Sunday 10 July 2016

vegan fudge bites: FOOD REVIEW

So I tried some dairy free, vegan 'fudgee bites' today and I must say, they were very, very sugary and sicklier than normal fudge I think as well as almost overly sweet. The vanilla flavour was quite strong too and stuck out well. 
It's described as creamy, like all fudge, however I would more think of the texture as actually kind of a bit grainy like a harder sweet. The outside is actually a bit hard, being difficult to squish with your hand while it's still had an initial softness when you bite into it. Due to the strong nature of the flavours, I wouldn't recommend eating too much, I was satisfied with the 4 small pieces I ate, despite all that it's still not massively filling. 

I think these bites seem pretty easy to find, mine were just at a local medium sized Morrison's. They are a little on the pricy side which is always a bit irritating but if you have a big sweet tooth then I would probably say splash out on the £2.50 or so. However personally I'd made my own in future instead. 

Due to its sweetness it does contain a lot of sugar however the bites are pretty small so you're less likely to eat too much I suppose but it is fudge and it's not going to be 'healthy' but in moderation, 100% fine

Taste-***
Price and accessibility-****
Health rank-**1/4
Overall rating- ***

Not my favourite food I've reviewed as you can see, but not everything can be good, I may start making and reviewing vegan resipies at one point but I'm not sure, for now though I have a couple products that I still need to try. 
Apologies for the inconsistency 

Thursday 7 July 2016

FOOD REVIEW: Tesco sweet potato falafels

The sweet potato element was the first thing that attracted me to the falafels as I love normal ones but had never tried the sweet potato version, I thought since I love the ingredients is love them to however when I saw the 'mild' rating I was worried yet despite their onion bhaji smell, they were hardly spicy at all, until you got to the hot after taste, which had a little kick but for most would probably be fine. 
Really,  the only flavours and textures I could get were sweet potato (chunks), chickpeas and maybe a little bit of onion.
These falafels are a tescos own brand, meaning they're only available in tesco stores or online, though that's still pretty uk accessible and I'm sure if you look there'll be dozens of both recipes and ready to eat brands selling similar products. I think these, and most, tesco vegan freezer items are great due to their low prices, £1.50 a pack (only 12p each!) and how usually there are offers on the veggie items too!

So they might not be the healthiest, being in the "yellow section" for everything but that doesn't make them too bad, mainly veg and part of a meal, perfectly fine and not too high kcal either.

Taste-***3/4
Price and accessibility-****1/2
Health rank-***1/2
Overall rating-****


Monday 4 July 2016

FOOD REVIEW: Tesco White choc bar


I've tried and reviewed the choc 'n crisp bar previously and I wanted to try the White chocolate one too. And I fell in love, the bars so amazingly smooth and creamy with a melt in your mouth texture. It's thick, soft and slightly oily which I could quite figure out until I read that coconut oil is actually one of he ingredients. These bars are honestly one of the best and they're wheat, gluten and dairy free. 

They're also only 40p each which I thinks brilliant, and so much cheaper than any other (as I mentioned back in the 'choc 'n crisp' review) but again they are only available at tescos (medium-big size) so should be in most. 

As for healthy-ness, it's a chocolate bar, there's not really much to say other than the fact it is les calorie wise than most chocolate bars, however not a milky bar, but I definitely recommend this, even as a bigger bar (like Galaxy) alternative. 

Taste-*****
Price and accesebility-****
Health rank-***

Overall rating-****

Sunday 3 July 2016

FOOD REVIEW: Cliff bar-crunchy peanut butter


So today I desired to try a brand new bar, completely different to the other ones I've had, one that seemed pretty commonly loved; a cliff bar. 

The first thing i have to say is that it's so much like a Flapjack with maybe a little Bit of peanut butter but to me it tasted more syrupy. I loved the chewiness and how it went well with the whole peanut bits. 


And as per my addiction, I also put half in the microwave. It was quite unusual in texture while warm; somehow soft and gooey but still crunchy. Another thing to note is that it softened the peanuts too and made them chewier in comparison to before. I recommend warmed it up but then waiting for it too cool down a little for the best consistency. 

The cliff bar was very nice and I did like it, however it was a little plain, not really sticking to its name flavour wise but I would love to try the other flavours, the new coconut one sounds really nice!

