Tag: Snack Bars

REVIEW: Kellogg’s Cinnabon Bars (Original and Caramel)

Marvo 18 Comments

Even if it has the name Cinnabon on its packaging, like the Kellogg’s Cinnabon Bars, how can any product reach the high level that a fresh Cinnabon cinnamon roll achieves? It’s impossible to match the orgasmic combination of warm dough, Makara Cinnamon and cream cheese frosting.

That triple threat has the power to make people push back their diets for one more day. It can make a happy, fat kid happier AND fatter at the same time. It can makes those who are anal about cleanliness say, “fuck it” and let their mouths and finger become coated with sugar, cinnamon and frosting, because they know trying to keep clean while eating a fresh Cinnabon will always be a losing battle.

Just the scent alone of warm Cinnabons baking in the oven is extremely powerful. It draws you to the Cinnabon store located at the mall. It’s like smelling pheromones or being caught in the tractor beam of the Death Star. All you can do is just give up and let the Stormtroopers board you. One whiff of it may make your mind say no, but it makes your tongue, stomach and fat ass say yes.

Comparing these Kellogg’s Cinnabon Bars with fresh (or even reheated) Cinnabon rolls is like comparing an iPhone with its cheap Chinese rip off, the uPhone. It’s like comparing Neiman Marcus with Sears or JCPenney. It’s like the difference between silicone breast implants and water-filled plastic bags with a goldfish. These bars don’t even come close to capturing the essence of a Cinnabon cinnamon roll.

Both flavors, Original and Caramel, are sweet but they don’t give me a sugar erection like an actual Cinnabon does, probably because they don’t come close to tasting like one. Neither of them contains Cinnabon’s famous Makara Cinnamon, which, again, is part of the orgasmic combination that makes a Cinnabon roll the dieter’s devil. They claim on the box that it “tastes great warm,” but I really couldn’t trust them because the microwaving instructions on the box turned out to be quite inaccurate. It said it takes 3 SECOND on HIGH, but that isn’t enough time to warm up anything. It took about ten seconds to make them slightly warm, but doing so made them extremely fragile.

The Kellogg’s Cinnabon Bars weren’t very good warm or straight out of the wrapper. They had a boring flavor to them. If they had Makara Cinnamon in them, they might’ve been better, but I highly doubt Cinnabon would let anyone near their stash. Because they don’t have that delectable spice, I don’t think they deserve to have the Cinnabon name attached to it. Besides, eating one of these bars doesn’t fill me with regret or cause me to gain a couple of pounds, like a real Cinnabon cinnamon roll does.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 bar – Original – 150 calories, 4.5 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 130 milligrams of sodium, 26 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 13 grams of sugar and 1 gram of protein. Caramel – 150 calories, 4 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 65 milligrams of sodium, 27 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 14 grams of sugar and 1 gram of protein.)

Item: Kellogg’s Cinnabon Bars (Original and Caramel)
Price: $3.19 each
Size: 6 bars
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 3 out of 10
Pros: Cleaner than eating a Cinnabon cinnamon roll. Healthier than a Cinnabon cinnamon roll. The smell of a Cinnabon store. iPhones. Silicone breast implants. A warm Cinnabon cinnamon roll.
Cons: Weren’t very good. Doesn’t taste anything like a Cinnabon cinnamon roll. Doesn’t contain Cinnabon’s Makara Cinnamon. Bars are kind of small. Instructions to warm them up for only 3 seconds are ineffective. Warming them up makes them fragile. Contains high fructose corn syrup. A warm Cinnabon cinnamon roll.

REVIEW: Quaker Fiber & Omega-3 Dark Chocolate Chunk Chewy Oat Granola Bars

Marvo 15 Comments

As someone who gets dietary fiber via Pop-Tarts and Omega-3 fatty acids from gummy fish, I should be stoked about the (take a deep breath) Quaker Fiber & Omega-3 Dark Chocolate Chunk Chewy Oat Granola Bars, but I’m not.

Because if an iPhone can be not only a phone, but also a music player, video player, Internet device and portable video game machine, then I should expect more from the (take a deep breath) Quaker Fiber & Omega-3 Dark Chocolate Chunk Chewy Oat Granola Bars.

If Quaker was able to enhance a granola bar with 35 percent of your daily value of dietary fiber and 320 milligrams of ALA Omega-3 fatty acids, then why can’t they also include antioxidants, caffeine, B vitamins, minerals, ginko biloba and fluoride. Because I believe that you either go all the way or go home.

Sure, there aren’t many graphic designer who would want to attempt to design the packaging for a product with the name (take a deep breath), Quaker Fiber, Omega-3, Antioxidants, Caffeine, B Vitamins, Minerals, Ginko Biloba & Fluoride Dark Chocolate Chunk Chewy Oat Granola Bars, but that granola bar, my friends, would truly be considered a superfood.

One granola bar to rule them all.

Each (take a deep breath) Quaker Fiber & Omega-3 Dark Chocolate Chunk Chewy Oat Granola Bars is 3.5 inches long, three-fourths of an inch wide and about half an inch thick, which is kind of small, but also somewhat the norm when it comes to granola bars. The bars get their chocolate flavor from semisweet chocolate chunks in them and a chocolatey drizzle on top, and combined they give it an enjoyable chocolate flavor, which makes me think these could be really bad for me.

The bar’s downfall is how fragile it is. It falls apart faster than a Jenga tower in a game between a drunk Nick Nolte and a coked up Gary Busey, both of whom will think they’re playing against hallucinations of themselves. It’s quite irksome to have the granola bar breaking down in my fingers and possibly causing pieces to fall on the floor; because my DustBuster no longer works, the maid service I use will no longer accept jobs from me due to “sexual harassment” issues and I don’t own a dog or goat that could eat it up off the floor.

To solve this problem, perhaps there needs to be a (take a deep breath) Quaker Fiber, Omega-3, Antioxidants, Caffeine, B Vitamins, Minerals, Ginko Biloba, Fluoride and Elmer’s Glue Dark Chocolate Chunk Chewy Oat Granola Bar.

(Nutrition Facts- 1 bar – 150 calories, 4 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 1 gram polyunsaturated fat, 0.5 grams of monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 35 milligrams of sodium, 26 grams of carbohydrates, 9 grams of fiber, 7 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein and 4% iron.)

Item: Quaker Fiber & Omega-3 Dark Chocolate Chunk Chewy Oat Granola Bars
Price: $3.49
Size: 5 bars
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Good chocolate flavor. 35% of daily value of fiber. 320 milligrams of ALA Omega-3 fatty acids from flaxseed. Getting fiber from Pop-Tarts and Omega-3 from gummy fish.
Cons: Breaks apart really easily. Kind of small. Only five bars (whatever happened to even numbers). Doesn’t include antioxidants, caffeine, B vitamins, minerals, ginko biloba and fluoride. Long product name. Trying to fit long product names on packaging. Being a Jenga tower in the same room as a drunk Nick Nolte and a coked up Gary Busey.

REVIEW: Planters Triple Nut Big Nut Bar

Marvo 19 Comments

All right. Let’s get it out of the bloody way.

Nuts. Balls. Nads. Gonads. Cojones. Testes. Testicles. Bollocks. Knap sack. Hacky Sack. Nards. Scrotum. Plums. Eggs. Family Jewels. Nutsack. Benjamins. Crown Jewels. Pouch. Junk. The Twins. Nuggets. Dragonballs. Man-Berries. Stones. Boys. Bag. Rocks. Nackers. Hairy Acorns. Biscuits.

Left and Right Man Brains. Acorns. Jay Leno’s Chin. Apples. Punching Bags. Apricots. Bags. Jizz Generators. Bangers. Beans. Bean Bags. Bozack. Chicken Nuggets. Chin Ornaments. The Rocky Mountains. Chin Rests. Flesh Balloons. Giggle Berries.

Uranus’ Moons. Goolies. My Guys. Ala-Alas (Hawaii Pidgin). Hairy Danglers. Huevos. Jawbreakers. Sperm Spitters. Klackers. Knackers. Loins. Love Spuds. Man Ovaries. Marbles. Nadgers. Pebbles. Ping and Pong. Potatoes. Hell’s Bells.

Yams. Yarbles. Double Cocoons. Bits and Bytes. Boulders. Kintama (Japanese). Love Sack. Fleshy Christmas Ornaments. Right Nut/Left Nut. Love Bugs. Eier (German). Cherries. Man Purse. Grapes. Peaches. Gamete Givers. Juicy Fruits.

