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.
Read more

Snack Review: Japanese Snack Three Course Meal Roundup

Maybe it was just that I couldn’t stand the idea of going out in the cold and rain again to go grocery shopping. But the box I got from our good friends at jlist.com looked like it contained all I needed for a balanced meal. I had a spicy main dish in these Tohato habanero flavored crackers, a vegetable in asparagus Pretz, and my starch and dessert all rolled up into one in Meiji Usuyaki rice crackers coated in white chocolate. What could be more efficient?

The Tohato crackers are very neat little rings with a reddish-orange color that warns of their heat, if you hadn’t already gotten the message from the evil grin on the drawing of the pepper on the front of the bag. My Japanese isn’t up to deciphering the ingredients, but I am guessing this is a wheat cracker. It kind of doesn’t matter, because whatever it is, it’s just a vehicle for the spice. They’re either baked, or fried really brilliantly, because they’re not the least bit greasy.

These are a really fun snack if you like hot food. They are hot enough to wake you up - good idea in this cold rainy weather, as it turns out - and the heat lingers but not so much that you can’t eat more of them.
Read more

Snack Review: Lemon Tea Snapple (Reformulated)

Perhaps the Boston Tea Party alienated Americans from consuming tea like the rest of the world? For a very long time, I grew up not understanding why people drank tea. No one I knew drank it and so I followed suit. But after living in New Zealand, where everyone drinks the stuff, I became accustomed to it. And by accustomed, I mean I drink maybe… 1 or 2 quarts of the stuff per day of various varieties. Thus, I feel I know a bit about tea.

Around the time I moved back to the US, the green tea health craze had burgeoned, and everyone was incorporating the stuff into his or her diets, a nice change to the chai craze, in my opinion.

Over the years, I have seen green tea and green tea extracts fuse with all sorts of products, including ice cream, hard candy, and chocolate. It’s therefore not surprising to learn that Snapple has recreated and rebranded its trademark teas in the aforementioned fashion. Read more

Snack Review: Somebody’s Mother’s Chocolate Sauce

If chocolate sauce ever came up in conversation, I would usually think of Hershey or Nestle. That seems like the distant, misty past to me now.

You see, that was before I met Somebody’s Mother - her sauce, specifically.

Holy Willy Wonka. Where to begin.

A spoonful straight out of the jar at room temperature tasted like pudding, fudge, and pie filling all at once - a top-shelf, gourmet quality, rich and velvety confection. Not surprising since the ingredients are simple and fresh, with no preservatives: heavy cream, sugar, butter, unsweetened chocolate. The texture was akin to very thick cake frosting, but without the nerve-jarring artificial sweeteners.
Read more

Snack Review: Annie’s Organic Bunny Classics Buttery Rich Crackers

I’m always looking for something that tastes exactly like a Ritz Cracker and isn’t a Ritz Cracker. Why do I stubbornly persist in not just buying Ritz Crackers, a fine classic product that, unlike so many other things that I complain about, has remained relatively unchanged? Because I keep reading the label on them and deciding that if I’m going to eat something that gets half its calories from fat, I could have ice cream or potato chips. A cracker doesn’t seem worth it.

But, the ice cream and potato chips don’t quell the craving for Ritz crackers. So I am a sucker for a yellowish-colored cracker with holes poked in the top and scalloped edges. And of course I am a sucker for anything with an animal on the label. Even worse, some of the crackers themselves are shaped like bunnies. I could not resist.
Read more