Total Pageviews

Showing posts with label Puffs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Puffs. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Put It In Your Food Trap! Zevia Natural Soda, Barbara’s Baked Cheese Puffs, and Quaker Hearts Cereal

…but before we get into this round of featured Food Trap selections, I first need to bitch to you excessively about the Attune Mint Chocolate Probiotic Bar. I drove 35 freaking miles round trip because the Attune store locator said the Bar was carried at this hippie-ish natural food store that’s real out of the way ‘n such. So I drive really far (on my lunch break, at that) and the store doesn’t have the damn Bars. Attune Chocolate is highly delicious and probiotically beneficial. I’ve been wanting another taste for close to a year now, but I’m done searching high and low, and racking up vehicle mileage in an expedition to find this elusive bionic chocolate bar. Yes, you can order it online, but you also have to pay a premium for heat-sensitive shipping. I’m too cheap for that. Oh, and somebody owes me gas money.

Zevia Ginger Ale Natural Soda: Lemme just break it down to you like it says on the can: “Zevia contains no sugar and no calories. It’s made with 100% natural ingredients, including Stevia, a botanical sweetener used around the world for hundreds of years. It’s what soda should always have been.” Nice! It also contains the sugar alcohol erythritol, which doesn’t effect blood sugar and is no big deal to me (unless you get gassy from it). Zevia is decent tasting. It reminds me of store brand ginger ale — not terrible but not the #1 best ginger ale either. I detected a slight aftertaste after slurping a few gulps, but still definitely worth trying if you can find it at the store. I also peeped Cola, Orange and Grape flavors of Zevia.

No caffeine, no gluten, zero net carbs. Zero calories and fat, Sodium 20mg, Sugars 0, Erythritol 7g, Protein 0g

Barbara’s Baked Cheese Puffs: It’s a cheese puff. How fancy could it be? Welp, the natural cheesiness really shines through. And it’s made with cornmeal, which gives it a pleasant texture and taste that’s NOT like the others. Consider it a healthier side item to eat alongside a sammich or while couch-assing. Barbara’s Baked Cheese Puffs have no artificial flavors, colors or preservatives, and no hydrogenated oils either, so it empowers you to get puffy with no guilt. Unfortunately, I allowed Greedy Kid #3 to run off with the bag after dinner. I trusted him. But by bed time the whole dang thing was empty. Yes, I’m a terrible mother for insufficiently monitoring the child’s greediness. Just go on and say it, why don’t ya.

150 Cal for 1.5 cups, Fat Cal 90, Total Fat 10g, Sodium 200mg, Carbs 14g, Fiber 1g, Sugars 1g, Protein 2g

Quaker Hearts Cereal: This one can be accurately described as “fake Alpha-Bit’s cereal for grown-ass folks and kids who eat too much damn sugary shit”. It has pretty much the same feel, size and visual texture of the infamous Alpha-Bit, but with a tad less sugar and shaped like little hearts instead of bits of broken off vocabulary pieces. The taste is highly Alpha-Bitsy with the perfect low-key touch of sweetness to encourage continued cereal whoredom to prevail. I freaking love it, but still not able to find Hearts Cereal consistently stocked at every store I lurk at. That’s a low down dirty shame.

110 Cal for 3/4 cup, Fat Cal 15, Total Fat 1.5g, Sodium 160mg, Carbs 23g, Fiber 3g, Sugars 6g, Protein 2g

Well that’s it for now, so go on and start chewing on something. I’m really liking this new Put It In Your Food Trap feature. Definitely more to come!

Oh, and one more thing: Diets In Review just did an article reviewing the meal planning site, FoodOnTheTable.com. There’s a few quotes from me about the usefulness of Food On The Table, so check out the article to see if it’s something that might be helpful in your own meal planning.


View the original article here

Friday, September 30, 2011

Tasting! Alexia Sweet Potato Puffs

This is a multiple choice quiz. Now take a wild guess at what happened to the Alexia Sweet Potato Puffs:

a) They burned in the oven.

b) The dog ate them.

c) Water spilled on the leftovers.

d) I ate waaay too many Puffs.

Welp, I didn’t burn them, we don’t have a dog, and I surely didn’t eat too many. So the correct answer is C. The leftover Puffs did get water logged, but I didn’t give a damn.