It’s hard to do an Impulsive Buy review about a product called the Planters Triple Nut Big Nut Bar without trying to weave every conceivable term for testicles in between words, sentences and paragraphs, like I’m trying to construct a quilt of synonyms. But just like building a quilt, intertwining testicle terms into a testimonial takes time, patience and the mind of a 15-year-old boy, all of which I no longer have. Instead, I combined the nut names into chewable bars, much like Planters did with the honey roasted peanuts, almonds, cashews and granola in their Triple Nut Big Nut Bar.

The nuts themselves aren’t bigger, just the bar itself, which the packaging claims to be 30% bigger than the leading nut and granola bar. Although it’s a chewy granola bar, I didn’t notice any granola while eating it. All I could taste were nuts in my mouth. But despite having almonds and cashews, all I could taste were the honey roasted peanuts, which bothered me.

Overall, the Triple Nut Big Nut Bar combines sweet and salty nicely and tastes good, if you really like peanuts.

Speaking of salty, here are more testicle terms for you to enjoy.

Fraggle Rocks. The Sag Bag. Grape Nuts. Baggy Sac. Fuzznugs. The Testis Twins. The OO in Tool. The House and Senate. Spunk Pumps. Taters. Teabags. Low Hanging Hairy Fruit. Underwear Monkeys. Coin Purse. The Eyes of the Taint.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 bar – 220 calories, 12 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 3.5 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 6 grams of monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 230 milligrams of sodium, 23 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, 13 grams of sugar, 7 grams of protein, 2% calcium, 110% vitamin E and 10% phosphorus.)

(Thanks to Twitter pals twobeerqueers, popstat, hexopod, OffHerCork, cheaplander, jen14221 and kembree for adding to the list of testicle names.)

Item: Planters Triple Nut Big Nut Bar
Price: FREE ($2.99 retail price for a 5-pack)
Size: 1.62 ounces
Purchased at: Given by Planters
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Combines sweet and salty nicely. Chewy. High in polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats. If you love peanuts, you’ll like this. Awesome source of vitamin E, whatever it does. Coming up with terms for testicles.
Cons: Can’t really taste the almonds and cashews. Didn’t notice the granola. Taking the time to construct a quilt of synonyms. The vast number of slang for testicles.

Kellogg’s Special K Raspberry Bliss

Marvo 15 Comments

If all it takes to achieve bliss is to eat the Kellogg’s Special K Raspberry Bliss bar, then I’m staying home and eating nothing but these natural and artificial flavored bars. But really, after trying them, I doubt that these bars have the ability to give someone any amount of bliss. Even if it could, it would end up being like a vibrator, it would satisfy you for a while, but eventually you’re going to need something real.

Speaking of being real, these Kellogg’s Special K Raspberry Bliss bars lack some of that in its ingredients. Each bar is made up of multigrain cereal, bran flakes, rice cereal, raspberry flavored fruit pieces, and partially dipped in what I’m now calling, I Can Believe It’s Not Chocolate, or as the packaging says “chocolatey.”

Not chocolate, “chocolatey.”

To explain “chocolatey,” I’m going to refer to a comment for The Impulsive Buy’s review of the Kellogg’s Special K Chocolatey Delight cereal from my favorite female candy expert, “Partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil + cocoa processed with alkali + cocoa = “chocolatey.” There’s no cocoa butter in there to make it chocolate.”

Its overall taste was not bad. The “raspberry flavored fruit pieces” made the bar taste like raspberry jujubes. The chocolatey part of the bar didn’t seem to add anything, since the raspberry is what stood out. For a bar that claims to be healthy, it would’ve been nice of Kellogg’s to keep it real by including actual dried raspberries in it, or at least a coupon for a free lap dance, because I think that’s the only thing that would make up for it.

Another thing that bothered me was that in the nutrition facts it claimed to have zero trans fats, but if you read the ingredients list and look at the footnotes, there’s a line that says “Less then 0.5 g trans fat per serving” thanks to the partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil. Each bar weighs less than an ounce (0.77 ounces) and is 3.5 inches long and one inch wide, which is great for people trying to portion control and lose weight, but bad for people who are hungry or guys insecure about their junk.

Overall, I think the Kellogg’s Special K Raspberry Bliss bars are like Playboy Playmates, they seem good at first glance, but deep down you know there was some tricks involved. With the Bliss bars, it’s the raspberry flavored fruit pieces and the chocolatey dipping. With the Playboy Playmates, it’s Photoshop.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 bar – 90 calories, 2 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 70 milligrams of sodium, 17 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 grams of fiber, 9 grams of sugar, 1 grams of protein, 10% niacin, 4% iron, 10% vitamin B6, and zero grams of bliss.)

