Snack Review: Calorie Mate
They still haven’t come up with that meal in a pill that they promised we’d have in the future. Not that I would want all my meals to be replaced by a pill, but sometimes, when there isn’t time to make a nice event out of a meal, wouldn’t it be a useful thing?
Instead, we have a whole product category of power and energy and granola bars. The problem is, these look too much like candy bars, and have similar flavors to candy bars, so you’re set up to expect a candy bar… and are always disappointed.
I’ve tried a lot of them and have never found one that I’m interested in eating repeatedly. So I was curious to see if the Japanese had come up with something better.
As the box says, “Calorie Mate Block is a nutritionally balanced source of the energy needed for daily activities.” “Block” may not sound appealing, but the good news is: These look exactly like cookies, like a thick shortbread bar. (You can see a little piece of one in the photo, sitting on top of one of the boxes, but it doesn’t do it justice. It looks better than that.)
And they have exactly the texture of cookies as well. This is fantastic, right? Because “meal in a cookie” is a much better idea than “meal in a pill.” But will it be like a power bar, which promises “meal in a candy bar” and doesn’t deliver?
Well, there’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that I made a stupid choice of flavor. I could have had chocolate or fruit. Instead, I don’t know what I was thinking, I picked Cheese, and this was a bad idea. Because they’re slightly sweet, the effect is more of cheesecake flavor, but there’s an unfortunate aroma of sour milk that is a bit off-putting. The aftertaste is also not pleasant.
But, but - this is a cookie! It really is! I feel confident that the other flavors are better. I would try the other flavors in a minute. This is so much better than one of those nasty chewy bars with cheap-tasting lame chocolate coating. You should absolutely try these. Just get the other flavors, is all.
I am a little confused about the labeling information here, but I think the calorie count of 400 applies to the whole box, which contains two separately wrapped packets of two bars each. That would mean 200 calories for each serving that you unwrap, which compares favorably to energy bars, I think, given that the energy bars that have fewer calories than that are basically all pretty horrible. Whereas here, you are getting a cookie. A real cookie! I can’t wait to try the other flavors.
(Those of you who are more up on popular culture than I am [which is probably all of you] should at least follow the link below to see the TV commercials embedded in the J-List site, which, if The Internets do not lead me astray, are Kiefer Sutherland in a spoof of the show 24. You might be amused.)
theskinnyplate on May 24th, 2009
I always thought these were just chocolate covered cookie. I’d love to try this out. I always see these in the candy section of the Japanese markets.