Snack Review: POM Wonderful Juice

Despite POM’s multitude of health claims, I’ve never been as excited about their juice as I have been about their packaging. For instance, they used to sell POM in tall glass bottles at my university’s cafe, which thrilled me to no end. Sure, you paid more for your POM than you did for your lunch, but you got a free glass with your purchase! I loved imagining what I could do with my new glass after I’d finished my overpriced juice. I could fill it with water! Or milk! Or sea monkeys! My God - the possibilities were endless.

Nowadays, POM uses plastic containers rather than glass ones, but I still prefer their packaging over their product. Although their smaller, curvier bottles would make terrible sea monkey homes, they remain seductively hip - which means I’m still tempted to buy POM products, despite the steep price tag and mediocre flavor. Of course, this is the essence of POM’s success. If you’re not swayed by its dubious health claims or bitter flavor, you still might give in to its cool factor. (Don Draper taught me that.)

Anyway, let’s start with the flavor, then move to the health “benefits.” POM is made from pure pomegranate juice, which tastes like a combination of grape and cranberry juice. So, if you’re the type of person who’s habitually torn between your morning juice options, this is the beverage for you. A word of warning, however - this juice tends leaves its sweet/bitter taste lingering on the back of your tongue, so be prepared to savor all that POM wonderfulness for a full half hour after you’ve drained your bottle.

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Drink Review: Purity Organic Apple Juice

Like most Americans, I stopped drinking apple juice after fourth grade, when slurping from a cardboard box abruptly lost its appeal (that is, until I discovered box wine 10 years later). From then on, apple juice played a smaller and smaller role in my life. It failed to follow me into adulthood, and therefore remains a liquid nostalgia trip, forever associated with recess and Power Rangers.

Why is this? Why do cranberry and orange juice stick with us after puberty, while apple never makes it past the elementary school checkpoint? Perhaps it’s too sweet for the adult palate, like bubble gum ice cream. Or perhaps it’s ignored because it lacks utilitarian properties. Apple juice won’t detoxify your bloodstream like cranberry, or fight your cold like orange. And it certainly won’t hide the flavor of that stale Smirnoff vodka you found in the back of your kitchen cabinet.

The time is ripe (heh), then, for an apple juice makeover - which is probably what the people at Purity were thinking when they drew up a snappy, modernist label for their all-natural, organic juice brand. Because who says that apples are lamer than oranges? Maybe this apple aversion habit is all in our heads, and it would do us some good to take a swig of the amber liquid. (According to the BBC, apple juice does have health benefits - it can prevent heart disease!)

Unfortunately, by not diluting their product, Purity has created a super-dense brand of juice. While regular, non-organic juice is often watery, the Purity brand is almost too thick. The first time I took a swig, I honestly felt like I was drinking a liquid piece of apple pie. True, you’re getting a bang for your buck with this product, but I doubt I’d be able to finish a bottle in a single sitting. I didn’t even try – as the thought of doing so kind of made me nauseous.

However, while the texture was a little heavy, the taste was A+. It was still sweet, but not overpoweringly so, and I definitely believe this product is 100% pure juice, without additives. You can tell it’s authentic because a fine layer of apple sediment settles on the floor of the bottle after periods of rest. Yeah, baby. That’s the real deal.

So ladies and gents, if you can handle the heady ride of undiluted apple juice, go for it. By swapping that juice box for a recyclable plastic container, you can placate your inner child without feeling like a baby.

• Purity Organic Website

Snack Review: Tim Tams

Dear Australian expats living in America. Has something been missing from your life? Something creamy, chocolaty, and delightfully rectangular? Something, perhaps, by the name of Tim Tam?! Well, rejoice! Because, as of this winter, Tim Tams are taking up temporary residence in the United States!

That’s right. In its great beneficence, the Campbell’s Soup Company, which owns Australian cookie producer Arnott’s, is releasing Tim Tams through Pepperidge Farm (which it also owns, because Campbell’s Soup is a huge corporation). These tempting treats are big on the cocoa, consisting of two chocolate wafers injected with chocolate cream and surrounded by a chocolate coating. And since they’ve been a favorite among Aussies for nearly four decades (Arnott’s claims to sell 35 million packages each year), they’re coming to America with a serious reputation to uphold.

As a Tim Tam virgin, I had no idea what to expect from these cookies. Sure, their ingredients sounded good, but did they have that certain X factor that makes me want to live off them? I’d experienced this feeling with a non-American cookie only once before, with the United Kingdom’s Hobnobs, and I wasn’t sure the ‘Tams were going live up to their tasty example. (As a side note, I have to ask, what is up with the cutesy two syllable cookie names? Are there any American cookie brands that do this, or is it just a British/former British colony sort of thing?)

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A Dissenting Opinion: Micheal Season’s Honey Chipotle Chips

The people at Micheal Season’s are masters at putting their products in the hands of capable snack reviewers, so both Rachel and I wound up with a bag of Micheal Season’s Baked Honey Chipotle Chips. Yet, despite our superior snacking skills, we’ve managed to come up with starkly different opinions on this product, just as experienced wine tasters often disagree on the best years for Burgundies (I still say the ‘92 was better than the ‘03, dammit!). So sit back and relax as I make a case for my new favorite chips, Michael Season’s Baked Honey Chipotle.

As I’ve stated before on this blog, I’m a spicy snack lightweight. This hearkens back to the days when my dad would pay me a dollar to eat a Blue Chip, and I would spend the next fifteen minutes with my tongue under the kitchen faucet (that dollar was totally worth it, though).

My fear of all things spicy was only reinforced by traumatic food accidents – such as the time I was eating fried vegetables at a Chinese restaurant, and accidentally swallowed a whole chili pepper. After losing hearing in my left ear, I sprinted out of the restaurant (sticking my friends with the check) and into a nearby CVS, where I ripped open a gallon of milk and chugged it until I felt nauseous. That chili pepper haunts me to this day.

So, imagine my surprise when I tried one of Michael Season’s Honey Chipotle chips and f’ing loved it.

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Top 10 Cinematic Snack Moments

Snacks and movies go hand-in-hand. If I’m watching a movie and my lap isn’t covered in popcorn grease, then something is seriously amiss.

And this got me thinking. Since snacks are such an integral part of the cinematic experience, there must be movies that actually feature them, right? Right!

So, Snackerrific readers, after a few hours of haphazard research, I give to you: The Top 10 Cinematic Snack Moments!

Check them out after the jump.

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