Item: Kellogg’s Special K Raspberry Bliss
Price: $3.00 (on sale, six-pack)
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: 90 calories per bar. Decent tasting. Bars are small for those who want to control portions. Coupons for lap dances.
Cons: No bliss from eating bars. Ingredients list is kind of scary. 0.5 grams of trans fat. Raspberry flavored fruit pieces not actual raspberries. Chocolatey not chocolate. Not much in vitamins and minerals. Bars are small for hungry people. Chocolatey doesn’t add to the bar. Being insecure about your junk.

Nature Valley Roasted Nut Crunch Bars

Marvo 20 Comments

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen something shimmer like the Nature Valley Roasted Nut Crunch Bars. Its glistening reminds me of a sweaty, chiseled beefcake working on his fine, defined, Zeus-like body at Muscle Beach in a spandex bodysuit that hugs every hump and lump on him sexy, tantalizing, glowing sunbathing beauty with curves like a roller coaster in a very revealing Wicked Weasel bikini that leaves very little to the imagination covered in a seductive-smelling cocoa butter suntan lotion.

The Nature Valley Roasted Nut Crunch Bars consist of mostly nuts and its shine is probably from the same things that keep all those nuts together in bar form — corn syrup and sugar.

Speaking of ingredients, the number of ingredients for these nut bars are small, like the bow ties around the necks of attractive, well-oiled Chippendale dancers gyrating and thrusting their hips to the beat of dance music causing me to stare at their black spandex pants covered crotches a foxy Hooters Girl uniform that conforms around the voluptuous bodies in them causing their beautiful breasts in the tight white tank top to stretch out the word Hooters, making the owl’s eyes open wider and my eyes stare in a totally inappropriate way at the white spandex covered breasts as I order a platter of their famous Hooters Buffalo Wings.

Each of the two Nature Valley Roasted Nut Crunch Bar flavors have only six ingredients. The Peanut Crunch contains only peanuts, sunflower seeds, sugar, corn syrup, salt, and almond flour. The Almond Crunch consists of only almonds, peanuts, sunflower seeds, sugar, corn syrup, and salt.

If you read carefully over the ingredients, you probably noticed that the ingredients for both flavors are almost identical and because of this, both flavors also taste very similar. Each one tasted kind of like honey roasted peanuts, so if you blindfolded me and had a hunky, strong fireman gorgeous, curvy female flight attendant straddle me and feed me each flavor, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell them apart.

Because they’re made out of nuts, these bars have a good crunch to them, but because everything is being held together with just the tasty adhesives of corn syrup and sugar, they’re kind of fragile. So if I stick it in my fanny pack laptop messenger bag, it will probably break into several pieces as I walk from my car to the office. If it does break, be very careful when opening the foil packaging because nuts will drop.

Overall, I liked the Nature Valley Roasted Nut Crunch Bars. They’re tasty, contain healthy fats (polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats), and each bar has seven grams of protein, which helps if I want to build muscles without going on “the juice” so that I can perhaps one day be a sweaty, chiseled beefcake working on my fine, defined, Zeus-like body at Muscle Beach in a spandex bodysuit that hugs every hump and lump on me.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 bar (varies per flavor) – 190 to 200 calories, 12 to 14 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams trans fat, 0.5 to 2.5 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 10 grams of monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 170 to 180 milligrams of sodium, 11 to 14 grams of carbs, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 6 to 7 grams of sugar, 7 grams of protein, and more nuts than a NFL locker room.)

(Editor’s Note: Cheap Eats and The Message Whore also reviewed the Nature Valley Roasted Nut Crunch. which means I know of three pairs of nuts who reviewed these nuts.)

Item: Nature Valley Roasted Nut Crunch Bars
Price: FREE (Retails for $3.39)
Purchased at: Received from nice PR folks
Rating: 3 out of 5
Pros: Tastes like honey roasted peanuts. Lots of nuts. Crunchy. Shiny. Seven grams of protein. Good fats. No ingredients with names I can’t pronounce. Wicked Weasel bikinis.
Cons: Fragile, like my ego. 200 calories per bar. Both flavors taste similar. Me in a spandex body suit. Fanny packs. Sexual harassment. The use of corn syrup as an adhesive.