Review: Ben & Jerry's Milk & Cookies Ice Cream

As if you couldn't tell by the fact that I link his reviews in nearly every ice cream post that I do, I spend a lot of time over at On Second Scoop.  Being that I spend so much time over there (and he writes about it so much), it's pretty easy to see that he considers Milk & Cookies to be in the pantheon of Ben & Jerry's greatest flavors.    He writes about it in many reviews, but when you go back to the original review that he completed, it's easy to see that he holds it in such high esteem.  Seeing all of these mentions of it made me want to give it a shot, so I picked up a pint of this at Meijer on sale for $3.00.  Each pint contains four servings as usual and each serving is 270 calories.

Review: Weight Watchers Smart Ones Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Sundae

To loosely impersonate the late Bernie Mac, "I do this blog for you, America."  It's because of this that I bought a product that I not ordinarily EVER buy in the store and gave it a try so that I could get some sort of review content out there on this one.  In this case, it's my first Weight Watchers product review and I'm focusing on their Smart Ones product line and specifically their desserts with this Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Sundae.  A sundae in a box that needs to be microwaved for five seconds (or thawed on the counter for five minutes)?  I was alternately intrigued and/or horrified by this prospect, but I was still willing to give it a shot.  I picked this one up on sale at Meijer (the only reason I bought it) for $2.00.  Each box contains two sundaes and each sundae contains 170 calories and weighs 2.64 ounces, which means that it is slightly larger than your typical CLIF bar that clocks in at 2.4 ounces.

Review: JELL-O Sugar Free Caramel Creme Mousse Temptations

Growing up, I was terrified of mousse.  I know that sounds absurd, but my mom had this mousse mold that she used to make varieties of mousse, dips, et cetera and I always found them disgusting.  I wasn't the most adventurous child when it came to food, so whenever it came out, I ran the other direction.  Sadly or humorously, depending on how you look at it, I carried my mousse fear into adulthood until the past few years when JELL-O introduced their Mousse Temptations line of products to supplement their normal gelatins and puddings.  Now, I love caramel and was feeling a little frisky, so I decided to give this Caramel Creme Mouse Temptations flavor a shot by picking up a six pack at Meijer for $2.50.  Each four ounce cup is sugar free and is 60 calories.

Review: Magnum White Chocolate Ice Cream Bar

Magnum Bars just surfaced here in America in the summer of 2011.  They apparently have been in Europe for quite some time and have developed quite a reputation and therefore debuted to much fanfare here in the United States due to their supposed "high class" European reputation.  I've had them in my pre-blog days, but I'll review them here in case anyone wants another opinion.  The flavor I'm looking at today is the White Chocolate Magnum bar that I picked up in a three pack at Marsh on sale for $3.99.  Each bar contains 250 calories and weighs in at 3.38 ounces.

Review: Ben & Jerry's Boston Cream Pie Ice Cream

I've covered my love of all things Boston Cream Pie here before when I did a review on the JELL-O Boston Cream Pie flavored pudding, so I won't go into that again.  In order to try to continue my Boston Cream Pie lovin', I picked up Ben & Jerry's Boston Cream Pie ice cream offering into the market recently at Meijer on sale for $3.00 for a pint.  Each pint contains four servings (laughable) and each serving contains 250 calories, so compared to other Ben & Jerry's offerings, this one is reasonably low on the calorie scale.  Of course, since it's a "premium" ice cream, its calorie load is higher than most, but hey, you can't win them all.

Join the KINDING Mission!

Last week, I had my first review of KIND bars where I mentioned their KINDING Missions where you could get a free KIND bar for signing up.  Well, based on that review, KIND has contacted me and passed along to me that they are having another KINDING Mission on December 27th, so if you want to get yourself and/or your friends some free KIND bars, check out the information below.


FYI, there will only be free bars for the first 4,600 acceptors of the mission, so make sure you get signed up early.

As always, thanks for reading and I'll be back tomorrow with another review!  Merry Christmas!
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Every month, Do the KIND Thing challenges its community to do one act of kindness for someone else.  If enough people sign up to do so at KINDmovement.com, the organization behind it (KIND) gives back in BIG ways to people who really need it!

