Review: Turkey Hill Snyder's Chocolate Pretzel Light Ice Cream

After my first wonderful experience with Turkey Hill ice cream with the Limited Edition Whoopie Pie flavor, I was really fired up for my second experience leading to this review of the Snyder's Chocolate Pretzel flavor of Turkey Hill ice cream.  To top it all off, it's light ice cream, which of course means that it is healthy.  Yeah right.  Anyway, this one includes fudge covered pretzels and they source their pretzels from the famous pretzel purveyor, Snyder's of Hanover.  I picked this one up on sale at Kroger for $3.33 for a 48 ounce container.  Each serving in the container included 130 calories (about twelve in the container).

Review: Balance Bar Cafe Cinnamon Bun Bar

Balance has its traditional nutrition bars and also has a new line of these Cafe bars.  In my continuing quest to add content to this site by adding to my prior Balance Bar reviews, I figured it was time to try out one of the Cafe flavors, Cinnamon Bun.  I love cinnamon buns and if you can put this in a bar, then well, I have to try it!  This one clocks in at a respectable 1.76 ounces with 200 calories and fourteen grams of protein.  I picked it up at Meijer for $1.09.

Review: Walden Farms Strawberry Fruit Spread

Next up in the Walden Farms series:  Strawberry Fruit Spread.  While I personally thing strawberries are the most overrated fruit there is (blueberries are so much better), I still do appreciate strawberries and strawberry flavored food products.  Walden Farms markets this and their other fruit spreads as a calorie free alternative to jelly/strawberry spreads and I was anxious to try it out based on a tip from a commenter at WouldIBuyItAgain.com.  This was picked up at Kroger for about $3.50.

Review: MET-Rx Protein Plus Chocolate Roasted Peanut Bar

In the past, I've kind of had a hit or miss response with MET-Rx products.  Some are really good and some are really awful and I've found that there's no real middle ground.  When I purchase these protein bars, I usually buy them in bulk and in different flavors, so that leads me to the MET-Rx Protein Plus Chocolate Roasted Peanut bar.  This bar is slighly larger than your average candy bar as it clocks in at three ounces.  That three grams consists of 310 calories and 32 eye popping grams of protein.  FYI, I got this one at CVS for around $2.50.

Review: MorningStar Farms Veggie Buffalo Wings

The Super Bowl is approaching, so why not review one of the quintessential Super Bowl party foods by doing a chicken wings (sort of) review, albeit a veggie one?  In past reviews, I have mixed reactions to MorningStar Farms products.  While some of them taste good, usually their price is not worth the taste and/or portion size.  Still, I'm willing to continue to try these out because eventually I'll run into one of these that is a must have and something that I'd buy, no matter what the price.  So, on we go to the Veggie Buffalo Wings.  First, I have a friend that has a very justified rant about how places call food items bonelss chicken tenders by the name of "boneless wings."  It's stupid...just call them tenders.  As you can see from the front of the box on this one, this would fall into this same category.  These aren't wings, they are nuggets.  Just call them that.  Anyway, naming arguments aside, I picked up this box for $3.99 on sale at Marsh.  Each serving in the box contains 200 calories and there are about 3.5 servings per box.  Now, what is laughable is that a "serving" is five "wings".  How the heck is that a serving?  A serving is eight nuggets or ten nuggets.  What a joke.

Review: Dannon Oikos Honey 0% Greek Yogurt

I've reviewed many Dannon yogurt products on the blog before, but this is the first time that I've reviewed one of their Greek yogurt products.  This one is their Oikos Honey 0% Greek yogurt that I picked up at Marsh on sale for $1.00.  The container contains 5.3 ounces of yogurt, 130 calories and twelve grams of protein.  I've had hits and misses with Yoplait and Chobani honey flavored Greek yogurts before, so I was curious to see how this one stacked up against the others that I've done.

Before I get into the review, it is worth nothing that this container is smaller than both the  Yoplait and Chobani versions.  Their containers hold six ounces of yogurt, while this one holds 5.3 ounces, so technically I'm being charged "more" for less yogurt thus making this a "premium" yogurt.  I better get my money's worth!

Review: Quaker Popped Sweet Chili Rice Snacks

Editor's Note:  While the product has stayed the same, Quaker now markets these under a different named and they are now called "Quaker Popped Rice Snacks." The review below applies the same.

My handy Google Analytics stats tell me that people are searching for reviews on Quaker Quakes.  In fact, it is one of my top five search terms, so being the excellent blogger/promoter that I am (ha!) that wants to cater to the masses, that means it is time for another Quakes review and this time I'm sampling the Quaker Popped Sweet Chili Rice Snacks. Purchased on sale at Meijer for $1.00, this one is 130 calories per serving (about three per bag), which puts it in the higher calorie tier of the Quakes product line.

