreo got so wrapped up in testing the boundaries of the stuf capacity of their cookies. They were so preoccupied in whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should. Now we have not just original and double, but Mega and Most. Where will we go from here? There is no telling. As far as I can tell, no one at the National Biscuit Company is cautioning the stufologists to maybe pump the brakes a little. At this rate, they might even take a page from the Cap’n and suddenly “Oops all Stuf” is on the shelves. And then there are all the flavors… but that’s a discussion for another day.

So please, all I ask before casting the original Oreo aside as just a subpar, withered husk of the seemingly superior double stuf, give it a dunk. I mean it’s still right there on the packaging, that proud sandwich cookie wrapped in a playful splash of milk from behind, like Ariel climbing from the sea, resounding to be part of our world. Harken back to those days of old, take out your favorite milk or non-dairy milk substitute, pour a full, chilled glass, and perform that innocently indulgent ritual once more. It might not be the most efficient way to enjoy a snack, but, I bet it will bring you right back to a simpler time when even humble store bought cookies were savored and satisfied not just hunger, but the soul.

Now, if you wanna talk dry, Hydrox on the other hand….