A Chewy Snack But A Little Skimpy on Taste: SlimFast Optima Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Bar
Written: Mar 27 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Above average taste, six bars per box, not gritty, kids love them.
Cons: Slim Fast says it best “Excessive consumption may have a laxative effect”
The Bottom Line: Looking for a snack bar that has above average taste, nice texture and is choked full of raisins? The Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Bar from Slim Fast is a nice pick.
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| Freak369's Full Review: Slim Fast Optima Snack Bars - All Flavors |
I’m not a huge fan of the SlimFast system for losing weight. I had a rather disastrous encounter with one of their powdered drink mixes a few years ago and after that, I’d break out into a cold sweat when ever I would see the canisters on the shelves at the grocery store. Even so, that didn’t stop me from trying their meal bars. The brood have always loved trying the sport nutrition bars that I would get at the gym; it was always some grand adventure to them to see all the different colored bars on the rack and try to pick out the ones that they thought would taste the best. Hey, just because something has a pretty or cool wrapped doesn’t mean that it is going to taste good. With that said, they are just like me when it comes to bars. They come across one that they really like and they go crazy with them and get burned out on them. Thankfully most of them listened to me when I told them to go easy on these, have too many and you’ll be spending a lot of time in the bathroom. That didn’t stop one of them from have two of them back to back ... I knew he was in a little bit of trouble when he made a rather loud request for ‘someone’ to bring more AA batteries to the bathroom for the GameBoy Advance. Yeah, he was going to be in there for a while.
Slim Fast Optima Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Bars
[flour, rolled oat flakes, sugar, vegetable shortening, whey protein, raisins, syrup, molasses, spices, canola oil [may contain peanuts and sesame]
Before you get too excited about these bars there are a few things that you need to know about them. First off, they are smaller than you think. Each bar is one ounce [28 grams] so if you are used to eating low carbohydrate or energy bars this is half the size of most of them. According to SlimFast these are snack bars [much like the Muffin Bars] that are not meant to be used as a meal replacement product. Since this only has 120 calories and is only one ounce, it is not enough to fill you up or take the place of a meal. Second, if you eat too many of these you can and will feel the rather nasty effects of them [translation: diarrhea]. This comes from the combination of the oatmeal and the raisins as well as the sugar alcohols that are used to cut down on the amount of sugar that they use. Per their claim, this contains 60% less sugar than their Original Peanut Butter Crunch snack bar. To me that is a rather asinine claim to make; it’s like comparing apples and oranges - yes, they are both fruits but that’s about the only similarity they have.
Throwing caution to the wind I tried one of these before I got home and was really surprised at the taste. Looking at the picture on the box I expected them to be dry and grainy but they are very moist - not “falling apart moist” but certainly not dry. There are a good number of whole raisins; the only reason I mention that is that some companies use pieces of raisins and that can lead them to dry out during the baking process. Another misleading thing about the photo on the box is that, well, when you open one of those cute light purple wrappers it looks nothing like the picture. That’s not to say that it looks bad but it is a solid bar whereas the image leads you to believe that it is a cut section you are getting, like a slice of bread cut from a loaf. Looks aside, this is a nice tasty bar but if you are expecting your taste buds to tingle with satisfaction ... you may be a little disappointed. To me it is lacking a little bit of overall flavor, maybe they need to add some more cinnamon to it. It says that it contains nutmeg, cinnamon and allspice but I can’t taste any of those.
Price
These were tagged with a ‘discontinued’ sticker and reduced to $1.99 a box [six bars per box] so curiosity got the best of me and I grabbed one. To make it an even sweeter deal, I had a one dollar off coupon on any Slim Fast Optima product so my end price was .99 cents. These normally sell for $2.99 to $3.99 a box although you may be able to get them for less if you shop online or are in the Slim Fast program. I wasn’t sure if anyone was going to eat these so I resisted the temptation to buy a ton of them. I checked the expiration date and saw that they were good until November of 2006 [you can find this on the bottom of the box but not on the wrappers]. The box was gone in two days so I took that as a sign that they liked them. There were about thirty boxes on the shelf so I don’t think they are going to run out any time soon. I have six coupons so it looks like I’ll be buying six more boxes.
The Bottom Line
I was pretty pleased with these bars; I didn’t expect them to have a good taste to them but they did. The kids really liked then so the next time I hit the grocery store I’ll grab a couple more boxes for them to snack on. when it comes to buying bars for them they aren’t all that picky about brands or carbohydrates, if they like the taste they’ll tape the wrapper to the refrigerator as a reminder for me to get more. I can’t complain about the nutritional values on these because there isn’t a lot of sugar and the carbs are on the low side for a bar that has oatmeal and raisins in it. The boys aren’t all that crazy about the light purple wrappers so chances are they won’t be taking these on field trips with them but I’m sure that won’t stop them from eating them in the house. For more information about other products in the SlimFast Optima line, visit their official website at www.slim-fast.com or call their toll free number at [800] SLIMFAST
Calories: 120
Serving: 1 bar / 28 grams
Fat: 3.5 grams
Protein: 2 grams
Carbohydrates: 19 grams
Sugar: 8 grams
Fiber 1 gram
Sugar Alcohol: 3 grams
Sodium: 115 mg
As always, thanks for the read!
~^V^~ Freak ~^V^~
© 2006 Freak369
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Recommended:
Yes
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