Category Archives: Snacks

Apr 25 2016
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Brands, Kosher, Online vendors, Snacks, Sweets, Truly nut-free

Don’t Go Nuts

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I first heard about Don’t Go Nuts online, in the midst of one of many searches for nut-free granola bars. And while their bars aren’t quite granola, they’re nut-free—so I figured I’d give them a try.

Allergen information out of the way first, though. According to their FAQ, all of their products—both bars and spreads—are produced in a nut- and peanut-free facility, and they use their own signature Field to Fingers process to ensure their products really are safe for those with allergies. Plus, all their products are also certified gluten-free, and there’s no egg or sesame in their facility, either.

Anyway, I pulled up their store locator (which I’ve since learned has been out of order for a few months and which won’t be fixed for a few more) and was directed to Whole Foods and Lot-Less. Easy enough, I thought—I’m at Whole Foods often enough, and (for reasons I really don’t understand) there are three or four Lot-Less locations within walking distance of my apartment.

Long and incredibly boring story short, I went to two different Whole Foods locations and pretty much every Lot-Less I could find (over the course of a few weeks, mind you—I’m not that obsessive), but I didn’t see Don’t Go Nuts anywhere. The Lot-Less on Chambers Street has multiple walls and shelves devoted entirely to bars, but there wasn’t a Don’t Go Nuts logo in sight. Huh. I would’ve just caved and ordered them online, but Amazon only carries them in boxes of 12, which was a bit too much of a commitment for me, given that I’d never tried any of their flavors.

Really, really not wanting to blindly spend $20 on a box of 12 “snack bars,” I reached out to Don’t Go Nuts in the hopes that they’d be able to point me toward a store that actually carried their products. I ended up speaking with a very helpful woman who informed me that they’re currently in the process of switching to a new digital agency partner, hence the outdated store locator. In the meantime, though, their bars are sold at Fairway, Balducci’s, Westerly Natural Foods, Foodtown, Grace’s Marketplace, King’s, and Shop Rite. Plus, Lucky Vitamin and Vitacost sell individual bars online—which fact I apparently overlooked in my search.

What’s more, Don’t Go Nuts was generous enough to send me a few samples—two of each bar, actually, and a bunch of their soybean spreads, too. I certainly wouldn’t have had the money to try so many of their products within a timespan short enough to allow me to actually the compare the flavors effectively—so I was pretty grateful for the samples. And to get to the point, finally: I really enjoyed a lot of what I ate.

My favorite bar was definitely the Whitewater Chomp (granola with white chocolate chips and white chocolate drizzle). It’s very sweet—everything I tried was—but I’m not really complaining. It tasted a lot like coconut-flavored cookie dough (though Don’t Go Nuts is coconut-free), and it had a nice texture, similar to that of a Quaker Chewy Bar. I liked the Celestial Campout bar (honey graham with white and dark chocolate) as well, though the chocolate they use isn’t the tastiest—so perhaps the Boogie Board Bash (same deal, but without the dark chocolate) would be a better choice.

I will admit, though, that I wasn’t a huge fan of the fig flavor that was so strong in some of the bars (Blueberry Blast, Lift Service). But maybe that’s just me. I’ve never been a huge fan of fig-based desserts. Overall, though, the bars were pretty decent. Be warned, though: If super-sweet bars aren’t your thing, stay away from Don’t Go Nuts. If they’re for a child, though—or if you have huge a sweet tooth—they’ll probably be perfect.

The spreads are good, too—but only as a last-ditch substitute for peanut butter. I liked the Slightly Sweet and Chocolate flavors best, but both were a bit watery. They definitely had that strange imitation-nut-butter flavor, and the texture was off, too. (But perhaps I’m just being picky because I can actually eat the real deal; if I were allergic to peanuts, I’m sure I’d be really grateful for these.)

In all, Don’t Go Nuts is a pretty solid company, and their products are worth the effort it takes to seek them out and give them a try, if you’re in the mood for something super sweet. Just…try not to go nuts looking for them. (I’ll see myself out.)

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Apr 18 2016
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Brands, Kosher, Snacks, Truly nut-free

Somersaults Sunflower Seed Bites

Somersault

It’s always a pleasure to stumble upon a box or bag of something that proudly declares itself nut-free. Usually, I’m just looking for packaging that doesn’t explicitly tell me to stay away—so I tend to be pretty surprised when a “made in a nut-free facility” works its way in there. Whatever it is, I’ll probably buy it then and there on principle alone—unless it’s grotesquely overpriced (which most things tend to be at the types of stores that carry allergen-free products).

I came across Somersaults Sunflower Seed Bites at Whole Foods, where almost everything is, in fact, grotesquely overpriced. But these were only around $3, so I went for it. And they really are nut-free! According to their website’s FAQ:

Somersaults are nut free and do not contain any nuts. Somersaults are baked in a nut free environment. With the rise of nut allergies, especially in children, we understand the importance of offering a nut free snack alternative that is nutritionally dense and absolutely delicious!

I bought the salt & pepper flavor, which was overbearingly peppery—but I wasn’t quite ready to give up on these things, so I went back for the sea salt version. Much, much, much better. They’re well-salted, and they taste predominantly like sunflower seeds, which is a relief after trying to get through the salt & pepper bag. Overall, I like them—though I can’t eat more than, say, 10 at a time.

There isn’t much more to say about these things—but if you like sunflower seeds, Somersaults are worth a try. Find them at Whole Foods, Target, and Stop & Shop.