Even after cooking them a few minutes longer than package directions, the Puffs only get sorta crispy on the outside and stay mashed potato-ish on the inside, so forget about a regular tater-tot experience with super crispiness. The flavor problem I keep getting with any kind of packaged sweet potato product is that they somehow lose the bold flavor that comes with a fresh sweet potato. I hate that.

Alexia’s Puffs are just fine and dandy: edible and likable in a ho-hum kinda way, but it’s like eating a sweet potato with 50% of your taste buds removed. The flavor is ghostly. It’s kinda tasty, but really only just a shadow of real, fresh flavor. So why even bother?

I thought these would be a hit with the Greedy Family, but I was almost stoned with stale dinner rolls for bringing the Puffs to the table. This is why I didn’t give a damn when the mound of leftovers got water logged. Someone (and it certainly wasn’t me) manged to run the leftover Puffs under faucet. How convenient, huh?

PUFFY NOTES

Price Paid: $4.59 for 6 servingsServing Size:  2/3 cupCalories: 130Fat Calories: 30Total Fat: 3.5gSat. Fat: 0gSodium: 230mgCarbs: 23gFiber 2gSugars: 8gProtein: 1g

REACTIONS FROM THE TASTE TEST CREW

Health-hater Husband: Eh, they’re just okay.

Greedy Kid #1: These are a fraud. They’re not like real tater tots.

Greedy Kid #2: Nope. I only eat this vegetable in sweet potato pie.

Yum UP! to: Sweet potato pie. Gimme summa that!

Yuck Down to: Burning flames in an oven. Been there, done that.

View the complete Taste Test Directory and Fast Food Cheats Sheets.

Get printable grocery coupons at Coupons.com.


View the original article here

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Snikiddy All Natural Grilled Cheese Puffs

Snikiddy Grilled Cheese Puffs
(Photo Credit: Gluten Free Reviews)

Snikiddy is an all-natural, baked cheese puff marketed directly toward children, as evidenced by the fact that I stumbled upon them while shopping for video games at Toys R' Us. I bought a bag of single-serving Snikiddy Grilled Cheese Puffs because a) I love cheese puffs, b) I'm a kid at heart, and c) because on the front of the bag, it expounds, no corn syrup, gluten & wheat free, no hydrogenated oils, no trans fat, no preservatives and low in saturated fat.

NUTRITION FACTS
Serving Size: 28 grams
Calories: 120
Total Fat: 5 grams, 7%
Saturated Fat: 1 gram, 5%
Sodium: 250 mg, 10%
Protein: 17 grams
Carbohydrates: 24 grams
Fiber: 1 gram, 6%
Sugars: 1 gram
Protein: 3 grams

I popped open a 1-ounce single-serving bag and was thrilled to see that I actually got what I paid for - it was about three quarters full of yellow cheese puffs. It'd say there was over a hundred of these little bite-sized balls in one bag, making my chompers very happy. If you're wondering if these have anything to do with a grilled cheese taste - let me assure you - absolutely not. I guess the folks over at Snikiddy thought that small children would happily eat junk food named after kid-friendly dishes like grilled cheese sandwiches. But they are quite tasty, crisp in texture, and cheesy, though not as cheesy as those Puff Cheetos. I liked these way better than Michael Seasons Lite Cheese Curls.

sponsor
Workout Music Playlists at IntheGym.net

Each 28 gram serving (or in this case, 1 bag) of Snikiddy All Natural Grilled Cheese Puffs provides 120 calories, 5 grams of total fat, of which 1 gram is saturated (7% and 5% of the daily value), 250 mg sodium (10% DV), 1 gram of fiber and sugar, plus 3 grams of protein. The ingredient list is empty of neon-orange dyes, and consists of: Cornmeal, sunflower or safflower oil, cheddar cheese, maltodextrin, nonfat milk, salt, butter. disodium phosphate, natural flavor, yeast extract, and extractives of annatto.

I bought 6 bags (1 ounce each) for $3.49 - I know it costs more to buy single serving bags, but I honestly couldn't do without the portion control - and I'm eager to try their other flavors. Why buy baked Cheetos with its monosodium glutamate (MSG) and artifical colors (yellow #6 and #5), when you could buy this?!

{Website: Snikiddy}


View the original article here