Food Review

Gam and I have tried a few new products over the last week or so. I'll start with my least favourite first:

Freedom Foods Chick Pea Chips.

Probably a year or so ago I bought some chick pea chips and they were really nice- spicy, salty and with that great legume-y texture. I'd been eyeing off the Freedom Foods Chick Pea Chips in Coles for about a month and today decided to buy some. At over $4 they weren't cheap but I figured what the hell.

The 'low salt' sign on the packet did set off a little mental warning light but I figured I could always add salt if I wanted to. Boy did they need it. These things have a pretty awful flavour on their own, which I suspect is from the use of soy oil, which I personally think has a revolting flavour. I made up a strongly-flavoured dip of tomato paste, a teaspoon of chilli powder and a good pinch of salt and they went well with that, but on their own- not worth trying.

Strange of me not to read the nutrition label until after I got home; I probably wouldn't have bought them if I'd seen they contained soybean oil.

These babies are really high in fat. Regular potato chips are about 25% fat, but Freedom Foods Chick Pea Chips are over 35% fat. That's a lot of fat. I don't even watch my fat intake, but 35% is off-putting even for me, more so when it's a type of fat I don't like. I could handle 35% fat if it was extra-virgin olive oil (yum), but soybean?

The one plus that I could see is that they're high in fibre, close to 10%.

Verdict? Stick to regular potato chips. People who are worried about their salt intake are usually people who need to worry about their fat intake, and besides, no one should eat chips often enough for it to matter how much salt they contain. Plus regular potato and corn chips are much tastier.



Sanitarium muesli. I was about to pick up a box of our regular favourite, Carman's, when I noticed two brand new mueslis from Sanitarium positioned right next to it on the shelves. After inspecting the nutrition panel and ingredients and comparing them with Carman's I decided to give one a try, only I couldn't decide between the toasted and 'natural' varieties so Gam made me buy both.

I was glad he did- they are both delicious! Gam only likes the toasted one, but he has very narrow tastes.

The only less-than-positive comment I have to make is about the ingredient list- it's clear that quite a few of the ingredients are more about maintaining a certain texture than providing nutritients. That said, the food tech people behind these products have managed to produce a natural muesli that does not have that 'floury' texture from the oats that some natural mueslis have. The inclusion of barley flakes (which have a 'cleaner', crisper texture than oats) might have something to do with this, but I suspect there is more to it. Kudos to them for succeeding. The natural muesli includes very thin and crispy wheat (I think) flakes that also help to give the muesli a lighter texture.




Unfortunately both mueslis include sultanas and raisins, which I am not a fan of (which rather limits my breakfast cereal choices), but they're both so tasty I am willing to overlook that.

The only other note is a strange, slightly 'salty' flavour in the toasted muesli. Gam noticed it too. seeing as it is not high in salt I am not even sure that the taste was caused by the added salt- there are a few other ingredients that may have something to do with it. That said, it gets less and less noticeable the more you eat it!

I love muesli as a snack, and together Gam and I have pretty much polished off a whole packet of the toasted muesli in a couple of days, and I've worked my way through a good portion of the natural one as well. We'll definitely be purchasing these again.


Yolati was another impulse-buy. It's a hot day in Brisbane- our first decent warm weather in ages, as it's been unseasonably cold since the beginning of September. When the weather gets warm, my thoughts turn to ice-cream!

Yolati has a very pleasant tart taste, probably due to the fact it contains 17% raspberries. There is a very noticeable 'powdered milk' texture, however, so comparing it to gelati or yoghurt is a bit of a stretch. I would say that although I am really enjoying it, it probably isn't worth the premium price ($6.49 from memory, although the checkout guy charged us the same price as Gam's Connoisseur Cookies & Cream, which was on special for $5.79).