Unreal Chocolate Caramel Peanut Nougat Bar

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More Unreal products today, folks.  Of course, this involved me going back to their silly website to check out the details on the UN8: Chocolate Caramel Peanut Nougat Bar.  Their website compared this bar to both a Snickers and a pear, which again seems completely logical.  This time, I also looked into the company history.  As legend has it, Unreal started when a man and his son fought over Halloween candy.  The kid brought it home, dad took it, kid tried to convince his dad that candy wasn’t so bad, only to find out through the magic of the internet that candy was filled with all sorts of terrible things.  As a side note, often when I read stories like this, I marvel at the fact that my parents never took any of my Halloween candy (except whatever good stuff they wanted), nor were they particularly interested in it.  I was either a lucky child or a rather neglected one.  Anyway, they ended up in communication with a chef in Spain named Adam, who “was so inspired by the mission of changing junk food that he immediately brought together top scientists and chefs all across Europe to recreate America’s biggest selling candies, without the junk.”  As a result, these bar contain no corn syrup, no hydrogenated oils, no GMOs, no artificial colors, preservatives, or flavors.  Also (and I didn’t know this until I read their history), all dairy products come from grass fed cows with no antibiotics or hormones, and “key ingredients” are responsibly sourced. The more you know.

 This Unreal Chocolate Caramel Peanut Nougat Bar is slightly smaller than a Snickers at 49g (versus 59g), but packs a fairly similar caloric punch with 4.08 cal per gram in the Unreal and 4.75 in the Snickers.  The bar’s smaller size will do you favors in portion control.  The fat content is also similar, relative to size.  The main differences lie in the sugar content, which is 30g for Snickers and just 17g for the Unreal version.  That’s a pretty vast difference, even accounting for size.  There are also 5g of fiber in the unjunked version, beating the pants off Snickers’ 1 measly little gram.

I don’t often get to say this in my non-candy life, but this bar smells awesome.  The Snickers is classic, but its super sweet scent does nothing to mask the 30g of sugar hiding inside.  The UN8 is a bit flatter than a Snickers and gives a clean break, revealing a neatly organized interior.  I do feel that it may have a slightly lower peanut content than Snickers, but I could easily be imagining that, or it could just be my bar.  I actually enjoyed the lower crunch factor, as it allowed a chewier experience with caramel as the star of the show.  It’s definitely not as sweet as a Snickers, which is wonderful.  I often have trouble finishing a Snickers without getting tired of the taste, and I ate the first half of this bar quickly and not with enough study.

I really dug this and I’d eat it on another occasion.  I wouldn’t say it’s quite like a Snickers bar, but it is good on it’s own and honestly doesn’t need to be compared.  Pick it up if you see it in your local CVS, and if you’re lucky, Walgreens.  Soon at Target and various other grocery stores we don’t have in Chicago.

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Unreal Candy Coated Chocolates with Peanuts

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So I disappeared for a while there.  It has been a busy month and it is probably for the same reason I can’t seem to make it into work on time lately no matter what time I get up.  That said, I’m getting up 10 minutes earlier tomorrow.

My friend texted me with a picture of this logo in early June, asking if I’d heard of it.  Nope, I responded, but I’d like to, and he picked up some samples for me.  I tried to go to their website, but all it contained was a looped video of guys at a meeting and a large timer across the screen, counting down to launch.  Cutesy, yes.  Helpful, no.  I just went to their website, and honestly, it’s still rather annoying.   The products are referred to by numbers instead of names, which makes superficial browsing difficult.   I’m all for thorough branding and creative delivery of information, but at the end of the day, I want something simple.  Each product is compared to its major brand competitor, then to a fruit, which Unreal suggests eating instead.  Wait… what? I mean, fruit is nature’s candy, but I’ve clearly made my choice.  Weird move, Unreal.  Regardless, I’m going to go ahead and compare my candy to Peanut M&Ms instead of an orange.

