Have you ever wondered what Spam would taste like if it were made of fruit instead of pork shoulder? Neither had I, until I bit into Stretch Island Fruit Co’s “Fruit Leather,” a kind of Fruit-Roll-Up for (strong stomached) adults.

At 50 cents a pop, these iPod-sized fruit snacks were an impulse buy. Behaving like the easily distracted five-year-old I am, I couldn’t resist their colorful packaging, with its drawings of mangoes and strawberries dancing to what I imagined was kickin’ reggae beat. Needless to say, that tropical vibe had me at hello, and I exited the store confident in my cheap summer purchase.

But oh, how the tide changed when I tore open those pretty packages. Glistening like the US Army’s finest canned meat, Fruit Leather’s resemblance to processed ham was apparent immediately.

To give you a clearer mental picture of what they look like, imagine the sweaty face of an over-tan socialite as she sits on Miami Beach, thumbing through a copy of US Weekly. After weathering years of cigarette smoke and harsh UV rays, her skin has acquired a bumpy, pockmarked quality, which is slightly obscured by the layer of coconut oil covering her cheeks. These snacks resemble those cheeks exactly. Imagine a dermatologist’s nightmare and you’ve imagined Fruit Leather.

But of course, you can’t judge a snack on appearance alone, since sometimes it’s the weird-looking morsels that offer the coolest tastes. So even though Fruit Leather’s congealed, yellowish-brown appearance made me think of my grandfather’s recipe for fried Spam, a sampling was in order.

Texture-wise, this snack is surprisingly soft, despite being triple the thickness of a typical Fruit Roll-Up. For a food called “Fruit Leather,” I was expecting more of a fight from my bite. Instead, these gummy slabs quickly gave way to my incisors, and disintegrated in my mouth after only a couple of seconds.

That leaves flavor, which is the only aspect of Fruit Leather that I can’t complain about. “Summer Strawberry” tasted like homemade strawberry pie filling - a little sugary and artificial, but good nonetheless - and “Mango Sunrise” lived up to its name. I doubt I’d be able to differentiate between the two if I were participating in a blindfolded taste test (sugar is sugar, right?), but at least the flavor didn’t make me gag.

Harsh words, I know. But when it comes down to it, I have little sympathy for snacks so strangely gelatinous that they make me yearn for fresh vegetables. That’s when you know things have really gotten out of hand.

• Stretch Island Fruit Co. Website

Buy Stretch Island Fruit Leather Online:

• at Amazon.com