Peanut Butter Grahamwhich

Did you know that a peanut is a legume or from the bean family? It is a common misconception that a peanut is a nut. It was actually discovered in the country of Peru. The Aztecs were the first ones to grind the peanuts into a paste that we call peanut butter today. It actually takes over 500 peanuts to make a 12oz jar of the peanut butter that about 90% of Americans own in their house today.

Enough with the peanut facts, let's get to the grub. What I am going to talk about is "Peanut Butter and Grape Jelly on Graham Wafers." It's a product by Advance Pierre Foods that comes frozen. When you rip open the pack it's shaped like those classic ice cream sandwiches that you get at the store. The cracker part is thicker than the regular HoneyMaid that you may be used to. The peanut butter is pretty evenly spread and is slightly thicker than peanut butter out of a jar (which is a good thing because it means that it would squirt everywhere; it seems more natural).

This product smells amazing; like I placed a peanut butter jar in my lunch box along with a sweet pastry-like twist. Did that make any sense? Well it doesn't smell like your usual PB&J in soft bread, I can tell you that much. It smells better! And I love the smell of PB&J.
The taste is phenomenal. Even out of the freezer the cracker part is perfectly crunchy. The peanut butter doesn't taste artificial and it has the creamiest texture. Although the jelly doesn't have much of a profound flavor, there is a perfect amount of it to sweeten this product. The aftertaste is also great.

It is honestly one of the best snacks/breakfasts you can find that is packaged. This keeps me satisfied for a couple hours. It kicks those sugar cravings and gives you some good, healthy fats, fiber, and protein. It's a perfect guilt-free snack.

Nutrition Information:
1 2.02oz Graham
Calories:290
Fat:17g
Carbs:30g
Fiber:3g
Protein:9g

I give this product a glowing 10 points!
10/10
100%

Quaker Heart Medleys

In 2009 my grandfather from my mother's side came to visit America for the first time from Turkey. It was exciting for him because he had actually never left his country before that. One of the things that was new to him was oatmeal for breakfast. My grandfather was a farmer his whole life, so when he first took a look at it he laughed and said that's what he served his cows. He liked it though. You'd think that fact would put me off oatmeal. It didn't.

So I like trying new things. Cereal is one of them. There are so many hot cereal products alone out there that it is overwhelmingly hard to make the choice of which one you want; or even which one you should get. So I just stick to the ones that are on sale so I don't have to choose. This time it was Quaker's Heart Medleys' that were on sale.

I purchased all the varieties, due to the fact that the boxes were a dollar each. I noticed that I saved about $2.50 per box by doing that. They were on sale for that cheap because the expiration date was one or two months away and they needed to get rid of them.

So they only come in two flavors: (1) Banana Walnut (2) Apple Cranberry Almond
They are relatively new on the shelves and they claim to have real fruit, nuts, and 4 whole grains per package.

Banana Walnut

So the banana walnut variety was the one I was most excited to try due to the fact that I love banana walnut bread. It is by far one of the best baked goods out there if made correctly. Therefore, I made this kind first.

I opened the package and there were nice visible chunks of walnut pieces and freeze dried bananas. My only complaint is that the portion is too small. So I had to use three packs with half a couple of milk. Overall it tasted like bread pudding and I fell in love. It's very sweet so if that's not your thing then I say don't buy these.

So the smell was divine while I cooked it. It had just the banana bread smell I was looking for. It tasted just as good as well. There were chunks of banana and walnut in my mouth in every spoonful I took.

Taking a look at the ingredients, it's all pretty natural stuff:
INGREDIENTS: MULTI GRAIN BLEND (WHOLE GRAIN ROLLED RYE,WHOLE GRAIN ROLLED OATS, WHOLE GRAIN ROLLED BARLEY), SUGAR, FREEZE DRIED BANANAS, WALNUTS WITH BHT ADDED TO PROTECT FLAVOR, WHOLE GRAIN ROLLED WHEAT,BANANA FLAKE POWDER, BROWN SUGAR, OAT FLOUR, SALT, NATURAL FLAVOR.

In addition, each pack had only 140 calories, 2.5g of fat, 27g carbs, 3g fiber, and 3g protein.

Apple Cranberry Almond

Apple Cranberry Almond is what I tried next. Once again if you look in the packets raw you see freeze dried apples, almond slivers, but barely any cranberries in most of the packets. I did the same recipe as I did with the banana walnut previously.

It did smell wonderful as it was cooking; sort of like apple pie. It also tasted wonderful; but not as good as banana walnut nor was it as sweet. But like I said I have a thing for banana walnut so others may disagree.

