Mystery Food

I was at the Safeway on Old Georgetown Road in Bethesda, MD yesterday. They had apparently done inventory because there were a bunch of shelves which had paper signs saying "overstock" on them. Not all the food on these shelves had prices. On rack of shelves, however, was more enigmatic, it's sign had the single word "Mystery" scrawled across it.

Odwalla Bar: Cranberry C Monster

Odwalla food bar with 250% of you daily Vitamin C requirements. This is a soft, somewhat chewy energy bar, Mainly organic rolled oats with lots of cranberries in them. You get a single bar in the package and it is one serving. The bar itself as a little sweetness, but not very much and they didn't oversweeten the cranberries at all. You can taste the cranberry in every bite. and the cranberries have the tart, slightly acidic flavor that real cranberries have. If you have never had an odwalla bar, then it is something like a Cliff bar, but a little softer and much different from a power bar. Lots of calories, lots of carbs. I like this flavor, but if you don't like cranberries you probably wont. (220 calories; 3g fat; 44g carbss; 4g protein; 3% sodium; per 2.2 ounce bar)

Back to Nature: Oatmeal Raisin Bakery squares

Made with organic fruits and grains with no high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated Oils, Artificial flavors, or preservatives. You get a box of very small, individually wrapped breakfast bars. They are only 1.05 ounces, but still manage to have 120 calories, mostly from carbohydrates. The bars themselves are very dense, sweet, a little chewy and coarse and a bit dry. They are ok but I'm not sure how much I like them. They don't stand out as either good or bad, but I wouldn't say they are average either, just a bit different. Back to Nature promises that you will love it or your money back. (120 calories; 4g fat; 20g carbs; 3g protein; 3% sodium; per bar).

Frosted Raspberry Pop-Tarts

A pastry/biscut filled with raspberry jelly, frosted with white glaze with red bits of sugar on it. you can eat them cold (right from the pouch) or warm, but they are best warmed in a toaster. They are sweet and sugary, probably not the best thing you could eat for breakfast, more like a desert. Given the amount of fat and number of calories and amount of sugar, these can't be good for you. Each package contains four pouches and each pouch contains two pastries. The serving size, however, is only one pastry. No way you are going to eat one. Kids love these, because of the sugar, and they are fairly tasty, even though the pastry is dry and largely tasteless and the sugar overwhelms the raspberry flavor. Interesting trivia, the number two ingredient (after flour) is Corn Syrup, followed by High Fructose corn syrup.

It is really amusing that these come with instructions. You can warm the pastry in a toasting appliance or put them in the microwave for 3 seconds. I guess I can set aside 3 seconds for breakfast preperation, but I wonder about the toasting appliance, why not just call it a toaster? do they really think if they called it that people would think they couldn't use a toaster oven? Or is there such a wide range of things you can use to heat it that toaster wasn't accurate. Maybe I only have one of those circular pizza ovens and want to use it on the pop tarts. Step three is the really important one. "Cool briefly" You really can overheat the filling and it will burn your toungue. (410 calories; 5g fat; 76g carbs; 2g protein; 14% sodium; per two pastries)

Quaker: Breakfast cookies: Apple Cinnamon

Cookies for breakfast? Yup, they will try anything to get you to buy it. Calling them cookies is a bit of a stretch. They are more like a cross between a cookie and a muffin. Oatmeal rasin cookies are probably the closest to these. This falvor, apple cinnamon was pretty good, it was sweet and moist and chewy. It tasted a bit like pumpkin bread. I still have trouble with the whole concept of cookies, and I am not sure I would have these as my whole breakfast, but they are pretty good. Each box has 6 individualy wrapped cookies. (170 calories; 4.5g fat; 33g carbs; 3g protein; 8% sodium; per cookie)

Morning Star Farms: Veggie Bites Country Scramble

Nuggets of Egg whites, veggie sausage, red and green peppers, onions, and cheddar cheese in a multi-grain breading. These were suprisingly good, almost like a mini omlete. There were plenty of different tastes and textures wrapped up in these nuggets, the breading, although not crisp, added some real flavor. each nugget is about one ounce and three nuggets make a serving. It seems a little small, so expect to eat something with them. (Maybe some fruit?) Don't ask what is in them, the ingredient list takes the whole side of the package. They also have a lot of sodium, 23% of your daily allowance. But did I mention they were tasty? They also come in eggs florentine flavor. (8g fat; 11g protein; 17g carbs; per 3 oz serving)

Thomas' Squares Bagelbread

They are square, they are bagel-ly, they have a belly-button, not a hole. If you like thick, chewy bagels then you might not like these. These are softer, but still much thicker and chewier than regular bread. They are also pre-sliced and are really good for making thick sandwiches out of. Each one has 2 grams of fat and 10 grams of protein! Of course, it has 300 calories to go with it. Nevertheless, these are a good and tasty change of pace from just having bread.

Hard times Cafe

Hard Times Cafe is a chili parlor. What does that mean? Well, most of their menu is chili, and variations on chili. If chili is what you do, then you better do it well, and Hard Times does it well. They have four kinds of chili, Vegetarian (soy based), Texas (no tomato), Cincinnati (red, a little too sweet for my taste) and Terlingua (another red chili, also tasty) My favorite dish there is the Chili Mac (chili served over spagetti) with cheese on top, they call this the three-way. Even better is getting it with half Texas Chili and half Vegetarian Chili. Sooo, good.

Oatmeal

Yup, that old-fashioned canister of rolled oats. None of this 'instant oatmeal'. I haven't noticed a difference in taste between brand names and generic, so I'm not going to single out Quaker Oats. Oatmeal is good, surprisingly easy, and cheap. I buy the standard oats, not the quick cooking ones. To make them, I toss in a little brown sugar, some cinnamon, and a dash of salt (don't forget water and oats). Then into the microwave they go for about 3 minutes. A great tasting hot breakfast that I can make and eat at work in no time at all.