Jamba Juice White Gummi

Marvo 27 Comments

White or clear gummi bears are a rare species, despite being around as long as other species of gummi bears. It seems like every time I find myself among a sloth of gummi bears, there are hardly any white gummi bears around. Perhaps they are endangered or because of their semi-clear bodies they blend into their environment, making them hard to see, or maybe they like to stay hidden because they are embarrassed by their semen-like color.

They say the white gummi bear is the least ferocious among the different varieties. When faced with danger, it prefers to use diplomacy and gifts rather than its claws and teeth in a fight. It chooses this route because it doesn’t like to see the money it spent on manicures and teeth whitening to go to waste, and it doesn’t like blood because it can easily become stained on its clear coat. If diplomacy and gifts don’t work, the white gummi bear will show its teeth and consult with its lawyer to find out what actions it should take. The lack of violence is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign of sophistication.

With their clear bodies, white gummi bears are masters of concealment, and if you do catch a glimpse of an adult during the day, it’s generally not doing very much at all, just watching soap operas and talk shows. Adults are generally solitary, much more secretive than red or green gummi bears and are considered the emo members of the group. Because of their stealth, white gummi bears — not surprisingly — are the least known of all gummi bears and are no fun to play hide-and-seek with.

White gummi bears are also the least popular among all other gummi bears, usually because they lack a “fun color” that makes the homies say “ho” and the girlies wanna scream, and because they are snobby assholes. Despite being stuck up, the semen-colored, pineapple-flavored white gummi bear is my favorite and I am notorious for pulling all of them out of a big bag of gummi bears, keeping them for myself.

Over the years, I’ve heard rumors of a white gummi bear flavored Jamba Juice smoothie that’s part of a “secret menu” that you won’t find on the menu board and also involves a secret handshake and password. So I put on my best safari khaki outfit and journeyed out in search of the elusive Jamba Juice White Gummi, which turned out to be not so elusive since I was able to order it at the first Jamba Juice I went to.

The Jamba Juice White Gummi tasted exactly like a white gummi bear and it was damn good…and damn sweet. It was so sweet that I’m surprised my teeth didn’t rot away while sucking it down. After doing some research, it turns out that the smoothie consists of peach juice, raspberry sherbet, lime sherbet, pineapple sherbet, and mango, which sounds healthy, but with all the sherbet included, it probably has enough sugar to power a small home, if that home was powered by a little boy on a treadmill who was fed the Jamba Juice White Gummi.

Item: Jamba Juice White Gummi
Price: $4.95
Size: 30 ounces
Purchased at: Jamba Juice
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Tastes like a white gummi bear. Really good. Knowing what a group of bears is called. Saving on your energy bill by having a home powered by a little boy on a treadmill.
Cons: Really sweet. It’s probably extremely bad for you. Not on menu board at Jamba Juice. White gummi bears are no fun to play hide-and-seek with. Might not be available at all Jamba Juice locations. White gummi bears being semen colored.

Kellogg’s Eggo Blueberry Mini Muffin Tops

Marvo 21 Comments

Every time I try to eat the Kellogg’s Eggo Blueberry Mini Muffin Tops, my stomach gets a funny feeling. I don’t feel this way because of how they taste, instead it’s because when I eat one of their Eggo Blueberry Mini Muffin Tops, the image of multiple muffin tops jiggle around in my head. When I say “muffin tops,” I’m not talking about the remnants of a baked goodie after a Sylar-like cutting off of its top, I’m talking about the overflow of flesh seen when a tight pair of jeans is wrapped around a body that is a little too big for it.

It would be semi-all right if it were images of women with their guts hanging over the edge of their jeans, but unfortunately it’s mostly images of dudes with the physique of Chris Farley. So you can understand why I have an arduous time trying to eat a set of these mini muffin tops. Not even a variety of toppings or the finest Canadian Maple Syrup could make these go down easier while thinking about male muffin tops that flap around in Baywatch-slow motion.