Starting December 27^th, Do the KIND Thing will be challenging people to do the following act of kindness: do a small favor of your choosing for someone who has helped you take a big step in life.  If-and-only-if enough people pledge to carry out this act, KIND will partner with Soles 4 Souls to deliver shoes to thousands of adults and children who are currently living without this basic need. 

Treats Week Upcoming!

When I was growing up, my Dad had a tradition that he passed down from his father where on New Year's Eve, you could eat anything you wanted, no matter how much it cost (within reason, of course).  This could be a pizza from your favorite place, barbecue ribs or some sort of dessert.  I never got anything but pizza or ribs then, but given the opportunity in the present, I would assuredly choose some sort of dessert.

Ahhhh, desserts...just what you are going to want to be thinking about after a large majority of us will undoubtedly gorge ourselves on sweets over the holidays.  Well, it's technically still the holidays this week as we lead up to New Year's Eve/Day, so I'm going to have our second consecutive theme week here at the blog following last week's bar week.  Every review in this upcoming week will revolve around some sort of sweet treat.  That treat may be ice cream, pudding, etc.  Basically, it's all desserts, all the time.

Just remember what my Dad always said, it's New Year's Eve and you can eat whatever you want!  Plus, you have to make sure you get in all those sweets before you start your New Year's resolution of no desserts (those always fail).

Thanks again for reading and Happy Holidays!

Review: Promax LS Peanut Butter Chocolate Bar

Another day, another new bar and this time its a Promax LS Peanut Butter Chocolate bar.  LS means lower sugar as this one only has nine grams of sugar compared to the normal 15-21 that would find in a comparable bar (I actually don't know that off-hand, but that's what the wrapper said).  In order to replace the sugar in this bar, Promax uses Stevia, which is all natural as the rest of the bar is (it's also kosher and gluten free).  This all natural bar bills itself as a meal replacement, workout aid or snack, so it's a jack of all trades.  It measures in at 2.36 ounces (a CLIF bar is 2.4 ounces) and contains 220 calories, eighteen grams of protein and also fourteen grams of fiber, so I guess it's going to help you "down there" as well.  I picked it up on sale at Meijer for $1.50.

Review: KIND Fruit & Nut Delight Bar

If you haven't figured it out from reading this blog before (if you are a regular reader), I love nuts.  No, not that kind of nuts and please get your mind out of the gutter.  This is a family friendly blog.  I love nuts like peanuts, almonds, cashews, etc. (although peanuts are not technically a nut, but instead a legume), but surprisingly am not a fan of walnuts.  Anyway, any time I come across an energy/protein/nutrition bar that includes nuts, it is right up my alley and that's what leads me to this KIND Fruit & Nut Delight bar.  Well, that's not entirely what leads me to it...KIND has monthly "KINDING Missions" where they pass out free bars to fans if you give them your e-mail address (follow the link and join the movement yourself to get a free bar).  Being that I have many different e-mail addresses, I always end up getting at least one of these every few months and that's how I got my hands on this one.  If you were to purchase this at the store though, it would probably run in the range of $1.00-$1.50.  As for the pinup model measurements of this one, it's 1.4 ounces and packs 180 calories and a minimal five grams of protein.  So, it's not a protein bar and it's not an energy bar, so that basically leaves this one out there as a nutrition or snack bar.

Review: PowerBar Recovery Peanut Butter Caramel Crisp with Chocolatey Coating Bar

It was post workout and I was tired and sore.  What better way to help yourself than by eating a recovery bar?  Well, that led me to the PowerBar Peanut Butter Caramel Crisp with Chocolatey Coating bar.  Have you ever seen a more descriptive name of a product in your life?  I'm not sure that I have.  LOL, anyway, I picked this one up on sale at Kroger for $0.99.  It contains 260 calories, twelve grams of protein and is a fairly robust bar in size/weight at nearly two ounces.

Review: Balance Bar Honey Peanut Bar

In the endless quest for protein and to try as many of these protein/nutrition/energy bars as I can find, I'm led to Balance Bar.  Judging by its name, Balance Bar considers itself very balanced.  They push this point even harder by putting a nice fly wheel on the label (that's it on the left) that shows all of the nutritional benefits of these bar.  Nutritional benefits, charts and graphs...I'm in!  I picked several of these up, but we'll start with the Honey Peanut flavor of this bar.  I picked this one up at Meijer for $1.09.  It clocks in at 1.76 ounces and contains 200 calories with 15 grams of protein.  Basically, it's similar to Pure Protein bars in its calorie and protein counts, although slightly less in each.

