The Impulsive Buy

SPOTTED ON SHELVES – 1/20/2016

January 20, 2016March 8, 2023 Marvo 3 Comments

Here are some interesting new and limited edition products found on store shelves by us and your fellow readers. If you’ve tried any of the products, share your thoughts about them in the comments.

Betty Crocker Limited Edition Raspberry Mojito Cupcake & Frosting Kit

You’re drunk, Betty Crocker! Also, this is the only photo in this post that will not have any of the following words: organic, pure, and natural. (Spotted by Carla at Walmart.)

International Delight Simply Pure Vanilla Coffee Creamer

International Delight Simply Pure Hazelnut Coffee Creamer

International Delight Simply Pure Caramel Coffee Craemer

International Delight Simply Pure Caramel Coffee Creamer

According to the ingredients, they’re made with real milk, cream, sugar, and guar gum. (Spotted by Lindsay A at Meijer.)

Capri Sun Organic (Grape and Fruit Punch)

If you want to do the Capri Sun Challenge, you can now do it with Organic Capri Sun. (Spotted by Lindsay A at Meijer.)

Cascadian Farm Farm Stand Harvest Cherry, Almond & Quinoa Granola

Cascadian Farm Farm Stand Harvest Cranberry, Maple & Wild Rice Granola

Cascadian Farm Farm Stand Harvest Honey, Almond & Chia Granola

If I was a horrible farm stand owner, I’d buy these, separate them into smaller bags, put my own label on them, pretend I harvested them, and charge for each small bag the price I bought the bigger bags for. Ka-ching! (Spotted by Amanda at Kroger.)

Nestle Coffee-mat Salted Caramel Natural Bliss Creamer

Nestle Coffee-mate Salted Caramel Natural Bliss Creamer

I double dare a company to create a brand called Pure Natural Organic Bliss. (Spotted by Lindsay A at Meijer.)

Thank you to all the photo contributors! If you’re out shopping and see an interesting new product on the shelf, snap a picture of it, and send us an email ([email protected]) with where you found it and “Spotted” in the subject line. Or reply to us (@theimpulsivebuy) on Twitter with the photo, where you spotted it, and the hashtag #spotted. If you do so, you might see your picture in our next Spotted on Shelves post.

SPOTTED ON SHELVES: MiO Energy Ice Vanilla Java and Iced Mocha Java

January 19, 2016March 8, 2023 Marvo 5 Comments

Look out Folgers and Maxwell House! MiO has come to take the iced coffee drink concentrate crown! (Spotted by CLyals at Meijer.)

If you’re out shopping and see an interesting new product on the shelf, snap a picture of it, and send us an email ([email protected]) with where you found it and “Spotted” in the subject line. Or reply to us (@theimpulsivebuy) on Twitter with the photo, where you spotted it, and the hashtag #spotted. If you’ve tried the product, share your thoughts about it in the comments.

REVIEW: Burger King Flame Grilled Chicken Burger

January 19, 2016September 2, 2023 Marvo 7 Comments

Burger King was busier last year than Humpty Hump was in a Burger King ba…ugh, that reference is so old. Half of you aren’t going to get it, so I’m not going to finish it.

Anyhoo, in 2015, the burger chain introduced Buffalo Chicken Fries, an extra long list of Extra Long sandwiches, a red velvet milkshake that may or may not have turned your poop a different color, a black bun Halloween Whopper that may or may not have turned your poop a different color, and, of course, they brought back the dead-eyed King mascot, which will give some of us nightmares…again.

Surprisingly, the year didn’t end with one last Extra Long sandwich, instead BK came out with their Flame Grilled Chicken Burger.

The menu item features a flame-grilled chicken burger patty topped with tomatoes, lettuce, mayonnaise, ketchup, pickles, and white onions on a soft, toasted brioche style bun.

I have to admit, when I pulled out the burger from its paper cocoon, it looked good. I peeled back the bun and saw those grill marks, which made me want to bite into it even more. Then I cut it in half and the cross section reminded me of photos I saw in the college anatomy class I stopped going to during my junior year after seeing said photos. At that point, the chicken burger lost some of its appeal. But it lost all of its appeal when I took my first bite from it.

The patty had a good thickness to it, but it also makes the Whopper patty look scary thin. The patty was also…juicy? I don’t know if saying that is correct. Maybe saying it was sweating hard like it knew it was guilty of not being very good is more accurate because the liquid was like sweat in that it was salty and mostly made of water. I thought it was another ingredient that was bringing the liquid, but that wasn’t the case. Maybe, instead of Flame Broiled Chicken Burger, it should’ve been called the Fully Brined Chicken Burger.

At times, the sandwich as a whole tasted like, I swear, a Subway Cold Cut Combo, which to me isn’t bad. But, again, it was just too salty. The chicken patty itself was spiced in a way that made me think chicken breakfast sausage. Its texture was also sausage patty-like and easy to bite through. If it wasn’t so damn salty, it would probably be nice in a Croissan’wich.