So let’s get to eating that candy (instead of fruit), shall we?  I didn’t get a sample of the regular candy coated chocolates (UN41 in Unreal-speak), but I did get a bag of the Candy Coated Chocolates with Peanuts, which are meant to “unjunk” Peanut M&Ms. Hold up, because I love M&Ms.  I love them in their many forms, except Crispy M&Ms which were an abomination.  Part of what makes M&Ms true M&Ms are the brilliant, possibly cancer-causing, possibly allergy-inducing, possibly hyperactivity-creating artificial colors they come in, which are out the window in this unjunked version.  Luckily, I’m a big fan of the particular hues of greenish-yellow, indigo-blue, purplish-red, and what looks to me to simply be black.

The candies are uneven in size, many of them around the size of your average Peanut M&M, and others smaller or larger.  Some oval, some round, all special and unique snowflakes.   The shells seem to be of similar thickness (maybe slightly thinner) and the chocolate-to- peanut ratio seems similar to your standard M&M.  Texture-wise, they are very similar.  As you know, I love a short ingredients list and this one is a winner in that category:

MILK CHOCOLATE (CHOCOLATE, SKIM MILK, CANE SUGAR, COCOA BUTTER, MILK POWDER, ORGANIC BLUE AGAVE INULIN, SOY LECITHIN, VANILLA EXTRACT), PEANUTS, CANE SUGAR, CALCIUM CARBONATE, PEANUT OIL, COLORED WITH (BEETROOT JUICE, TURMERIC ROOT EXTRACT, PURPLE CABBAGE JUICE), GUM ARABIC, VANILLA EXTRACT, CARNAUBA WAX & BEESWAX.

Taste-wise, they are quite different.  The chocolate is less sweet than your M&M, which makes sense given that not only is there less sugar overall (the package itself is almost 8 grams lighter than Peanut M&Ms), but less sugar per gram.  This really lets the peanut flavor shine through, and give it almost a peanut butter flavor instead of sugary sweet chocolate.   I quite liked them, which was clear by the fact that I ate half the package before looking down and saying “WHOA, MY FRIEND. BACK AWAY.”

I’d eat these instead of M&Ms if they were readily available and not way more expensive on the regular.  I went by my local CVS yesterday and saw them on display, but I didn’t purchase them because my local CVS is a tiny hole in the Earth that leads directly to Hell.  I received a couple more Unreal goodies from my pal, and will be reviewing them in short order, but as I mentioned, I don’t have the regular chocolate candies.  The fact that I’m considering braving the CVS elements should tell you how much I’d like to try them.  I’d definitely recommend picking up these Candy Coated Chocolates with Peanuts if you happen upon them, but if you ask for UN54, they will stare at you like you’re a moron.  Which is fair.

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Funky Monkey Snacks: JiveALime, Pink Pineapple & Carnaval Mix

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When I tried Funky Monkey’s snacks at Sweets and Snacks Expo, I dropped them my card and said I’d love if they could send me some stuff to review.  Who knew they’d be so awesome and send me their ENTIRE LINE of freeze-dried snacks to write up?  Cool!  Seven items seemed a bit excessive for one review, so today I’m focusing on all flavors that included pineapple (my favorite dried fruit variety):  JiveALime, Pink Pineapple, and Carnaval Mix.  The rest to come soon.

The bags were no picnic to photograph, and I apologize for the hideous glare on almost every picture.  It is adorable packaging, and the foil pouches keep the fruit fresh as the day it was freeze-dried.  Funky Monkey snacks are made in Brazil with just fruit (and cinnamon for their flavored products), without any chemicals or added sugars, which is neat, and technically they are even considered a raw food.  Kinda neat.

 

I tried the JiveALime first, as I couldn’t stop singing “You put the lime in the pineapple and eat ‘em both together…” and that needed to end.  The pineapple chunks are fairly large and the pineapple scent buries any hint of lime that might be lurking in there.   Upon tasting, though, the lime is definitely present and reminded me of crunching my way through a pina colada.  Sometimes lime can be a little overpowering, but the tartness of both the pineapple and lime held a surprising sort of balance.