Review: Larabar Carrot Cake Food Bar

In my effort to get as many nutrition/protein/energy bars as possible on this blog, I'm now led to Larabar and their Carrot Cake flavored fruit & nut food bar.  They bill themselves as the original fruit and nut food bar, but since I'm too lazy to research those claims, I'll just take their word for it.  I picked this bar up on sale at Kroger for $1.00 and it has 200 calories with a minimal three grams of protein.  In terms of size, it clocks in on the small side of these energy bars at only 1.6 ounces.  Also, it's gluten and dairy free and while that doesn't mean anything to me since I don't have those allergies (thankfully), it means quite a bit to a lot of people out there.

Next Week Is Bar Week!

If you haven't figured it out already, I eat a lot of protein/nutrition/energy/snack bars.  Because of this, I've got a TON of reviews written for these bars that have yet to be published for the site.  As a way to burn through these, I'm going to commit all of next week to reviewing some of these bars.  It's a good way to find out about a "healthy"  snack prior to being a glutton over the Christmas weekend.

Since there are so many different varieties of bars out there, every day will be a review of a manufacturer that has not yet been featured on the blog (there were two new ones last week, so this is a continuing theme).  Manufacturers include Balance Bar, Larabar, KIND, PROMAX and PowerBar.

Don't fret though (like you would have anyway), there are still a whole lot of bar reviews coming in the future, so I'm sure you are all waiting anxiously.  Ha!

Thank you again for reading.  I can only hope that you have as much fun reading my reviews as I do writing them.

Review: Marathon Chewy Peanut Butter Energy Bar powered by Snickers

The amount of energy/protein bars in this world is amazing to me.  I was strolling through Meijer recently and came across a bar "Powered By Snickers."  Huh?!  Upon closer review, I found that this was a product of the Mars Candy Company and they were trying to trade in on the positive cachet the Snickers brand name to sell their energy bar.  Not a bad strategy because seeing Snickers on the label certainly got me to stop and look at it.  I wasn't sure how Snickers would work into the equation, but I was curious to buy the Chewy Peanut Butter flavor and give it a shot..  I don't recall the price, but I think it was roughly about $1.60.  At 210 calories with fourteen grams of protein, it's not as powerful as some of the protein bars out there, but it really isn't marketing itself as a protein bar...it's an energy bar.  Clocking in at 1.94 ounces, it is a pretty decent sized bar too.

Review: Ben & Jerry's Peanut Brittle Ice Cream

Ben & Jerry's has a seemingly infinite amount of flavors and when they continue to roll out limited batches and flavors influenced by sketches on comedy shows, they will seemingly never run out.  I was spending some time at Walmart recently, saw this Peanut Brittle Ice Cream and thought to myself "I like peanut brittle", so I decided to give it a shot.  A pint of this is 260 calories per serving (four servings per pint) and I picked it up for $3.39.

The ingredient list says that this one is made up of "Peanut Brittle Ice Cream with Peanut Brittle Pieces and a Caramel Swirl."  I have no idea what Peanut Brittle Ice Cream actually is outside of ice cream with peanut brittle in it, but I'm willing to put those reservations aside to give this one a chance.

Review: EAS Myoplex Chocolate Peanut Butter Nutrition Bar

The adventures in ridiculous protein bars continue!  I'm sure you are as fired up to see this as I was when I saw EAS Myoplex Chocolate Peanut Butter Nutrition Bar on sale at Meijer for $1.50 for the bar (normally $2.49, I believe).  Clocking in at 2.65 ounces with 290 calories and 25 grams of protein, this is quite a dense bar.  In fact, EAS recommends that you could use this as a meal replacement bar if you are in a pinch because of its size.  I was using it as a post workout recovery tool though.  Gotta get those muscles recovered!

Review: Kozy Shack No Sugar Added Rice Pudding

I've covered here before that I like rice pudding a lot.  It's not for everyone because of its odd texture, but I personally like it.  In terms of store bought products, the only ones I've ever had are the JELL-O pudding cup versions (Creme Brulee review is here).  I've never had any other brands and when I saw that this Kozy Shack No Sugar Added Rice Pudding was on sale at Meijer for $2.00 for a four pack (normally $3.00 or more), I was intrigued enough to make a purchase.  Each cup weighs four ounces, which makes it smaller than a JELL-O pudding cup.  On the calorie front, each pudding cup contains 70 calories.

