The color blind life can be challenging. I can remember struggling with colors since a young age, receiving criticism from my teachers for coloring the grass orange and pumpkins green in my coloring book – even though that’s what I actually saw. My inability to properly identify many of the colors soon brought forth a dislike for multicolored objects. Even sitting through an episode of Reading Rainbow was excruciating because of all the different colors in the logo – and I love LeVar Burton!

With so much color-related difficulty in my life, you might think that I would hate such a colorful candy as M&M’s, but no. For some reason, I love the little rainbow candy-coated pieces of chocolate. Sure, I might not be able to correctly tell you which colors I’m eating, but they still taste amazing. Plus, their tiny size makes them so easy to eat! My record is 154 M&M’s in three minutes. (I’m like Takeru Kobayashi, but instead of shoving wieners in my mouth, I eat candy.)

I was pretty excited when I heard about Mars’ new M&M’s Chocolate Bar. So excited, in fact, that my inner Tommy Wise broke free, and I thought, “Oh hi, Mars. M&M’s inside my candy bar? You think about everything, ha ha ha.”

But wait – haven’t I seen this M&M’s Chocolate Bar somewhere before? Oh, that’s right. Back in 2004, Mars introduced the M-Azing chocolate bar, which was only available in peanut butter and crunchy flavors. I can vaguely recall tasting an M-Azing bar and disliking it. Let’s hope this M&M Chocolate Bar does better.

I found the M&M Chocolate Bar at my local Target in the candy bar section next to the check-out line. At a mere seventy-nine cents per bar, it seemed like a true bargain.

After removing the chocolate bar’s wrapper, I instantly noticed the imprinted design of an anthropomorphic M&M man. I don’t usually find anthropomorphic creatures on my candy bars, so this was a pleasant surprise. The chocolate bar is divided into eight sections for easy distribution among eight friends. Or if you’re like me and don’t have any friends, you’ll have to distribute the eight pieces to the various homeless men who follow you home from work everyday.

The brightly colored mini M&M’s can be seen peeking through the chocolate, giving the bar a subtle rainbow appearance. When compared to more commonly purchased chocolate such as the Hershey Bar, the M&M’s Chocolate Bar’s smell is a bit more rich and powerful, but the scent is pleasant nonetheless.

After taking my first bite of the M&M Chocolate Bar, I was surprised that the M&M’s contributed significantly less crunch than I expected. Since the M&M’s are the mini variety, they don’t add much texture to the bar. In fact, I found it pretty difficult to distinguish the M&M’s from the normal chocolate part of the bar while chewing. Everything blends together into one chocolatey mass.

Unfortunately, the chocolate used in the bar isn’t the best. It’s super sweet, almost too rich, and the M&M’s give it a somewhat chalky texture. Furthermore, it left a funny aftertaste and a strange feeling in my throat after eating all eight pieces.

Perhaps if Mars had used a higher quality chocolate in their new M&M’s Chocolate Bar, I might be a bit more of a fan. Although it’s super inexpensive, there are other chocolate bars on the market I would prefer to purchase. The M&M’s found inside of the bar fail to enhance the already unsatisfying chocolate base. Maybe if the M&M’s Chocolate Bar magically cured colorblindness, I’d consider purchasing it again, but next time, I’ll be passing this one by in the supermarket.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 bar – 220 calories, 110 calories from fat, 12 grams of total fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 15 milligrams of cholesterol, 30 milligrams of sodium, 27 grams of total carbohydrates, 1 grams of dietary fiber, 26 grams of sugars, and 3 grams of protein.)

Other Milk Chocolate M&M’s Chocolate Bar reviews:
Candy Blog

Item: Milk Chocolate M&M’s Chocolate Bar
Purchased Price: 79 cents
Size: 1.5 oz.
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Super cheap. Pleasant chocolatey scent. Awesome anthropomorphic M&M man imprint. References to Tommy Wiseau.
Cons: Low quality chocolate. M&M’s blend in with the rest of the bar. Funny aftertaste. Doesn’t cure color blindness.

Back in the good ol’ medieval days, when the world used catapults and ate turkey legs the size of canoe paddles, some hungry, conquering genius gathered a bunch of leftovers and root vegetables, shoved them in the oven, and called it a recipe. Thus, the lumpy, bumpy carrot cake was born.

Now, for those yet to be familiarized, a carrot cake is a spice cake that had dashed dreams of being a fruit cake: it’s fluffy cake crammed with all sorts of this-n-that’s (raisins, carrots, maybe some pineapple) and topped with a honking slather of buttercream or cream cheese frosting. Its warm spices have been known to carve a soft spot in the calloused hearts of one-eyed sailors and, when placed before me, it disappears.

Unfortunately, I’m no baker, so when I heard the folks at Mars were serving up that experience in a lentil-shaped white chocolate confection, I sped, tight-knuckled, pedal-to-the-floor, to the nearest Walmart to dig them from their hiding spot in the dusty display case.

These are pudgy ovoids, notably bigger than a regular M&M. If you’ve had the white chocolate limited edition, you have a feel of what we’re dealing with here: they’re a smidge wider in diameter than milk chocolate M&M’s and have a rounder belly.

See? They’re huge.

The colors come in a trio of light orange, green, and beige, which not only stays with the theme of “carrot colors” but also reinforces my inner belief that all good things come in threes, and it’s always nice to have my inner beliefs spontaneously reinforced.

Like its white chocolate cousin, these sweet bits have a thicker shell, adding a crunch before the white chocolate filling, which is soft, sweet, milky, and melts as fast as the memories of those poems I had to recite back in high school (“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood…” [she shudders])

One of the biggest problems I’ve faced in white chocolate M&Ms of the past is that, due to all that sweetness, it’s hard to eat more than a handful without passing out cold on the floor from a belligerent sugar rush to my frontal lobe. I celebrate with such gluttonous joy to find that these are far easier to eat. These start off sweet and, while there are no visible spices, there is a certain cinnamon/nutmeg-ish vibe that comes in the middle to contrast with the white chocolate, encouraging a higher ratio of consumption. They may give me a root canal, but I don’t care. That yoga teacher I took classes from three years ago told me to stay in the present, so I shall enjoy these right now…

And now…

And now…

In the end, eating these makes me want to do something good for the world. Like adopt a rescued guinea pig. Or educate elementary school kids about the importance of their credit score. Or pay those library fees I’ve neglected for four years. These are a solid rendition of a seasonal offering: creative enough to be pushing the boundaries, but familiar enough to inspire mouth-shoving tendencies. What’s even more exciting is that Mars took a risk and it paid off. The only downside is that I’m running out of them…and fast.

(Nutrition Facts – 1.5 oz. (about 1/4 cup) – 220 calories, 100 calories from fat, 11 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 40 milligrams of sodium, 0 milligrams of potassium, 29 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 28 grams of sugars, and 2 grams of protein.)

Item: White Chocolate Carrot Cake M&M’s
Purchased Price: $2.88
Size: 9.9 oz. bag
Purchased at: Walmart*
Rating: 9 out of 10
Pros: Bigger than the average M&M. Smooth melt. Crunchy shell. Spice taste balances white chocolate. Spontaneous reinforcement of inner beliefs. Rescued guinea pigs.
Cons: Never enough in the bag. Limited time. Only available at Walmart. Poobahs. Poems memorized in high school. Disco-ball-related accidents.

*If there’s a miff I have with these, it’s how hard they are to find. They’re available at “select” Walmarts only, which may or may not involve a fill up of your gas tank (a tragedy within itself)

When I bite into a White Chocolate Peppermint M&M’s, I get the sensation that I’ve just stepped out of the shower and into a freezer.

My nipples perk out and other body parts perk in. Every hair on my body stands up and every muscle in my body twitches uncontrollably in response to the cold environment. Then, when I can feel my organs failing, I think to myself, “So this is what it’s like to die on Mount Everest.”

But then I realize, just like in the York Peppermint Patty commercials, what I’m feeling is a complete exaggeration in my head and is no where close to what it actually feels like to take a bite into any peppermint chocolate candy. And it turns out all I’m really doing is standing naked in front of a window on a breezy day.

However, when I bite into a White Chocolate Peppermint M&M’s a second time, I get the sensation of sadness because I realize this tasty seasonal candy won’t be available come January or February, unless I’m willing to pay anywhere from $9.99 to $15.99 for a bag from an avaricious eBay or Amazon Marketplace seller.

These new minty M&M’s are great, but not $9.99 great.

Although that sadness could taste significantly less bitter if I became an avaricious eBay or Amazon Marketplace seller who gouged desperate souls wanting hard-to-find candy.

After opening the bag of White Chocolate Peppermint M&M’s, my olfaction was greeted with a blast of mint. It was as if someone stuck the hook end of two candy canes up my nostrils in order to drag me away. The minty M&M’s were coated with either red or white candy shells and are noticeably larger than regular M&M’s, but slightly smaller than Peanut M&M’s.

So how pepperminty are these M&M’s? Well, let’s just say that, in a pinch, I would pop a couple in my mouth to freshen my breath so I can invade someone’s personal space. They’re also minty enough that a cooling sensation lingered in my mouth for a while after eating them. The White Chocolate Peppermint M&M’s tasted slightly more minty than sweet and I found them to be much more satisfying than the other minty M&M’s — mint milk chocolate and mint dark chocolate.

However, all is not perfect with this candy.

First, I don’t like how these white chocolate M&M’s tend to “sweat” when in slightly warm temperatures, making their candy shells a little greasy. Although that might be my fault for living on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Also, while these White Chocolate Peppermint M&M’s are really wonderful, I find them to be like dense cheesecake in that it’s hard to eat a lot of them. I want to eat more, but I can’t.

If you’re a fan of peppermint, I’d highly suggest heading down to your local Target to pick up a bag (It’s a Target exclusive). Or if you want to be an eBay or Amazon Marketplace seller who charges unreasonable prices for hard-to-find candy, head to every Target within driving distance to pick up every single bag you can find.

(Nutrition Facts – 1.5 ounces – 220 calories, 100 calories from fat, 11 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 40 milligrams of sodium, 28 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 27 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein, and 4% calcium.)

Other White Chocolate Peppermint M&M’s reviews:
Candyblog
Spoil Your Dinner
Fatguy Food Blog

Item: White Chocolate Peppermint M&M’s
Purchased Price: $2.99
Size: 9.90 ounce bag
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Wonderful. Best mint M&M’s ever. More minty than sweet. Works as a mint in a pinch. Making money by selling bags of M&M’s for $15.99 on eBay and Amazon Marketplace.
Cons: Candy shell gets greasy in warm temperatures. Target exclusive. Hard to chain eat them. Seasonal item. eBay and Amazon Marketplace sellers who charge $15.99 for a bag of M&M’s.

Scientists at Cadbury UK have developed a chocolate that will remain solid in 104 degree Fahrenheit heat for up to three hours. Usually chocolate melts at 93 degree Fahrenheit, unless it’s M&M’s which melts at whatever temperature your hand is.

According to Cadbury, the chocolate will be used in their chocolate bars sold in warmer countries, like India and Brazil, but won’t be sold in the United Kingdom. While that fact has upset some British folks, Ray Bradbury fan in me is disappointed the hard-to-melt chocolate isn’t being called UK Cadbury’s Fahrenheit 104.

The chocolate’s melting point is higher thanks to a technique the Cadbury scientists developed which turns the sugar into smaller pieces, allowing less fat to cover each particle, which allows it to withstand higher temperatures than regular chocolate.

So I guess this new chocolate won’t melt in my mouth unless I have a fever, I’m sitting in a car on a summer day with the windows rolled up, or I’m somewhere in Arizona.

Source: The Telegraph

Lethargy and laze with a high chance of napping.

These are the symptoms of the post-Thanksgiving coma.

Despite my foreknowledge of said tryptophan comatose, I remained surprised when I awoke last Friday with enough mental fog to cause a Los Angeles brownout. In a moment of clarity, I thumped down to the forgiving lights of the local Kmart in search of a cure.

Thankfully, the shelves were stocked to the brim with an abundance of seasonal sucrose offerings promising the sugar rush needed to counteract my case of the Thanksgiving Sleepies. Seeing as this is the time of year I find new ways to sneak a mug of hot chocolate into my daily schedule, it seemed fitting to initiate my cure with a shiny new bag of 3 Musketeers Hot Cocoa Minis.

Nothing like a bag of sugary polyhedra to snap me wide awake.

Each mini comes in the form of a little 25-calorie cube, which, in my mind, makes them multi-taskers. They’re just the right size for snacking, sharing, or plopping between graham crackers. They would also make perfect checker/chess pieces. That way, when you whoop your opponent, you can also eat his/her pieces.

I could also see them serving as excellent Lincoln Logs.

3 Musketeers: fueling the minds for a new generation of architects.

The outer shell of milk chocolate here seems a bit thinner than the ol’ regular bar, but it adds the appropriate sweet snap before arriving at the nougat core.

Oh, nougat, what a legacy you have in the world of chocolate bars.

The poof of nougat within a 3 Musketeers is stuck in an existential void between goo and fluff, and, by gum, it’s a tasty existential void. The nougat here is chocolate and seems quite similar to the original…almost too similar. However, if you close your eyes and use your imagination, you may detect a certain toasty-powdery-ness, which I suspect is meant to mimic powdered hot chocolate. Peculiar for my taste, but I admired it for what it hoped to achieve.

The one biggie that left me broken-hearted was the absence of the marshmallow. Perhaps the nougat itself was meant to represent said fluff? Or perhaps the marshmallow melted in the cooking process? I was unsure and semi-suspicious.

Nonetheless, I wanted to make sure I followed through with the “hot” part of the “hot cocoa” theme, so I crammed seven of the cubes in a mug and zapped them in the microwave for 5 seconds. Oh buddy, was that worth it. At first glance it looked like nothing had changed, but, upon whipping out a spoon and digging in, the cubes smooshed together to form a gooey, cake batter-like substance [fair warning: if you microwave, it gets a little messy, so consider microwaving in something you’d be willing to throw away].

Lots of beautiful things are small. Paperclips. Tangerines. Travel shampoo bottles. While it’s hard to beat travel shampoo bottles, I’d give these 3 Musketeers the thumbs-up to join the group. They’re convenient little packages of chocolate-y joy that taste at least 15 times better than a jungle of tropical poinsettias. At the same time, they feel dangerously close to the original, giving them broad possibilities to grow. Keep growing, 3 Musketeers, keep growing.

(Nutrition Facts – 7 pieces – 180 calories, 45 calories from fat, 4 grams of fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 70 milligrams of sodium, 31 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 27 grams of sugars, and 1 gram of protein.)

Other 3 Musketeers Hot Cocoa with Marshmallow Minis reviews:
Foodette Reviews
Spoil Your Dinner

Item: 3 Musketeers Hot Cocoa with Marshmallow Minis
Purchased Price: $3.49
Size: 10 oz. bag
Purchased at: Kmart
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Snappy milk chocolate coating. Nice size. Nougat legacy. Lincoln Logs. Gooey cake batter. Travel shampoo bottles.
Cons: Peculiar toasty-powdery taste. A bit too close to the original. Absence of marshmallows. Nougat in an existential void. Thanksgiving comas. Eating tropical poinsettias.

“Limited Edition.”

The mere phrase has the power to transform, taking common fare and turning it into a full-on, hands-down life experience so that, 50-or-so years from now, you can sit on your porch and bang a cane on the ground as you tell some young band of whipper-snappers, “I remember, when I was your age, we used to have good ol’ fashioned Limited Edition French Vanilla Milky Ways!” Oh, the fulfillment that will come from such a pronouncement.

And, indeed, this was the thought that graced my mind as I perused the aisles of my friendly 24-hour pharmacy, searching in vain for those Halloween white chocolate M&M’s only to find the shelves empty as the Arizona duck ponds in the middle of July. As I felt myself drowning in a candy-induced crisis, a single wrapper reached out its hand. It was my rock. My salvation. And it came in the form of a 1.72-ounce bar.

(Cue the angelic chorus from above!)

The wrapper is nothing short of mind-controlling genius. Did you see that caramel curl? The swirly background? The thick design of chocolate enveloped by vanilla flora? That’s how you do mind control, people.

The Milky Way and I have had a fond affair over the past years, spending many-a-summer’s day in its various deliciously sweet forms (half-melted, frozen, in ice cream, in cookies, and so forth), thus made it the perfect companion for my pillow-fort-and-mid-90s-movie marathon this past weekend.

In many ways, this Milky Way harkens back to the classic. The milk chocolate coating is still the thick shell it’s always been and caramel is still that welcoming stretchy goo of sweetness. The marked difference in this limited fare is in the vanilla nougat.

Just upon opening the bar, the smell of vanilla poofs into the air. After taking a bite, I wouldn’t describe it so much as a “French Vanilla” as I would a “Vanilla Flavoring” (think along the lines of vanilla pudding or Vanilla Coffee-mate Creamer), and is it just me or is the texture fluffier than usual? Yes, yes indeed. Pleasantly reminiscent of a marshmallow, too.

This sweet-on-sweet-on-sweet is something I happen to enjoy. However, I have a certain resilience that transcends the average sweet tooth, so this may be too sweet for some. If you need a little bitter to accompany your sweet, I could see this making for a stellar coffee stirrer (or, in honor of its francophone title, perhaps dip it in a little espresso cup while dining at a petite café). Of course, you could also whip out some graham crackers, toss the bar in the microwave for a few seconds, and boom! You have insta-s’more.

Glancing over the ingredients, I would recommend suppressing the whole “hydrogenated oils” and “30 percent of your recommended intake of saturated fat” jibber jabber. What really matters is hidden…

Do you see it?

Indeed! That’s skim milk! And egg whites! And more skim milk! These are the essential ingredients in a balanced breakfast! Watch out Wheaties. Milky Way is on your tail.

(The perfect way to start the day)

This Milky Way may not have sparks and whistles and buzzes. Heck, it doesn’t even have sea salt, but it does have yumminess, and maybe that’s why this Limited Edition Milky Way was put on this Earth: to remind us that it’s okay to not be revolutionary. Yummy is just fine.

(Nutrition Facts – 220 calories, 80 calories from fat, 8 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 65 milligrams of sodium, 35 grams of carbohydrates, 0 gram of dietary fiber, 30 grams of sugars, and 2 grams of protein.)

Other Limited Edition Milky Way French Vanilla and Caramel reviews:
Mmm…Deliciousness

Item: Limited Edition Milky Way French Vanilla and Caramel
Purchased Price: $1.49
Size: 1.72 ounces
Purchased at: Walgreens
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Marshmallow-like nougat. Sweet. Mixing of old and new. Milky Way for breakfast. Pillow forts. S’more-related experiments.
Cons: Sweetness may be too much for some. Not very good for you. The unknown origins of “Vanilla Flavoring.” Mind control. Dried up duck ponds.

Update: Click here for our White Chocolate Peppermint M&M’s review

Mars puts out minty milk chocolate M&M’s and minty dark chocolate M&M’s, so by the power of deduction they had to make these minty white chocolate M&M’s. Yes, the minty M&M’s trilogy is complete. Although, if George Lucas has taught us anything it’s that trilogies can always be extended.

Just like last year’s Cinnamon M&M’s, I found the White Chocolate Peppermint M&M’s at Target. And just like last year’s Cinnamon M&M’s, they’ll most definitely be 30-50 percent cheaper if you buy them the day after Christmas.

A 1.5 ounce serving size has 220 calories, 11 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 40 milligrams of sodium, 28 grams of carbohydrates, 27 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of fiber.

I don’t give out candy to children on Halloween.

Call me a Halloween Scrooge, a recluse, or someone who doesn’t watch enough Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network to know what kids are dressing up as today, but I don’t do it because I’m a hermit, cheap, or getting tired of kids pretending they’re Harry Potter.

I don’t pass out candy on Halloween because I eat it all before I have a chance to give it away.

I can’t help it. I buy the good stuff, like M&M’s, Twix, Nestle Crunch, Milky Way, Snickers, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and Nerds, and I intend to pass them out to ensure local dentists will have work, but by the time Halloween rolls around I’m out of candy and I no longer fit into my sexy pirate outfit.

To prevent me from eating the candy, I could pass out frown-inducing sweets, like candy corn (blech!), chocolate coins (more worthless than pennies), Smarties (there’s nothing smart about them), Good & Plenty (not good and, unfortunately, there are plenty of people passing them out), Now and Later (there’s never a good time for this candy), cheap gum (gum from 1980s baseball card packs have better flavor), or Sixlets (more like Sixlet’s Not). However, I don’t want to be known as the Asian guy dressed up as a sexy pirate who gives away junk candy that’ll end up on my lawn the next morning. Instead, I want to be the Asian guy dressed up as a sexy pirate who passes out candy so awesome that children will think the stomachache they woke up with was sooo totally worth it.

However, it looks like I might be giving away some candy this year because I’m having a slightly hard time getting through a bag of these new Caramel Apple Milky Way Minis.

The new seasonal candy combines caramel and flavored nougat coated with milk chocolate. Each piece smells like the fruity and sweet aroma that wafts out of a Whitman’s Sampler after opening it. If you’re one of those douchebags who tries to appear cool by throwing food in the air and catching it with your mouth, these mini Milky Way are mouth-catchable and I hope a bird poops in your mouth when you open it to try and catch a piece.

If you’re expecting this candy to taste like a caramel apple, let me crush your hopes and dreams by telling you they don’t. Even if you used your front teeth to completely scrape off the thin layer of milk chocolate, the small morsel of nougat and caramel you’re left with also doesn’t taste like a caramel apple.

The nougat contains the apple flavor (along with a bit of nutmeginess), although at first it’s hard to determine it has an apple flavor. The apple is a bit more noticeable in the aftertaste, which is when it also become a bit more artificial tasting. The caramel tastes, unsurprisingly, like the caramel in regular Milky Way bars and does an equally awesome job of sticking to my teeth.

Although the artificial apple flavor is faint, my tongue gets sick of it before it reaches the five piece serving size. And that’s why it’s taking me so long to finish this bag. Now you might be thinking if I don’t complete enjoy them, then Trick or Treaters will feel the same. That’s true, but they’re much better than candy corn, chocolate coins, Smarties, Good & Plenty, Now and Later, cheap gum, and Sixlets.

(Nutrition Facts – 5 pieces – 190 calories, 60 calories from fat, 7 grams of fat, 5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 10 milligrams of cholesterol, 60 milligrams of sodium, 31 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 26 grams of sugar, and 1 gram of protein.)

Other Milky Way Caramel Apple Minis reviews:
Candyblog
The Surfing Pizza
Fatguy Food Blog

Item: Limited Edition Milky Way Caramel Apple Minis
Purchased Price: $3.29
Size: 11.50 ounces
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: It’s not bad at first. Better than candy corn, chocolate coins, Smarties, Good & Plenty, Now and Later, cheap gum, and Sixlets. Pleasantly chewy.
Cons: Doesn’t taste like caramel apples. Apple flavor is weak and artificial. Candy corn, chocolate coins, Smarties, Good & Plenty, Now and Later, cheap gum, and Sixlets. Not being able to fit into my sexy pirate costume.

Jelly Belly, the company that makes jelly beans in flavors that your heart does and doesn’t desire, has teamed up with Tabasco to produce sweet and spicy jelly beans.

The new jelly bean flavor uses genuine Tabasco seasoning, giving them the flavor and kick Tabasco lovers will enjoy. It will also give those who get off on eating Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans a new weird flavor to try.

Jelly Belly’s Tabasco Jelly Belly beans are currently available in bulk, in case you wanted to burn your mouth for hours by chain eating them. A webpage to order 3.1-ounce bags is up on the company’s online store, but according to the Drugstore News story, Jelly Belly won’t release the Tabasco flavor in the smaller bags until December.

Do you think Tabasco-flavored jelly beans are weird? Let us know in the comments.

Source: Drugstore News

I get my hands on Wasabi Kit Kat from Japan. Is it oishi or warui? Find out in this review.

Length – 2 min. 29 sec.

Natto picture in video courtesy of Rodzilla Reviews

Other Wasabi Kit Kat reviews:
Japanese Snack Reviews
ZOMG Candy
Foodette Reviews

It’s pretty hard, growing up and being obligated to cast away a lot of the things you enjoyed as a kid.

Not that I don’t cling to my inner child like a life preserver, but there are still a few facets of youth that are rather difficult to carry on into adulthood. Things like tall glasses of milk, bubblegum flavored toothpaste, SpongeBob Band-Aids, and Flintstones vitamins.

Graduating to the bitter pill from basically a chewable candy was one of the hardest transitions I had to make into manhood. But is it still necessary?

