REVIEW: Morningstar Farms Veggie Italian Sausage

The most creative people in the world aren’t musicians, painters, writers or whoever invented the Slanket.

I think the most creative people are those who have to come up with food that’s supposed to trick people into thinking it’s another food. No, I’m not talking about the inventor of the Chicken McNugget. I’m talking about the proud men and women who have the imagination to come up with products like the Morningstar Farms Veggie Italian Sausage.

It takes talent to fake the three major food animals: cow, pig and chicken. And I think the folks at Morningstar Farms have done a decent job at it, because I’m a regular consumer of their bloodless fake meat products. Although my admiration for them is dwindling because I wrote several kind letters to the company requesting certain products, but they have yet to introduce a vegetarian turducken.

Unlike the Moroccan Rose Body Butter or the Japanese Cherry Blossom Puree Body Lotion you purchased from The Body Shop, animals were probably harmed while coming up with the Morningstar Farms Veggie Italian Sausage. If you think about it, in order to make meat-free Morningstar Farms products, meat must be consumed so that the mad scientists there know what to make their veggie-rrific products taste like.

The Morningstar Farms Veggie Italian Sausage can be prepared in three ways: on the grill, on the stove or in the microwave. Due to a court ordered mandate to stay away from matches and lighter fluid/hair spray, I could not try it on a grill.

Italian sausage is usually packed in a casing, but these veggie versions weren’t. Instead they were molded into a hot dog shape. If you heat one up on a stove, the outside of the sausage looks darker than the one from the microwave, which is in the photo above. While warming them up, the scent of the sausage’s spices filled my kitchen. The sausage’s flavor has a little spice to them and they somewhat remind me of Italian sausage, but its texture throws me off. Because there’s no casing, the sausage is extremely soft and has a tendency to crumble easily in my mouth.

It’s not bad for something that’s 100% vegetarian and it does have 66 percent less fat than traditional Italian sausage, so it’s good for someone looking to maintain their slim physique so that their Slanket is easily able to cover their entire body.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 link – 120 calories, 6 grams of fat, 0.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 2.5 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 1 gram of monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 350 milligrams of sodium, 125 milligrams of potassium, 7 grams of carbohydrates, 1 grams of fiber and 10 grams of protein.)

Item: Morningstar Farms Veggie Italian Sausage
Price: $5.69
Size: 4 pack
Purchased at: Foodland
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Decent spicy flavor. Somewhat reminds me of an Italian sausage. 100% vegetarian. Decent source of protein. 66 percent less fat than traditional Italian sausage. The Slanket.
Cons: Really soft texture. Only four per box. Being 100% vegetarian might turn some off. Regular hot dogs are significantly cheaper. No vegetarian turducken yet.

REVIEW: Glaceau Tranquilo Vitamin Water

Like all flavors of Vitamin Water, Tranquilo Vitamin Water promises to help you with some aspect of your life that is lacking. Need to boost your immune system? Drink a Defense Vitamin Water. Want something to help with your concentration? Consume Focus Vitamin Water. Need a jolt of energy? Tank an Energy Vitamin Water. Want to bring back someone from the dead so that you can play Resident Evil in real life? Pour a Revive Vitamin Water down their throat.

Tranquilo Vitamin Water helps you to relax and forget your troubles for a little while, like spending a weekend on the beach. But isn’t there another liquid that helps you temporarily forget your troubles much easier?

Alcohol? It somewhat does that, but not fast enough.

Homemade moonshine made with things found in a garage? Yes, it does have that ability, but it also has the power to “permanently make you forget your troubles,” cause you to become blind or make you imagine you’re talking to the 29th President of the United States Warren G. Harding about what’s on his iPod and being surprised that “Regulate” by Warren G is not on it.

What liquid am I thinking of?

Oh yeah, that’s right! Chloroform.

Tranquilo Vitamin Water looks like the water in a public toilet that hasn’t been flushed for days and it is flavored with tamarind and pineapple, although the ingredients list doesn’t directly mention them, but it does include the vague “natural flavor.” It’s also a decent source of vitamins, like A, C and E, but so is a serving of Cocoa Puffs, so that’s not really saying much.