If I didn’t have images of large male bellies wiggling around in tight jeans in my head, I would probably have to say that these Kellogg’s Eggo Blueberry Mini Muffin Tops were good. Each set comes with four mini muffin tops, which were each about an inch and half in diameter. It toasted very nicely and it ended up with a slightly crispy outside and fluffy inside. Its taste was very similar to blueberry pancakes, which I do enjoy. However, because they’re convex in shape, most of any topping you put on it tends to roll off and end up on your plate.

So who am I going to blame for preventing me from fully enjoying these Kellogg’s Eggo Blueberry Mini Muffin Tops? I could blame the fast food industry for making our waist sizes larger. Or I could point my finger at fashion designers who make hip-hugging jeans in sizes they shouldn’t. But I’m going to blame the asshole who came up with the idea for muffin tops because if there weren’t muffin tops to begin with, society would’ve probably named the overflow of fat something else, like mushroom waist or sign of future heart disease.

It’s probably the same douchebag who also invented doughnut holes.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 set of 4 – 140 calories, 5 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 15 milligrams of cholesterol, 290 milligrams of sodium, 30 milligrams of potassium, 22 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 9 grams of sugar, 11 grams of other carbohydrates, 2 grams of protein, a variety of vitamins and minerals, and many images of male bellies jiggling in my head.)

(Editor’s Note: Thanks to Carolanne for recommending this product and for filling my head with images of big men in tight jeans.)

Item: Kellogg’s Eggo Blueberry Mini Muffin Tops
Price: $3.50
Size: 8 sets
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Good. Taste like blueberry pancakes. Toasted very nicely, ending up with a slightly crispy outside and fluffy inside. Vitamins and minerals.
Cons: Images of the male bellies jiggling in my head. People in tight jeans who shouldn’t wear tight jeans. Its shape tends to cause toppings to roll off. The asshole who came up with the idea for muffin tops. No dietary fiber.

REVIEW: Cocoa Puffs Combos

Marvo 63 Comments

I thought the idea of going cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs was preposterous, like the belief that eating Trix will turn you into a prostitute. For years, I ate the brown balls of naturally and artificially flavored sweetened corn cereal and nothing ever happened to me. There was no bouncing off walls, no instantaneous urges to hump mailboxes, no desire to walk around in nothing but a coconut bra and grass skirt, no yearning for yogurt baths, and no longing to stalk an F-list celebrity and become them by wearing their skin like a coat, all the while screaming at the top of my lungs, “I’m cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!”

However, that changed one morning while partaking in a bowl of Cocoa Puffs and skim milk. I don’t know whether it was the whole grains in it or the fact I was eating it out of a bowl I made in the seventh grade that was coated in a lead-based glaze, but I suddenly went cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. One moment I was eating cereal and then the next moment I was dancing around my apartment in what I believe was a homemade cosplay outfit made out of wax paper, food coloring, cardboard boxes and a strategically placed wash cloth. Ever since that episode, I’ve stayed away from Cocoa Puffs, which disappointed me since I <3 Cocoa Puffs and the chocolatey milk it makes.

However, the folks at General Mills recently introduced a cereal called Cocoa Puffs Combos, which has not only naturally and artificially flavored chocolate cereal, but also naturally and artificially flavored vanilla cereal. I thought this was my opportunity to enjoy Cocoa Puffs again, albeit with a vanilla chaser that I hoped would lessen the cuckoo side effects. Take a look at the video below to see how that went.

Obviously, with the addition of the vanilla cereal, the Cocoa Puffs Combos was significantly less chocolatey than regular Cocoa Puffs. However, it wasn’t just the vanilla cereal causing this, which by the way, hardly had any vanilla flavor. The Cocoa Puffs Combos chocolate cereal wasn’t even being close to being as chocolatey as the cereal in regular Cocoa Puffs. It’s like the white vanilla cereal was keeping the brown chocolate cereal down.