Review: CLIF Oatmeal Raisin Walnut Energy Bar

I've shared my odd love of oatmeal and raisins on this blog and also at Would I Buy It Again before, so it would seem that this CLIF Oatmeal Raisin Walnut Energy Bar would be right up my alley.  Plus, I just found out recently that January was National Oatmeal Month and I can't possibly let an entire month go by without reviewing an oatmeal focused product.  Had I had some foresight and some advance planning skills, I would have dedicated an entire week to oatmeal products, but sometimes things just sneak up on you (the cops, robbers, anniversaries, etc.) and National Oatmeal Month did that to me.  That said, I picked up this bar at Meijer for $1.09 and it is the usual CLIF 2.4 ounces.  It's also made up of 240 calories and ten grams of protein.

Review: Weight Watchers Smart Ones Peanut Butter Cup Sundae

In my previous Weight Watchers Smart Ones sundae review, I was less than impressed with the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Sundae.  I loved the idea of a "diet" sundae, but they just didn't follow through on the execution and it ended up being an overpriced unit of borningness (new word in my personal dictionary).  Still, I figured that these Smart Ones sundaes had to make it to market somehow, so I was anxious to try out the Peanut Butter Cup Sundae that was on sale for $2.00 in the same Meijer frozen foods case as the last one.  As I said before, the dimensions of this sundae roughly resemble a deck of playing cards.  It clocks in at 2.29 ounces per sundae (two per box) and each sundae is 170 calories.

Review: Pure Protein S'mores Protein Bar

Next up in my Pure Protein bar review series is the Pure Protein S'mores Protein Bar.  Much like all the other bars, I picked this one up at Meijer for $1.29 (I looked like more of a goof than usual that day with a shopping cart full of these things, but hey, to each their own I guess).  One bar is 180 calories and 19 grams of protein, so it is nice that it is not a calorie killer.  It's not a huge bar at only 1.76 ounces, but it's a nice protein packed treat (I use that term loosely).

Review: Quaker Chewy Dark Chocolate Cherry Granola Bar

Next in line in the seemingly endless supply of reviews of Quaker Chewy granola bars (there will be a time that it runs out...maybe), is the Dark Chocolate Cherry variety.  This one also consists of only 90 calories, so it's in the lower calorie version of their Chewy bars.

Review: Kellogg's Special K Chocolate Peanut Butter Protein Meal Bar

I'll be the first to admit that I approached reviewing this bar with some apprehension.  Kellogg's and by extension, Special K, are mostly a breakfast cereal company so I was a little concerned when I saw that they were going into the protein/meal replacement bar market.  I guess you could use this to replace your breakfast or something like that, but it seemed kind of odd that they wanted to dip their toe in the water with Pure Protein, MET-Rx, etc. (the bars were in the same part of Meijer as those bars; got it for $1.09 by the way).  Even with that, I was still willing to give this Chocolate Peanut Butter flavor a shot in the name of public education!  This one clocks in at a semi-respectable 1.59 ounces with 180 calories and ten grams of protein.  It's a pedestrian flavor combination, but hey, it's a good one that often works.

Review: Larabar Peanut Butter & Jelly Food Bar

If you take a look at the Larabar products website, you will see that they have A LOT of different flavors.  Maybe someday I'll try them all out for this blog, but today I'll just stick with this one, the Peanut Butter & Jelly bar.  Now, everyone (I hope) knows what a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is and studies show that the average person has probably eaten about a 1,500 of them by the time they graduate high school.  I know I ate about one a day as a kid, so needless to say, I have a little experience eating them.  Since I hold them in such high esteem, I had big expectations leading up to trying out this bar.  So, before we start the review, let's get the hard facts out of the way:  this one has 210 calories, 6 grams of protein, weighs in at 1.7 ounces and I picked it up on sale at Kroger for $0.99.

Review: CLIF CRUNCH White Chocolate Macadamia Granola Bar

I've reviewed a lot of CLIF products here on the blog (both LUNA and CLIF), but I haven't really gotten outside of their seasonal flavors very often, so that leads me to one of their standard product offerings in the CLIF CRUNCH White Chocolate Macadamia Granola Bar.  They bill this as an all natural granola bar and I bought this as part of a five bar box on sale at Kroger for about $4.00.  It weighs 1.5 ounces and contains 190 calories with four grams of protein.