The pineapple seems to dominate the scent and taste of the beverage, although to be honest, I have no idea what tamarind is and the first time I ever heard of it was when I picked up this bottle, so it might be the tamarind dominating the beverage. At first, I didn’t enjoy its flavor, which reminds me of a watered down Pina Colada Slurpee, but after drinking more of it, I began to like it. While it’s not my favorite Vitamin Water flavor (which is XXX Vitamin Water), it’s definitely in my top ten, which actually isn’t so impressive since there are only 13 Vitamin Water flavors.

So does Tranquilo Vitamin Water help me to relax and temporarily forget my troubles?

No, it doesn’t, because I’m getting totally worked up about the name Tranquilo. What kind of frickin’ name is that? Who just slaps an O at the end of something and makes a name from it? That’s just plain lazy.

Bah! Where’s my chloroform? I want to temporarily forget about that name.

(Nutrition Facts – 8 ounces – 50 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 milligrams of sodium, 13 grams of carbohydrates, 13 grams of sugar, 0 grams of protein, 10% vitamin A, 40% vitamin C, 10% vitamin E, 10% vitamin B3, 10% vitamin B6, 10% vitamin B12 and 10% vitamin B5.)

Item: Glaceau Tranquilo Vitamin Water
Price: $2.39
Size: 20 ounces
Purchased at: Whole Foods
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Tastes decent after I got used to it. It’s got electrolytes. In my favorite top 10 list of Vitamin Water flavors. Contains vitamins A, C and E. Using chloroform to help me forget things. XXX Vitamin Water.
Cons: Tastes kind of weird at first. Lame name. Looks like water in a public toilet that hasn’t been flushed in days. Doesn’t help me relax and forget my troubles.

NEWS: One of Kashi’s Latest Veggie Pizzas Fails To Keep It Real

Some of the things I think about when it comes to delicious pizza are how unhealthy they are, how greasy they are and what my face looked like when I was 13 years old, but health nutty companies like Kashi and Amy’s are making pizzas a little bit healthier by not topping theirs with meat products. That’s great, but the new Kashi Sicilian Veggie Pizza has gotten me worried because it doesn’t have cheese.

The Sicilian Veggie is a stone fired pizza covered with caramelized onions, grilled eggplant, fire roasted red peppers on top of a balsamic infused white bean tomato sauce. But, again, there’s no cheese.

According to my computer’s dictionary, a pizza is, “a dish of Italian origin consisting of a flat, round base of dough baked with a topping of tomato sauce and cheese, typically with added meat or vegetables.”

See what it said? Pizza has to have cheese. Because it’s in a dictionary, I believe it to be fact, and my computer’s dictionary doesn’t lie because it has a picture of Spencer Pratt under the definition for “asshole.”

So, technically, the Kashi Sicilian Veggie isn’t a pizza, but Kashi’s other new pizza is one. The Mexicali Black Bean Thin Crust has a whole grain crust topped with a spicy black bean and tomato sauce blend, mozzarella and cheddar cheeses, fire roasted corn, tomatillos, poblano peppers and red peppers.

Now that’s a pizza.

One-third of the Sicilian Veggie has 200 calories, 5 grams of fat, 0.5 grams of saturated fat, 530 milligrams of sodium, 120 milligrams of potassium, 37 grams of carbohydrates, 5 grams of fiber and 11 grams of protein. While a serving of the Mexicali Black Bean has 210 calories, 7 grams of fat, 3 grams of saturated fat, 560 milligrams of sodium, 27 grams of carbohydrates, 4 grams of fiber and 13 grams of protein. Both pizzas also contain 9 grams of whole grains and 340 milligrams of ALA Omega-3s per serving.

NEWS: Addition of New Tropical Smoothie Causes Jack in the Box Menu Board To Be Even More Crowded

This week, Jack in the Box introduced their new Tropical Smoothie. It joins the Mango, Strawberry Banana and Pomegranate Berry Smoothies on the clusterfuck known as the Jack in the Box menu board.