Overall, the Cocoa Puffs Combos was disappointing because I expected it to be a little more chocolatey than it was and it didn’t lessen the effects of Cocoa Puffs to a non-embarrassing level. Not even the milk was worth drinking and every time I don’t drink my cereal milk, a dairy cow cries milk from its udder. Chocolate and vanilla may go great together as soft serve ice cream flavors or as a metaphor for interracial dating, but doesn’t do very well in this cereal.

(Nutrition Facts – 3/4 cup – 110 calories, 1.5 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0.5 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 1 gram of monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 160 milligrams of sodium, 40 milligrams of potassium, 23 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 11 grams of sugar, 11 grams of other carbohydrates, 1 gram of protein, and a bunch of vitamins and minerals.)

(Editor’s Note: Thanks to the TIB reader who suggested we review Cocoa Puffs Combos. The reader didn’t leave their name, so no two seconds of internet fame for them.)

Item: Cocoa Puffs Combos
Price: $5.99
Size: 11.7 ounces
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Good for those who don’t like sweet cereal. Vitamins and minerals. Soft serve swirl. Regular Cocoa Puffs and the chocolatey milk it makes. Doesn’t make me cuckoo enough to do something REALLY embarrassing, just slightly embarrassing.
Cons: Not as chocolatey as I hoped. Less chocolate didn’t lessen the effects of Cocoa Puffs to a non-embarrassing level. Chocolate cereal was mediocre compared with regular Cocoa Puffs. Vanilla cereal wasn’t very vanilla. Going cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Me dancing in a dress and posting it on YouTube for the world to see.

REVIEW: Jack Daniel’s Baby Back Ribs

Ace 26 Comments

Ribs made with Jack Daniel’s barbecue sauce have been gaining some momentum recently, with recipes containing the famous whiskey winning legitimate awards in Southern barbecue competitions. Naturally, T.G.I. Friday’s has to strip the wholesome appeal away and bastardize the crap out of it by having the frightening amalgamation of *NSYNC known as Guy Fieri screaming at you to try them. It’s not just chain restaurants jumping on the boat, though; these ribs have made their way to your local supermarket.

Now you can try the ribs without having to withstand the deafening loudness of T.G.I. Friday’s as a gaggle of drunk frat brah’s hit on your date. It’s better in an intimate setting, on a lazy weekend with the game on. In a way, Jack Daniel’s appeals to the tailgaitin’ Southerner in all of us with these refrigerated boxes of booze-glazed ribs. I’ve been dying to try something that can get me drunk and fat simultaneously. It’s not hedonism – it’s efficiency.

Within eight minutes, you have a pound of real, unprocessed ribs ready to eat as you watch Peyton Manning and Brett Favre sell you TV’s and toothpaste during the increasingly-frequent commercial breaks. That isn’t to say that the ribs don’t have their flaws. Brett Favre spends most of his free time playing jean-football with his buddies in the mud, but even he would find these ribs to be messy.

The meat is fall-off-the-bone tender, which sounds awesome until you try to actually pick up the rib and watch the meat cascade onto the plate. It kind of takes the visceral satisfaction out of eating a rib. When you’re me, you need moments like those to keep you going. And this is going to make me sound like a teenage girl, but the whiskey is really, really strong. I’m not the type to indulge in Smirnoff Ice and Hypnotiq, but these ribs really do taste like they were dunked in a bottle of Jack.

I could lie and tell you that I sucked it up and pounded a few shots of Jack while I was eating, but I ended up dousing the ribs with ketchup and mixing it with the sauce. It was delicious after that. I had completely emasculated myself, but I figured that watching large men in tights jump on top of each other for six straight hours would have done that to me anyway.

(Nutritional Facts – 1/3 box – 500 calories, 30 grams of fat, 11 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 120 mg of cholesterol, 990mg sodium, 31 grams of carbs, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 21 grams of sugar, 25 grams of protein, 2% Vitamin A, 2% Vitamin C, 2% Calcium, and 10% Iron)

Item: Jack Daniel’s Baby Back Ribs
Price: $7.99
Size: 16 ounces
Purchased at: Albertsons
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Real, unprocessed ribs. Tastes awesome when mixed with some ketchup. Sealed and microwaveable in less than ten minutes. Brings together booze and fatty meat in one package.
Cons: Meat falls off the bone by shear force of gravity. Whiskey is overpowering if you are a wuss like me.

Progresso Italian Style Panko Crispy Bread Crumbs

Marvo 28 Comments

If you’re a foodie, you probably realize the long-winded name, Progresso Italian Style Panko Crispy Bread Crumbs, has a little redundancy in it. For those of you who aren’t foodies, panko equals bread crumbs in Japanese, although panko is larger, flakier, and Asian-er than regular bread crumbs.

Food Network star Alton Brown uses the stuff so much that I’m surprised that his eyes aren’t slanted. It’s becoming so popular that I believe if you use panko instead of regular bread crumbs, you are instantly given some kind of culinary street cred, where people in tall white hats will give you fist bumps when you pass by them and the Swedish Chef will say something coherent to you instead of the usual gibberish he usually exuberantly spits out of his mustached, muppet mouth.

Because this is an “Italian Style” panko, which I’ve never heard of until I saw this box, there’s a little bit more to it than just plain panko. To make it Italian, there’s some basil, dried roasted garlic, paprika, dried onion, and spices in it. But to truly make it Italian, I was hoping Food Network personality Giada De Laurentiis also came in the box. However, I don’t think her cleavage would’ve fit inside the packaging.

To test the Progresso Italian Style Panko Crispy Bread Crumbs, I decided to make something that looks like chicken parmesan. Now some of you at this point might be saying, “Holy shit! He cooked something. I thought he lived a lifestyle filled with eco-unfriendly styrofoam take out containers and gallons of gas wasted in fast food drive-throughs.” Saying I “cooked something” would be flattering, but I technically warmed up a jar of pasta sauce; boiled some spaghetti noodles; fried some chicken breasts that were dipped in flour, egg, and the Italian-style panko; and sprinkled parmesan cheese over it.

(Editor’s Note: The picture above is actually the second batch I made. The first had melted mozzarella cheese on top, but I didn’t have enough for the second batch, because I enjoy eating shredded mozzarella straight from the bag.)

As someone who uses panko quite a bit, in the kitchen and out, I wasn’t expecting the Progresso Italian Style Panko Crispy Bread Crumbs to be much different than the regular stuff, but I was surprised by how my chicken parmesan turned out. I could taste the herbs and spices they added and it made my dish quite tasty. As you can see in the picture above, the chicken had a really nice golden brown exterior, which I don’t always get with my regular Japanese panko. The crunch from the Progresso panko was also really nice and better than my usual panko.

With all of this praise towards the non-Asian Progresso Italian Style Panko Crispy Bread Crumbs, I felt I disrespected my ancestors and thought about committing seppuku, but then I put away my sword after I determined that the Progresso Italian Style Panko wasn’t truly panko.

Panko has a really light, flaky, and dry texture that looks like it was shaved off of a piece of toast, while the Progresso Italian Style Panko had a denser, greasy texture and looked like they were once croutons that were crushed by Kim Kardashian’s ass.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/4 cup – 130 calories, 6 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 400 milligrams of sodium, 16 grams of carbs, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 0 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein, 2% iron, and a 75% chance a guy has of getting laid if they know how to use panko properly.)

Item: Progresso Italian Style Panko Crispy Bread Crumbs
Price: FREE (Retails for $2.49)
Size: 8 ounces
Purchased at: Given by nice PR people
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Very nice crunch. Creates a nice golden brown coating. Tasty. Inner bag comes with a sticker to help seal the bag after use. Getting the Swedish Chef to say something coherent.
Cons: In my eyes, it’s not truly panko. Pricey because I can get a bag of regular panko for 99 cents. My cooking abilities. Unable to fit Giada De Laurentiis’ cleavage into a box. Being crushed by Kim Kardashian’s ass.