I had many ideas for alternative titles for this post, including:
- Grocery Stores > Museums For Cultural Learning and Goggling
- All The Vegan (and not quite vegan) Things!
- That Time The Whole Foods Checkout Lady Stared At Me Funny
- Why Yes, Sometimes I Do Wake Up Feeling Nauseous, Thank You For Asking
But you’re not really here to debate words and language with me. You’re here because some small part of you is (perhaps) interested in the dazzling yet ridiculous array of snacks and treats that America is constantly foisting on consumers* with the help of slogans, marketing hype and, more often than not, a lot of sugar.
* Guilty as charged.
Let’s start with Peanut Butter and Chocolate Puffins. According to the O Wise and Helpful Box Blurb, these bites of sweetness are “naturally flavoured”, have 3 grams of fibre, and something something cute bird something something levitating cereal. In addition, Puffins (the levitating cereal, not the birds) are vegan. Wapow! This is clearly better for you than spinach! than beans! than broccoli!
Particularly when eaten with unsweetened vanilla hemp milk and a touch of both mesquite and maca powder. Because I’m a ridiculous mid-20s female like that sometimes.
When I was in Austin, I didn’t just eat vegan soft serve and raw vegan carob mousse pie. I also ate Quite Cheezy Kale Chips (whilst watching The Lady and The Tramp as the rain drummed against my window nice-and-cozy, thank you very much), crunchy Biscoff Cookie Spread (which pixies must’ve eaten in the night because there could be no other explanation for the suddenly empty jar), amusing chocolate (reviews to come), and vegan jerky Primal Strips that were unlike anything I’d ever tasted before.
Hey, remember that time I misread a price tag and accidentally spent $12 on fancy kimchi that turned out to have no discernible flavour and was nothing but big fat sadness? And then my soul cried quietly? Yeah, that was fun.
In contrast to said kimchi, there was this. THIS. Calling PB Crave’s chocolate chip cookie dough peanut butter “Cookie Nookie” was like begging me to take it to an Elvis-themed Vegas chapel. I resisted, but only barely. I ate it instead.
I thought I would like Bragg’s Apple Cinnamon Apple Cider Vinegar All Natural Drink. Turns out I didn’t, and not only because there were far too many syllables involved. It just tasted… wrong. Too sweet.
I’ll take my apple cider vinegar straight up, thanks all the same.
Rhythm Superfood’s raw Hickory BBQ Sweet Potato Chips were likewise a disappointment (and an expensive disappointment at that). Will you laugh if I admit they tasted, well, raw and floury to me?
Happily, the above three products didn’t make me regret parting with the monies. I remember falling in love with Twin Oaks tofu when I was on student exchange at UVA (it’s local to the Virginia area), and this Spicy Thai flavour was pleasant. Annie’s Whole Wheat Bunnies proved just the salty crispy goodness that I needed after too much nookie (the peanut butter, people; I’m talking about the peanut butter), and the So Delicious Turtle Trails (fellow non-Americans, this means “caramel sauce and chocolate-coated praline pecans in vanilla coconut milk non-dairy frozen dessert”) ice cream was the best frozen dessert I’ve had since, well, Florence.
Which is probably as good a note as any to end this snack review post on.
The first thing I want to do in a new country is go grocery shopping. Who needs museums!?
I love seeing what you think of out goods. That cider drink is good if you get the ginger flavor! Totally agree with you on everything else. If you ever see the sugar-free So Delicious ice cream in the vanilla-almond favors, try it out. Sooooo delicious!
Well, I do like museums, but food is better.
I actually prefer doing about 3tb of apple cider vinegar to a cup of water, with a tiny bit of stevia. No interest in the Bragg’s drinks after that experience! I’m a bit wary of the sugar-free obsession over here. It all seems to have inulin in it? I don’t mind a bit of real sugar 
That’s how I do mine at home when I’m not taking it with Aminos. I also add some cinnamon – really good!
I can’t do actual sugar right now, so no sugar added is a gift from god. the So Delicious does use erythritol as the sweetener… all natural but some people are sensitive (like xylitol).