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Smorgie.com is a new website focusing on restaurant lists similar to Urbanspoon and Yelp.  On the site, you can check out local restaurants and add them to a recommendations list to share with your friends and/or the general public, if you so choose.

I did a phone survey and online survey for them last week to help them out (their site is currently in beta testing), but I think they have a decent idea for a product here.  If you want to check out the site, go to www.smorgie.com or click on the banner just below.  Thanks again for reading!

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Review: CLIF Iced Gingerbread Energy Bar

I've already covered the two other seasonal offerings by CLIF in my reviews of the Peppermint Stick bar and the Spiced Pumpkin Pie bar, so now it is time for the final review of the offerings, the Iced Gingerbread bar.  Ordinarily, I'm not the world's biggest fan of gingerbread (I tolerate it), so I'm curious to see how this one turns out.  As usual with CLIF bars, it's 70% organic and is the standard 2.4 ounces in weight.  It contains 250 calories and nine grams of protein as well.  I picked this one up at a crazy sale at Kroger for $0.50.

Site News: Social Stuff

Since I'm social and all that stuff, it's only fitting that this site (and me) be into social media.  Because of that, I've introduced a couple new enhancements this week, in addition to some of the old standbys that have been here since the beginning.  So, let's run through the quick Crazy Food Dude Social Profile.

• Twitter:  I've actually been on Twitter for a quite a while, so you can follow me here or use the Twitter link on the right hand side of the screen.  Just a word of warning that this is my personal Twitter account and also the Twitter account for me that I use for the other site that I blog (WouldIBuyItAgain.com).  I encourage you to follow this one for some of the hard-hitting Tweets that I post on there.
• Facebook:  The Crazy Food Dude Facebook page has been active since the beginning and so far, it only has nineteen followers, so judging by those numbers, a lot of you are missing out.  Join the page via this link or in the box on the left had side of the screen.
• Google+:  This is a new one.  I just recently set up this Google+ page this week and it will continue to grow as the site grows.  It'll be similar to the Facebook page, but may have a little bit more detail on it since Google+ integrates nicely with Blogger and Google.  You can get to that page via this link or via the Google+ button on the left hand side of the page.
• Picasa Web Album:  This is the big one.  I've added a link at the top of the page that directs you to the photo album of all photos that I have ever taken for this blog.  This includes photos of products that have already been reviewed and also photos of products that are going to show up in reviews in the future.  All products are labeled (or will be as soon as I can get to them), so you can easily identify what is what.  If you are hungry, curious, bored or all of the above, check out the photo album!  In case you don't want to follow the link, I've embedded the slideshow of the album below!

Well, that's all my social butterfly activity for now.  I'm sure I'll add more features at the blog matures and grows into the future.  And don't worry, I won't be going away for a while.  I've already written nearly 150 product reviews (just over fifty have already been posted), so I've got enough material already to last a while and that doesn't include the refrigerator and cabinets full of food that I've got left to do!  I've also got a special feature week coming up in a couple weeks (more on that later), so look out for that one as well.

Thanks again for reading and I look forward to the future!

Review: Atkins Day Break Cherry Pecan Bar

For those of you that don't know, Atkins of Dr. Atkins fame has a daily diet plan where they plan out all your meals/snacks for the day.  One of those lines is the "Day Break" line.  I signed up for a coupon list a while back and got a coupon for Atkins Day Break bars and when I saw them on sale at Meier for a box of five for $5.50 (plus my $1.00 coupon), I had to make the leap and give them a shot.  Each of these Atkins Day Break Cherry Pecan bars is 160 calories and 1.2 ounces.

Review: Ben & Jerry's Cinnamon Buns Ice Cream

Next up in the Ben & Jerry's endless (and growing) list of reviews is the Cinnamons Buns flavor ice cream.  This one combines two classic comfort food treats by taking the warm gooey cinnamon bun (yummy) with ice cold ice cream (also yummy).  Now, hot and cold usually create a mess, but let's see if Ben & Jerry's was able to overcome this problem.  I picked up a pint of this at Meijer on sale for $3.00 and each serving in the pint (four total) contains 290 calories, so it's not exactly the "healthiest" of all the Ben & Jerry's options.  Of course, Cinnamon Buns are just about the unhealthiest thing in the world too (and one of the most delicious), so the fact that this one has such a high calorie count is kind of expected.

Oh yeah, full disclosure here:  I love cinnamon and pretty much everything that I eat that has cinnamon is going to be thought of positively in my mind, especially cinnamon buns.  With that and Dubba's glowing review at On Second Scoop, I knew I had to give this one a shot.

Review: LUNA Caramel Nut Brownie Bar

Last I checked, I look like a man.  A somewhat diminutive man, but a man nonetheless.  Despite this fact, a sample lady at Kroger made a point to try to push this LUNA Caramel Nut Brownie bar (along with others) on me during a trip to her store and not paying attention to the label where it indicates these bars are for women, I bought her sales pitch hook, line and sinker.  So, despite the fact that I'm not a woman, I did make the purchase and don't want to waste money, so I'll review this and some other LUNA bar flavors that I picked up in the future.  This one was $0.99 and contains 180 calories and eight grams of protein.  FYI, LUNA bars are manufactured by CLIF, so they are all part of the same family and that means that the bars are mostly organic (this one was 70%) and are all natural products.

Review: Walden Farms Balsamic Vinaigrette Salad Dressing

Next in the Walden Farms review series is a Balsamic Vinaigrette salad dressing that I picked up at Kroger for a not quite reasonable $3.69.  I've had many balsamic vinaigrette dressings in my life and I've also made my own, so I was anxious to see how this calorie free version compared.

Review: Pure Protein Peanut Butter Caramel Surprise Bar

As you can figure out by now and as I've said before, I walked into Meijer one day and made a massive protein bar purchase.  This was before the thought of this blog ever crossed my mind, so I was just purchasing these babies for their actual nutritional effect.  So, I purchased every single variety so I wouldn't get bored and that led me to this Peanut Butter Caramel Surprise for $1.29.  According to Pure Protein's website, the surprise is the caramel filling, so let's see how surprising it really was.

Review: JELL-O Sugar Free Boston Cream Pie Pudding

Being that I'm a rube and have lived a mostly sheltered life, I had never heard of Boston Cream Pie until later in life.  One day, I was in the store and I saw a donut called "Boston Cream" that looked pretty good and decided to give it a shot and LOVED it.  I was so overcome by its deliciousness that when I got home, I decided to hop onto the Google machine and do some more research on this new mystical food product that I had found so that I could learn more about it and came to find out the donut was based on a cake called a Boston Cream Pie (funny that a cake is called a pie, but I don't name these things).  I'm sure any Tom, Dick and Harry knows what Boston Cream Pie is, but being the moron that I am, this was a major discovery.  From that moment on, I made it my singular goal to devour every single Boston Cream Pie-related product I ever came across for the rest of my life.

Some time later, I was buying JELL-O pudding cups to fulfill my strange pudding infatution and stumbled upon Boston Cream Pie pudding (no real website for the product; smooth move there, JELL-O).  Could it be true?  Could JELL-O have found a way to combine these two wonderful and delicious foods?  I've had this pre-blog, but for the purposes of the review, I'll pretend this was my first time having it.  By the way, I picked this up in a six pack at Meijer for $2.50 and each sugar free pudding cup is four ounces and contains 60 calories.

Review: Ben & Jerry's Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream Ice Cream

Admittedly, I'm an ice cream freak and I'm sure you've been able to figure that out if you are a regular reader of the blog.  A while back, I was in the store hunting down the elusive Schweddy Balls ice cream and since I had a coupon that gave me $1 off two pints of Ben & Jerry's, I decided to make the second pint be Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream because I have never had tried it before.  I've read countless reviews of this flavor and most of them gush over it, but I just kind of figured it was overrated because of the Stephen Colbert connection and due to that, I never really had a desire to try it.  Standing in the freezer section and staring at the available flavors, I figured it was finally time to see if the hype was worth it.  This was picked up at Walmart for $3.29 for the pint.  It's 270 calories per serving (four servings per pint), so it carries the weight (pun intended) of "premium" ice creams in the caloric chart.