I was hoping against hope that the pink pineapple flavor was actually going to be pink, and I was pleased as punch when it was.  Well, one side of the pineapple was.  The pink pineapple was a pineapple flavor with guava.  Tropical!  The pieces were a bit more broken up in my bag than the lime flavor, but that made it a bit quieter to sample at work.  This was less tart than the lime, and the guava added sweetness to the pineapple.  I liked this one slightly more than lime, but I’m a sucker for guava.

I saved the most complicated for last.  There’s a lot going on in the Carnaval Mix: apples, bananas, pineapple, and papaya.  I got a chunk of papaya first, and I have to say that while I love papaya in fresh form, the freeze dried tasted great but I wasn’t in love with the texture.  The apple I tried next was clearly an apple slice and not a weird amorphous shape, which I appreciated.   My old friend pineapple made a non-flavored showing, where it shone like the crazy diamond it is.  I found the banana chips most intriguing.  This is the most important part of the review.  If I were writing an abstract of this greater work, it would include this: I loved the fact that these were still crunchy and retained their flavor and texture instead of turning into a fine, powdery mist like some banana and apple freeze dried products I’ve tried in the past.

All Funky Monkey Snacks contain no gluten, wheat, dairy, peanut and tree nut, meaning they are an excellent option for people with food allergies or celiac disease. My friend Heidi from handsoccupied.com gives them the thumbs up for folks with hypoglycemia as they don’t contain the added sugars that lots of dried fruit normally does.  They are also certified Kosher.

Their website says you can find Funky Monkey in some Target and Whole Foods stores (as well as lots of other regional grocery stores).  You can also buy Funky Monkey snacks online in a variety of places:

Their website

Amazon

Drugstore.com

 

Disclaimer:  The Candy Fan received this product free of charge from the manufacturer or distributor.  Products are supplied for review on the understanding that the manufacturer/distributor has no right to influence the final conclusions or ratings.

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World Market Tiramisu Dark Chocolate bar

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I picked up this Tiramisu Dark Chocolate bar at World Market when I got my precious Cup-O-Gold, and while I had several bars to choose from, this one sounded the most intriguing.  Tiramisu?  In bar form?  For me?  The World Market website says: “Our Tiramisu Dark Chocolate Bar captures the traditional flavors of this classic Italian dessert while giving it a new twist.  A decadent mocha ganache filling is surrounded by delicious dark chocolate.” I’m looking forward to this new twist.

The bar smells rich and cocoa-y, like dark chocolate should.  It is portioned off into 6 rectangles, each with its own pocket of filling.  The dark chocolate is rich and creamy, and pretty good for your basic store brand chocolate bar, in my humble opinion.   I did some quick research to figure out who secretly makes the Cost Plus generic brand, but came up empty handed.  If you happen to know, please let this top secret knowledge in the comments, plz.

 

The filling is actually a white chocolate and vanilla mix, according to the ingredients, but it does have a distinct tiramisu flavor, though I certainly wish there was more of it.  The photos on the website definitely weren’t accurate to my bar.  The filling is a very thin layer that, while delicious, is hard to get a real taste of.  Since the filling is rather sparse, that leaves the chocolate as the centerpiece of the bar.   The dark chocolate is smooth and fabulous and carries the bar on its own, but I was disappointed at the showing the tiramisu filling made in this product.

 

As mentioned, the dark chocolate in this bar is great.  It has a smooth melt and didn’t leave me thirsty like some other darker varieties.  Milk chocolate would have been too sweet for the tiramisu filling, so dark was a good call.

I don’t know that I’d buy this bar again at full price, but I’ll give the rest of the World Market lineup a try whenever I get the opportunity.   At $1.79 a pop for a rather small bar, it’s not an every day treat, but check it out if you love a good Italian dessert.