I think inulin is a fake fibre more than a sweetener, but so many things marketed as ‘healthy’ here seem to have it, and I think it might bother me. What flavours of the almond milk would you recommend? I’m kinda bored by mint chip and have no interest in straight chocolate…
The vanilla almond is my favorite!
Oooh I love the So Delicious “ice cream”!! So yummy!
PUFFINSSSSSSSSS! though, I don’t like the chocolate ones :/ haha they are better for you than any other veggies!!! *wink wink*
I wanted to try them, but in future I’ll be getting the straight peanut butter ones again
lol so was the Quite Cheezy Kale Chips cheesy?
Yes… and no. The Nacho Cheeze ones I just ate in New York definitely tasted like nacho sauce, though. CRAZY.
Mmm, puffins.
Why yes, as a matter of fact I do remember that! (Re: kimchi) I also remember my failure to alert you, thinking you’d surely seen it.
I MUST HAVE THE COOKIE NOOKIE.
Teehee! In future, please know that I’m very unlikely to willingly spend $12 on a jar of anything. I’ve even managed to resist the $10 Nuttzo nut butters. But hey, it was my fault, not yours!
Sharing my puffins with you was happiness.
I love it when you give us a peek into the health food/grocery stores in America.
I do like to see which confectionary is masquerading as health food.
I’m currently experiencing an addiction to beetroot chips, sweet potato chips, carrot chips and parsnip chips! Australia is so far behind; these things have been around forever in the USA. Maybe some time in the next few years we’ll be able to buy flavoured varieties of these chips.
I’ve heard of Biscoff spread and am curious. It’s not something I could eat because of the gluten anyway.
(I hope you don’t often feel nauseous in the mornings!)
Oh Margaret, you’d love the Terra Chips I bought in New York then! Blue potato, carrot, and kabocha chips. So good. I ate the 170g bag in less than two days
Lovely to know these posts don’t bore you; I can feel better about doing more in future now!
PUFFINS!!! MY FAVOURITE!!!
The peanut butter ones are the greatest of all time.
I hope you know how much I love this
So very much that I don’t even have the words.
I think my favourite is the So Delicious Turtle Trails. Which is sad in some ways because there is no way I can import it to Australia (in non-melted form anyway…) even if I was to find a site that would send it and a cost that wouldn’t bankrupt me. I wish they’d hurry up and bring their frozen range here.
More of these posts in due course please
Hurrah! Now I feel better about the fact that I have enough evidence of crazy snackage to make many more posts like this
So Delicious used to sell their ice cream in Canberra, but it disappeared long ago. The fact that their non-dairy milks are showing up elsewhere over there, though, gives me hope.
My wish is your command.
Damn those pixies!
I wish I had had more time to explore the wonders that are American grocery stores. I did have Annie’s Bunnies though, not the Whole Wheat ones, and the ones we did have tasted stale.
So for me, Goldfish win over Bunnies.
Must admit, I couldn’t pick a difference between these Bunnies and my memory of Goldfish, but perhaps if I ate them side by side? Both are welcome in my life.
I wonder where the “turtle” bit comes from… sounds good though – anything involving caramel + pecans is all-right with me. I’ve tried the So Delicious stuff – just vanilla/chocolate (you can get it in QLD)… BUT have worked out how to make coconut ice cream for about $2 a pop, so that is my latest addiction.
Hooray for random wedding presents of tiny ice cream makers!
Candy makers make sort of turtle-shaped candies with caramel, topped with nuts and a chocolatey shell:) I think that’s the name origin, anyway!
Oh, so they’re supposed to look like turtles? I’ve worked out that “turtle” means caramel, nuts, and chocolate, but could never work out why on earth that meant the shelled creature…
Years and years ago, there was a store in Canberra that sold some of the Purely Decadent So Delicious flavours, which was great. Now, we only get vanilla/chocolate So Good, which is ugh. I’m still not overly keen on coconut, which I think is why I like the Turtle Trails flavour. So much caramel and salted pecans that the coconut all but disappears.
