Review - Yummy Health Yummy Snack Bar

Brand:  Yummy Health

Flavor:  Yummy Snack Coconut Bar

Where to get it: here @ Amazon.com

                Do you like coconut and chocolate? Get this. Straight up, it tastes like a candy bar. If coconut is your jam, this bar is definitely for you. The chocolate coating is sugar-free, which helps this bar post up just 8g of sugar, which is probably a far cry from your favorite candy bar. I didn’t notice the sugar-free taste so much as I did the Stevia, which isn’t my favorite sweetener, as I find it has a very distinctive taste aside from just sweetening whatever party it’s attending. It’s not overpowering and doesn’t ruin this bar, but it was noticeable for me. If you’re a Stevia-head, I’m guessing this bar will make your eyes roll back with delight. If you’re not a Stevia-head, try it anyway.

               

Tastes like:  A Stevia’d candy bar!

Taste rating:  8/10

Qualities:  Gluten-free, Made in the USA

What’s in it

Review - Hemp Pro Protein Powder

Brand:  Manitoba Harvest

Flavor:  Hemp Pro Chocolate Protein Powder

Where to get it: here @ VitaCost.com

                I mixed this powder with unsweetened vanilla almond milk and blended it up with a few ice cubes. It has 7g of sugar in it, so I didn’t add any Splenda…big mistake. This mix is really, really bitter. It probably needs a banana or some berries, as well as some of your favorite no- or low-calorie sweetener, just to make it palatable. These guys could just save the money they are spending on the organic coconut sugar, because it’s not making this protein power even a little bit sweet.

               

Tastes like:  Bitter sadness

Taste rating:  1/10

Qualities:   Vegetarian, vegan, organic

What’s in it:

Review - Dipperz

Brand:  Wonderfully Raw

Flavor:  Dipperz Cheezy

Where to get it: here @ mycocoroons.com

                I’ve had kale prepared like this, but I was super intrigued to see this 3-veggie mix coated in cashew cheese. Also, broccoli is one of my most favorite things, so this was even more exciting for me. Dipperz really earns the “z” in “cheezy” with these guys. The cheese presence is a heavy one, which is pretty exciting considering that these are vegan (so there’s no actual cheese in them). I liked the broccoli pieces best, they remained fluffier and held more of the coating, I found. The carrots and cauliflower kind of got all mixed up into a cheezy pile of stuff, but that’s alright, just tip the bag up into your face. Hands-free fun!         

               

Tastes like:  Cheezy veggies, but crunchy  

Taste rating:  7/10

Qualities:  Organic, Gluten free, Non-GMO, vegetarian, vegan, raw

What’s in it:

Review - Fiber Gourmet Cheese Thinables

Brand:  Fiber Gourmet

Flavor:  Cheese Thinables

Where to get it: here @ fibergourmet.com

                If you were dieting, and you could eat Cheez-its for 140 calories per serving, or you could eat these Cheese Thinables which are almost as good as Cheez-its for 60 calories, would you make that trade? I sure would. I’m not going to tell you that you won’t be able to tell the difference, because I think you probably will. Although…maybe not as much if you’re dipping these in hummus or some yogurt-dill concoction (side note:  dill is just the BEST). I think the point of these crackers is that they have a truckload of fiber (11g per 28g of crackers), but I got distracted by how low the calories are for how similar-tasting the crackers are to the Big CI that we’re all used to. Either way, this is a no-brainer swap!

               

Tastes like:  Generic Cheez-Its?

Taste rating:  8/10

Qualities:  Kosher, vegetarian

What’s in it:

Review - Breakout Bar

Brand:  Breakout Bar  

Flavor:  Oat Batter Baby

Where to get it: here @ mybreakoutbar.com

                I saved this bar. I looked at it often, and then put it back in the drawer. I thought of the day I would eat it, and how much money it was going to cost me to have to purchase case upon case of this bar that I was so certain I wouldn’t be able to get enough of.

                The day came. I was going to EAT. THIS. BAR.

               

                A primal roar escaped my mouth – “THIS. IS BAAAAAAAARTAAAAAAAAAAA!”

                Oats and batter, two of my favorite things. Oatmeal, oat bars, oat cereal, oatmeal cookies…cake batter, brownie batter, cookie batter, pancake batter…it was all going to come together for me in a socially-acceptable snack! You know, because bringing a tiny container of raw cake batter with you to work in your lunch is apparently weird. Haters. Anyway…

                Dreams, shattered.

                Hopes, dashed.

                Face, contorted.