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Cup-O-Gold

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So, I’ve seen Cup-O-Golds in the past.  Not terribly frequently as they are mostly sold on the west coast, but sometimes, and I picked this one up at World Market a couple of weeks ago.  They look from the outside to be an enormous peanut butter cup, and for some reason I believed that to be so for a very long time.  I also had an inkling that there might be marshmallow involved, but I think that can be explained by the gooey, white burst flowing from the inside of the cup on the package.  The Cup-O-Gold is, in reality, some sort of hybrid of many things.   The package describes the cup as “the big, single cup … with all the creamy milk chocolate, toasted almonds, that hint of coconut, and the signature creamy center…” and assures me that I deserve a Cup-O-Gold.  I deserve it, and today I shall have it.

The Cup-O-Gold was a challenge to photograph, and I wish I’d purchased two of them so I could destroy one in the photography process.  I needed this cup to stay mobile enough to bring to work with me without making a big ol’ mess, and I didn’t truly know what I was getting myself into when I cut it open.

 

The Cup-O-Gold smells fabulous.  There is a really strong, sweet, milk chocolate smell wafting up from the package as soon as you get into it.  The bottom of my Cup gave out as I tried to cut it off and lift, but I imagine if you popped it in the fridge for a few minutes, you’d get a tougher build.  The front of the package is surprisingly accurate to the inner workings, though the mess it creates is understated.  I liked that the marshmallow was actually stringy and gloppy, which shows that it’s not just “marshmallow filling”.

The top half of the cup is a mixture of almonds and coconut in milk chocolate while the lower portion is the marshmallow.  Given my druthers, I’d probably swap them to avoid the smashed mallow bottom that I got in my cup, but Adams & Brooks are professionals, so I’ll defer to them on this one.  The marshmallow is indeed pillowy like real mallow instead of the overly sweet, runny, white filling that goes into so many candy concoctions.  It has a mellow flavor that cozies right up to the sweetness of the milk chocolate.  The almond element is not a peanut buttery paste, but chopped and mixed with toasted coconut.

Real talk here: I really dug this cup. Coconut and chocolate is my third favorite combo following mint/chocolate and peanut butter/chocolate, and this had some great almond action in there, too.  I’d love to just eat the chocolate mixture in candy bar form, but with the marshmallow added in, the company website is correct when they say: “Whoooaaammm.”  I also loved the blissfully short ingredients list: milk chocolate, toasted coconut, corn syrup, sugar, almonds, sorbitol (a sugar substitute that moonlights as a laxative), egg albumin (egg whites), and artificial vanilla.  Huzzah to the Cup-O-Gold.  Though it’s tough to find these little devils in stores, you can order them in a variety of places for your snacking convenience:

Their website

Amazon

Candy Warehouse

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Gamer Grub: PB&J

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I tried Gamer Grub last year at SSE11 and found it to be less than inspiring, and only partially because the guy employed at their booth was rather unpleasant (companies, take note?).  This year they had a more centrally-located booth (if memory serves correctly) and a much friendlier staff, who happily gave us samples of several types of Grub and sent us home with a couple of full-size bags.

Gamer Grub’s shtick focuses on the arduous task of snacking whilst continuing to play video games.  Quoth their website: “Gamer Grub is a great tasting snack mix packed with select vitamins and neurotransmitters to keep you focused and quick. Gamer Grub is designed to support the activities you do while gaming and multi-tasking.”  I didn’t realize that vitamins were part of their sales pitch, but I guess when you’re playing a game for 15 hours in the dark, it would be a good idea to eat something a bit more nutritious than room-temperature Mountain Dew and mostly broken Cool Ranch Doritos. Let’s toss in a little Vitamin A, B, C, E, Magnesium, Choline, and L-Glutamic Acid (Glutamate). In fairly decent amounts too; the low end clocks in at 6% of your daily value for magnesium and the others at 15%.  They advertise the “Tear N Tilt” aspect of the packaging to eliminate greasy fingers, but my Liz Lemon-esque fear of choking kept my urge to test that out at bay.  Plus… no.

I received full-sized bags of the Pizza flavor and PB&J flavor Gamer Grub from the expo rep.  The pizza flavor was fabulous, actually, but as it is not a sweet snack, I’ll say no more about it (yes I will: it was tasty).  PB&J is our primary focus today and I’ll tell you straight up: I really liked this Grub. The website describes it as “A tasty blend of Peanut Butter Chips, Peanuts, Strawberries, Strawberry Jelly Chips and Sweet Bread.”  By sweet bread, they mean tiny cookies, not the other kind.  I feel like they could have just said “cookies”.  They are very vanilla and basic, but add nice crunch to the mix and remind me of my beloved Garfield-branded Cookie Gems.

I love me some peanut butter chips, so I was happy to see them in my PB&J mix, but I was also pleased to have actual peanuts in there too.  They provided a nice balance and a bit of salt to the rest of the mix which was basically candy. I guess they are strawberry jelly fans rather than the old grape standby, because both jelly products are strawberry and both are delicious.  The dried strawberry bits are sweet and chewy, but the “strawberry jelly chips” are what make this mix special to me.  They are little discs of chewy, fruity flavor, and for some reason they built themselves a nice little summer home in my heart.

This mix was ridiculously poppable, and I ate half the bag before I even realized what I was doing.  Yes, their branding is a little silly but don’t let that put you off their product.   According to their store locator, you can buy your own Gamer Grub at various Best Buys in the Chicagoland area (and at Microcenter, if you know what/where that is).  I checked a couple of my former Floridian zip codes as well, and found them at their Best Buy locations, so that seems to be the safe place to attain the Grub.  Or you can always order it online here.  Happy gaming (and check out the pizza flavor)!

 

Disclaimer:  The Candy Fan received this product free of charge from the manufacturer or distributor.  Products are supplied for review on the understanding that the manufacturer/distributor has no right to influence the final conclusions or ratings.

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Sweets and Snacks Expo 2012: Day Two

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Day Two of Sweets and Snacks Expo 2012, already.  Started on the opposite side so we’d be sure to see everything there is to see.  Yesterday we only got a bit over halfway through the hall, so there was still a lot of Expo-ing to be done on our part.  Starting the day off on the savory side of snacking proved to be a good decision after yesterday’s morning candy overload. The ladies at the Pop Chips booth were kindly enough to provide Heidi and I with enormous red, branded tote bags, which we quickly designated as our “chip bags”.  Big bag, light load.  Planning.  Speaking of which, I tried to travel a bit smarter today, as yesterday resulted in a majorly sore set of shoulders on this candy blogger. Cross-body bag with padded shoulder strap? Yes please! I also brought my larger DSL camera so I could get some shots of the festivities and Heidi got a rest from carrying hers.  (You can also see the rest of my photos from today).

I saw these Campfire marshmallows yesterday, but didn’t try them until today.  Chocolate, mint, and marshmallow.  Three words which are lovely alone but transform into a wonderful symphony when spoken together.  Heidi didn’t dig the idea, but I really liked them.  I don’t know what I’d do with an entire bag, but I think I could probably get creative.

Speaking of marshmallows, over at the Russell Stover booth, I laid eyes on something amazing: S’mores.  Now, most pre-made s’mores products, even those in your fancy chocolate shoppes (note the “-pes” there), tend to be a little questionable.  They don’t stick together well.  As soon as you bite in, the whole thing falls apart in your hand and you’re holding a bunch of crumbs and shattered dreams.  This thing?  Solid. I tried a bite at the booth after this rep unwrapped one for me, but I’ll be following up with a review.  No doubt.

