REVIEW: Kellogg’s Special K Red Berries Waffles

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If Amy Winehouse and her husband Blake Fielder-Civil were to reproduce — and I pray to God, Allah, Buddha, and football they don’t — their offspring would look like the new Kellogg’s Special K Red Berries Waffles, which are a little pale, covered with weird red splotches and deformed with indentations.

As with all Special K products, these waffles are targeted towards women who want to lose weight by torturing their taste buds with bland products and in serving sizes that would make bulimics wonder if it’s necessary to purge.

Yes, I did lose weight when I did the Special K Diet and I looked better wearing my hip-hugger jeans and showing a little male whale tail, but eating breakfast cereal every day got old quicker than me using the phrase “cool beans” to replace every positive adjective I used in daily conversation.

The Special K Red Berries Waffles are slightly healthier than regular Kellogg’s Eggo Waffles. These almost gothy-white waffles have over 50 percent less fat and 20 percent less calories, but also have 66 percent more sugar than their regular Eggo counterparts.

However, many of these differences are very small when you look at the actual numbers and not at percentages. For example, the Special K waffles have only 20 less calories, which is easy to burn with either a few push-ups or with a vial of cocaine taped to my back, running shoes, and a sober Lindsay Lohan chasing after me.

These waffles are also full of vitamins and minerals and claims it’s a good source of calcium. However, it provides only 6 percent of your daily recommend allowance of calcium per waffle, which doesn’t sound like a good source to me, unless you love waffles as much as I love the TV show Ninja Warrior and Lynne Spears’ daughters love making babies.

The red berries, which according to the ingredients list are strawberries, were noticeable when I ate one naked — the waffle, not me — but was pretty much non-existent after I poured some Canadian Maple Syrup on top — the waffle, not me. But then again, I do pour enough syrup to make those who use excessive amounts of alcohol to drown their sorrows say, “Damn, that’s a little too much there, buddy!”

All that maple syrup probably negated the slight health advantages the Special K Red Berries Waffles have over regular Eggo waffles, but it made it taste much better. Without the syrup, I felt it was not bad for diet frozen waffles, but who eats waffles without some kind of topping? That’s like Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, Extra, and TMZ not showing any shots with celebrity cleavage.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 waffle – 80 calories, 2.5 grams of fat, 0.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 15 milligrams of cholesterol, 440 milligrams of sodium, 70 milligrams of potassium, 31 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of dietary fiber, 5 grams of sugar, 25 grams of other carbohydrates, 4 grams of protein, and vitamins and minerals.)

Item: Kellogg’s Special K Red Berries Waffles
Price: $2.75 (on sale)
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Not as bland as regular Special K cereal. Tastes good with syrup. Ninja Warrior.
Cons: Not much healthier than regular Eggo waffles. Less than one gram of dietary fiber. More sugar than regular Eggo waffles. Amy Winehouse reproducing. Excessive use of “cool beans.” Male whale tail.

REVIEW: Green Giant Healthy Vision Vegetables

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It’s finals time for me this week. Normally this would mean crying in my bath tub and listening to my Hillary Duff CD, but it’s about time that I grew up. It’s time to accept my fate head on.

Never again will I create an elaborate scheme of coughs and finger taps with my classmates in order to cheat. No longer will I go up to my professors and insist that I will do “anything…and I do mean anything” in order to pass a class. I could go on, but I don’t want to further incriminate myself.

As always, I look to shopping to relieve my stress. Obviously, this only causes more stress when the debt collectors constantly harass me via telephone, but it helps me relax for the time being. I decided to look for products that may help me during this tumultuous week. I ended up buying bananas, tuna, Red Bull, and this box of Green Giant Healthy Vision Vegetables. I purchased these items not only because I love banana-tuna sandwiches, but because these are all supposed to help my noggin stay sharp.

The Green Giant’s claim of vision improvement intrigued me the most because I have worn glasses since high school and have become progressively blinder throughout the years. I thought that it would be nice if a small bag of frozen vegetables would help me overcome this, but this is probably a case of wishful thinking. Nevertheless, I opened the box and decided to heat it up as a side dish to some grilled chicken.

I was happy to find that the contents came in a nice bag meant for steam-cooking. The vegetables included are sliced carrots, zucchini, and sliced green beans in a rosemary-butter sauce. This is certainly fancier than the depressing packages of wilted peas and corn that you usually get with frozen vegetables. After a few minutes, the bag looked like it was about to explode, so I took it out of the microwave.

