Who must I face slap for suggestionizing me to try this? (ohhh wait, that would be meeee). I’m a sucker for protein ingestion. Too bad I got sucked into the ghastly treat that is the Protein Squared Granola Oatmeal thingy.

If it’s two things this here Square tries to promote, it’s tolerance of the pure nastiness and civil rights of the gag reflex. But I refuse to vote for either. Much unlike what the packaging sold me, this thing contains NO chocolate squares and NO chunks of granola. Take a look at what I got instead…

What ‘da hell?

Those cinnamon vein-tendrils on top look like something this chick sh!t out of her upper body. The yogurt-ish coating is an artificially flavored aargh. The alleged granola oatmeal experience is unrecognizable to the eyeballs, and the texture is a chewy paste to the food trap. Many protein bars are famous for a hellish experience that includes a dense, chalkiness with an unsettling aftertaste. The Protein Squared Granola Oatmeal thingy is no different.

So if you’re waiting in the checkout line for the person in front of you to finalize their extreme couponing whoredom with multiple packages of ExLax and Poise Pads, please don’t stare at the candy bar display and get bamboozled into the Protein Squared. You’d be better off with a package of Peanut M&M’s.

SQUARED NOTES

• Paid Paid: $1.49 for 2×2 inch square
• Serving size: one square thingy
• Calories: 140
• Fat Calories: 30
• Total Fat: 3.5g
• Sat. Fat: 2.5g
• Sodium: 120mg
• Carbs: 12g
• Fiber: 3g
• Sugars: 5g
• Sugar Alcohols: 2g
• Protein: 15g

Yum UP! to: Peanut M&Ms’. It’s been such a looong time!

Yuck Down to: False food packaging.

View the complete Taste Test Directory and Fast Food Cheat Sheets.

Hot dang, those Swiss are some smart people! Eating up the Emmi Swiss Yogurt should actually require four hands: 2 hands for eating and the other 2 hands for doing back flips down the diary aisle.

Now go on and get those Greek powerhouses (Chobani and Fage) scrubbed outta your brain for just a sec. Sure, those two are fantastical, but Emmi Swiss is not to be compared with them. It’s a totally different yogurt experience that’s NOT the same as Greek. Those Greeks are thick and creamy, while Emmi Swiss is luscious and silky. I couldn’t get over the texture. Hoo-dee-hoo!

Emmi Swiss is made with low fat milk and has no bovine growth hormones either. There’s a host of fruity varieties, but I set my food trap to prey on Green Apple flavor. It’s cool, refreshing and very dessert-ish. I can tell it’s made with quality ingredients. There were barely any apple chunks because the flavor relies on fruit puree instead. As for other ingredients, there’s nothing in it that you can’t pronounce, except for those live & active enzyme creatures. How do you say their names?

I hereby dub Emmi the dessert yogurt. Yep, it’s on that kind of satisfaction level. It’s too light and non-filling for breakfast, but perfect for after lunch or dinner. And while I’m not too keen on some of this dessert-ish sweetness coming from straight sugar, at least it’s not from High Fructose Corny-ness or some hellish fake sweetener. I really like this stuff, people. I won’t be eating it everyday due to the sugar situation, but Emmi Swiss is still one fine way to indulge in dessert time without those cakes, pies and cookies getting involved.

If you see this new yogurt in your grocery store, just buy it and try it. You’ll be doing back flips in no time. I can also refer to you a great chiropractor if you don’t land on your feet.

SWISS NOTES

• Price Paid: $1.33
• Serving Size: 6 ounce cup
• Calories: 170
• Fat Calories: 25
• Total Fat: 3g
• Sat. Fat: 2g
• Sodium: 160mg
• Carbs: 27g
• Sugars: 26g
• Protein: 9g

(Recommended Link: 10 Reasons Yogurt Is A Top Health Food)

Yum UP! to: All the Swiss peoples. I love your chocolates, too, yo!

Yuck Down to: The added sugar. Darn.

View the complete Taste Test Directory and Fast Food Cheat Sheets.

Cereal is the nectar of life. You should know this by now. And there’s nothing quite as sensational as the nectars bursting forth from Kashi Berry Blossoms cereal. Think of a cereal remnant that’s shaped like Capt’n Crunch, looks like it’s been sprinkled with barbecue seasoning (uh huh) and has a berry delicious flavor that makes your taste buds convulse with joy.

Ohhh, yes. I really like this stuff. It’s a cereal worth hiding from the clutches of my greedy kids. They can get their own box. (But don’t mistake me for an evil mother. I am a victim in this situation. They always eat up all my cereal and I’m buying 3 gallons of milk per week. Okay!?)

Berry Blossoms have 18 grams of whole grains are made with real fruit. It’s a berry powder combo of dried strawberries, blueberries and blackberries. This is what got my eyeballs thinking there was barbecue seasoning on it. False alarm! It’s lightly sweetened to perfection with evaporated cane juice and honey. Ohhh! Ahhh! Niiice!

It’s one heluva flavor pleaser for a quick breakfast, stomach-happy snacking or a lazy dinner. And I’m keeping it around (hidden, of course). I don’t even give a damn if my extreme-couponing azz doesn’t have a coupon for it. I still buy. You buy too. You buy now. You try. Yes?

BLOSSOM NOTES

• Price Paid: $4.59
• Serving Size: 3/4 cup
• Calories: 100
• Fat Calories: 10
• Total Fat: 1g
• Sodium: 125mg
• Carbs: 25g
• Fiber 5g
• Sugars: 7g
• View complete nutrition fact and ingredients labeling.

REACTIONS FROM THE TASTE TEST CREW

Health-hater Husband: I’m not a big fan of berry-tasting cereals, but I can see people liking this.

Greedy Kid #1: Kinda like Crunch Berries, but with less sweetness.

Greedy Kid #2: Eh. It’s just so-so. I don’t really like Kashi cereals.

Greedy Kid #3: It has flavor.

Greedy Baby: (no comment outta her, but she’s on her 2nd bowl)

Yum UP! to: Covert cereal hiding spots.

Yuck Down: Barbecue on your cereal. Don’t do that! …or should I try it?

View the complete Taste Test Directory and Fast Food Cheat Sheets.

I am delirious, perplexed, baffled and confused. My eating sensors have malfunctioned, because I don’t get how they did this. Sure, each Who Nu? Nutrition Rich Cookie is infused with vitamins and minerals – I know you can add that stuff to food – but how did they add all that healthy-ness and still get the cookie to look and virtually taste the same as your average crap cookie out there?

Each serving size of Who Nu? (3 cookies) is 150-170 calories and proclaims to contain all this:

• As much fiber as a bowl of oatmeal.
• As much Calcium and Vitamin D as an 8-ounce glass of milk.
• As much Vitamin C as a cup of blueberries.
• As much Iron as a cup of spinach.
• As much Vitamin E as 2 cups of carrot juice.
• As much Vitamin B12 as a cup of cottage cheese and fruit.
• As much Vitamin A as an 8-ounce glass of tomato juice.

Huh? I guess so, then. So you gotta see this for yourself…

Click these links for the Who Nu? nutrition pages: Crispy Chocolate Chip, Soft & Chewy Chocolate Chip, Chocolate Creme and Vanilla Creme cookies. And while you’re on those pages, go to the upper right corner to view the “Who Nu? vs. the Other Guys” nutrition comparisons. It’s pretty dang interesting.

I picked up the Chocolate Creme variety (an Oreo knockoff) made with wheat flour. It was just as sweet and chocolatey as any Oreo-ish cookie, but had a creamier filling and lighter cookie texture; very minor differences that I actually preferred over its Oreo counterpart. If you can’t find these in the regular snack aisle, check the health food section of your grocery store. That’s where I found ‘em.

But here’s the deal that cannot be ignored: These cookies still have sugar as the main ingredient and they DO contain partially hydrogenated oils. Dammit!

I’m not telling you to use these cookies to replace your nutrients from fresh fruits and veggies. But if you feel compelled to engage in (moderate) cookie carnage because it’s the designated leap year to let your food trap go insane, the Who Nu? brand is probably your better option instead of an Orr-e-hoe or Chips Oh’Boy cookie.

WHO NU? NOTES

• Price Paid: $2.99 for package of 36 cookies.
• Serving Size: 3 cookies
• Calories: 160 (for Chocolate Creme)
• Fat Calories: 60
• Total Fat: 7g
• Sat. Fat: 1.5g
• Sodium: 150mg
• Carbs: 25g
• Fiber: 3g
• Sugars: 14g
• Protein: 1g

REACTIONS FROM THE TASTE TEST CREW

Health-hater Husband: I can’t believe it’s what they say it is. It’s really good.

Greedy Kid #1: Mmm, these are good!

Greedy Kid #2: It tastes like an Oreo. It’s got all those vitamins in it?

Greedy Kid #3: I’d rather have the regular cookies.

Greedy Baby: I want more.

Yum UP! to: The WhoNu? store locator. Go check it out.

Yuck Down to: Greedy Baby. She scraped out the cream filling with her nails. Ewww!

View the complete Taste Test Directory and Fast Food Cheat Sheets.

Is it just another gimmick to exploit the healthy-eating desires of all the peoples? Is it a scam, like when that door-to-door slickster sold me that futuristic $1,700 vacuum cleaner I didn’t need? (gah! I was such an idiot back then).

Are Kellogg’s Brown Rice Krispies a gullible waste of a purchase?

Emmm. No.

First off, the ingredient label reads like a preschool party: Whole grain brown rice, sugar, 2% or less of salt, BHT for freshness. So ya, it really is delivering up some brown rice glory with its golden color and crispy texture that’s bolder than the regular kind. Some of the cereal bits even have that dark brown line that you see in raw brown rice.

You need to be feeding this to your greedy spawns, because they won’t know the difference compared to the regular stuff. It tastes exactly like the original, but with brown rice and gluten-free benefits (if you need that).

Parenting Tip: If your know-it-all kid (eh-em, Greedy Kid #1) decides to bitch about brown rice cereal without even tasting it first? Go tell them to buy some cereal with their own damn money.

BROWN RICE NOTES

• Price Paid: $2.99 on sale for 12-ounce box
• Serving Size: 1 cup
• Calories: 120
• Fat Calories: 10
• Total Fat: 1g
• Sodium: 190mg
• Carbs: 27g
• Fiber: 1g
• Sugars: less than 1g
• Protein: 3g

REACTIONS FROM THE TASTE TEST CREW

Health-hater Husband: Where’s the marshmallows?

Greedy Kid #1: Brown rice? I don’t want that. Give me the regular kind.

Greedy Kid #2: It tastes like regular Rice Krispies.

Greed Kid #3: I wanna make some Rice Krispy treats with these.

Yum UP! to: A cereal powerhouse that (finally) caters to our health.

Yuck Down to: Vacuum cleaner rip offs.

View the complete Taste Test Directory and Fast Food Cheat Sheets.

[photo credit: TJ's Test Kitchen]

Errr. You caught me. That’s me at Fitbloggin chomping on the Uncle Sam Strawberry Cereal while the kettlebell session was going on nearby that I didn’t go to. But in my defense? That session was jam packed overflowing with peeps, and there was a lot of body heat in there. Okay!?!

So activated Plan B: cereal eatin’ in the hallway.

I use Uncle Sam Strawberry Cereal strategically. Sure it’s a breakfast cereal, so go on and do that after you scrape the crust out of your sleepy eyeballs. But I’d rather eat it for lunch or evening snack, because the hearty-filling texture, coupled with the slap of VERY LARGE freeze dried strawberry slices and whole flax seeds makes it a multi-tasking powerhouse.

Now choose from list to guess what kinda of multi-tasking joy it brings me.

A.) It makes my stomach shut the hells up for an extended time frame.

B.) The sweet strawberries keep my taste sensors happy.

C.) The child-spawns don’t steal it because there’s no cartoon clown on the box.  (but this clown went too damn far)

D.) The ingredients list is short and pronounceable: Toasted Whole Wheat Berry Flakes (Whole Wheat Kernels, Salt, Barley Malt, Vitamin B2), Vitamin B1, Flax Seed, Sugar, Freeze Dried Strawberries, Natural Flavor.

E. No preservatives. Nada.

F.) All of the above.

If you guessed F, you win 10 points AND get to do a free round of 100 speed squats before dinnertime. <– (C’mon! It’ll only take you like 5 minutes.)

UNCLE’S NOTES

• Price Paid: $4.59 for 10-ounce box (eh, kinda pricey)
• Serving Size: 3/4 cup
• Calories: 240
• Fat Calories: 45
• Total Fat: 5g
• Sodium: 120mg
• Carbs: 40g
• Fiber: 8g
• Sugars: 7g
• Protein: 7g

Yum UP! to: Chewing Uncle Sam on the job for a low calorie, filling lunch.

Yuck Down to: That damn clown.

View the complete Taste Test Directory and Fast Food Cheat Sheets.

Okay, okay. It’s Weight Watcher’s SMOKED Provolone, but it really is smokin’, too. Weight Watchers crap is usually nasty to me, but their new provolone made me drool a little bit. It has much better flavor than the fresh-sliced kind husband got from the deli department.

The smokiness is apparent by its dark edges and the taste is extra strong on the provolone scale. This totally enhances the eating experience – it’s great to use for a veggie & cheese sammich wrap. But the smoke fumes will cause involuntary nostril spasms. Its high strung odor pushes straight into the nose pits. If a man is really desperate he could slap a few slices under his armpits to use as a pheromone trap to ensnare himself a female cheese whore.

The package says to eat it all within 3-5 days of opening, but it’s been like 7 days and I still have 4 slices left. It’s still okay to eat, right? I’ll send you a slice through the Foodie Fax. You tell me if you see any mold on it.

SMOKIN’ NOTES

• Price Paid: $2.79 for 13 slice package
• Serving Size: 2 slices
• WW Points: 1
• Calories: 80
• Fat Calories: 45
• Total Fat: 5g
• Sodium: 250mg
• Fiber: 0g
• Sugars: 0g
• Protein: 7g

Yum UP! to: My Foodie Fax. It’s connected and ready to receive the food you send to me. High end foods only, please.

Yuck Down to: Cheese whores (unless you’re into that sorta thing).

View the complete Taste Test Directory and Fast Food Cheat Sheets.

You will NOT find me on the closed circuit security footage at the Burger King. I have friends in low places within the fattening-food industry, so I had that tape destroyed.

It’s actually the husband’s fault for dragging me there in the first place. He was in the mood for a Whopper (ewww) and that’s when I remembered someone tweeting about the BK Veggie Burger. They told me it was tasty, and I said, “Really?”

So now I’m dabbling in fast food doldrums for research purposes, but I almost couldn’t find the damn thing on the menu. BK apparently makes it hard for people to order their (healthy?) food. I almost gave up until I found it in really fine print in the abyss section of the menu. You would have to possess the superhero optic nerve of a Wander-Woman/Incredible-Sulk hybrid love child to read it. Unless, of course, you opt for the stealth vision of a peeping tom.

But alas! The BK Veggie burger is cheap – only $2.49 – so I took it home and began to chew frantically (Whaaat? I was hungry.)

Whatever happened to flamed broiled!? I think this slab of faux puppy meat was over-microwaved because the edges were cardboard-ish in texture. Yet once I got past its borders and finished b!tching about all the mayo they slathered on it, I determined the sammich to be ahhhh-mazing. It’s thick and hearty with quality taste.

Huh?

That can’t be right. I had to go online to find out more about this thing. And you know what? BK is actually pimping out Morningstar Garden Veggie Burgers and calling them BK Veggie Burgers. I’m glad they’re selling Morningstar, but the entire sammich has got enough sodium to replenish an entire village of electrolyte-deficient cave dwellers. That’s too bad. They’re still good, though. <— do not read

FAUX PUPPY MEAT NOTES

• Price Paid: $2.49
• Calories: 410
• Fat Calories: 16g
• Carbs: 44g
• Sodium: 1,030mg
• Sugar: 8g
• Protein: 22g

View the complete Taste Test Directory and Fast Food Cheat Sheets.

…and now in other fast food news:

‘Tis might be better to indulge in fresh hang-nail shavings on the floor of this bathroom than to eat the Eggo Fruit Pizza. ‘Tis could be safer to invite this man into your car than to stomach the lousy Fruit Pizza.

When Eggo says “fruit”, they’re talking about chopped up particles that if you squished back together MAYBE equals the size of one lonely strawberry. Just one. And these strawberry residues are mooshy-gooshy-goo.

The “sauce” is a thin film of Neufchatel cheese that got scared and ran to one side of the pizza, because there was none on the other side. The crust resembles a thin pita consistency that does not match, blend or flow with the other putrid flavors. The granola is nothing more than oatmeal flakes. No clusters, just sweetened flakes.

All of this sensational, personal-sized fail-flare for only 400 calories and 66 grams of carbs? Why not buy it then?

Please make it stop. The Eggo Fruit Pizza is not only in your grocer’s freezer, it’s also served as an appetizer at the gates of hell and doubles as a cheap alternative to the stomach pump in the hospital emergency rooms around the country.

FRUIT PIZZA NOTES

• Price Paid: $2.49
• Serving Size: 1 Pizza
• Calories: 400
• Fat Calories: 110
• Total Fat: 12g
• Sodium: 390mg
• Carbs: 66g
• Fiber: 4g
• Sugars: 18g
• Protein: 10g

REACTIONS FROM THE TASTE TEST CREW

Health-Hater Husband: (laughing hysterically) Whoever made this did an epic fail.

Greedy Kid #2: Ain’t no way I’m eating that.

Greedy Baby: No! I want pizza.

Yum UP! to: The day this product gets pulled from store shelves.

Yuck Down to: The Eggo execs who decided this was a good idea.

View the complete Taste Test Directory and Fast Food Cheat Sheets.

Please allow me to deceive you in itty-bitty bits. Ostrich Jerky has the ostrich in it – it even has the ostrich on the front of the package, yet it’s infused with some beef.

But let me tell you, people. The ostrich makes ALL the difference. I may never put another piece of fully jerked beef in my mouth again. It’s all about the ostrich infusion with its light flavor and chewiness that doesn’t hurt your eating-jaw or cause trauma to the claws of your teeth. The Ostrim brand comes in long, thick strips, not thin, short pieces. It also does a fantastic job at keeping the blast of sodium taste to a minimum while delivering a subtle dose of Teriyaki that’s right on the mark.

The entire package is seriously cheap if you get it online at LuckyVitamin.com, and it’s freakishly low in calories even when you chew on the ENTIRE package. I don’t know of another way to enjoy a stomach-satisfying snack that smashes you with 10 grams of protein for only 60 calories.

You need to be trying this, ASAP! I think I’m in ostracized heaven… wait, is that right?

OSTRICH NOTES

• Price Paid: $1.41 for package
• Serving size: Entire package (2 large strips)
• Calories: 60
• Fat Calories: 10
• Sat. Fat: 0g
• Sodium: 310mg
• Carbs: 3g
• Sugars: 1g
• Protein: 10g

REACTIONS FROM THE TASTE TEST CREW

Health-hater Husband: So this is what ostrich tastes like? It’s good.

Greedy Kid #1: It’s better than normal jerky because you can actually chew it.

Greedy Kid #2: Nope. I’m eating oatmeal right now. It’s gonna ruin the flavor.

Greedy Kid #3: It tastes like ham. <–(huh?)

Yum UP! to: LuckyVitamin.com! I loving that place more and more and more. And a big thank you to Dubya Wife for revealing to me the secrets of the ostrich.

Yuck Down to: Hard beef… (the jerky kind).

View the complete Taste Test Directory and Fast Food Cheat Sheets.