Around noon, we retired to the press room to catch up on social media and eat some fruit slices. I can’t tell you how much I wish they had bagels in this room right now. I was totally fooled by some plain donuts upon entry and now all I can think about are bagels.  Donuts! Yesterday I was charmed by delightful-looking danish, and this morning I have to say I was disappointed to see donuts staring up at me.  Too many sweet things, not enough bread products.

One of my favorite products at the Expo were these jelly beans from Surf Sweets.  We tried them yesterday, but came back today to get some pictures and eat some more beans.  Seriously, some of the best jelly beans I’ve had – and I’ve had a lot of jelly beans.  And they had a balloon guy there making creations for passersby and decorating their booth.  It was like the best birthday party I ever went to when I was seven.

My other favoritewas this dried cactus snack from Nopal Bros.  They were up for, and won, the Most Innovative Product award and I couldn’t agree more.  Cactus! It didn’t look super appetizing (truth), but was wonderful – like a fruit leather.  Like almost everything at Expo this year, there was a sweet and spicy option, and I opted for sweet.  Heidi tried, and liked, the spicy version, but spicy just isn’t for me in general.  These are only available in Texas currently, but you can also purchase the product online si hablas espanol.

If there was one thing I was happy to see at the Expo this year, it was Stonewall’s Jerquee!  After wandering the sugar desert for two days with nary a protein source in sight, we were alerted by Zomgcandy to the presence of one of my favorite tasty vegetarian snacks.  Stonewall’s Jerquee is all natural, animal free (vegan), and gluten free.  Also: DELICIOUS.  I often pick up a bag of Stonewall’s Jerquee at my local health food store near my workplace, and was delighted to try a couple of varieties not found there.

Thoughts?  Spicy seemed to be a major theme this year, from candy products to chips.  Everything at the show seemed to come in jalapeno flavor, and since I’m not a spicy food fan, much of it was lost on me.  It is definitely interesting how one theme can seem to take over every product, and I wish I had a better taste for it so I could have compared across the zillion different types of jalapeno spiciness.  This year I also noticed that the natural, organic, gluten free, vegan, specialty-type items weren’t grouped together and segregated the way they have been in past shows.  They were simply mixed in with the rest of the booths.  This may mean that consumers are no longer seeing those products as so ‘weird’ or needing to be isolated from the ‘normal’ candy, which is wonderful, but it also made it harder to seek those products out specifically.

We won’t be at SSE12 tomorrow, but it was a great experience, yet again, this year! I saw a lot of things that I didn’t even cover here, some of which I’ll be following up with reviews. It is always one of the highlights of my calendar and it was awesome to share it with my pal, Heidi.  McCormick, see you in two weeks for NATO.  Sweets and Snacks, I bid you adieu, my love.  Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say goodnight until it be next May. I leave you with two people in some of the saddest looking Angry Birds costumes I’ve ever seen, totally working it.

See you next year!

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Sweets and Snacks Expo 2012: Day One

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(Written May 8, 2012.  You know, actually on Day One).

 

Day one of sweets and Snacks Expo 2012!  Last year I went to the Expo alone, but this year I’m attending the expo with my pal Heidi, crafting extraordinaire, from handsoccupied.com (You can check out her Day One wrap-up with way more pictures).  I must say it’s far superior to attend with someone else.  Sure, you can probably conduct more serious business when you’re flying solo, but with a partner in crime you can discuss the crazy sights and sounds of SSE and celebrate Candy Mountain together.  She took the pictures today, but I’ll bring my camera tomorrow and take some of my own.

We got to McCormick around 9:45, picked up our badges, and stopped by the press room to relax a bit before heading into the show.  If I’d known that I could eat delicious-looking pastries in a popup lounge, I probably wouldn’t have eaten such a healthy breakfast of Kashi cereal.

