Review - Get Up and Go Caffeinated Blondie

Brand:  Get Up & Go

Flavor:  Caffeinated Bright-Eyed Blondie

Where to get it: here @ GetUpAndGoBaked,com

                Well, I’m a bit torn on this one, guys. It tastes amazing, like, maybe one of the best chocolate chip products I’ve ever had. The problem is…it SHOULD taste amazing, for it has 360 calories and 48g of carbs – 36 of which are sugar. So, on one hand, this is not for people who are dieting or counting calories, except in a really, really rare instance. You’re NOT going to eat half of this…2 servings, my ass. It’s not very big. On the other hand, there are PLENTY of bro bars out there with the same kind of nutritional stats, and they taste like absolute rubbish.

               

                So here’s what I’ll say: it’s yummy. It’s full of calories and carbs. It’s hailed as a caffeinated treat so you don’t have to drink those nasty (and HORRIBLE) for you energy drinks, but the very last ingredient is caffeine. The VERY last, after even vanilla extract. If you’ve ever made chocolate chip cookies, you know how little vanilla extract goes into an entire batch of those cookies, leaving a miniscule amount in a single cookie. I imagine it’s much the same for these brownies, and caffeine is listed AFTER it. If you’re going to feel a blast of energy from this product, it’s coming from the sugar, I assure you.

Tastes like:   A chocolate chip blondie

Taste rating:  10/10

Qualities:   Gluten-free, all natural, vegetarian, Made in the USA

What’s in it:  (I couldn’t find this anywhere on their website…) Brown Sugar, Eggs, Chocolate Chips (Sugar, Chocolate Liquor, Cocoa Butter, Soy Lecithin, Vanilla, and Salt), Oat Flour, Palm Oil, Butter, Invert Sugar, Tapioca Starch, Rice Flour, Vanilla Extract, Water, Xanthan Gum, Caffeine.

Review - Simple Squares

Brand:  Simple Squares

Flavor:  Various

Where to get it:  here @ SimpleSquares.com

                The texture of these is just absolutely perfect. It’s like, the moistest (sorry), chewiest granola bar that you’ve ever had – but there’s no granola in it. These bars are nuts and coconut, with some sweetener and seasoning, and that’s it. No grains. No soy crispies. I’m not sure how many tries it took them to get the consistency this perfect with such limited ingredients, but I bet it was quite a few. I’m not a big chocolate fan, but I will say that the amount of chips in the Cho-Coco flavor was the absolute perfect amount; it really set the coconut flavor off without being too sweet. Due to these bars being almost all nuts, the fat content makes up the majority of the ingredient panel, which is just fine with me. If you’re a coconut-lover, you need to get you some Simple Squares!

Tastes like:  Lightly sweetened coconut granola bars

Taste rating:  7/10

Qualities:  Gluten free, USDA organic, vegetarian, Kosher, Raw

What’s in it: (Cho-Coco Flavor)

Review - Harry P. Fitness Muscle Pasta

Brand:  Harry P. Fitness

Flavor:  Muscle Pasta – Spinach Edition

Where to get it: here @ VitaCost.com

                I can honestly say that I would be fine to never eat traditional noodles again. After falling in love with the Explore Asia Mung Bean Noodles, I was pretty set. After trying these little corkscrew protein noodles, I feel like I’m REALLY set. They’re less squishy/elastic than traditional noodles, but other than that there is really no difference. I ate these Asian-style with cabbage & mushrooms for my weekly lunch meal prep, and made a tuna pasta salad with the rest of them. They were great both ways. One serving has 33g of carbs but ALSO 30g of protein. Noodles are now a healthy food!

               

Tastes like:  Really al dente noodles

Taste rating:  9/10

Qualities:  All Natural

What’s in it:   

Review - Nuts About Granola Forager Nut & Seed

Brand:  Nuts About Granola

Flavor:  Forager Original Nut & Seed

Where to get it: here @ NutsAboutGranola.com

                I appreciate people trying to be low carb, or Paleo, or Primal, or whatever you want to call it…I really do. But that means there are some things you are just going to have to live without. Potatoes, bread, even granola. I don’t really care if you make an oatless granola, but you can’t just throw nuts and seeds in a bag and call it granola. The presence of raisins in this bag makes this trail mix at best. Dried quinoa, millet, amaranth, I don’t really care if your granola is “untraditional”, but you have to have something in there.

                This is literally nuts, seeds, and raisins. This is not granola in any form. I’m not saying nuts and seeds are bad, but THEY ARE NOT GRANOLA. If you want granola, this won’t do. If you want to use this for anything you have traditionally used granola for in the past, this will also definitely not do. Also, it wasn’t even remarkable in any manner when evaluated on a “nuts & seeds” platform, rather than a granola one. Sorry guys, this is a big miss no matter what you call it.

               

Tastes like:  Nuts & seeds and not granola

Taste rating:  0 if you wanted granola, still just a 5 if you wanted nuts & seeds

Qualities:  Vegetarian, Kosher, Gluten free, Non-GMO

What’s in it:     

Review - Chicken Nacho Meat Chips

Brand:  Meat Chips

Flavor:  Chicken Nacho

Where to get it: here @ MeatChips.com

                                                                                                                                                      

                “Meat Chips,” well, that’s certainly an attention-grabbing name! I didn’t know if they would be jerky, tortilla chips, or some weird freeze-dried experience. Turns out, they taste pretty much like your standard tortilla chip with some seasoning on them. Not exactly like a true tortilla chip, but I’d say maybe 85% like them. I ate them plain, but you could totally bust into these with some salsa and be pretty dang happy, I’d say. I’ve had a lot of protein chips, and they have pretty much all had varying degrees of weirditude. Not these. No weird texture, no bizarre aftertaste, no sticking-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth…kaplech!