My first bite was pleasant. The vegetables maintained a reasonable amount of texture and the sauce was not overpowering. It certainly made me feel better to eat this between my stacks of frozen dinners and piles of Snickers bars, so the purchase was worth it.

Unfortunately, I did not gain the powers of x-ray vision or the ability to see answers to tests. Oh, if only passing finals were as easily as heating up frozen vegetables. It looks like in order to continue with higher education, I will once again have to make the grade the hard way.

(Nutritional Facts – 1 cup – 45 calories, 2 grams of fat, 1 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 mg of cholesterol, 220mg sodium, 6 grams of carbs, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 3 grams of sugar, 1 gram of protein, 30% Vitamin A, 2% Vitamin C, and 2% Calcium)

Item: Green Giant Healthy Vision Vegetables
Price: $1.50
Purchased at: Albertsons
Rating: 4 out of 5
Pros: Easy to prepare. Steam-cooking helps keep vegetables moist without being water-logged. Rosemary-butter sauce tastes pretty good.
Cons: Bag looks like it could explode at any moment in the microwave. Vegetables have no discernible effect on vision. Finals week. Crying while listening to Hillary Duff. Making the grade the hard way.

REVIEW: Jimmy Dean Bacon Breakfast Bowl

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Jimmy Dean Bacon Breakfast Bowl

The night started off innocently enough. But then again, so did OJ Simpson’s acting career. I looked in the mirror and declared that I would stay cool. You don’t want to do anything crazy at a Halloween party. You never know what can happen once you get going. Or what you will buy.

After hitting the dance floor, I soon found myself with a cute girl in a skimpy tiger costume. After adjusting her beer goggles with a few drinks, I decided to try out a few of my patented moves. I went for the Wisconsin Bulldog and the Orange Creamsicle, but had my hand knocked away when I went for the Magic Bullet. I briefly thought to myself, “Does enjoying this make me a furry?” but then proceeded to get my groove on. I soon realized that I dance the same way I make love…very, very awkwardly.

One thing led to another and I ended up in her place with a massive hangover. I had no idea about what had gone on since we were last on the dance floor.

“Did we…did we do it?” I asked, hoping that I totally did it with her.

“Uhh…no,” she said. “Don’t you remember? You said you’d rather go shopping for food. Kept mumbling something about becoming god of all internet reviewers and the dancing queen.”

“Well, that does sound like something I’d do,” I remarked. “But then why am I naked and handcuffed to the bed?”

“I’m not sure, I left you alone after we came back,” she answered.

Hmm…she had a point. That is how I sleep every night. But I wish she hadn’t seen me like this. After I freed myself, I figured that I might as well raid the fridge. I needed something substantial to keep my head from throbbing. What I found was more than I was prepared to handle…

“Oh…my…god…What the fuck is this?!” I asked.

“I don’t know, I think you bought it,” she replied.

I stared at the box and slowly shook my head. Son of a bitch, I even hate myself when I’m on a drunken food purchase binge! I either secretly want to kill myself or have become such a diabolical genius that I went insane. This bowl was by far the scariest thing I had seen all weekend.

It was an unholy bowl of bacon, eggs, potatoes, and cheese — all mixed together so you can eat it like the failure that Jimmy Dean thinks you are. Did I mention that there’s a lot of fucking bacon in this thing? There’s like a ridiculous, enough-salt-to-melt-an-iceberg amount? I couldn’t really imagine ingesting it, but I didn’t have many options. It was either this or some ramen flavor packets that she had saved up. Seeing as it is Halloween season, I figured that I had a duty to myself and for the fine readers to indulge my morbid curiosity.

This bowl has no practical reason for existing other than as a product of a dare at some marketing department, so I tried to alleviate my fears by thinking the situation through. I’m sure it had to be quality tested. Some tasters actually had to survive long enough to give this thing the thumbs up. And at a mere 8 ounces, it didn’t seem like much of a meal. It couldn’t make me feel that bad, right? This was all before realizing that it would be healthier if I ate a tub of Crisco.

I eventually got around to microwaving this bad boy and watched it rotate for the full 3 minutes. By minute two, the air had been permeated by the nauseating scent of grease and cheese. I opened the plastic film to take in the beauty of the bowl’s contents. Oh, did I say beauty? I meant brain-exploding hideousness. The cheese had ceased to resemble anything appetizing and clung to the eggs like melted plastic. The potatoes had the glossy shine of a mint condition baseball card. The eggs were essentially pieces of yellow Styrofoam tossed together with chopped bacon.

