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Month: August 2007
Sambazon Supergreens Revolution Organic Açai Smoothie
The Sambazon Supergreens Revolution Organic Açai Smoothie has more grass types than your average golf course and corner nickelbag dealer have combined. Each bottle contains wheat grass, barley grass, oat grass, alfalfa, sprulina, and chlorella. It’s been awhile since bullies made me eat grass in grade school, so I didn’t fully remember what it tasted like, but after drinking this smoothie, it’s slowly coming back to me.
Fortunately, the smoothie doesn’t just contain grass, because that would be the shittiest smoothie ever. It also has apple juice, grape juice, bananas, mangos, and the popular açai berry. Much like how Timbaland can make a song sound much better, these fruits and fruit juices made the grass taste better, although not as good as I hoped.
If you’ve ever had a bad raisin, you have an idea of what the Sambazon Supergreens Revolution Organic Açai Smoothie tastes like. It was pretty disgusting when I first drank it, but the more I drank, the better it got. It’s the same thing with the movie Battlefield Earth. If you take a shot every time John Travolta overacts, within ten minutes the movie will be on the same level as Gigli.
The taste of this maroon-colored beverage will make most people gag, and so will most beverages described as tasting like a “bad raisin,” but I have a trick that you can use to hopefully make it more tolerable. All you have to do is keep telling yourself how healthy the all grass and Açai berries are for you. It’s like the mental equivalent of pinching your nose to endure its taste. But if the sight or taste of this doesn’t get to you, perhaps its smell or sludge-like consistency will.
Despite how bad I’m talking about it, I have to say that I actually like the Sambazon Supergreens Revolution Organic Açai Smoothie. It’s a food with a silver lining. I think because there are so many things in it that are good for you that they negate all the things that make it disgusting. It has antioxidants, healthy omega fats, fiber, and a whole lot of phytonutrients, all of which will decrease the effects of free radicals and probably make Britney Spears’ new single tolerable for about three seconds.
Besides, isn’t that the rule of most healthy foods? They may not taste good, but they are good for you–except iceberg lettuce and orchids used as garnish. I also think it tastes a little bit better than its competitor, the equally disturbing Odwalla Superfood, although the Sambazon smoothie has more calories, less potassium, less Vitamin C, and a little more sugar.
It maybe super healthy, tastes all right, and smells bad, but perhaps the least known fact about the Sambazon Supergreens Revolution Organic Açai Smoothie is that it may get you a ride if you need a lift someday, because you know what they say:
Ass, gas, or grass. Nobody rides for free.
Item: Sambazon Supergreens Revolution Organic Açai Smoothie
Price: $3.39 (10.5 ounces)
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 3 out of 5
Pros: Full of healthy shit. Slightly better tasting than the Odwalla Superfood. 100% vegan. Organic. Antioxidants. 7 grams of dietary fiber (28% daily allowance). 4,050 milligrams of healthy omega fats.
Cons: Smells weird. Sludge-like. Its taste is something to get used to. Drinking grass. Eating grass in grade school. Britney’s fucked up new single.
REVIEW: Caramel Doritos Sweets
Whenever I purchase or receive a product that on the outside seems like it’s going to make me cringe, like finding an Adam’s apple on a blind date I met through Craigslist, I try to prepare for it the best I can. After receiving the Caramel Doritos Sweets from Japan, I went into full preparation mode, getting all my senses ready for what I felt was going to be gag worthy. It’s the same thing I did before trying the Pepsi Cucumber Ice.
To prepare my sense of touch, I plunged both arms into a bucket of ice. To get my sight ready, I stared at Tara Reid bikini pictures, which if you see them, you will know that it is 100 percent less sexy than it sounds.
To prepare my hearing, I listened to my poor attempts at becoming a turntablist during my high school years, scratching the 45 RPM record single for Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over.”
Don’t…chicka…chicka…chick…Don’t dream it’s over.
I prepared my sense of smell by making a three-bean chili, giving it all to a hungry homeless dude, and standing downwind from him. To prepare the sense of taste, I punished my tongue with a whip that came with the non-sanctioned Ken & Barbie Malibu After Dark S&M set with real leather that I bought in the Mature Audiences section of eBay.
While lashing my tongue with the small whip, I wondered if Japanese companies use things like prototypes, focus groups, or common sense when coming up with new food products. They have a tendency to make items that seem like something consumers don’t want, like breaded meat without the meat in bar form.
