Snack Review: Michael Season’s Honey-Chipotle Baked Multigrain Chips

An unexpected package arrived for me yesterday. Unfortunately, by the time I reached my apartment complex, the office had been closed for hours. Inaudibly cursing L.A. traffic, I headed home for the evening, hoping the package would contain a shipment of delicious, or at least borderline-edible snacks for me to review. Based on the info provided by our lovely editor Caitlin, I was expecting either ice cream or chips and crackers from a small artisan company.

What I found upon retrieving my booty this morning was indeed Snackerrific-related. It consisted of chips from a small purveyor of high-quality snacks, but not the chips I’d been anticipating. Observing the postage, I noted my parcel came courtesy of Michael Season’s, a brand with which this site and its reviewers have an intimate familiarity.

I’m sure opinions vary from snacker to snacker, but I’ve grown quite fond of Michael Season’s all-natural twists on salty snacking favorites. The brand’s wholesome, healthy image is nearly sufficient to reassure me I’m treating my body as a temple while I inhale a half-bag of their cheese curls. So although I would have liked to try something new and adventurous, I was grateful for the opportunity to visit a not-so-old favorite.

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Snack Review: World of Grains Cookies

I am deeply suspicious of snacks that make health claims. Healthy eating doesn’t mean giving up pleasure in food. That won’t make you live forever – it’ll just feel that way. As long as you get all your fruits and vegetables and so on at meals, there is nothing wrong with a snack that’s just junk once in a while.

What’s more, I’ve lived through enough bogus food trends – oat bran, low fat snacks that ended up having twice as much sugar, people eating nothing but bacon and meat and thinking it is a health diet – to have learned that any health claim is going to be used as a way to make money by companies whose only interest in your health is whether you have the strength left to take your wallet out of your pocket.

So when I was asked if I wanted some samples of these to review, I was all, “Bring them on! You can’t fool all of the people all of the time! I wasn’t born yesterday! Etc.!”

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Snack Review: Cinnamon Sunchips

A friend of mine referred to me recently as “epicurean.” I found it odd at first that he should reach this revelation while watching me enjoy a Tootsie Pop - as tasty as the chocolaty pops of happiness may be, they’re hardly comparable to a fine wine. After doing a bit of research on Epicureanism, however, I realized the philosophy of Epicurus and his school is about more than being a food-and-drink snob. It’s about enjoying life in general, even the more seemingly-trivial aspects - including friendship, romance, and, yes, food and drink. A sense of adventure about these small pleasures is key to the philosophy, so I suppose my snacking habits are indeed epicurean. After all, I derive a lot of pleasure from trying odd and unusually-flavored snacks.

The other day, it might have been the spirit of Epicurus who guided me straight through the chip-aisle of a nearby discount store. Under his ghostly influence, I reached for a bag of Cinnamon-flavored Sunchips, wheeled my cart toward the counter, and purchased the strangely-flavored chips. My possession ended halfway through the drive home (poor Epicurus was probably frightened; life in ancient Greece hadn’t prepared him for LA traffic!).

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