Snack Review: Wheat Thins Toasted Chips

The folks at Nabisco/Kraft are mighty crafty. And I don’t mean cunning or guileful, but rather smart. At the introduction of their new toasted chip line, they’ve jumped on the eco-friendly “green” bandwagon with a gymnastic and graceful flourish.

One bag features a wispy sepiatone photo of a mountainside, while the other shows a little girl in a sun dress smiling radiantly down at healthy stalks of wheat. If their product were subpar I’d chide them for a blatant attempt at riding the conservation tide. But these snacks are lip-smacking good! Go, Nabisco/Kraft, go!

Still, I wonder why they refer to them as chips when they sure seem like crackers to me.

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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.

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Snack Review: Doctor Kracker Organic Flatbread Crackers

“Peace, love and crackers.”

So ends the catchy Doctor Kracker jingle performed by Tres Lunas. Honestly, these organic, whole wheat flatbread crackers have to be the hippest snacks around. I mean, Jad Fair (singer/guitarist/co-founder of the legendary punk rock band Half Japanese, collaborator for Yo La Tengo, Teenage Fanclub and Daniel Johnston) created a silly animated short for these amazing crackers!

Yes, these are the snacks all the cool kids in the neighborhood snarf on while watching ThunderCats: “But Lion-O, these crackers are too crunchy! Snarf! Snarf!” (Okay, maybe not the really cool kids.)

Despite the throwback look (think Smith Bros. cough drops - specifically the bearded bro’), the playful website and the whimsical package labels (”Gaze with awe upon the Seedlander”), the good Doctor K. is not fooling around. These are seriously tasty and nutritious snacks with a rich German history, from a region where flatbreads are a staple in the best bakeries. From his grandfather’s bakery in 1997, company founder Dr. Klaus Karg sought to meld the simple and austere Swedish flatbreads with the more flavorful specialty breads. He succeeded years later and sold his crackers under the company name Dr. Karg.

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Snack Review: Kellogg’s Special K Blueberry, Special K Crackers, and FiberPlus Antioxidant Bars

In the wide world of snacking, the people at Kellogg’s are definite rockstars. I mean, they make most of the country’s favorite cereals. Sure, cereal is a tasty and simple-to-prepare breakfast. But most people in my acquaintance agree that the crunchy, highly-sugared goodness of Froot Loops and Frosted Flakes are just as satisfying - if not moreso - at three A.M., in the aftermath of a wild party, than before school or work.

Because of this legendary greatness, I was surprised, and flattered, when I heard Kellogg’s wanted to send l’il ol’ me a sampling of their newest products to review. When I received a package from the company’s headquarters in Battle Creek, MI, and accepted that the offer wasn’t a put-on, I began to worry. What if I didn’t like the samples I was sent? Would I be blacklisted by the crunchy conglomerate? Labeled a “cereal killer” and banned from major grocery stores for all eternity? Would I awaken at some ungodly hour to find the Honey Smacks Frog pelting me with poisonous goo while Tony the Tiger mauled me to death?

I gave these loathsome possibilities, and countless others, careful consideration. In the end, I squared my shoulders, gulped, and made the braver and morally sound decision. Supermarket snubbery and killer mascots be darned - in the name of journalistic integrity, I’d offer my honest opinions.

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Snack Review: Wye River Crabbers Crackers

They’re just crackers, you probably think. How could there be drama? But so many aspects of my personal history were at war when I encountered these crackers.

They are crab-shaped cheese crackers, flavored with the traditional kind of herb and spice seasoning mix that is used on crabs in the mid-Atlantic region. The animal nut in me cannot resist an unusual animal-shaped food, even a cookie shaped like maggots. Also, now that I’ve lived temporarily in Maryland for, um, fifteen years, I sometimes feel guilty that I don’t have more local spirit. Wye River is a local company based on that local culinary obsession, crabs. And since the crabs are unfortunately kind of going extinct, I figured the company would need support for products like these that don’t have any actual crab in them.

So I popped these crackers into the cart without any more thought. But when I got home and popped them in my mouth, that was when the battle started: the Italian in me came out.

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