After my senses were prepared for the Caramel Doritos Sweets, I slowly opened the bag and a slightly sickly sweet aroma billowed out of it. “That smell is not a good sign,” I thought to myself as I peered into the packaging.
The Doritos inside didn’t look like the triangle-shaped Doritos that most people know and love. Instead they looked like small screw bits, which is appropriate, since this flavor seems like Frito-Lay Japan is screwing with us.
With all the preparation I did, I was ready for its taste to be unsurprisingly horrible, just like going ass-to-mouth, but it ended up tasting like slightly sweetened Fritos corn chips. The combination of sweet and salty was good with this crunchy snack, but I didn’t think its flavor was caramel-ish, it seemed more pancake syrup-ish.
Preparing my senses for a possibly bad tasting product was unnecessary this time. I got lucky with the Caramel Doritos Sweets, which is a tasty original product. I wish I could say the same for my Craigslist blind dates. Maybe I should stop looking in the Misc Romance section.
(Editor’s Note: Thanks to Impulsive Buy reader Melbatoast for sending me a bag of Caramel Doritos Sweets from Japan. If she ever wants a Wendy’s Baconator, I’ll be glad to send it to her, although it probably won’t be edible by the time she gets it.)
Item: Caramel Doritos Sweets
Price: FREE
Purchased at: Received from reader Melbatoast
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Surprisingly good. Good combination of sweet and salty. Mature audiences section of eBay. Only available in Japan. Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over.”
Cons: Smells sickly sweet. Not caramel-ish. My turntablist skillz. Tara Reid in a bikini. Adam’s apples on blind dates.
REVIEW: Ito En Dr. Andrew Weil for Tea Sencha with Matcha
I don’t know much about Dr. Andrew Weil. All I know is that he’s Oprah’s good friend and has a line of Ito En teas with his name on it, like the Ito En Dr. Andrew Weil for Tea Sencha with Matcha.
Of course, I could assume other things about Dr. Weil by looking at his picture below. He could be Santa Claus. His doctorate could be in the Hippie Dark Arts, which uses free love, Grateful Dead albums, and tie-dye t-shirts for evil. His big, thick, white beard looks like it could holds deep secrets, treasure, or know where in the world is Carmen Sandiego.
I wanted to try the Ito En Dr. Andrew Weil for Tea Sencha with Matcha because I love green tea and anything six degrees of Oprah. I’ve bought all the books from Oprah’s Book Club, which have made wonderful dust collectors, and a subscription to O Magazine, because when Oprah says “jump,” I say, “How high and am I going to get a free car if I do?”
Some of you out there might not be familiar with the terms, “sencha” and “matcha.” Basically, they are both Japanese green teas. In Japanese, sencha means “broiled tea,” while matcha means “rubbed tea.” To explain it better, I’ll refer to the Ito En box, which says:
Sencha–Japan’s celebrated loose leaf tea–receives a brilliant infusion of matcha, the prized tea used in the tea ceremony. To create sencha, tea leaves are steamed and then fired to bring out a distinctive taste. For matcha, shade-grown leaves are meticulously processed and stone-ground to preserve its herbaceous vitality. When paired together, the result is a sparkling green with a smooth yet invigorating taste.
As a regular green tea connoisseur, who drinks it for its high concentration of antioxidants, to represent my Japanese background, and to stop my trembling hands when I’m jonesing for some caffeine, I’ve had my share of green tea over the years and I have to say that the Ito En Dr. Andrew Weil for Tea Sencha with Matcha is a good tasting pre-bagged tea.
Having tried matcha in its actual ceremonial Japanese green tea form, I thought the addition of it to this tea would make it very bitter. If you’ve never had green tea from a Japanese tea ceremony, its bitterness is eye-opening, like splashing your face with ice cold water or unexpectedly walking into the sight of a baby popping out of a birth canal.
Thankfully, the Ito En Dr. Andrew Weil for Tea Sencha with Matcha wasn’t very bitter at all. It wasn’t even as bitter as the Japanese green tea I usually drink, although I’m sure it would’ve been if I steeped it a little more than the instructions on the packaging said.
If there’s one thing that’s slightly bitter about the Ito En Dr. Andrew Weil for Tea Sencha with Matcha, it’s the price, which runs around seven dollars for ten tea bags. My usual green tea on sale costs $1.50 for a box of 16 tea bags; however, if Oprah says I need to buy it, I’ll buy it, just like if Oprah jumped into a volcano, I would follow.