Jimmy Dean Bacon Breakfast Bowl Closeup

This is the breakfast that 8-year-old children cook for their mothers’ birthdays. They fumble around in the kitchen, throw everything together, and then microwave the shit out of it so they can serve breakfast in bed. The mom will take two bites and make an exaggerated “mmm…” sound while vigorously rubbing her stomach. The child will then run off and laugh as she proceeds to dump the contents of the bowl in a trash can and begins to manually induce vomiting.

I tried a few bites. It was strange, but it wasn’t completely awful. Salty, greasy, and stiff, but still kind of edible. I’ve probably had worse breakfasts. I’m not sure why I’d pay $2.99 for this when I could have a small, possibly mentally challenged child make me the same thing at a fraction of the cost. As I was trying to justify my purchase, however, I started to wonder why I was suddenly nauseous.

The back of the box had my answer. Hmm…33 grams of fat, 1490 mg of sodium, 132% of my daily cholesterol allowance. Why don’t they include a complimentary vial of poison while they’re at it? And why exactly is an individual serving of a meal allowed to exceed 100% of something that can kill me? Well, at least it has 2 grams of fiber so I can stay regular after I collapse face first as I suffer a heart attack trying to walk down at set of stairs at school. Maybe I’ll wake up naked in a hospital bed with handcuffs on. That won’t be weird at all.

(Nutritional Facts – 1 Bowl – 520 calories, 33 grams of fat, 13 grams of saturated fat, 1.5 grams of trans fat, 395 mg of cholesterol, 1490mg sodium, 21 grams of carbs, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 0 grams of sugar, 30 grams of protein, 20% Vitamin A, 6% Vitamin C, 25% Calcium, and 15% Iron)

Item: Jimmy Dean Bacon Breakfast Bowl
Price: $2.99
Purchased at: Stater Brothers
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Not completely inedible. The possibility of getting laid at Halloween parties. When children are thoughtful even when they are incompetent.
Cons: Horrible mixture of horrible-for-you foods. Food gets overcooked and therefore stiff after microwave nuking. Enough cholesterol to kill you 1.32 times in a day. Not getting laid at Halloween parties. Waking up naked with handcuffs and not finding it unusual.

REVIEW: Kid Cuisine Bug Safari Nuggets

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Kid Cuisine Bug Safari Nuggets

Kid Cuisine is the only nationally sold frozen dinner brand that is marketed towards, and most likely made by, latchkey children. It’s only fitting that a person like me with the attention span of a child would review one of its meals. You can never accuse Ace of not loving the kiddies.

Wait, that came out wrong. I meant to say that I love making young children happy…(fuck! Abort! Abort!). Damn it, you know what I mean.

Kid Cuisine was on ultra-clearance at the local supermarket. At about a third of their regular price, I couldn’t help but be curious enough to pick a few boxes up. Most people would see this as a bad sign of things to come, but not me. This is mainly because I’m an idiot, but I also had the thought that perhaps these meals were so good that it would be a crime to keep them on the shelves. I mean…the penguin looks like it’s having so much fun swinging on the jungle vine. Sure, it’s absurd, but is it any more ridiculous than a movie about surfing penguins? This is the stuff I think about as the meal heats up.

Hunger and low self-esteem are a great combination for frozen dinners, so I was actually anticipating its arrival out of the microwave. Unfortunately, the meal is not fantastic fare. Even as far as processed chicken nuggets go, these rank pretty low on the ladder. These are the chicken nuggets that other chicken nuggets beat up on the playground.

The fact that they feel the need to take on the form insects is obviously a case of severe overcompensation. By the time they come out of their microwave cocoon, they are dry and flavorless. I guess all is not bad, though. Mothers can find solace in the fact that the chicken is real “white chicken breast nuggets” and none of that filler crap. Never mind the fact that it’s shaped like a fucking butterfly — as all natural and wholesome foods are.

I would bet everything I own that there was a frozen food convention some years back where it was decided that macaroni and cheese had to be 95% water and 5% soggy mealworms. Kid Cuisine does their best to conform to the standards and offers up a meager helping of the orange and runny mess that they insist is pasta. Iron Chef Mario Batali must be rolling over in his grave. Well, he’s not actually dead yet, but judging from his expanding beltline I’m banking on this review being accurate within the next 10 years.

