Kev's Snack Reviews

Tesco are currently busy launching a raft of new ice cream products into their stores, and there's many gems among them - see this Instagram post of mine for a few as well as my Skittles Ice Creams review. There's also a new Haagen Dazs Brownie Macchiato , Ben and Jerry's Coconutterly Caramel Vegan Ice Cream, Low Fat Ben & Jerry's Moophoria tubs as well as new Halo Top lollies (which everyone is going crazy for)! I thought I'd try something a bit simpler to review, possibly healthier and also...vegan! Yes, the Solero brand has done something quite revolutionary and removed the dairy ice cream centre of a Solero, and replaced it with a soft juicy filling for these Peach Lollies. The ingredients are a simple mix of sugar, water, peach juice, peach, peach puree, lemon juice, pectin and other natural flavourings, as well as apple juice. Very fruity! The ingredients are also made by organic agriculture, which is always nice to know. Each stick has 60 calori...

Recently I read an article in The Grocer about Nim's Fruit Crisps and how they've become so popular they're now being sold in Tesco stores. After spotting some in my local Tesco Express I thought I'd give them a whirl to see what all the fuss is about. They're described as 100% natural, with no added sugar or sweetener, air dried rather than fried and are made in the UK. They're gluten free, dairy free, suitable for vegans, and certified as one of your portions of fruit and veg per day. I can't remember the exact price these were, but it was around £1 or so which is quite a bit for 22g of crisps, so I was hoping they'd be worth it! Opening the bag, I tipped them into a bowl. They looked a bit like fried courgettes, or maybe it's just me?  It was obvious these were 100% natural going by appearances - honestly, they didn't look so great haha! I've tried things like this before - such as Morrisons Carrot Crisps - so with these being fruit...

I've been trying lots of new and exotic fruit varieties over the Summer since reducing my sugar intake, from flavoured grapes to melons, but one fruit I hadn't heard of before were Achahas. I spotted them in Marks & Spencer recently reduced in price so thought I'd give them a try. Achahas are a fruit related to the mangosteen that grow in the southern part of the Amazon basin in the central area of Bolivia, with tough shells that must be split open with a knife...or your teeth. Apparently. Removing the rind reveals a somewhat fluffy looking fruit with seeds. The fruit is awkward to eat, you can bite it and then suck the seeds out. It tasted a bit like banana to me with a slight citrus edge. To be honest I wasn't that impressed with these, they're a lot of effort for not much payoff. The taste is pleasant I suppose, but there's not much in them to eat. I didn't feel they were worth the £1.75 never mind whatever the full price is. Appar...

Another day, another grape review...and slowly but surely I am joining the "let a grape just be a grape!" team, led by Nibbles 'N Scribbles, since most of the "flavoured" varieties have been such a disappointment for me. This time, I'm reviewing a darker variety, one that was recommended to me in the comments of my review of Marks and Spencer Tutti Frutti grapes . I do love some darker grapes, especially when they are not just any grapes, but "expertly sourced for Marks and Spencer" grapes. At £3 a box these promised to be something rather special indeed. I have to say, they weren't quite as amazing as I was expecting but they were certainly very tasty. Full of flavour and not as sweet as most varieties, I did enjoy these a lot but I guess I was looking for seomthing "more". Maybe that's my problem - a grape should just be a grape! Albeit good quality grapes. Compared to the Tuttu Frutti ones I would say these are jus...

As well as various varieties of grapes I've been busy trying lots of different melons recently, you could say I've developed a slight obsession with the delicious fruits. Going sugar free does that to you! One intriguing melon I just had to try recently was this Orange Candy variety "expertly sourced for Marks & Spencer", which seems to also be available from Waitrose under a different name. It's basically a Honeydew melon but with a darker orange colour, and is smaller in size. The taste is very different from a Honeydew. I do love Honeydew's, they're so sweet and satisfying, but it's nice to have something a bit less sweet now and then. This one has a more muted sweeteness and a slight tartness, more flavour than a Honeydew and less empahsis on its sweetness. It's hard to describe really, but it's a very refreshing and tasty melon! Comapred to a Honeydew, this certainly makes for a lovely change, and if you can get them at ...

Following on from my review of Marks and Spencer's Tutti Frutti Grapes last week, I thought I'd try out some more "candy inspired" grape varieties, one of them being Tesco's Candy Floss Seedless Grapes. These cost £2 a box for 400g and are widely available from most Tesco stores. There's also a Strawberry flavoured grape variety. After the disappointing fact that the Tutti Frutti ones didn't taste of tutti frutti whatsoever, I wasn't really expecting much from these except sweeter than average grapes. And that's exactly what I got! Most white grapes are usually pretty sweet anyway - they're practically nature's candy - but these babies are even sweeter than regular. So if you're trying to curb your sweet tooth with natural foods, they might be delightful for you, but I personally found them too much and the sweetness detracted from them being enjoyable. I would much rather a good box of black grapes with some actual flavour in...

Today's review is another departure, for once I'm reviewing actual food - grapes to be precise! I've been eating a lot more fruit recently since cutting down on refined sugar, so when I saw these Tutti Frutti grapes in Marks and Spencer I couldn't resist giving them a try. "Grapes that taste of sweets?", I thought. I was rather excited indeed. They're expertly sourced for Marks & Spencer from vineyards around the world, and the grapes are ripened longer on the vine than regular grapes. Yes, these are not just any grapes... I was disappointed to find that they weren't in fact tutti frutti flavoured (whatever that is) they were simply a sweeter, juicier variety of grapes. Which isn't to say these didn't taste good - they tasted DELICIOUS. Seriously some of the best grapes I've ever had. But they weren't tutti frutti flavoured. After trying a few varieties of "flavoured" grapes now from Candyfloss to Strawberry, I...

In the midst of some of their latest new indulgent product launches, Nestle have decided to reduce sugar and calories across some of their range. Last week they announced the launch of a Kitkat with More Milk & Cocoa (which has caused "outrage" according to the Daily Mail ), and as well as that they've reduced sugar by 30% in Fruit Pastilles and Rowntree's Randoms. I found this bag of reduced sugar Fruit Pastilles for 60p in Tesco Express. They contain no artificial sweeteners, and it seems that some of the sugar may have been replaced with dextrin, which is a fibre made from corn. So they're still high carb but contain less sugar. They tasted pretty good, definitely less sugary than regular Fruit Pastilles and were somehow lighter to eat. The fruit flavours are still there and the chewy texture is still the same. For a reduced sugar sweet it's hard to tell the difference, and thankfully they don't have that weird flavour that some products ...