Review: PowerBar Triple Threat Energy Chocolate Caramel Fusion Bar

I usually stay away from these hardcore energy bars and stick mainly to bars that sell their protein or nutrition.  As always though, I want this blog to be comprehensive, so I have reviewed PowerBar products before and that continuing quest leads me to this PowerBar Triple Threat Energy Chocolate Caramel Fusion Bar.  I picked this baby up at Kroger on sale for $1.00 and it weighs in at a reasonable 1.94 ounces.  It contains 230 calories and 10 grams of protein, so not only does it have energy, it also has a bit of protein as well.  One thing to note is that PowerBar notes on the packaging that you should use this in stage one or stage two of exercising, which basically means you can eat it before or during moderate intensity exercising.  The packaging also professes that this is the energy bar that tastes like a candy bar.  Well, we'll see about that because that is what Crazy Food Dude is here to do!

Review: Odwalla Choco-walla Food Bar

Wandering through my nutrition bar aisle at Meijer a few days ago, I came across a new nutrition bar manufacturer that I had never seen before.  Being that I want to review as many different things as possible, I decided to pick up this Odwalla Choco-walla food bar and give it a shot.  Odwalla bills this as their original food bar and also proclaims on the packaging that it is a "nourishing food bar" (I know I'm obsessed with packaging claims), so my review was going to put that to the test.  This one cost me $1.15 (on sale) and weighs in at 2.0 ounces, contains 210 calories and four grams of protein.

News: Bar Week, Part II

Quick blog status update:

In December, there was a week here at the CrazyFoodDude.com where I only did reviews of protein/granola/energy/snack/etc. bars.  There have been a lot of bar reviews on the blog already and since I eat so many of these bars, I've got a ton of reviews stored up.

So, this week I are going to have Bar Week, Part II where I am going to post six more bar reviews to occupy the week to drain some of that excess content and to also show you some of the other bars out there.  In fact, this is going to become a monthly occurrence (at least for a few months) where I dedicate one week a month specifically to these bars, so that is a heads-up.

Thanks again for reading and come back every day for a new bar review!

Review: Walden Farms Caramel Dip

The new year is upon us and everyone is always looking for ways to cut calories.  I'm no different as I put on a few pounds over the holidays and I am none too pleased about it.  That leads me to pick up again in the continuing Walden Farms journey, we are now led to Walden Farms Caramel Dip.  As I've stated in previous reviews, I love caramel flavoring so picking this one up at Kroger for $3.49 was just what the doctor (me) asked for!  By the way, I've recently found quite a few deals on these Walden Farms products on Amazon.com (via vitacost.com), so if you can't find these products in your store or want to see if you can beat that price, check it out.

Review: Yoplait Key Lime Greek Yogurt

I really want to like Greek yogurt and have done many reviews to prove it.  I really, really do.  Health benefits aside (two times the protein of regular yogurt!), I do get tired of pudding from time to time (not often) and having another nice, cool and refreshing treat option is something that I am very much interested in.  It's because of this that I've been trying out Chobani Greek yogurt products and also Yoplait Greek yogurt products.  On the Yoplait front, I am now led to their Key Lime flavor of zero fat Greek yogurt.  I picked this one up on sale at Meijer on sale for $1.00 and it packs a robust 160 calories and fourteen grams of protein into a six ounce container.

Review: LUNA Chocolate Peppermint Stick Nutrition Bar

I know the packaging on this says Happy Holidays and makes shopping references, and while peppermint is technically a holiday flavor (at least it is marketed that way), I realize that I'm a little late on this review.  Since I only got this late last week for free from LUNA, it's not entirely my fault.  Also, after my experience with the CLIF Peppermint Stick bar, I was not exactly anxious to try this one out (LUNA is part of the CLIF family of products, so they have to be similar, right?).  With that said, let's dive in and review the Chocolate Peppermint Stick nutrition bar.  As always, LUNA bars are designed for women (men can eat them too!) and are 70% organic.  This bar in particular weighs in at 1.69 ounces with 180 calories and eight grams of protein.

Review: JELL-O Sugar Free Dulce De Leche Pudding

Next up in my review series of JELL-O's Sugar Free pudding cups is the Dulce De Leche flavor (just like the Boston Cream Pie flavor, there's no official website).  These cups come in a six pack as you see above and are four ounces at sixty calories per cup.  I picked this one up at Meijer on sale for $2.50.  I will admit that I've had this before, but like I did with the Boston Cream Pie review, I will approach this as if this was the first time I've had it.

