Hello. Oh man, raise your hand if you had a hard time getting back into the swing of things last week. Yep. After overdosing on Free Family Eats and general holiday Eggnogging, I just didn’t get around to turning the blog back on. But here it is, and here’s the first review of the new year: Cheerios Snack Mix.

If you don’t believe that the “healthy breakfast and snack” market is insanely popular right now just take a look at the recent archives of the food sent in for review. It’s pretty much all cereal, health bars or healthy snacks. I guess there’s nothing wrong with going for the “turn over a new leaf” crowd.

I go back quite a long ways with my friend Cheerios - I guess their advertising got me back in the 70s. I also remember lots of parents making the homemade “Chex Mix” (not the kind you can buy pre-packaged nowadays). I’m trying to remember if the one my parents made had Cheerios in it. I think it did. I also believe it featured worcestershire sauce in it?

Anyhow, I was sent this new Cheerios Snack Mix in the Cheddar flavor the other day. First off, I want to say that I wish I was sent the “Original” flavor. Not that I don’t dig cheesy artificial goodness, but I usually like to try the basic flavor of a snack before kicking it up a notch with the cheese.

Still, this snack seemed promising. They tout it as a “balanced” snack because of the Cheerios, and like most snack manufacturers are sure to say it’s Baked and not Fried. I’m glad, because Fried Cheerios does not sound like a delicacy.

There’s 6 different kinds of snack pieces in the mix: standard multigrain Cheerios cereal, Wheat Chex, Corn Chex, triangular Cheese Crackers, “Bread Twists”, and Twist Pretzels. I’ll go through each of them in reverse order, but first let’s talk about the Cheddar powder: it tastes just like Doritos. Yep, that’s pretty much it - you’ve tasted one artificial cheese powder, you’ve pretty much got them all. Well, actually it reminded me more of the artificial cheese powder packet from Kraft Macaroni. But you know what I’m talking about.

I’m not against the taste of it, but I already thought Cheerios ‘n Cheez was going to be strange. The taste of the multigrain Cheerios with cheese powder is a little too weird for me. I think it’ll be an individual taste thing.

Continue reading “Cheerios Snack Mix” …

Breaking Newz: Due to the current Writer’s Guild of America strike, Cheap Eats will be broadcasting reruns via the interwebnetthingy. I will be proudly walking the picket lines with my fellow writers in Hollywood. I will be wearing a shirt that says “DIE MOVIE MOGUL SCUM”. Come on down and toot your horn to support this great endeavor!

Ah.. yes, I jest. Or maybe not. Stuff like this strike remind me that hey, there are actually people who get a regular paycheck to write things. I’m not saying that I should be hired by a major motion picture studio to write the next Shrek movie. (I forget, are they on XVI or XVII?) No way - those writers are way too good for me. I mean they’re way gooderer or betterer than me (Than I?) I could never be one of them.

But, it gets me down sometimes. It also makes me want to write shorter posts. I think it’s something a huge majority of semi-successful bloggers face, there’s just not enough time in the day to churn out really interesting, humorous posts with character unless you’re writing for Slate or the LA Times. Try writing posts every day for a few years for free - I bet you’ll get a tiny bit bummed occasionally.

Here’s the thing: most of the successful bloggers take a huge amount of pride in what they do. I have to keep reminding myself that however proud I am of the posts that I make: IT’S NOT A JOB. So it’s not a big deal - I can take a break for 15 weeks and only 15 people will notice. These writers who are striking - it IS their job that they’re defending (or at least the union wants them to think so) - so it IS a big deal.

Anyhow, to sum things up… Note to self: Relax and Enjoy the occasional free food coupon.

Sometimes I feel like Stuart Smalley: I deserve good things, I am entitled to my share of happiness, I refuse to beat myself up, I am an attractive person. Well, that’s debatable. I am fun to be with. Not really…

Holy crap, is there going to be some sort of review in all this? I guess so. I was sent the Curves Chocolate Peanut Granola Bars many, many moons ago. Here is what they look like:

The box is the picture at the top of the post. I was also sent the cereal but I’m “reviewing” the bars only. But the cereal is not too bad. However, in either case, I did not feel like jumping up in the air like the lady on the box after eating them. (Mostly because I am afraid of a large 8 ton beer can falling on me if I do anything “un-manly”. Because men should act like men.) If I want to see get my jumping jollies off, I just go to one of the Flickr groups that deal with it.

Well, OK maybe I’ll give the bars just a little hop. A small bunny rabbit jump.

Curves partnered with General Mills to market these 100 calorie each, 0.88 oz granola bars. These are the chewy type unlike the Nature Valley Nut ones we reviewed earlier.

Continue reading “Curves Granola Bars” …

(Edit: If you came here from Consumerist… welcome!)

You know, when I really think about it Stride Gum should have been reviewed long, long ago here on Cheap Eats. I mean, their whole raisin de la existanz (pardon me, Sarkozy) is that the gum lasts a heck of a long time and therefore you’ll spend less money on buying it - therefore shutting the company down. No really, I didn’t make that up. This is the main focus of nearly every commercial they’ve done. In each commercial we witness the demise or partial shutdown of the company factory due to the fact that the gum they’ve created just lasts too long for customers to buy enough of it.

Self-aggrandizing commercials for gum like this are much easier to swallow (no, don’t swallow your gum please). The commercials are 10 Million Billion TRILLION times better than the bloated, sci-fi Matrix-inspired commercials for 5 Gum. I mean you’re selling GUM, not Axe deodorant…

Anyhow, it’s funny, but I actually think the long lasting chew of Stride Gum causes uncontrollable Heroes-like, Philip K Dickian psi-effects . The reason I say so is that I’d never tried any before, but the day that I did I got an email from a Stride Gum rep telling about some new contest to win a Dodge filled with Stride gum they’re having. That’s too much of a coincidence. Paranoia. I strongly believe that the repetitive, jaw movement unlocks some primoridal, deeply buried ESP and they’ve got receivers up at HQ set to the formant frequency of my brain so they HEARD my thoughts. Or rather, they heard my jaw working.

Blah, blah, sci-fi blah… I know, I’m bored too. Which is why today’s review is going to be a mini timeline. I know they have a “Chew Timer” section on the site already, but I decided to do my own research - because chewing gum doesn’t actually exacerbate my repetitive-motion shoulder / back injury which has flared up in the past few weeks. Ouchity. Anyhow, here you go. Timeline starts on the next page:

Continue reading “Stride Gum” …

I usually post up Cheap Eats reviews on Tuesdays. But you know that saying, “Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t?” (Please, don’t make me sing the farking jingle.) Well, yesterday I just really, really, REALLY didn’t feel like a nut. So I figured I’d better hold off on reviewing these new Nature Valley Roasted Nut Crunch bars. Because these bars are so unbelivably nut-filled (nutsy?) that I wouldn’t do them justice if I wasn’t in a nutty type of mood.

I got two boxes of these nut energy bars - Almond Crunch and Peanut Crunch. They’re almost identical, except that the first has whole almonds in it (interestingly, the Peanut one contains almond flour in it). There are six bars per box and each bar is about 1.2 ounces and measures about 3.5 inches long. This seems a bit short actually, but maybe it’s just the ever-shrinking size of prepared foods like this today. I really used to think it was me just growing up so the sizes of candy bars getting smaller and smaller. No, it IS them getting smaller. I’m nut crazy. Sorry, I mean I’m not crazy.

Well, perhaps it’s also smaller because unlike other nut-based energy bars there are a LOT of nuts in it - so the price consequently goes up. I have to say that I was really surprised at the quantity of nuts - if you look at the ingredients (for the Almond ones) they contain: Almonds, Peanuts, Sunflower Seeds, Sugar, Corn Syrup, and Salt. That’s all, which is pretty amazing considering a lot of the chewier bars’ ingredient lists threaten to take over the entire side of the box.

Oh, did I mention that this is NOT a chewy type of bar? In fact, it’s one of the crunchiest I’ve ever had. A downside is that it’s actually very, very messy. I learned early on not to take the entire bar out of the package and just push it up slightly to take a careful bite. This is not something you want to eat while driving. Because it’s basically nuts held together with corn syrup, there’s no way to avoid having them fall in your lap. (Ah.. but if I was a funnier reviewer I would have a sweet time with making a joke about nuts in your lap). If you take too big of a bite it just shatters all over the place.

That said, the taste is pretty great - roasted nuts is what you get. There are no “fake” nuts here made out of compressed powdered nuts. I like the trend toward less ingredients that they’ve made with these bars.

The roasted nut flavor is excellent - I was expecting nuts that were over or under roasted, but I didn’t detect any. The balance of salty and sweet is pretty good. It’s a bit heavy for me, but I suspect that it’s just right for almost everyone else. It’s a bit like eating caramel corn or cracker jack if you substituted the popcorn with nuts. Actually, it’s even more like peanut or almond brittle minus most of the brittle. Basically, if you don’t like nuts (or are allergic in any way to them) you want to avoid this bar at all costs. If you like nuts, this is going to make you pretty satisfied.

At about 57 cents a piece retail, it’s about the same price as a candy bar though probably better for you (well, it does say 22% of Total Fat - 14g so I guess it’s not something to eat if you’re trying to lose weight? Don’t ask me, I’m not a dietitian or nutritionist). I would probably buy these again, especially if they were on sale.

However, while you’re eating this you’re probably going to have this thought: Couldn’t I just buy some trail mix and get basically the same ingredients without the fancy packaging for cheaper? Sure, it’s individually packed and convenient to just grab and go - but the mess it makes while consuming it sort of negates the convenience. Also, I’m sure you could cut out some of the sugar and salt from this by just eating unadorned trail mix. I’ve also wondered if you could just pour some trail mix into a cupcake pan and drizzle that with some sort of melted sugar (or corn syrup) mixture in order to make the exact same thing.

I dunno, maybe I’m being too hard on them. It’s a decent snack, especially when you compare it to a lot of the other energy bars out there that contain a lot of junk. I like the transparency in the ingredients and they’re certainly tasty, but I wonder if at some point a bag of mixed nuts will provide exactly the same result.

Price: Free (MSRP: $3.39 for 6 1.2 oz bars)
Found At: Sent in for review
Cheap Eats Score: 7/10

Whee… some extra Cheap Eats coverage before you head off into the weekend. This is a Pineapple Moon Cake from this past Tuesday’s Moon Cake Festival (or Lantern Festival, or Mid-Autumnal Festival) which occurs near the Autumn Equinox.

The mooncakes, which have a thin outer pastry-type crust or wrapping, also come with a variety of different ingredients including lotus seed, duck egg, mung bean, red bean, and dates. They are often pretty sweet (I haven’t really tried the savory versions yet), so I usually cut it up into quarters (or eighths!) and just eat one or two pieces.

One thing - these cakes are NOT Cheap Eats. They can be quite expensive, depending on the quality. I got this one from my mother-in-law - we usually don’t buy the boxes of cakes that they sell.

Hello Carbonated Yogurt.

You read that right: carbonated yogurt tubes appeared on my doorstep the other day. Boxed, of course. Wow. I guess adding carbonation to candy, gum and other kid foods isn’t anything new (Pop-Rocks were pretty neat when they were first released when I was a kid).

Still, I never really thought they would seriously try out carbonation in yogurt. Yoplait seems to think that kids will dig it. Interestingly, I was told that the other demographic this is being marketed to is “undergraduate males on tight food budgets.” Why am I not surprised?

First, I have to admit that I’m a covert virgin. Excuse me, I mean a go-gurt virgin. I’ve never found the need to eat yogurt out of a tube - I’m not orbiting earth after all. Still, I have to admit that I was intrigued with the idea of it being carbonated. The product is called Go-Gurt Fizzix and is made by Yoplait, and comes in boxes of eight 2 1/4 ounce individual tubes. They’re currently selling six flavors - boxes have two flavors each. Mine was Wild Cherry Zing and Strawberry Lemonade Jolt. They also have Blue Raspberry Rage / Strawberry Watermelon Rush and Triple Berry Fusion / Fruit Punch Charge. I sort of wished I got the blue raspberry flavor - a nice Reptilian Tongue is such a blast to stick out at friends.

The tubes are skinny plastic with a riptop so that you can easily suck out the innards. I haven’t had food in a tube like this in awhile, if you don’t count popsicles. Regarding popsicle tubes - I have some really good memories of eating Otter Pops when I was a kid. And as for the most interesting tubed food I’ve had: there’s this Cheese Kamaboko (fishcake) in a tube that I had 7 years ago. Enough said.

Strawberry Lemonade Jolt was the first one I tried out. I figured that the yogurt itself would pretty much taste like normal Yoplait, but I seriously didn’t know what to expect as far as the carbonation went. I was a little bit disappointed at how mild the “jolt” was. I mean, I wasn’t expecting it to be like soda but I thought it would tingle a lot more. The fizz in the yogurt is a bit like the low level fizz you get from the carbonation in a drink like Orangina. To be fair, it’s called “fizzy” yogurt which to me seems to imply a weaker amount of carbonation.

The carbonation does seem to stay around for quite awhile, however. It was still there in pretty much the same strength after I got through taking the pics. You’re supposed to eat this right out of the tube, but I wanted to show the yogurt itself so I scooped it out. Turns out the strawberry lemonade flavor is pretty good. Nothing to write home about, though. Average yogurt, a bit on the sweet side.

The Wild Cherry Zing will probably be a flavor you want to avoid if you don’t like that artificial cherry taste. It’s very strong in this Fizzix yogurt, but I actually am OK with artificial cherry flavoring so it didn’t bother me.