Kid Cuisine meals are never complete without one or two hilariously gimmicky ideas that are used to make the meal fun. Only Kid Cuisine can try and make ketchup cool, and they do their best by putting it in a sealed plastic pouch that is supposed to be used for nugget decoration. People…IT’S A FUCKING KETCHUP PACKET.

How they managed to pitch this idea as a selling point is beyond me, but I guess that’s why I’m not making six figures a year doing marketing. It’s almost as gimmicky as if they released Michael Jackson onto the reality show Kid Nation and let the pieces fall where they may. Along with the ketchup, some bug-shaped gummy snacks are included to ensure that the children learn how to ingest insects at an early age.

The best thing I can say about Kid Cuisine is that they appear to have good intentions. They keep me sane because they don’t spell their name Kid Kwizine. They have mazes and other games for kids on the boxes. Until their penguin becomes a sexually suggestive Bratz-like mascot, and you better believe this will happen, they deserve to be commended. Just not on their food.

Item: Kid Cuisine Bug Safari Nuggets
Price: 2 for $1.67
Purchased at: Stater Bros.
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Kids will probably like it. Edible even though it’s not the greatest. Fun and wholesome mascot that apparently encourages dangerous physical activity.
Cons: Bland and dry nuggets. Passing off a ketchup packet as a cool treat. Encouraging children to eat insects. Michael Jackson on Kid Nation. Bratz.

REVIEW: Banquet Southern Fried Fried Chicken Classics

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I don’t know a lot about the South, but if the Food Network has taught me anything it’s that the food is good because it has a lot of soul in it. Sort of like Shang Tsung from Mortal Kombat, I guess. Other than that, my knowledge of the region is limited to popular culture. It would be far too irresponsible to fill this review with southern stereotypes. I could talk about how Michael Vick and Miss South Carolina have set any progress back about 150 years, but all of that would be too easy, ignorant, and fun.

It’s a lot better to focus on the positive, like this tasty meal from our friends from Banquet, which I have a sordid and confusing past with. It’s filled with twists and turns and maybe even a few liaisons with other brands. Banquet started selling their fried chicken meals with one big thigh instead of a drumstick and a wing. That crushed my saturated fat and cholesterol-filled soul. For the past several years, I have felt betrayed. Even though I received fewer grease burns from eagerly picking up chicken pieces, eating was never quite as fun or interesting.

However, Banquet has now unveiled two new chicken meals that have found a way into my heart. They have this southern fried chicken meal, which is something I’ve been waiting for my whole life, and one featuring two drumsticks. I can only imagine that they’ve been keeping all of the spare drumsticks in some warehouse for the past 5 years. Since I didn’t feel like eating chicken that has been around since I was in high school, I opted for the southern variety.

If you’ve ever looked at a supermarket ad, you will notice that Banquet is perpetually on sale at 10 for $10. While this is awesome for the person on a budget, it also causes a great deal of shame at the checkout line when your cart is a sea of red boxes and everyone else has real groceries. I usually throw in a bell pepper so I don’t feel as bad, but the cashier sees right through me.

I will never understand why the company calls itself Banquet. Obviously, you’re not meant to serve it at an actual banquet. Are you supposed to sit on your beanbag chair and pretend to be at a fancy affair as you shovel corn into your mouth? I have come to the conclusion that Banquet exists to humiliate me.

After a few hours of stewing and self-loathing, I get over my paranoia and start to enjoy the meal. The chicken actually tastes pretty good out of the microwave. Obviously, it isn’t crispy, but it’s also nice and peppery. This is a welcome change of pace from the ultra-salty fried chicken in the regular meals. Instead of corn, you get a decent amount of green beans. I’m not sure if green beans are more southern than corn, but at least it’s edible, which is far more than I can say about the corn in these meals. A cup of fake mashed potatoes rounds out the meal quite nicely.

If there’s anything bad I can say about the meal, it’s that it costs 25 cents more than a regular Banquet meal. However, not even my cheap ass can reasonably complain about the price hike. In fact, even the biggest college lowlife can afford the extra quarter for a frozen dinner.

Unless you’re from the South.

Just kidding.

Item: Banquet Southern Fried Fried Chicken Classics
Price: $1.25
Purchased at: Stater Bros.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Tasty, flavorful chicken that will actually remind you of good fried chicken. Side dishes that are actually edible. Great value for the price.
Cons: Not even close to banquet-quality food. Southern stereotypes. The humiliation of a diet consisting of 95% frozen dinners. An extra 25 cents per meal.

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