We started at one end of the room in an attempt to cover the Expo in as much detail and efficiency as possible. One of the first places we stopped was Gudfud, makers of adorable fruit jelly and chocolate-filled marshmallows. I love a good mallow and I’d tried these last year, so we stopped to chat with Steven Hahn about his product. The chocolate version is new this year, and since it is packaged the same as the fruit version, the main issue at the booth was whether to put all the samples in the same bowl. Steve’s position was that people are either chocolate cravers or “tangy” cravers and thus, the samples must be separated.  I’m with him on this one, but I also separate my M&Ms by color and eat KitKats by dismantling them.

Needing a bit of a break and access to some decent wifi, we stopped back in the press room, where we ran into Zomgcandy’s Rosa and Emma and Eat More Chocolate’s Joe, where a bit of a blogger pow wow commenced.  Headed over to the Mars Historic Chocolate Presentation with the gals from Zomgcandy afterward, where I crushed my cocoa pod and held it in my hand for an awkwardly long time, garbage-canless.  You know what the Expo needs?  More garbage cans, y’all.

I received several emails leading up to the Expo regarding a “breakup” of Mike & Ike, so we stopped by the official press conference regarding the matter. Not really sure what I was expecting here.  Fictional character Mike is going to pursue his music passion, while fictional character Ike will be following his love of art. All of the packaging had Mike or Ike’s name scratched out of the logo.  Cute.


Didn’t win a car at the Welch’s Smart car giveaway, though I did receive a free extra large t-shirt. Maybe tomorrow.  I also didn’t receive any actual Welch’s product, as it was one of the displays with plastic covering everything.  Around 3:15, car-less, we decided to head home for the day. You know it’s time to leave the candy show when Combos begin to sound like “real food”.   Until tomorrow, McCormick Place.

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KIND Fruit & Nut bar: Apple Cinnamon and Pecan

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Last year, I took the two weeks prior to Sweets and Snacks Expo as a challenge of epic proportions:  CANDY FAST.   No candy, cookies, or other junk food for 14 days.  Problem was, the plan backfired.  When I got to the Expo, the last thing I wanted was candy.  After the first few samples, I was pretty much done for the day.  With Sweets and Snacks Expo 2012 coming up in only a week’s time, I’m taking a new approach: this time I’ll be training. I’ll be taking a healthier approach to my snacking, but won’t be cutting it out entirely.  Enter this KIND Fruit & Nut bar in Apple Cinnamon and Pecan.  All natural, gluten and wheat free, non-GMO, dairy free, 3 gram of protein, and 2.5 grams of gut-filling fiber.  Although my oral surgeon warned against my consuming almonds or other similarly hard/pointy foods for the next week or so, I went for it with this bar.  Also, I forgot about that rule until about halfway through.

The first thing I noticed about this KIND bar was that it smelled friggin’ fantastic.  It smells like autumn, and I love autumn, y’all, except for how it eventually turns into winter.   The cinnamon really pops and the apple provides a nice, sweet tone.   You can also smell the honey and raisin elements for an overall appealing scent.  I also really dig KIND bars’ appearance.  You can see the whole almonds in there, not to be trifled with, as well as the crisped rice, cashews, pecans, and raisins.   I’m a big fan of cashews in bars, as their texture lends itself to a good chew without being too hard on the teeth.

Not only does this bar smell like fall, it tastes like it too.  Bet you didn’t see that coming.   The pecans were less than noticeable until I took a good, long look and micro-chewed (that’s what I call chewing with the front of your mouth… something I’ve done a lot of since I had my wisdom teeth out) sections of the bar.  But there it is, clear as day.  The apple flavor was wonderful and the cinnamon wasn’t too heavy. KIND bars have a good stretch and chew, but you can still break off a single section to eat without mangling the whole bar.

I should have listened to my oral surgeon, because halfway through this bar, my mouth started to hurt like nothing else.  If it says something to the deliciousness of this KIND bar, I kept eating it anyway – just slower, much slower.  And doing a lot of micro-chewing.  I may have needed an Advil afterward, but I have no regrets.

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