                As far as I can tell, the chicken is ground with the corn in the chip making process, which I am sure is essential to making it not ultra-weird, like it sounds like it might be. The nutritionals on these might scare you off – 380 calories, 17g fat, and 31g carbs – but I did find that they didn’t spike my blood sugar AT ALL, which I was not expecting.. I checked it about an hour after eating them, on a day I DID NOT go to the gym, and it was cruising along at a very pleasant 99.Plus, they have 21g of protein in the same parameters as the other stats, which is really killer. If you’re going to eat tortilla chips, you’re going to get all that fat and calorie content anyway; you might as well get a massive dose of protein while you’re at it.

                These are going on my short list of snacks that I’ll continue to eat even though I’ve already reviewed them.

                 

               

Tastes like:  Lightly seasoned tortilla chips

Taste rating:  9/10

Qualities:  Gluten free, Made in the USA

What’s in it:

Review - Fly Joy Snack Bars

Brand:  Fly Joy

Flavor:  Cashew Cookie Dough Snack Bar

Where to get it: here @ FlyJoy.com

                 So good so good so good!! With all of the nutritional boxes that this bar checks, I really can’t believe how good it is! I have four flavors, but so far I have only eaten the Cashew Cookie Dough bar, and man, it’s (as I mentioned) SO GOOD. I really can’t explain the flavor much more than, it tastes exactly like chocolate chip cookie dough, but soft and chewy. It’s definitely on the sweet side, but what a fantastic treat. I would eat this over a traditional candy bar ten times out of ten. That includes Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, which are my all-time bad girl favorite. The fat content is a really reasonable 8g, and I’m okay with the 24g of carbs (including 11g) of sugar, because darn it, sometimes you just need a treat – and there are much worse treats that you could choose. Caloric content under 200, and vegan to boot, this is one that you will want to buy by the box.

               

Tastes like:  Chocolate chip cookie dough

Taste rating:  10/10

Qualities:  Non-GMO, vegetarian, vegan, Kosher, Gluten free, Made in the USA, all natural

What’s in it:

Review - Nud Fud Spirulina Banana Chips

Brand:  Nud Fud

Flavor:  Spirulina Banana Crisps

Where to get it: here @ NudFud.com

                I had literally no expectations when I tried these. I didn’t know what they would look like, taste like, or smell like. My mind was completely open. I don’t really want to say that they weren’t good, but I guess I have to say that I personally didn’t like them. I LOVE bananas, but I find myself hardly liking anything banana that isn’t a raw banana in some format. They just start to taste so fake once they are cooked or dehydrated; I can’t handle it. These little weirdo crackers also have quite a lot of fat and carbs in them for the little enjoyment that they bring, so I definitely would say they aren’t for me.

               

Tastes like:  Fake banana (even though it’s not)

Taste rating:  4/10

Qualities:  Vegetarian, vegan, all natural, gluten free, USDA organic

What’s in it:

Review - Boundless Nutrition Perfect Cookie

Brand:  Boundless Nutrition

Flavor:  Perfect Cookie, Chocolate Chip

Where to get it: here @ VitaCost.com

                Protein cookies are just ALL the rage lately. To the uneducated, a lot of these cookies seem to be beckoning with a promise of cookie taste, but muscle-building protein shake nutrition. While they all definitely have more protein in them than a standard cookie, they should all be carefully evaluated for other nutritional factors as well, lest we fall into the trap of lying to ourselves. Oh and also, some of them just taste like absolute crap.

                The reason I really like these Perfect Cookie cookies is twofold. One:  they taste delicious. Not too much chocolate, not too much protein…honestly the taste is really just like eating a blob of delicious chocolate chip cookie dough. Who doesn’t love that?

                The second reason I really liked this cookie is because it’s small. Most of the other protein cookies I’ve tried seem to be obsessed with cramming 25g+ protein into them, which typically leads to a huge, gut busting 300+ calorie cookie that makes me feel super blah. These little guys are perfectly wonderful with just 10g of protein in them, and 150 calories – making them a snack, not a meal. They also donate a portion of their sales to cancer research. Can’t beat that, on any level.

               

Tastes like:   Cookie dough

Taste rating:  10/10

Qualities:   Gluten-free, Made in the USA, Non-GMO, All natural

What’s in it

Review - Eat Real Yoghurt Coated Fruit and Nut Bar

Brand:  Eat Real

Flavor:   Yoghurt Coated Fruit & Nut Bar

Where to get it: here @ assorted locations

                Have I ever given a fruit & nut bar a 10? I don’t recall, but if I have, it hasn’t been for a long time, and it hasn’t happened very often. This bar FAR exceeded my expectations. It’s part granola bar, part fruit bar, and then there’s this delicious, soft layer of yogurt coating on the bottom that is just so spot on. This Eat Real company has some really good stuff, but I think it’s only widely available in the UK & Australia/NZ. If you’re in the States you might be out of luck, but I’m in the States and I managed to get my hands on a couple of these somehow, so they’re out there. Grab ‘em if you can.

               

Tastes like:   The perfect fruit & oat bar

Taste rating:  10/10

Qualities:   Gluten free, all natural

What’s in it: