Odwalla Berries GoMega

Oh no, I feel healthier already

The Attraction

Part of the beauty of snacks provided by my office is the opportunity to try new and different snacks that I normally wouldn't buy on my own. This week's snack definitely falls in that category. I'm not sure if it's the color of the packaging, the "superfood" tag or the pictures of fruits and oats on the outside. It all normally points to a strong pass for me, but this is a snack blog. I never said specifically I would only review guilty pleasure snacks, so here I find myself looking down the barrel of a "healthy" snack bar.

"Nobody moves, nobody gets hurt."

The Review:
Free is a strong consideration when you are going to eat something. Well, at least for me. God knows there has been many things I didn't want or need, but because it was "free", it made me think twice about it. Even with "free", I was not excited about this product. I don't mind eating "healthy" snacks, I really don't, but this item failed to even excite my "free" radar.

I tear open the superfood bar wrapper and unveiled what appears to be a compressed snack bar. You can see the flax seeds already from the outside. In addition, there was a scent of preserved berries that was released when the wrapper gave way to the actual bar. Perhaps it was like raisins or dried cranberries, but the artwork on the outside seems to indicate it was either blueberry, strawberry or raspberry (is that a cherry on the wrapper as well?)

If only this was covered in chocolate

I take a bite and sure enough, it's as I suspected; a compressed healthy snack bar ( a bar made of various ingredients like oats, bran, seeds that are sometimes ground up and "compressed" back together along with some dried fruit to form a bar). Although it's not dry, I wish there was more moisture to it, so it didn't feel quite as crumbly when I took a bite. Think along the lines of a dried-out outer shell of a Fig Newton. Taste-wise, it's pretty much what you would expect from a healthy snack bar; much of the dried fruit provides natural sugar and flavor to the snack as well as some contrast against the otherwise homogeneously-textured product.

OK, I didn't die, but I'm sure not in heaven with this snack.

...and only if these were chocolate chips

The Sweet:
Healthy alternative to quick grab-and-go snacks.

The Bitter:
Other healthy snack bars are tastier.

Conclusion:
Look, I get it. These snacks aren't made purely for pleasure. They are made for the health-conscious crowd. Even at that, I've had other snacks targeting this specific audience deliver treats that one would not mind eating on a regular basis. I'm not going to get into which one has more fat, sugars, etc, because that's not what this blog is about. For me it's about the pleasure of eating snacks, but as far as a snack in this category goes, there are tastier ways to go while minding your heart and figure.

Video of the Week

There's going to be some trouble.

I think the screenshot says it all. This week, another trailer for, "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" was released. In it, you get to see some more familiar imagery, like the dark masked man above. December can't come fast enough. They should release a new iPhone that day too so we can just have endless lines of people that have too much time on their hands.