                The juxtaposition of the name on this bar, and what it actually tastes like makes me want to Sharpie some genitalia onto the face of whoever came up with the name. HORRIBLE. Not oat-y, and certainly nothing resembling in taste or texture of “batter”. The chocolate on the bottom of the bar is atrocious, and it was so “chewy” that TMJ was a real potential side effect here.

Additionally, their site touts their macros and nutrition, but doesn’t list any ingredients or nutritional information. Come on guys…give me something nice to say here…

               

Tastes like:  Dark chocolate and cement

Taste rating:  0/10

What’s in it:     

Ingredients:  (I am having to type these, for f*ck’s sake) Whey Protein Isolate, Prebiotic Fiber, Organic Oats, Raw Honey, Organic Quinoa, Organic Buckwheat Groats, Organic Amaranth, Peanut Butter, Oat Flour, Dark Chocolate (Malitol, Cocoa Mass, Cocoa Butter, Inulin, Soy Lecithin, Natural Vanilla, Cinnamon), Organic Puffed Millet, Water 

Review - Go Veggie! Dairy Free Parmesan

Brand:  Go Veggie

Flavor:  Grated Parmesan-Style Topping

Where to get it: here @ Amazon.com

                I have quite a few vegan friends, and almost unanimously they will tell you that the hardest thing to stop eating is cheese. Fortunately there are a ton of dairy-free cheese alternatives on the market now – some pretty good, some terrible, but none completely indistinguishable from their milky counterparts.

                This parmesan alternative is thisclose. If you put on a pile of noodles with red sauce, I bet most people wouldn’t know the difference between this and the parmesan that comes in that green can. It’s just a teensy bit less salty, but to me that was really the only difference. Plus, I knew going into it that this wasn’t traditional parmesan. I wonder if I would have been able to tell if I hadn’t have known ahead of time? Maybe…but maybe not.

               

Tastes like:  Less salty parmesan cheese

Taste rating:  8/10

Qualities:  vegetarian, vegan, Non-GMO, gluten free

What’s in it:    

Review - Caveman Primal Bar

Brand:  Caveman

Flavor:  Chicken Sweet Cherry Primal Bar

Where to get it: here @ CavemanFoods.com

                This bar tasted like I expected, but the texture was much different. I thought this would be tough like jerky, but it really isn’t. It’s kind of like a little meatloaf bar! Tender, a little smoky, a little sweet, and I found the color and packaging to be really appealing, which I think is especially important in a meat-based snack. You can definitely tell the meat is chicken; no other meat lends itself so well to a smoky flavor, in my opinion. At 150 calories and 18g of protein, as well as being made from a whole bunch of ingredients you probably have in your kitchen right now, there’s really no downside at all to this snack.

               

Tastes like:  Sweet, smoked jerky without all the tooth work

Taste rating:  8/10

Review - Funley's Super Crackers

Brand:  Funley’s

Flavor:  Pizza N Stuff Super Crackers

Where to get it: here @ Funleys.com

                I think that I expected these crackers to be more of a Cheez-It-type situation, and I may have done them a disservice coming in with this mindset. They really aren’t anything like those – they’re less flaky & fairly dense. They also don’t have a ton of flavor to them, which I was definitely expecting since I tried their pizza version. I actually ended up eating them with some carrot sriracha hummus because hey, a cracker is still a cracker, no need to toss the bag just because they don’t taste like the utter junk food you were expecting them to be. I am a little wary of the claim on the front of the package that they contain “superfood carrots in every bite”. Are carrots a superfood? Is there a hard-standard for what IS a “superfood”? I’m not sure, but if there is, I don’t think carrots really meet the criteria. They’re better than potato chips for you, sure, but they aren’t exactly kale…

               

Tastes like:   Mostly thick cracker with a little bit of seasoning

Taste rating:  5/10

Qualities:   Non-GMO, Kosher, all natural

What’s in it:

Review - Belicious Nutrition On The Go Pouches

Brand:  Belicious

Flavor:  Revive

Where to get it: here @ BeliciousFood.com

                I am really loving all of these little squeezy pouches that have hit the market. It took me a little bit to realize that they weren’t all for toddlers, and it was completely socially acceptable for me to walk around the gym with one hanging out of my mouth. This review is going to be a little bit different than a standard one, in the interest of fairness to the product. I am a person who loves beets, but I am not a person who loves green juice. The combination of the beets and spinach in this squeezer give it that distinctly “green juice flavor”, and it’s not for me. However, I know tons of people who love a good green juice, and I do believe that every single one of those people would absolutely love this Revive squeezer from Belicious. So if you’re a green juice yay, get these little guys for when you’re short on prep time.

               

Tastes like:  Green juice with an applesauce consistency

Taste rating:  If you like green juice, 9/10.

Qualities: Gluten free, vegetarian, vegan, organic

What’s in it: