Category: Spotted on Shelves

Lay’s recently introduced two new members of their snack family, the Baked! Lay’s Southwestern Ranch Flavored Potato Crisps and the Flat Earth Spicy Salsa Flavored Baked Veggie Crisps.

For a while, I enjoyed Baked! Lay’s — except the original flavor, which I believe tasted like what I imagine making out with a paper doll is like. I ate them because they were healthier than their fried counterparts, which made me feel less guilty when I ate an entire bag in one sitting to help make a Home Improvement marathon on Nick at Nite a little more tolerable. The Southwestern Ranch flavor will come in handy when I want to make a Frasier marathon a little more bearable.

The Baked! Lay’s Southwestern Ranch contains 120 calories, 3 grams of fat, 0.5 grams of saturated fat, 160 milligrams of sodium and 2 grams of dietary fiber. It’s also gluten-free.

I originally learned about Flat Earth veggie crisps from a number of mommy bloggers I follow. Yeah, I follow a few mommy bloggers, but not because I’m the father of their children. These mommy bloggers raved about how great of a snack it was because it was tasty and provided some vegetables. When I tried them, I very much enjoyed them and then quickly purchased whatever else the mommy bloggers suggested, which was a mistake because I now have a breast milk pump.

Damn those mommy bloggers are influential!

If the Spicy Salsa is as good as the other Flat Earth flavors, some hot momma bloggers are probably going to love these.

The Flat Earth Spicy Salsa has 130 calories, 5 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 180 milligrams of sodium and 2 grams of dietary fiber.

Starbucks recently launched a new super-premium ice cream in flavors that will be familiar to those Starbucks junkies who know the coffee giant’s menu better than the back of their hand. Of course, for those addicts it’s hard to see the back of their hand without spilling the Starbucks coffee it’s holding.

The new, perky ice cream line replaces the old, saggy ice cream line made by Dreyer’s. Unilever will produce it and make the ice cream with milk that’s free of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), just like Ben & Jerry’s — another company under the Unilever umbrella.

Again, if you have Starbucks running through your veins and exiting you through your urethra, the flavors that make up the new ice cream line will be familiar to you:

Caramel Macchiato – Swirled coffee and vanilla ice creams with ribbons of golden caramel.

Mocha Frappuccino – Swirled coffee and chocolate ice creams.

Java Chip Frappuccino – Coffee ice cream with dark chocolaty chunks.

Coffee – Swirled coffee and espresso ice creams.

Pints will be available at your favorite grocer, convenience store or superstore monstrosity for a suggested retail price of $3.99.

(Update: Read our review of the coffee flavor here.)

The new eco-friendly Ziploc evolve sandwich and storage bags are made from a new resin that uses 25% less plastic than their regular bags, are manufactured using approximately 50% renewable wind energy and packaged in a 100% recycled box, with at least 35% postconsumer content.

While all of this might be fine and dandy to the casual environmentalist, the maniacal, Captain Planet costume-wearing treehugger would point to the fact that if these bags are so evolved, why is the E in “evolve” lowercase and why don’t they have powers like the characters on Heroes?

A level-headed (not crazy) treehugger who doesn’t dress up in tights and paints their skin blue would probably wonder why Ziploc didn’t do more, since most of their bags probably end up in landfills and are difficult to recycle because they’re made out of #4 plastics.

The Ziploc evolve bags seem like a step in the right direction, but it would be more impressive if all of their bags were made this way.

The bags are available in sandwich ($2.49), quart ($3.49) and gallon ($3.49) sizes.

Ben & Jerry’s recently introduced two new flavors to their lineup of creamy creations: the creatively named Mission to Marzipan and the unimaginative Chocolate Macadamia, which a Chunky Monkey armed with a typewriter could’ve named. Both flavors contain nuts in some shape or form.

The Mission to Marzipan flavor is made up of sweet cream ice cream with almond cookies and a Marzipan swirl. Marzipan is a sweet, yellowish paste of ground almonds, sugar, and egg whites. And knowing what it is will impress your foodie friends. The Chocolate Macadamia consists of chocolate and vanilla ice creams with fudge covered macadamia nuts. While Mission to Marzipan has the creative name, the Chocolate Macadamia can brag about the fact that its macadamias, cocoa and vanilla are Fair Trade-certified.

The Mission to Marzipan has 260 calories, 13 grams of fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, 32 grams of carbs and 25 grams of sugar per 1/2 cup serving. The Chocolate Macadamia has 270 calories, 18 grams of fat, 12 grams of saturated fat, 25 grams of carbs and 22 grams of sugar per serving.

(You can read a review of the Chocolate Macadamia flavor here.)

I’m not a connoisseur of cheeses, except for Kraft American slices and Velveeta, so I don’t know if I should be impressed with the Wheat Thins Artisan Cheese Crackers that have either Vermont White Cheddar or Wisconsin Colby cheese baked into it. I’m going to assume that the Wisconsin Colby cheese version will be good because if I’ve learned anything from watching Green Bay Packers games, it’s that Wisconsin knows how to make cheese. Or they’re really good at making cheese hats.

These crackers also come in a hexagon shape, instead of the usual Wheat Thins tetragon, which I think was a mistake. They should’ve gone with an octagon to jump on the chiseled, sweaty and bloody back of mixed martial arts.

The Vermont White Cheddar version has 140 calories, 5 grams of fat, 1 grams of saturated fat, 0 gram of trans fat, 230 milligrams of sodium, 21 grams of carbs and 1 gram of fiber per 12 cracker serving. The Wisconsin Colby cheese has 130 calories, 5 grams of fat, 1 gram saturated fat, 0 gram of trans fat, 220 milligrams of sodium, 21 grams of carbs and 1 gram of fiber per serving.