Item: Ito En Dr. Andrew Weil for Tea Sencha with Matcha
Price: $6.99 (10 bags)
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 3 out of 5
Pros: Good green tea. Oprah. Easy to drink. Oprah. Has production date printed on it. Oprah. Green tea is full of antioxidants. Oprah. Not as bitter as my usual green tea. I love you, Oprah. Anything six degree of Oprah.
Cons: Significantly more expensive than my usual green tea. The bitterness of matcha from a Japanese tea ceremony. Hippie Dark Arts.
Method Sweet Water Aroma Ring
Meditation is something I try to do whenever I want to clear my mind, body, and soul. I’ll just sit on the floor with my legs crossed, close my eyes, inhale deeply, hold each breath for a moment, and then slowly exhale. Chanting sutras are optional…and so are clothing.
I like to call my quiet place, “solitary confinement,” because just like actual prison solitary confinement it allows me to spend time alone with myself and I get away from the daily anal raping, except anal raping to me is a metaphor for the daily grind, while for inmates it’s actual anal raping.
To get to my quiet place, I need to have optimal conditions, which is somewhat similar to the conditions needed for me to get down and shake my thang on the dance floor — a large open space, not much light, and a nice aroma in the air.
The first two are easy, because I live alone with the curtains always closed, but getting a nice aroma has been difficult to accomplish. I’ve tried obtaining meditating scents through the usual means, like incense, flowers, and cheap unemployed strippers, but I can’t light incense since I can’t have an open flame in my apartment, flowers are expensive to buy on a weekly basis, and cheap unemployed strippers quickly become employed again when they either work at another club or they decide to do porn.
A relaxing scent is essential when meditating because it’s hard to align my chakra when I’m smelling my own sweaty, deodorant-less, naked body. So over the past few weeks I’ve been trying the Method Sweet Water Aroma Ring while I meditate. It consists of a plastic ring that has slots for what Method calls a “fragrance disc,” which has a liquid fragrance that diffuses through a membrane. Think of it as aroma osmosis trying to cover up the stank that is my putrid body odor.
The Method Sweet Water Aroma Ring doesn’t need electricity or batteries to operate and it contains two fragrance discs, each of which lasts up to four weeks. If you live with a roommate who doesn’t understand the concept that higher humidity minus deodorant plus more sweat equals horrible stank, you can use two of the fragrance discs at the same time in the Aroma Ring and attach it around your neck, but for most situations, only one is needed. Additional fragrance discs can be purchased in packs of two for around five dollars.
The Sweet Water’s sweet floral scent was kind of awkward at first, but just like the aroma of my own poop, I got used to it. I also thought the Aroma Ring would make a wonderful car air freshener, but apparently its membrane hates the triple-digit temperatures that my car’s interior reaches while it’s parked in the sun. After several days in my car, the edges of the fragrance disc cracked, making it sort of look like the Eye of Sauron or the eye of one really stoned mofo.
While using the Aroma Ring during my hardcore meditation sessions I could smell its sweet scent as I sat in the middle of my darkened open space, but it wasn’t strong enough to overcome the other smells circling the room, like the frozen pizza I was baking in my oven and my sweaty, deodorant-less, naked body.
According to the packaging, the Method Aroma Ring works best in smaller rooms, like bathrooms, bedrooms, walk-in porn closets, or the secret little area you hide in whenever the police come knocking on your door. Since my meditation room is a medium-sized room, it probably wasn’t the optimal place for the Aroma Ring to do its thing.
Overall, I found that the Method Sweet Water Aroma Ring can’t provide me with a nice consistent aroma in my meditation room due the room’s size. However, the Sweet Water scent was pleasant after I got used to it and the fragrance discs lasted for a good amount of time. Personally, I think I need something with a stronger scent, because my sweaty, deodorant-less, naked body is pretty stank.
Item: Method Sweet Water Aroma Ring
Price: $8.00
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 3 out of 5
Pros: Sweet Water scent was pleasant after I got used to it. Comes with two fragrance discs. No batteries or electricity needed. Fragrance discs lasts around four weeks. Biodegradable. Kid and pet friendly. No animal testing. If you’re French, instructions also come in French. Cheap unemployed strippers.
Cons: Pricey. Replacement fragrance discs are pricey. Not good enough for a consistent aroma while I meditate. Can’t use as car air freshener. Meant for smaller rooms. Scent not powerful enough for my stank body. Looks like something drunk dudes would hump. My stank sweaty, deodorant-less, naked body. Cheap employed strippers.