The Tropical Smoothie is a blend of Minute Maid mango and banana fruit juices and purees mixed with nonfat frozen yogurt. I’ve tried all the other flavors and thought they were decent. I’ll probably try this one too just so I can tell my grandkids that I tried every Jack in the Box smoothie flavor and so that, as someone who lives on a tropical island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I can find out if it captures the essence of the island lifestyle, which consists of getting up, going to work, eating lunch, going back to work, going home, eating dinner, watching television, going to sleep and repeating it all over again the next day.

The Tropical Smoothie comes in 16- and 24-ounce sizes for $2.99 and $3.99, respectively. A 16-ounce smoothie contains 325 calories, 0 grams of fat, 3 milligrams of cholesterol, 86 milligrams of sodium, 237 milligrams of potassium, 80 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 63 grams of sugar and 3 grams of protein.

Now here’s the commercial for the Jack in the Box Tropical Smoothie:

REVIEW: Wawa Soft Pretzel

When I was just a mere reader of this intellectual review site, I would always scream, jump up and down and hit my computer like a wild spider monkey at the zoo that children flick pieces of popcorn at. I bet you’re wondering why on Earth I would do this. Well, it’s because I would see food reviews for delicious, mouth-watering and other trite adjectives used to describe fast food items that will leave a tattoo on your arteries from places such as Jack in the Box and Carl’s Jr. Those of us who were represented by The Notorious BIG in the East Coast/West Coast Rap Wars of 1995 are not able to experience a Carl’s Jr. Charbroiled Steak Sandwich or Del Taco Jalapeno Rings. Well, now it’s the Left Coast’s turn to cry tears of pain when they read reviews for items that only us near the Atlantic have the opportunity to devour.

Wawa is a chain of convenience stores that are located in the Mid-Atlantic. To compare it to a 7-Eleven is blasphemy. Here’s an example of a conversation between a Philadelphian and a tourist that has no clue what a Wawa is:

Tourist: “I’ve seen signs for a store called Wawa. Some have gas stations, and some don’t.”

Philly Guy: “Oh yeah, I go to Wawa every morning before work.”

Tourist: “So it’s like a 7-Eleven?”

Philly Guy: “Fuck You.”

How can you compare sandwiches made to order to oddly colored tubes of mystery meat heated by a sun lamp that slowly rotate while a loitering stoner stares for hours thinking that one of the hot dogs looks like a member of Phish? I’m not saying that 7-Eleven is awful; I do love the occasional Slurpee, but compared to Wawa, 7-Eleven is merely that chick from high school that’s popular, because she has a reputation for giving handjobs behind the bleachers.

The iconic Wawa Pretzel comes two to a package, connected in the middle. It’s much softer than a pretzel that you would get at a ballpark or from a street vendor. The doughy and slightly sticky texture makes it easier to eat without needing to have a chaser of water (or in Marvo’s case, a Throwback Pepsi) and the amount of salt on it is just about right. Although, like snowflakes, no Wawa Pretzel is alike. Some may have less salt, others more may have more salt, some could be harder than others (that’s what she said) and some could be softer than a 90-year-old man while watching Dancing With the Stars.

I’m sorry if I put a visual in your head.

Clocking in at 1040 milligrams of sodium for one pretzel doesn’t make this exactly health food, and 58 grams of carbs would probably make Robert Atkins roll in his grave. The pretzel is very heavy; in fact I could barely finish one before I could feel it expand in my stomach. It’s not something I could consume everyday, but for a carb craving it certainly does the trick.

(Nutrition Facts: Serving Size 1 pretzel-310 calories, 5 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 1040 milligrams of sodium, 58 grams of carbohydrates, 4 grams of fiber, 1 gram of sugar, 9 grams of protein. 2% calcium and 20% iron.)

Item: Wawa Soft Pretzel
Price: $1.38 plus tax
Size: 7.8 oz
Purchased at: Wawa Food Markets
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Not dry like most soft pretzels. Fills your belly up. Experiencing the wonder known as Wawa. The colorful vernacular of Philadelphians. Laughing at stoners trying to have a vision while they look at the rotating hot dogs at 7-Eleven.
Cons: More sodium than a healthy human should consume. The East Coast/West Coast Rap Wars of 1995. The image of a 90-year-old man’s problems.