Kev's Snack Reviews

As part of my healthy eating drive recently, I've been trying some healthier snacks from the supermarkets. Luckily, it's getting easier to find healthy stuff thanks to a stream of new products from the various new paleo/raw/vegan companies that are constantly springing up. It seems Tesco are getting in on the act too, not only have they recently ditched a lot of sugary drinks from their shelves, they've also increased their range of fruits and nuts for snacking. They're also promoting their new vegetable crisps, which you'll find near the checkouts in many Express stores. They include Beetroot slices, which sounded horrible to me so I went for these sweet potato slices...ahem...crisps instead. They're basically slices of sweet potato that have been baked until crunchy. There's no salt or oil added, just pure dehydrated sweet potato. I guess they thought these don't need any flavourings since the natural sweetness of the potato is flavour enough. ...

As many of my followers will know, I'm currently on a sugar-free kick, so today's post is one from the archives. However I'm still snapping lots of pics of new snacks in supermarkets which you can find on my Instagram  page, please do follow to keep up to date with the latest snack finds! I've been itching to try this new ice cream from new ice cream company on the block "The Licktators" ever since they popped up in the Co Op recently. Their ice creams seem to be exclusive to the Co Op, I've only seen them there so far, if you've spotted them anywhere else please let me know in the comments. They do some interesting and uncommon flavours such as custard, cinnamon doughnut, and more. Indeed, they seem to pride themselves on their interesting flavours - here's a blurb from the tub "The Licktators are independent British ice cream revolutionaries liberating the world from ordinary ice cream with their sub zero collection of original B...

Recently, I undertook the mammoth task of giving up sugar for a while. Being a longtime fan of new snacks and sweets this hasn't been an easy task...temptation lies on every corner! So do forgive me if there's been a lack of snacks posts recently! I'll still be posting reviews I've got in the archive but after that...who knows. I may start featuring only healthier snack products. Time will tell! As part of my "healthier" snack sampling I tried this bar of "raw cacao confection vanoffee" from the raw chocolate co, which I found in a health food store for 99p. It's basically a raw chocolate bar made from cacao butter, Lucuma and coconut sugar. So not exactly sugar free, but coconut sugar is supposed to be healthier than refined sugar and is low glycemic, plus its paleo approved if you're on a paleo diet. This chocolate is also vegan, dairy free, contains no gluten or soya, and is of course raw. So it certainly ticks all health boxes! What...

Whilst in Sainsbury's I spotted these new limited edition, or rather "frenzy edition" Haribo Tangfastics. (Many thanks to Katherine from Grocery Gems for alerting me to these - check out her review of the Starmix variety here!). As much as I enjoy Starmix I love the sourness of Tangfastics more so I held out until I could find this version. The flavours are all tropical and completely different to regular Tangfastics, and include passion fruit, mango & pineapple, grapefruit, peach, pomegranate, mango, watermelon and passion fruit & peach. What's odd is that the cherries are now pomegranate flavoured...I've never had a pomegranate cherry before! All these random flavours just add to the fun of course. The cola bottles now taste of watermelon, and along with the pomegranate cherries they seemed to make up most of the bag. They were very nice but I preferred the other flavours in the mix like mango, grapefruit and peach etc. This is definitely a ve...

I've already reviewed hotel chocolat's carrot cake and rhubarb and custard chocolates recently - both part of their new summer range - and the final review in the trio is these mango white chocolates. Now these aren't specifically British inspired like the aforementioned treats, but they're just as tasty and delicious...kind of like Solero ice cream in chocolate form! They're described as "mango ganache sealed in a white chocolate shell, decorated with naturally coloured white chocolate". Mango concentrate makes up 8% of the ingredients, which is a lot of mango! Perhaps explaining this is the blurb on the pack: "our rabot estate is overflowing with mangoes - we mourn for the ones tragically squashed underfoot"! Mango isn't a flavour I've often seen paired with chocolate, which is a tragic shame as it works so beautifully, especially with Hotel Chocolat's creamy white chocolate. The mango ganache here is perfectly ...

Following on from my review of the new hotel Chocolat carrot cake chocolates, part of their new summer range, today we have rhubarb and custard - another much-loved British treat. These chocolates are described as "rhubarb ganache layered with custard flavoured white chocolate, sealed in a milk and white chocolate vanilla seed shell decorated with naturally coloured white chocolate". According to the pack, "in the 1839 opium war, the Chinese tried to defeat the Brits by holding our rhubarb to ransom"...I never realised we loved our rhubarb so much! Rhubarb has a tendency to be a bit  tart for some, no doubt why it works best when balanced with the creaminess of custard. These chocolates contain 3% rhubarb concentrate, which is enough to give a sharpness that blends nicely with the chocolate. It works beautifully! I couldn't stop scoffing these; the sharp rhubarb flavour combined with creamy white chocolate was extremely moreish. I'm not sure it ta...

Here we have the latest chocolate bar to shake up the confectionary world, the imaginitive new Aero Mousse! Please do forgive my sarcasm, it's just that this bar seems a bit plain and pointless to me, but nevertheless I still had to give it a try when I spotted it in Boots recently. According to the press release, it's being marketed at women, because of course no man would ever eat such a light chocolate bar. Only Yorkies for us please!  Opening the wrapper and placing the bar next to it I was struck by how small it looked. I presumed this is because the mousse adds extra to the weight of the bar...but it only weighs 34g which doesn't seem a lot! I'm not sure how much a regular Aero weighs these days as I never buy them, but I'm pretty sure it's more than 34 grams.  Anyway, the front of the pack gives the calories for half of the bar...because of course any self respecting woman would only eat a measly 17 grams! Being the manly man that I ...