Freak369's Full Review: Combos Snacks Nacho Cheese Pretzel
If you've never tried a Combos but you love the crunch of a pretzel you really don’t know what you are missing. They are sort of like a pretzel rod only the center is cored out and replaced with a creamy cheese type spread. It isn’t hard but it isn’t completely soft. It stays inside the pretzel shell until you bite into it and then the flavor explodes in your mouth. To me they are a little bit better of a snack than potato chips or something that is fried but the one ounce serving can still do dieters in if they aren’t careful. I never really paid attention to Combos until Tommy started buying them all the time; to me they were something that I bought when they were on sale and that was about it. Oh how things have changed.
Combos Snacks Nacho Cheese Pretzels
The marketing behind Combos is pretty slick; take something as common as a pretzel and put a spin on it. In regards to the nacho cheese flavor; well, it is sort of hard to tell any of the cheese flavorings apart unless you have five or six bags of them open and are sampling them all at the same time. When I grabbed a bag of these I was sort of expecting them to have a nacho flavor, not just a nacho cheese flavor. When you see the picture on the bag it shows an impressive bowl of nachos with all the toppings, sadly that isn’t the taste that you get from the actual Combo snack.
I like the fact that these are oven backed and aren't greasy when you are eating them. I also like the crunch that you get from them and the amount of salt on the pretzel portion. I am a huge fan of nacho cheese and use it on just about everything or find some way to dip it or slather it on to food. One of my favorite off-diet snacks is pretzels dipped in nacho cheese. Now I can have that same snack without ending up with cheese all over my face and sweatshirt thanks to these. Sure, the taste isn’t exactly the same but its close enough when I am being a little lazy but still want a tasty snack.
Combo pieces are individually made; no, there isn't someone standing there making them by hand but they are cut into pieces when they are still raw then over baked and filled with the cheese like substance. How do I know that? Take a look at a Combo and check out the sides; if they were baked into rods then cut they wouldn’t have that dark tone to them and wouldn't have salt flecks on them. It would also be impossible to cut them into individual pieces because of the density and hardness of them, they would crack into pieces and be useless when it came time to fill them. It's that process that gives the Combos it's crunch but doesn't make them taste dry or bland. I won’t say that Combos are my all time favorite snack or that the Nacho Cheese variety makes me weak in the knees but they are pretty damn tasty.
Nutritionally they are a tad bit better than potato chips but not by that much of a stretch. A one ounce serving contains 130 calories, 4.5 grams of fat, 19 grams of carbohydrates [5 from sugar] and 3 grams of protein. You have the cheese to thank for the protein but as always, if you are trying to add more protein to your diet, there are better ways to do it. The 7 ounce bags were on sale this week at Rite Aid / Eckerd for .99 with a .50 rebate so the end price was .49 cents. That's a pretty good deal for a snack like this but please keep in mind, that bag contains seven servings so if you polish it off you will have consumed 910 calories, 133 grams of carbohydrates and 31.5 grams of fat.
the Bottom Line
The Nacho Cheese flavor is a good pick if you are into that type of cheese; it isn’t sharp like cheddar or mild like American, it's somewhere pleasantly in the middle of the two. The salt on the outside combined with the crunch of the pretzel makes for a filling and satisfying treat but if you are getting the seven ounce bags, know when to say when or you might just polish off the whole thing in one sitting and end up with a carb overload. Be sure to check the back of the package for the "best before" date, mine was stamped as being good until 12/2008 but it will be lucky to see daybreak in this house.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
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