Snack Review: Quaker Mini-Delights Chocolatey Mint

I had to be more or less bullied into trying these. I was suspicious of them for a number of reasons, starting with the name. I’m not sure if all of what’s on this tiny bag would even fit in the post title: Quaker Mini-Delights 90 Calorie Packs Chocolately Mint Bite Sized Crispy Multigrain Cakes.

That kind of made me want to go have a snack with a one-word title like “banana.” I’m also very suspicious of the word “chocolatey,” which is a way to circumvent what labeling regulations require if you just say “chocolate.” Many sins, I feared, could be concealed by that little extra letter “y.”

The picture on the packet is also suspicious. There’s a picture of two of the actual item, accompanied by two entirely chocolate-covered cookies which are clearly not also supplied in the package. (Trust me, I checked.) You know those pictures on packages that say ‘serving suggestion’ in small letters? I peered at the package looking for those words, assuming that this misleading picture was meant to suggest that these would be very tasty indeed as long as you ate them at the same time that you ate two chocolate covered actual cookies.

Furthermore, very few delicious things are only 90 calories. And, finally, ‘multigrain’ all you want, this is basically a rice cake, and we all know that rice cakes are what is made out of those styrofoam packing peanuts when you mail them in for recycling.

So when a friend handed me a packet and said “Oh, you have to try these,” I said, “No thanks.” She said they were really great, but I also knew that she had just gone on a diet. I suspected that her current definition of “delicious” might be “anything that doesn’t taste like a celery stick.”

We had a few more back and forths where she tried to convince me they were good, and finally I tried another tack: “I don’t really like chocolate mint,” I said.

She shot back: “You like Thin Mints, don’t you?”

Well, OK. I mean, who doesn’t like Thin Mints? I am not a huge fan of Thin Mints, I don’t long for them all year round, most years I don’t even buy any. But would I eat one if you handed it to me for free? Of course. I’m not an idiot.

My last argument defeated, I figured I had to try them. I mean, what’s 90 calories in the name of friendship, anyway?

And hey. They are not half bad. They are crunchy and not at all like recycled styrofoam in texture, and they do kind of have that Thin Mint taste. They are not quite as strongly chocolate flavored – it appears that the sin that the ‘y’ conceals is the lack of fatty, delicious, highly caloric cocoa butter in the ‘chocolatey’ stuff drizzled on top. But they’re pretty close, with that aromatic mint taste that fills your whole mouth. It’s as close as you’re going to get for 90 calories.

So, my curmudgeonly prejudices have soundly lost this battle. This is actually a decent, not too high calorie snack – although don’t try to fool yourself that you shouldn’t be eating fruit instead – and they might even do something for your off-season Girl Scout cookie cravings.

• Quaker Website

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