PowerBar Harvest Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip

/ snacks
by Steven

Purchase Price: $4.57 for 8
Purchase Place: Wal-Mart
Rating: 3.5
Pros: Healthy PowerBar. Provides energy boost.
Cons: Too much sugar. Pretty dry. Has slight cardboard taste.

I tell people I’m on a diet. They look at me as if I’m crazy since I’m only 135 pounds. I am actually trying to beef up and get sexy abs. Instead of having wings and fries like I did last semester for lunch everyday, I now usually bring a turkey sandwich. I have been looking into protein bars lately.

I did a little research about protein bars and determined Met-Rx and Clif Bars are the best. Met-Rx bars are fortified with protein and Clif Bars are made of the natural stuff. A Met-Rx was over $2 a bar and I didn’t see the Clif Bars in the protein bar aisle at Wal-Mart. I choose PowerBar because the research I’ve done states that this is a pretty good company and it came with 3 free bars on top of the usual 5-pack.

Surprisingly, I enjoyed the Powerbar Harvest. The bar is a dry and a little sweet so enjoy it with plenty of water. It only provides 10 grams of protein, which is not as much as I’d hoped. It also has high sugar content; 18 grams. If you eat this bar and sit still for a long time, you’ll want to go to sleep. If you are not sedentary, then this bar will provide a boost of energy since it provides 42 grams of carbs.

I am probably not going to buy this bar again. Price is of the most importance to me. I could eat cardboard box if it had protein and was cheaper than PowerBars. I’ll continue looking for the Clif bars or cheaper alternatives.

And here comes the citations:
http://www.mtbr.com/reviews/Nutrition/
http://ca.askmen.com/sports/fitness_top_ten/29_fitness_list.html

Creative Zen Micro 5Gb

/ electronics

by Steven
 
Purchase Price: $204.36
Purchase Place: Creative.com
Rating: 5.0
Pros: Excellent mp3 player. Came with free extra battery.
Cons: Nothing really major.
 
I know it’s a little late to review the Creative Zen Micro, especially since it was discontinued. It was competition to Apple’s Ipod Mini, which is also discontinued. The MicroPhoto is supposedly glitchy with a bad battery life and is shameful to the Creative name. I’m going to review the Creative Zen Micro 5Gb mp3 player anyways. 

I had this thing for nearly two years and I’ve never had any major problems with it. I do recall that the start up screen froze on me a couple times. I just took the battery out and put it back in to solve the problem. This is an excellent mp3 player and there are many professional reviews on the net that can tell you why, but I’m going to describe the minor annoyances that many other reviewers did not talk about. 

Creative MediaSource, the Creative “iTunes” is sometimes buggy and it’s a lot slower than iTunes. It gets the job done and I don’t have to upload music to “PC Library” every time I want to import a song. The first screen takes about 10 seconds to load; another minor annoyance. Many complained that the touchpad is too sensitive but that did not take long to get use too. 

I like how it is possible to turn on the light for the iPod just by holding the middle button. To change the light in a Zen Micro, you have to go to system, scroll down to backlight, click enter, and then scroll up to 5 seconds. By now, I could do it without looking as it has become second nature, but it would’ve been nice to turn on the backlight in an easier fashion. 

After two years, my battery life is about six hours. I have been using it every day because I commute to school. I still have that extra replaceable battery that came with this player. Creative has some excellent mp3 players. My next mp3 player is definitely the Creative Zen Vision: M.

Welch’s Fruit Snacks Mixed Fruit

/ snacks
by Steven

Purchase Price: $3.36
Purchase Place: Wal-Mart
Rating: 1.5
Pros: No preservatives. Natural flavors. A penny cheaper than Wal-Mart brand fruit snacks.
Cons: Artificial tasting. Too much red.

I found Welch’s Fruit Snacks a penny cheaper than Wal-Mart’s Smiley Faces fruit snacks. It had to be purchased. I buy the Wal-Mart fruit snacks whenever I get the chance. Wal-Mart’s Smiley Fruit Snacks 24-pack = awesome. Too bad I can’t say the same about Welch’s.

One discernable difference between the Wal-Mart brand and the Welchs’ is that the Smiley Faces stick to your teeth like a real fruit snack. There is also no plastic taste with Wal-Mart’s brand. Welch’s fruit snacks are slightly better tasting than store brand Gumi worms. Store brand Gumi worms are known for their artificial flavoring and plastic taste.

The box states that it is made with REAL FRUIT and that it was mixed yet I only tasted red. Each pack comes with about 14 pieces and about 10 of them are red. It’s very inconsistent and it bothers me a lot. What bother’s me even more is that nearly all the colors taste the same. It’s very difficult for me to decide which flavor matched with which color and it took way too much energy. I just stuff the whole pack in my mouth and chew with malcontent.

I actually prefer the Wal-Mart fruit snacks over the Spider-Man or whatever crap they put out these days. I say spend the extra penny for the Wal-Mart Smiley Faces fruit snacks and forget Welch’s.