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

I fell into a junk food mood again a little while ago. I’d actually had these Lays Cheddar and Sour Cream Potato Chips since near the new year, but didn’t have the heart to open them. Well, I think I actually bought two bags of these and ate one right away. So I didn’t have the heart to open TWO of them at once.

This is actually an enormous bag of chips; I could almost climb into it and use it in a potato sack race. Or I could inflate the empty bag and use it as an air pillow while camping. Or I could put some handles on it and use it as a shopping bag at the mall. Not that I’ve been to the mall in 10 years.

Anyhow you get the picture - it’s an oversized bag of chips. In fact you get 20% more chips according to the screaming words on the bag. Which is a good thing for Cheap Eats, I guess because you’re getting more for less. Still, it took a good amount of time to eat the entire bag - I don’t know if I need this much chips unless there’s a party. Not that I’ve been to a party in 10 years.

Potato Chip makers have gotten hit pretty hard with all the negative publicity over how fattening and bad their chips are for you. So it’s no surprise that they’ve tried to reform their image - 0 grams of trans fat, 100% sunflower oil. I guess it’s better than nothing (right, healthy eats peeps?)

They claim that the taste is still the same. I don’t know about that because I don’t have potato chips too often any more. But I rather liked the taste and texture of these chips. They just seemed chunkier and substantial without being overly oily. I think the Lays I used to get were more “feathery” light and lacy in texture, but more oily. My personal preference is thicker potato chips over thinner ones so it suits me fine.

Continue reading “Lays Cheddar Potato Chips” …

As luck would have it, this product for review that came through the mail (thanks, Charlie) ties in nicely with my new-found determination to eat slightly better. I say slightly better, because the review after this is going to be a fast food one… so old timey Cheap Eaters who are tired of the new healthy fad should stick around for that one.

The first thing you see on the box of these Fiber One Chewy Bars from General Mills is “35% of the Daily Value of Fiber”. Now, it’s pretty easy to get that amount or even more of fiber from various sources, but it ain’t always as pleasant. I have to say that this was a pretty tasty source as far as fiber goes.

By the way, you probably don’t want to munch up on several of these bars at once if you’re not used to having that much fiber injected into your system. Uh, you could be making a one night stand date with the toilet.

So I was shipped the Oats and Chocolate flavor of these bars. They also have an Oats and Peanut Butter. There’s 5 bars in a box. Personally, I already get enough fiber but I decided to give it a go anyhow.

Before proceeding, I took a gander at the ingredients. Now, as far as I know most manufacturers list their ingredients in the order of the amount that is present in the product. I don’t know if they’re legally required by law to do that, but I’ve never really seen a deviation. So, for some reason the first ingredient in the list is not chocolate, not oats, not rice, and not barley flakes. It’s Chicory Root Extract! I’m thinking this must be a mistake… I don’t see how there could be more of that than chocolate or oats (which are the next two ingredients by the way). If somebody knows more about that, please let me know… actually, I wonder if that’s what makes the bar so chewy.

Continue reading “Fiber One Chewy Bars” …

I had been planning on posting this during the week to coincide with the upcoming Halloween candy-fest. Things have a way of popping up to spoil all my well laid Cheap Eats plans. Like my car zonking out - long story; we’ll stick to reviewing instead…

Anyhow, I received some samples of Slammers Ultimate Milk by Bravo! Foods Int’l Corp in the mail from Matt the other day. What they’ve done here is packaged up fairly standard chocolate and strawberry flavored milk with some very popular candy brands. Supposedly, these milk drinks are supposed to be shelf stable for 6 months, more healthy than other milk drinks and fairly decent in price.

But the big sell is definitely going to be the candy names. I got Milky Way, 3 Musketeers and Starburst Slammer drinks. Those are three names that most people know about. The actual Slammers logo on the package is quite small, which is probably a smart thing for them… they want to push the big brands.

And I think it might work for a lot of people. The biggest question for me was: do these drinks actually TASTE anything like the candies in question?

I have to admit that my expectations were way too high. After all, it’s a DRINK. Mr. Unreasonable Cheap Eats editor was planning on having a Violet Beauregarde (from Charlie and The Chocolate Factory) gum chewing experience. You know, the one where she chews a piece of gum an experiences a full turkey dinner (? can’t remember if that’s correct).

I was fully expecting to take a swig of Slammers and suddenly have the sensation of actually eating a Milk Way, 3 Musketeers or Starburst. Yeah, I know. Delusional.

I started out with the Milky Way Slammers. These bottles are the larger ones, by the way, at 14 ounces. They also carry a smaller 8 ounce size. The Milky Way one is actually supposed to be reduced fat chocolate milk.

Continue reading “Slammers Ultimate Milk” …

Welcome to the first ever Cheap Eats Battle where we take two similar products and review them head to head in full detail until you’re sick of reading about them. I think we’ve probably done this in the past, I’ve just decided to give it a name. No idea whether this will prove to be a popular feature, but here you go.

The two contenders for this battle are the popular mustachioed, disembodied and bow-tied eggman Pringles and the upstart, shaving-gel-like-logoed copycat Lays Stax. I actually was able to get the same “Pizza” variety of both of these on sale for the same price, a buck. Normally, they’re about $1.50 (Stax was $1.89 regular, Pringles was $1.69 regular) at various supermarkets, though you can find certain flavors of Pringles occasionally at the dollar store.

I’d never heard of Stax before, but let’s be straight: I don’t care what marketing will claim - they’re out to copy Pringles and that’s all there is to it. I’m not saying whether that’s right or not (look at all the “generic supermarket”-item copycats out there) With that out of the way, we can get on to comparing the two.

Packaging

Both cans are exactly the same height - 9 1/4 inches tall. Pringles can is the familiar cardboard covered with some sort of foil, while Stax is a plastic can. The lid for Pringles is usually clear while Stax is an opaque yellow lid. The Stax can is also interesting because it is one of those new-fangled “grippy” cans where the center body is oval instead of round.

Interestingly, if you look into the cans, you can see that this oval shape provides less room for the chips to move around in. They fit better. I thought that might mean less breakage, but there was equal breakage in both cans.

The Pringles logo is familiar, of course. The Stax logo again looks like the logo for an electric shaver or shaver gel. Pringles wins the outer look hands down.

Both cans are 5 3/4 ounces by weight. I dunno which has more chips in it. What, I wasn’t about to COUNT the number of chips in the friggin’ can!

Continue reading “Battle: Pringles vs Stax” …

Ok, it’s time to get back into manufactured snacks. I have withdrawal when we don’t talk about chips for a few posts.

I saw this box of Triscuit Cheddar the other day and since they were 2 bucks for a 10 oz box I decided to pick them up. I know you can get ‘em cheaper if you buy the BIG box at CostCo. Yeah, the box that’s so big you can use it to build a boat to visit Hawaii. Or Tasmania.

But Tasmania wasn’t in the cards this afternoon so I just got the wee box. I have to admit I’ve never tried any of the flavors (except the low salt and reduced fat versions), but there are a ton of different ones. Just head on over to Nabisco World, which is exactly like Disney World, minus the Mickey Mousing and plus a bunch of different food products. You’ll see they have 10 different kinds of Triscuit there.

At the store, they also had “Garden and Herb” Triscuit and “Garlic” Triscuit, but I decided to play it safe and go with Cheddar. Anyhow the label on the box promised “Made With The Flavor Of Real Kraft Cheese” and I couldn’t very well pass that up, could I?

Actually, back to my earlier point about using a box to fabricate a maritime vessel. The shape of a Triscuit is sort of like a log raft. So, if you had a very, very large Triscuit and you were very, very brave you could conceivably float to Tasmania or Hawaii on one. Actually, I’m going to try this tomorrow.

So, how do these taste? I was pleasantly surprised that the promise of Kraft cheese flavor did not go unfulfilled. I actually like the plain Triscuits quite a bit to start with - some good memories of eating them when I was a kid. And of course, it was easier to fool the parents by putting a box of them in the shopping cart because it says “Baked Whole Grain Wheat Crackers”. Mom goes, “Hey, how can we afford NOT to buy them!”

Imagine you were preparing a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and all of the sudden a rogue typhoon (blown in from Tasmania, of course) decides to land in your kitchen and rip open your cheese packet, sending clouds of powder into the air. It then proceeds to land on a bowl of Triscuits you had out in a bowl. This is exactly what Triscuit Cheddar tastes like. (By the way, I imagine this would make a bang-up commercial. Hi advertising execs, my services are for hire.)

Continue reading “Triscuit Cheddar” …

Remember when mom told you “Dangnabit Vern, don’t eat cookies fer breakfast!”? (And Cookie Crisp doesn’t count.) Ah well. Mom’s advice has been pre-empted by these Quaker Breakfast Cookies. Hey, it’s the pilgrim in the blue hat talking. He can’t possibly be wrong.

I received two boxes of these cookies to review the other day. They’ve timed it just about right, since I’ve just started seeing commercials for them. I got a box of Oatmeal Raisin and Apple Cinnamon cookies. There’s 6 cookies in each box, each individually wrapped which is rather nice if you just want to grab and go.

So the price isn’t as great for Cheap Eating - a box at retail runs $3.29, or about 55 cents a cookie. That was in the back of my mind while I started munching on these “nutritious solutions for mid-morning cravings.”

Now I guess we slip into “official review” mode. I’m going to focus on the Oatmeal Raisin variety:

Packaging:

You can’t really go wrong with Mr. Quaker on the box. That conjures up trust among those who remember eating Quaker Oats out of those round cardboard boxes. It makes me feel Amish or something as well.

As mentioned, the individually foil packed cookies are rather nice for the grab-and-go morning rush. I also feel like it keeps each individual cookie more fresh. After all, you’re not going to eat one of these every day… it’s going to last you a few weeks. Right? Though, I wonder if eliminating the individual packaging might shave off a bit of the price tag..

Appearance and Texture:

This looks like what you’d expect from an everyday oatmeal raisin cookie. Each cookie measures almost exactly 3 inches in diameter, which seems fair sized. They look appetizing - nicely browned and speckled with good distribution of raisins and oats. If you try to break one in half, it sort of tears like a soft cookie would and perhaps it’s even softer than that. Almost like playdoh.

One thing that’s nice about the fact that it’s very squishy is that it doesn’t crumble all over the place which probably makes it easy to eat in the car. Not that I’m suggesting you drive and eat. Crazy zero-handed Egg McMuffin drivers…

Continue reading “Quaker Breakfast Cookies” …