New PB & J
There are many entries in the fruity-chewy-type snack section of the supermarket, and until recently Mr. Tidbit has been able to avoid discussing that entire category, as there wasn’t much to set any of the products apart. He had to make an exception a few months ago when Fiber One fruit-flavor snacks appeared: Fiber-enhanced fruit snacks were peculiar enough that even Mr. Tidbit couldn’t ignore it.
And now there’s another, well, “breakthrough” hardly seems to be the right word, but Mr. Tidbit can’t come up with another to describe the most recent product in this category. It’s Welch’s PB & J Bite-Size Snacks. (That’s what the box calls them; Welch’s other nine varieties — Fruit Punch, Berries’n Cherries, etc. — are labeled Fruit Snacks.) Each of these new ball-shaped little items has a fruit flavor center (strawberry or Concord grape — plus sugar, pectin, etc.) and a peanut glaze coating.
The box notes that they are “made with real fruit” and that each 0.8-ounce pouch provides 100 percent of the daily value for vitamin C.
There are eight such pouches in the 6.4-ounce box, which sells for the same price as the 9-ounce boxes containing 10 larger (0.9-ounce) pouches of Welch’s other fruit snacks. So the PB & J Snacks cost 42 percent more per ounce.
New Old El Paso
New in the freezer case from Old El Paso are Honey Chipotle Chicken Bowls (two 10-ounce bowls in the box). Mr. Tidbit was struck by how many actual food ingredients make up this product. In decreasing order, the bowl contains rice, seasoned white chicken meat, salsa verde, black beans, onions, corn, queso quesadilla cheese, Cheddar cheese and poblano pepper.
There’s also a chicken-flavored base that, of course, like the chicken and salsa, itself contains a few things, such as yeast extract and disodium inosinate, not found in normal kitchens. But, although Mr. Tidbit agrees that it’s come to a pretty pass when it’s worth remarking that a food product contains foods, he was impressed by the number and variety of recognizable ingredients on his fork.
Old new Oreos
They were really new only when they last appeared, in 2011, but Mr. Tidbit extends a hearty welcome back to Peppermint Creme Oreos.