You may already know the score from the One A Day VitaCraves Gummies review in 2009. One A Day has been gradually expanding their line gummy vitamins for adults, recently coming out with two new blends tailored to specialize in men’s and woman’s health, much like their already existent Men’s and Women’s Formula pills.

I picked up a rather expensive bottle of 50 gummies and a box of Men’s Health Formula, and was saddened to see how many vitamins were omitted in the making of the gummy blend.

The gummies are, in fact, completely trumped nutritionally by their pill counterparts. Straying away from their definitive brand name, it is also still required to consume Two A Day instead of One, which halves that 50-count to a mere 25 doses.

They still come in three fantastic fruit flavors – apple, cherry, and blue raspberry, which were all true to their pleasing but generic artificial taste.

They’re similar to real gummies enough to tempt me into having more than the suggested amount, but with a very light bitterness that sort of reminds me of cough syrup. They’re also slightly chewy, a non-issue for people like myself that grew up on Haribo Gummi Bears.

After I polish off this bottle in under a month, I probably won’t be coming back to One A Day Men’s VitaCraves Gummies. They’re tasty, to be sure, but at almost $9 a bottle, I’d sooner stick with my Kirkland Signature Daily Multi.

(Supplement Facts – 2 gummies – 15 calories, 3 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of sugar, 4 000 IU of Vitamin A, 75 milligrams of Vitamin C, 400 IU of Vitamin D, 30 IU of Vitamin E, 5 milligrams of Vitamin B6, 400 mcg of Folic Acid, 15 mcg of Vitamin B12, 600 mcg of Biotin, 10 milligrams of Pantothenic Acid, 150 mcg of Iodine, 5 milligrams of Zinc, 110 mcg of Selenium, 60 mcg of Choline, 40 mcg of Insitol)

Item: One A Day Men’s VitaCraves Gummies
Purchased Price: $8.79
Size: 50 tummies
Purchased at: Publix
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Taste enough like gummy fruit snacks. Real supplement nutrition. High levels of B vitamins. Flintstones vitamins.
Cons: Still slightly bitter. Trumped by One A Day Men’s Health Formula. Taking Two instead of One A Day. Ridiculously overpriced. Bitter pills.

The first day of November is like Christmas for those who like Halloween candy because overnight all the Halloween candy still on the shelves magically becomes 30-50 percent cheaper than the day before. This is also when Christmas candy starts appearing on shelves, but at full price.

One candy you’ll see this holiday season replacing all the Halloween stuff is Twix Sugar Cookie Minis. They have the same old Twix chocolate and caramel, but the cookie finger is replaced with a sugar cookie finger that has colorful sugar sprinkles inside it.

Twix Sugar Cookie Minis will be available sometime in November, replacing Halloween-themed Twix bars, and have a suggested retail price of $3.99 for a 10.5 ounce bag.

Source: Candyblog

Update (11/5/2012): It turns out it’s on shelves now. Here’s our review.

The Limited Edition Milky Way French Vanilla and Caramel won’t be available until February 2013.

Yup, Mars announces new candy bars half a year before they’re scheduled to be released. What an awesome way to build up excitement, let all of us forget about it, and then surprise us again when they finally release it.

About two weeks after you read this post, you’ll probably forget it’s coming because, to be honest, the combination of French vanilla-flavored nougat and caramel is kind of forgettable.

You know what candy bar wasn’t forgettable when we learned about it five months before its release?

This.

The 1.72-ounce Limited Edition Milky Way French Vanilla and Caramel bar will have a suggested retail price of $1.09.

Sources: Foodbeast and Candy and Snack Today

Who doesn’t want things when they want them? For a culture that has found a way to hasten the delivery of materials in nearly every facet of life, we have yet to master the forever elusive and infinitely-adored Girl Scout Cookie. Unavailable anywhere but from the hands of the enterprising young scouts themselves, these cookies cannot be a more prized item. I’ve seen grown adults hoard these delicious treats like canned peaches in a 1962 bomb shelter.

One guy I knew could fill a tractor trailer with all the boxes of Tagalongs he’d stockpiled through the years. Another friend packed a large freezer in her garage with boxes upon boxes of Thin Mints, swearing that they tasted even better partially-thawed. All of this makes me believe that after the apocalypse, only two things will populate the earth: Cockroaches and frozen boxes of Samoas.