The ingredients are also natural:
INGREDIENTS: MULTI GRAIN BLEND (WHOLE GRAIN ROLLED RYE,WHOLE GRAIN ROLLED OATS, WHOLE GRAIN ROLLED BARLEY), SUGAR, WHOLE GRAIN ROLLEDWHEAT, ALMONDS, DEHYDRATED APPLES (TREATED WITH SODIUM SULFITE TO PROMOTE COLORRETENTION), SWEETENED CRANBERRIES (CRANBERRIES, SUGAR, CITRIC ACID, ELDERBERRYJUICE CONCENTRATE, CHERRY JUICE CONCENTRATE), OAT FLOUR, SALT, CINNAMON,NATURAL FLAVOR.

Each package has 130 calories, 2.5g fat, 27g carb, 3g fiber, and 3g protein.
I give these products a whopping 8/10.
They should be cheaper so I could buy them more often.
It's one of the best oatmeal packs on the market.

Starbucks Cranberry Orange Scone

Nutritional Profile:

Calories: 490
Fat: 18g
Carbs: 73g
Fiber: 2g
Protien: 8g

It was a wonderful day outside and I decided to take a walk with my mother. We were strolling past a local Starbucks and popped in for some coffee and a baked good.
We decided to share the pastry. I let my mom make the decision of which one to choose. She said her eye immediately caught the Cranberry Orange Scone.

That was the day I realized I loved scones. To tell you the truth, I've never tried a scone before that day. It was so delicious, especially next to some hot coffee. The flavor balance was perfect and it had just the right amount of sweetness.

The only complaint I have is that the top of the scone seemed to separate from the bottom. But all I can say is that it was going to mash in my tummy anyways.

Kirkland Organic Instant Oatmeal Packs

There are those of us who have grown up eating oatmeal and those of us who avoided it as much as possible throughout their lives. I think the reason that many people avoid oatmeal is that they have not tried it the "proper way", as I call it. I personally have tried oatmeal with plain water and felt like vomiting throughout the whole bowl. I just could not finish it. The "proper way" to make oatmeal is to add a little bit of honey, milk, and vanilla extract while you are cooking it which is what I did to these oatmeal packs.

I actually got them from my neighbors who decided after a few packs that they did not like the taste of oatmeal. They didn't want to waste the food (bless them; most people waste a lot of food these days) so they gave them to my family.

Each individual pack is sealed to freshness and has 190 calories, a more decent serving size than the miniature Quaker. It was already presweetened for me so I added some almond milk and boiled it stove top.

The varieties include:
Maple and Brown Sugar
Mixed Berry
Apple Cinnamon
Flaxeed

All four flavors tasted delicious. My favorite would have to be the Maple and Brown Sugar. The Mixed Berry had a medicinal taste when I first put it in my mouth but after a while I have grown to really like it. The apple cinnamon has room for improvement but is delicious nevertheless. And the flaxeed honestly tasted like plain oatmeal. The flaxeeds were grinded up so you only see them in speckles. This is actually the proper way to eat flaxeed because all the health benefits of flaxeed are located within the seed, so swallowing it whole won't do.

Overall I give these packs a 7/10

Quaker True Delights Toasted Coconut Banana Macadamia and Dark Chocolate Raspberry Almond

Toasted Coconut Banana Macadamia These bars are full of flavor and delicious. They are soft and chewy and quite grainy as well, which I actually like to chew. The sweetness was perfect and almost dessert like but the bar is not that high in calorie. It had a nice toasted coconut flavor and there were maybe about 2-3 macadamia nuts in each bar on average. They sort or reminded me of white chocolate macadamia nut cookies with a banana and coconut flavor. The banana flavor was heavily present as well, but in more of a banana bread way than in an artificial way. I loved this flavor overall and was pretty impressed by it. 

Dark Chocolate Raspberry Almond

This bar was just as good as the Toasted Coconut Banana Macadamia one. It tastes exactly like it sounds. Just imagine a trail mix flavor of this stuff and you'll get the picture of what these tastes like. But like I said before, they are very moist. As you can see from the picture, there are little specs of red that are supposed to be raspberries. There seems to be more nuts in these bars, as in almonds. This is probably because almonds are much cheaper than macadamia nuts, although they are more delicious.


I give both bars an 9/10

So I came back to this review two years later, to add some nutrition facts, and when I got online to look for the products, I realized that it is no longer for sale. They discontinued True Delights! Come on Quaker! This was probably your best line of stuff and you discontinue and replace it with something like Real Medleys? BRING THESE BACK IMMEDIATELY!