I didn’t know Puffins came in PB & Chocolate! Actually I didn’t know about a lot of this stuff of which you speak. Nice finds!
It becomes easy to find new things when you spend hours wandering around foreign grocery stores in a blissful haze
That’s quite an assortment of goodies. I buy Bragg’s too but yep, I’ll take mine straight-up too. The Puffin cereal looks like fun. I’m sure I could get my Alfie to eat breakfast if I put those in a bowl for him xx
If you stir actual peanut butter into the Puffins, they become even more magnificent
Puffins, Ice cream, COOKIE BUTTER – where do you start my friend
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
By eating them.
OMG I’m dying to try some Biscoff! It sounds amazing but nowhere here stocks it! Sounds like I might have to fly there!
It’s ridiculous. It really tastes exactly like cookies. And it’s so easy to find here! But I’d prefer you fly to Canada now
Poor little puffins is all I can say … I’d say, go for the beans, spinach, and broccoli.
It’s all about balance.
I love seeing snacks from the US, so many options! I love the puffins box, such a cute brand and I have to try that jar of Cookie Nookie for the name alone
Hurrah! I’m hoping Canada’s snacks are just as entertaining
If ANYTHING was called ‘puffins’ I’d buy it. No exceptions.
See? SEE? THAT’S HOW THEY GET US. I can’t help it either.
Soooooooooooooo, what the heck is in the vegan jerky? That is the ultimate for vegans and vegetarians who reeally reeeeally like their non-meats to look like meats!
Um…. jerky that is vegan? I don’t think I read the ingredients list. Soy or seitan or something? It was salty and tangy and more soft than I expected.
Well I too would find puffins and bunnies and nookie hard to resist. And I am looking forward to the pumpkin chocolate review.
I need to find my chocolate blogging mojo again; I’m so behind on chocolate reviews!
Hannah!! I love this, thank you for sharing your US eats. I love it so. I actually bought a box of puffins on my US trip last year! PB flavour. I still haven’t opened them :O totally forgot about them til this post. dang, where are they?!?
Heidi xo
Hurrah!! Now I can post more such round-ups and know at least three people will like it!
I wish you’d brought back hemp milk so you could try them together…
PUFFIN!!!!
Ooh vegan jerky primal strips?! Tell me more!
They were tasty?
DID YOU REALLY EAT ALL THAT? I’m beginning to worry Hannah. Noo, not really! Just hungry over here. X
Bahaha! This is about 3% of the ridiculous snackage I’ve pulled off in the past two months. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
I guffawed a little at the apple cider drink – I’ve had that stuff, and yes, the only way to describe it is “wrong.”
I then sniffled a little bit at the lack of Annie’s products in my life. When I was a crazy advertising person I used to get Annie’s frozen vegan lasagna to keep in the freezer for those days I knew I’d be at work til… well, too late. And you know what, it’s good!
And yet I’ve become quite addicted to drinking 2tb of ACV in hot water with a few drops of stevia. So delicious!
Annie’s frozen vegan lasagna? Do you by any chance mean Amy’s, the vegetarian/vegan company? As far as I know, Annie’s just does crackers and cookies. If you’re talking about Amy’s, I totally hear you. I loved the tofu paneer one back at UVA, and this time fell in love with the Tamale Pie.
I always love supermarket touring as anthropologic study. It’s so fascinating, AND you get fun stuff to eat. Of course I would leave the pb puffins to you, but puffins, so cute, I would be tempted by other flavours. I brought a jar of Biscoff spread back from Texas- smooth not crunchy- it was divine- only bettered by Maple Cream- have you tried that up there in O, Canada yet? You must. Must. So good I want to inject it. Am insanely curious about pumpkin chocolate, can only imagine that it sadly fell in the awful category.
The original and cinnamon Puffins are quite delicious too, so the other flavours would hopefully float your boat. I’m glad you got the smooth Biscoff; I fell hard for that one but when I mainlined the crunchy one, it made me feel sick. It seemed more… greasy somehow. Ricki sent me maple cream back in Australia, and I definitely ate it with a spoon. Oh I can’t wait for more maple delights here….
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