I couldn't actually find these bars anywhere at first, I had to actually go to a bigger H&B store and even then there were only original and crunchy peanut butter flavour. So not the best accessibility wise. 

And price wise they were actually £1.79, more that most bars but still ok I suppose. (but is you're looking for a better deal I did find the chocolate almond fudge bar here for only £1 ) 

Now for nutrition, these bars are decently heigh calorie, but they are energy bars so that's understandable and it's not really much different that having most chocolate bars, however most chocolate bars aren't 16% protein and have only 1g sat-fat, these bars are pretty descent, and good as both post or pre workout snacks 

Taste-****
Price and accesebility-***
Health rank-****
Overall rating-***3/4

Saturday 2 July 2016

FOOD REVIEW: Nākd cocoa crunch



There are several different cocoa nakd bars available currently: cocoa crunch, delight, mint, and orange.

I wanted to try one, partly because they were on offer, but also because I don't particularly like most dark chocolates (Lindt is a favourite but I hate cooks chocolate) and I wanted to see if it I would like it. I chose cocoa crunch as to ease myself into the chocolaty taste and to my dismay actually not that many soya crunchies in my bar. It was very hard though and you had to bite into it properly as appose to not having to really try. It was very cocoa-y yet somehow not chocolate-y though with kind of confused me at first but wasn't so bad later on, I did have to warm up to this bar due to the flavour being so intense and I feel like I hadn't quite managed to do that by the time I'd finished the bar, which is one down side of the bars being so small. 


Due to me not having very much to say anymore, this will be my last nākd bar review, in the future I may taste test the nibbles but until then I'll be leaving nākd products in search of other vegan foods, hopefully some more savoury too!  

I have also got some very big news which I will share both on blogger and Instagram next week so look out for that. 

With out further a due: 

Overall rating:***1/4


Thursday 30 June 2016

FOOD REVIEW: Freedom marshmallows


This was my first time trying vegan marshmallows and these sugar coated, flump like ones have a good mallow flavour and are pretty tasty. 
They have a good swish and a sweet sugary after taste. They are a little small but that only means you can eat more without being full! 


Now I don't think that they're actually that easy to purchase off of the Internet other than H&B and maybe other health food places such as whole foods. But obviously there are other brands and although I haven't tried them in sure the ones from Morrison's are ok. The packets are £2.50 a lot more expensive that most, and I'm not going to defend them too much because when you can buy a others such as chamallows for only £1 people are probably going to buy the latter. However holland and Barrett do have pretty constant sales so possibly when on sale they shouldn't be too bad to buy. 

Now as for nutrition, they have a lot of sugar. Although they are marshmallows so that isn't a surprise. But another good thing to note is that they're actually pretty low fat with only 0.5g but 13g carbs. However there isn't anything wrong with this, carbs can be good. Just maybe stick to the serving suggestion (6 marshmallows) and not a whole bag. 

Hope you liked the review; find these marshmallows website here

Wednesday 29 June 2016

FOOD REVIEW: Nākd strawberry crunch bar


So I tried the strawberry crunch naked bar today and I actually really enjoyed it. I liked the fruitiness and how it really did taste of strawberries but also how you can get the crunch, I think the nākd crunch bars are my favourite because they have a good texture, much like the cocoa trek actually. But I am glad that you can still taste the you can still taste the dates because I really like the dates, they're the most important part of the nākd bars. 

So I decided to heat it up to it it had been such success with the trek bars I thought why not. It actually made the bar a lot sweeter and that is mainly all you can taste. Not much other than pure sweetness and a bit of strawberry while everything else blends together in a single taste so I'm not as keen as I was with the trek but it was still ok. 

Just like the banana bread these bars are 99p or only £2.75 for a pack of 4 meaning you save over £1 when you buy then like that. There isn't really much I can say really as most things have been already explained when talking about the banana bread nākds. 

Now, the bars are lovely and health but you may see the fat contents and think they must be full of bad stuff because of the fat content at 3.7g but with only 0.5 being sat, the rest is all healthy fat. 

Taste-***3/4
Price and accessibility-****1/4
Health rank-***1/2
Overall rating-***3/4

My usual schedule is posting Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday but I updated today because I didn't yesterday.