However, every year, the rest of us are forced to wait until Girl Scout Cookies go on sale. I know that when that much-anticipated order form starts making the rounds at the office, delicious and enticing visions of Thin Mints and my beloved Trefoils begin to dance through my head. But having a whole box of cookies (or more) to yourself is a spare-tire-inducing event. Good thing the Girl Scouts have teamed up with Nestlé to create Nestlé Crunch Limited Edition Girl Scouts candy bars. Now I can have the taste of authentic Girl Scout cookies in a bite-sized package TODAY. For a limited time.

Since Thin Mints are the most popular Girl Scout Cookie of all time, it makes sense to review the Nestlé Crunch Limited Edition Thin Mints Girl Scouts candy bar. True fans will not be disappointed. The Nestlé Crunch Thin Mints candy bar is a very nice amalgamation of everything we love about original Crunch bars and Thin Mints: “Dark chocolate cookie wafers and mint chocolate créme, topped with airy crispies.” You get two bars in a wrapper, so it’s double the pleasure, double the fun. The candy tastes like the real thing except for the “airy crispie” bits, but those add a nice texture.

If you think about it, these Nestlé Crunch Thin Mints candy bars are like an ultra-light, super-portable box of cookies! Way to go, Nestlé Crunch Limited Edition Thin Mints Girl Scouts candy bars! Yes, that’s an overly wordy title for something with a delightfully simple flavor. They’ve definitely got the “mint” part down with the tasty créme, but the “thin” part must have (thankfully) been lost in translation because these bars are pretty thick and coated in dense dark chocolate. You can’t go wrong with more dark chocolate.

Also, the layered cookie wafers create a more delicate crunch than the original Thin Mint cookies which is pretty awesome. We’re talking crispy — As crispy as your burnout neighbor in college who always wore socks with soccer sandals and kept showing up asking if you had any salsa.

Those of us who adore Thin Mints may agree that waiting for Thin Mints to come out once per year is a real trial, so the Nestlé Crunch Limited Edition Thin Mints Girl Scouts candy bars are a nice stop-gap. Impatient cookie hoarders rejoice!

(Nutrition Facts – 1 package – 200 calories, 100 fat calories, 11 grams of fat, 10 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 90 milligrams of sodium, 24 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 16 grams of sugar, 1 gram of protein, 0% Calcium, 4% Iron, 10% Vitamin C, and 0% Vitamin A.)

Other Nestlé Crunch Limited Edition Thin Mints Girl Scouts Candy Bar review:
Candyblog
Foodette Reviews

Item: Nestlé Crunch Limited Edition Thin Mints Girl Scouts Candy Bar
Purchased Price: $1.19
Size: 1.3 ounces (36.8 grams)
Purchased at: CVS
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Cookie hoarding. Dense dark chocolate coating. Airy crispies. Double your pleasure.
Cons: Having to wait 12 months for delicious Girl Scout Cookies. Socks with sandals. Spare tires. Only available for a limited time.

Update: Click here to read our Nestle Crunch Limited Edition Thin Mints Girl Scouts Candy Bar review

A few of months ago, the internet went crazy when an image of a Nestle Crunch Girl Scout Thin Mints candy bar was posted on Reddit. Some thought it was fake, but it ended up being real, and now we’re really close to enjoying that Nestle Crunch Girl Scout Thin Mints candy bar, which will be released next month, along with two other varieties.

The three Nestle Crunch Girl Scout Candy Bars varieties are:

Thin Mints – Dark chocolate cookie wafers and mint chocolate creme, topped with crispies and a rich, dark chocolatey coating

Caramel & Coconut – Cookie wafers layered with coconut caramel creme and chewy caramel, topped with toasted coconut and drizzled with caramel stripes

Peanut Butter Creme РCookie wafers layered with smooth peanut butter cr̬me, topped with crispies and a chocolatey coating

The candy bars will be available nationwide for a limited time, beginning June 1 through September. But if you’re impatient and really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really want them, you can order them through a special, limited supply pre-sale program via the Nestle Crunch Facebook page. Aw, pre-sale…that’s cute. Just like regular Girl Scout Cookies.

Even though candy bars have the Girl Scouts name, Girl Scout Troops won’t be selling them.