Review: Kashi GOLEAN Roll! Chocolate Turtle Protein & Fiber Bar

I would be willing to bet that when 95% of the ice cream eating world is asked what their favorite ice cream sundae is, they would say that it is a hot fudge sundae.  Hot fudge sundaes are nice, but in my book, the best sundae that exits is a Turtle sundae.  Vanilla ice cream (or custard), hot fudge, hot caramel and pecans.  Some are topped by whipped cream and a cherry for the proverbial (and literal) cherry on top, but those last two aren't completely necessary.  Because I feel that Turtle sundaes are the best, I was very intrigued when I saw this Kashi GOLEAN Roll! Chocolate Turtle bar on sale at my local Meijer for $1.50.  I've had bad experiences with Kashi products before when I tried their GOLEAN Crunch cereal, but I was willing to give this protein/fiber bar a try.  For those of you that are interested in the "under the hood" details, here you go:  all natural, a robust 1.94 ounces, 190 calories, twelve grams of protein and six grams of fiber.

Review: Atkins Day Break Creamy Chocolate Shake

In my mind, a shake is something that is made with ice cream and milk.  In Atkins mind, it clearly isn't, especially when you consider that they don't sell these out of the freezer or even the refrigerator at the store.  Yes, these are stored at room temperature.  Still, based on the fact that I had a positive experience with my last Atkins review and that I'm a glutton for punishment, I was willing to give this "shake" a try when I saw it on sale at Meijer for around $6 for a four pack (I also had a coupon).  There were a couple different varieties available, but I had a chocolate craving, so I chose the Creamy Chocolate Shake version of the Day Break line of diet foods.  Each shake contains 140 calories and 10 grams of protein, so while it's not going to bust your diet, it's not exactly a "freebie" either.

Review: Dean's Denali Caramel Caribou Ice Cream

I've had bad luck with Dean's so far.  My last product review was of their Country Churn Low Fat Denali Moose Tracks flavor and it was an abysmal failure.  Since I had a coupon for Dean's again, I was willing to give them one more shot with this Denali Caramel Caribou flavored ice cream.  As with all Denali products, the recipe blend is theirs but they license it to individual dairys to produced under their own label (in this case, it is Dean's obviously).

Standing in the freezer section and looking at the ingredients that this contained (toffee flavored ice cream, caramel cups and a caramel swirl), I knew I was hooked.  Caramel is delicious on its own and mixing that with toffee sounded like an intriguing and delicious combination.  FYI, this one was on sale at Meijer for $3.00  for a 1.5 quart container (I had a 55 cents off coupon to lower that) and each serving in the container (about thirteen) contains 160 calories.

Review: Balance Bar Cookie Dough Bar

Like most ordinary people, I love cookies.  Some of my fondest memories as a child involve eating my Grandma's homemade cookies every time we visited or devouring the raw, pre-made cookie dough out of the tubes that you could buy at the store.  I absolutely loved it.  Heck, when I visited her for Christmas a couple weeks ago, she had a batch made and I couldn't keep my hands off of them.  Harking back to childhood tastes, perhaps, I was interested to try Cookie Dough Balance Bar.  It weighs in at a respectable 1.76 ounces and has 210 calories with fifteen grams of protein.

Review: Gorton's Cajun Blackened Grilled Fillets

This is not my first time reviewing Gorton's grilled products and in fact, I've even given Buy It ratings before, so when I saw this Cajun Blackened Grilled Fillets on sale at Meijer for $3.99 (I also had a $1.00 off coupon), I was more than willing to pick it up and give another one of their flavors a try.  I like the spice of Cajun flavoring and I'm trying to find a way to like fish more (I realize this is frozen, so sue me), so this one was right up my alley.  This box contains two fillets weighing in at 3.8 ounces per fillet and each fillet contains 90 calories and packs a robust sixteen grams of protein.  Nice.  What I found interesting though was that the front packaging of the box did not tell you what kind of fish this was.  If you look at the back, you can see that it is Alaskan Pollock, but it just seems strange to me that the customer facing packaging is basically just labeling this as "fish" and that's it.

Review: Chobani Blueberry 0% Greek Yogurt

In my previous Chobani Black Cherry 0% Greek Yogurt review, I was not exactly happy with my purchase.  I found that one to be tart and nasty, but since I bought two of these yogurts on sale at Meijer for $1.00, I was kind of "forced" into trying out this second blueberry flavor.  It's 130 calories and as yogurts are wont to do, it packs fourteen grams of protein into a six ounce serving.

Review: Zone Perfect Fudge Graham Nutrition Bar

It's funny, I feel like I am doing reviews of the same product all the time because these protein/nutrition/energy bar companies have so many different flavors of products out there. I don't mind it though for a couple of reasons.  First, the difference in flavors adds some variety to the monotony of my life and second, I actually do care about all twelve of my readers.  I don't want you guys buying stuff that sucks.

Anyway, it's time for another review of a different flavor of Zone Perfect Nutrition bars.  This time, it's the Fudge Graham variety.  This one clocks in at 1.76 ounces (all of their bars do), 210 calories and contains fourteen grams of protein.  I picked this one up at Kroger on sale for $1.00.