For some reason, the carbonation seemed to “feel” stronger in the Cherry flavor. I ended up eating several of each and noticed that each time the Cherry Zing seemd more zingy. One thing about the Go-Gurt is that they are quite small (although perfect for lunchtime) so I was easily able to eat 2 or 3 of them without trouble.

Ok, so I wasn’t all that jazzed up about this product beyond its novelty, and even a little disappointed with the carbonation. However, I suspect that the miniscule carbonation will provide that “extra something” which might convince an otherwise yogurt-adverse kid to eat it. The manufacturer takes great pains to point out that Fizzix has the “same great nutrition as Yoplait Go-Gurt.” So I guess if I was getting it for kids, and they were both the same price (need to check on that) then I’d choose the Fizzix over normal Go-Gurt. The price isn’t horrible for a kids novelty item, but normal yogurt would be much cheaper to get.

I guess that would be the end of this review, except that I decided to try and freeze the Fizzix just to see what would happen. The tubes swelled up and expanded, but didn’t break (at least the 3 that I put in the freezer did not explode). I was pleasantly surprised with the frozen yogurt treat that emerged. The carbonation seems to become even more muted, but as a snack it tasted much better this way.

I guess you could get a tub of yogurt and freeze it yourself (or just buy frozen yogurt), but the fact that these were already packaged in a tube made it very convenient. Because it’s yogurt and not completely liquid, it’s a bit more difficult to “push-up”. The frozen yogurt tends to stick to the plastic. Still, I gave the frozen version a bit higher score.

Price: Free (MSRP: $2.50 for 8 2.25 oz)
Found At: Sent in for review
Cheap Eats Score: 4/10 (5/10 frozen)

I probably could’ve given this post a more tabloid-ish title like “Dumpster Diving 101″ (Note to self: see if this book exists and if not, start writing it). But Cheap Eats isn’t about controversey, is it? Nevertheless, this was a sort of interesting little tidbit that I’d like to share that occurred over the Memorial Day holiday.

First off - I’m going to be taking a little “vacation” so I’ll be resuming Cheap Eats coverage in about 2-3 weeks. Just a warning for the droves of fan boys and girls who flock to the site every day hoping for an extra update. Haha.

So, you might think I’d been sent this jumbo variety 50-pack of chips from Frito Lay or something. Or that I’d scored it from the folks for free after they mistakenly bought two of them at CostCo (and let me tell you, that happens often).

Nope, I got this package of chips out of the TRASH CAN.

Here’s what happened - I play roller hockey at a slightly secluded park that has very good amenities, including a snack bar. This weekend when we finished with the pickup game we had commenced starting a little mini-BBQ complete with carne asada, sausages and potato salad to celebrate Memorial Day. Because the park is rather difficult to find and unknown to most outsiders, we were nearly the only ones there near the snack bar. The bar wasn’t even open, but there were people working inside on other things. We saw them come out of the snack bar, walk over to the trash cans where we were sitting and dump an enormous plastic bag full of these chips right into the trash can.

Someone asked what they were doing, and they said they couldn’t sell the chips any longer because they had expired, but we were free to take them out of the trash. I guess they couldn’t legally give them to us, maybe because of the possibility of lawsuit from eating bad chips. However, once they were in the trash, they weren’t liable. They later just put the remaining packages with the chips still sealed in plastic right on top of the trash can so we wouldn’t have to pick them out of the can.

I think they dumped at least four of these boxes in the trash cans, perhaps more. Someone actually pulled the entire plastic garbage bag out of the trash and we started going through the chips. (The bag was a brand new garbage bag, by the way). Needless to say, I felt sorta weird digging around in the trash - not that I look down on homeless people and others who do that on a regular basis. It’s just that I haven’t really done that for food - I’d dived in the dumpster many a time at my old work place where they’d throw away perfectly good office supplies, software and computer manuals. I literally climbed inside and just sorted through the stuff. It’s just amazing what big corporations will throw away.

All of the chips were fresh and tasted perfectly ordinary. They’re about one and a half months beyond the date. I ended up carting off the one 50-pack in the picture because no one else wanted it. I guess everyone’s watching their weight nowadays, though it seemed like a waste to leave them behind.

I’ve often thought about posting about things like this that fall in a sort of “gray” area on Cheap Eats, but have mostly stuck to reviews and recipes. Surprisingly, there have been many people who have written in who I think are really under tough times and REALLY need to eat cheaply. And I don’t mean just starving college students eating ramen either, although I fell into that category long ago. I might try to make a few more of these type of posts in the future. We’ll see… I’m not 100% sure these issues are the type of thing that I want to post on a regular basis.

Price: Free
Found At: Dumpster in Park
Cheap Eats Score: 9/10