None of the other ingredients did a good job at cutting through that saltiness, and the pickles probably enhanced it. As for the bun, it was shiny like other brioche-style buns, but it don’t think it had the slightly sweet flavor that the McDonald’s and Jack in the Box brioche buns have.

I didn’t get a chance to try every new item Burger King offered in 2015, but I did like almost every one I tried. The two exceptions are the Extra Long Pulled Pork Sandwich and this Flame Grilled Chicken Burger.

(Nutrition Facts – 480 calories, 25 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 1160 milligrams of sodium, 42 grams of carbohydrates, 10 grams of sugar, 22 grams of protein.)

Item: Burger King Flame Grilled Chicken Burger
Purchased Price: $8.49 (medium value meal)
Size: N/A
Purchased at: Burger King
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: At times, it tastes like a Subway Cold Cut Combo (if you like them). Burger King taking chances with protein. Doesn’t turn your poop a different color.
Cons: At times, it tastes like a Subway Cold Cut Combo (if you hate them). Very salty. Lots of liquid. Other ingredients couldn’t cut through that saltiness. Bun didn’t seem that special.

SPOTTED ON SHELVES: Dove Sorbet Bars

January 19, 2016March 8, 2023 Marvo 9 Comments

Dove Milk Chocolate Strawberry Sorbet Bar

Dove Dark Chocolate Raspberry Sorbet Bar

Feeding your significant other a Dove Milk Chocolate Strawberry Sorbet Bar on Valentine’s Day is romantic, right? (Spotted by Amanda at Kroger.)

REVIEW: Kellogg’s Limited Edition Frosted Maple Bacon Pop-Tarts

January 19, 2016August 12, 2023 Vin 9 Comments

If I told a younger you that “bacon overkill” would become a thing, you’d probably cry and scream “Stranger Danger” because some old weirdo was talking to you about breakfast meats. Still, I can’t help but wonder if we’re getting too much bacon.

Too much bacon?! Surely, I jest.

Don’t get me wrong, bacon is amazing. But when did we all become the dog from the Beggin’ Strips commercials? Why does it seem like Big Bacon is trying to take over our lives?

I guess its bacon’s world and we’re all just living in it.

Mini rant aside, I was excited to try Frosted Maple Bacon Pop-Tarts. I knew I had to have them the second I saw them because I’m part of the problem.

After opening the pouch I was met with a welcome pancake smell. Each pastry has the standard white frosting with brown flecks that I assume are bacon flavored. I’ll get back to that in a moment. The filling itself has a nice maple scent and an appropriate light brown coloring.

I’m normally an “eat ’em right out of the pouch” kinda guy, but for the sake of this review, I did my due diligence and tried them toasted and untoasted. I opted against the “heat in the microwave for 3 seconds” option.

I set my rarely used toaster to medium heat and waited for what felt like an hour. A watched toaster never toasts.

The flavor was faint with the maple far outweighing the “bacon.” I’d go as far to say the toasted crust and (vanilla?) frosting were the most prominent flavors. There’s just not enough of a filling to crust ratio to really get a ton of the maple bacon flavor. That’s a universal Pop-Tart problem for me.

I scraped a few of the brown flecks off the icing, and while they did have a salty flavor to them, they didn’t scream “bacon.” I’m really only assuming they were the bacon element. I even cut one of the Pop-Tarts open and scraped the filling out with a knife so I could taste it. No bacon, it just was salty.

While I don’t know how it would have worked, I definitely think these would have benefitted from having little pieces of real bacon instead of being “artificially flavored.”

The maple taste is the one that stands out, but even that should have been more powerful. It didn’t taste like I just ate a pancake with a big glob of maple syrup, it tasted like I ate one 20 minutes prior. They seem to have kept the maple intensity low so that the artificial phantom bacon could burst through, but it doesn’t.

I wish they swung for the fences more with this flavor. It could have been truly memorable. I definitely preferred them untoasted because there was a better balance, but, again, there wasn’t enough bacon flavor. Normally I’d tell you a wacky product like this is worth a try simply for the novelty of it, but I don’t think you even need to bother.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 pastry – 210 calories, 60 calories from fat, 7 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 2.5 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 1.5 grams of monounsaturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 210 milligrams of sodium, 35 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 15 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.)

Item: Kellogg’s Limited Edition Frosted Maple Bacon Pop-Tarts
Purchased Price: $1.98
Size: 8 pastries/box
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Decent Maple flavor. Not terrible untoasted, Ambitious idea. Beggin’ Strips Dog.
Cons: Gimmicky. No actual bacon. Mild bacon taste at best. Stranger Dangers. Pop-Tart microwave instructions.

Basic