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Apr 16 2016
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Chains, Japanese, Places to eat, Snacks, Technically not nut-free

M2M: An affordable Asian market

Salmon

I’ve said before that I’d eat sushi every day if I could afford to do so—but I can’t, nor will I ever be that rich. A more reasonable person might accept this financial limitation and, you know, chill the fuck out, but not me. I spend way too much of my time trying to make sushi affordable—and mostly in vain, at that. Decent restaurants are expensive (and the cheaper ones tend to be less allergy-friendly, anyway), and grocery store sushi is generally inedible…that is, with the exception of M2M’s.

Now: M2M’s sushi is nothing crazy. Everything’s packaged and allowed to sit for hours in a cooler at the back of their stores, after all. But as grocery store sushi goes, it just might be the best I’ve tried—and among the cheapest, too, at between $4 and $10 per box. The fish is usually decent, though everything’s usually way too cold, and the rice (in particular) doesn’t always taste so fresh—but hey, it’s the best of the bad, as far as I’m concerned.

I like to get the salmon combo, which comes with both rolls and nigiri, and which is pretty decent if you manage to catch it at the right time of day (though just when that golden hour starts is anyone’s guess. I certainly have no idea, and I’m starting to think there’s no rhyme or reason to freshness at M2M). I also used to love the shrimp tempura rolls, but for the past year or so, they’ve been—for lack of a better term—really, really, really bad. They’re horrifyingly cold and stale, and the folks at M2M seem to have forgotten how to make the version that didn’t come topped with spicy mayo. Oh well.

Ingredients are, of course, listed on the packaging, though I’m not sure whether M2M would label potential cross-contaminants. Truthfully, I took a risk the first time I ate their sushi—but I eat M2M multiple times per week (as one of their locations is basically on NYU’s campus), and I’ve never had any issues whatsoever. (I should say, though, that I only eat their sushi. They have hot food, too, but in the interest of safety, I tend to steer clear of anything cooked.)

I know—this isn’t the world’s most informative post. But I eat there so often I figured I’d throw the recommendation out there. As always, you should use your own discretion—and if the lack of readily-available information on M2M’s treatment of allergens makes you uncomfortable, you can (and should) speak to an employee—or, of course, take your business elsewhere.

M2M has three locations, though I can only vouch for the sushi at the one in Greenwich Village (19 Waverly Place). Still, the one on 11th and 3rd (55 3rd Avenue) is much larger—and much more pleasant, if you ask me. The third is in Morningside Heights (2935 Broadway), but I’ve never been.

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Apr 07 2016
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Brands, Kosher, Snacks, Truly nut-free

Karen’s Naturals

Dried corn from Karen's Naturals

I was at Westside Market the other day when I stumbled upon a bag of Karen’s Naturals freeze-dried corn. More out of habit than interest, I picked up the bag to read the ingredients, and, lo and behold, the company turned out to be nut-free. There’s nothing like coming across those words on a package of food—so naturally, I felt obligated to give this stuff a try.

According to their various product pages, all of the products sold by Karen’s Naturals are free from gluten, dairy, wheat, and nuts. They also don’t use any additives or preservatives—in fact, the only ingredient in their freeze-dried corn is…well, freeze-dried corn.

Karen’s sells freeze-dried fruits and vegetables, and various fruit powders, too. As of right now, I’ve only tried the corn and the strawberry-banana mix, but both are pretty good, as far as freeze-dried food goes. There’s definitely something weird about eating freeze-dried corn by the handful—but it isn’t necessarily weird in a bad way. The strawberries, though, are so flavorful (read: sour) that they overpowered the bananas in the mix. Still, not bad.

Both were plausible snacks, at the very least. In any case, I’m certainly looking forward to trying some of their other products. (Right now, I’m eyeing the freeze-dried peas. And the pomegranate. And the pineapple. I’m a sucker for pineapple.)

Find Karen’s Naturals at Westside Market, Fairway, and a bunch of other markets (or, of course, on their website).

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Apr 02 2016
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Brands, Kosher, Online vendors, Snacks, Sweets, Truly nut-free

Divvies

A bag of Divvies

Another allergen-free brand—this time, decidedly without nuts, peanuts, milk, egg, or sesame. All their products are vegan, and their popcorn and chocolates are gluten-free, too. Overkill, for the nut-allergic (as I’ve said time and time again), but valuable nonetheless.

Divvies is serious about safety. They require allergen-free statements from their vendors, and they test their own products regularly to ensure they’re truly free from all they’re said to be free from. (The founder’s son has a bunch of food allergies; you can read all about the company’s story here.) So evidently, the folks at Divvies really mean it when they say their food is allergen-free.

They have a decent variety of products, too: cookies, cookie sandwiches, brownies, chocolate bars, chocolate chips, cupcakes, and popcorn. The popcorn—especially the kettle corn—is so, so good. It’s a little expensive for such a small portion ($6 for 3 oz of popcorn), but I’m telling you, it’s delicious, and you’d never know it was free of anything if you didn’t read the label.

Unfortunately, that’s where my praise ends. I’ll admit: I’ve never made it through an entire Divvies cookie sandwich—and that’s not for lack of trying. Stubborn (hopeful?) as I am, I keep buying them, but I just can’t get on board. The chocolate’s all right, and the regular cookies are certainly way better than the cookie sandwiches—but in general, Divvies makes some pretty unsatisfying stuff. (Though I should probably mention that I haven’t tried their brownies or their cupcakes. Perhaps that’s where the magic lies.)

Maybe I’d be a bit more grateful for Divvies if I had more food allergies. I really do appreciate their existence, though, and I make a point of throwing some money their way every once in a while. And like I said, their kettle corn is delicious. But overall, I’d say Enjoy Life trumps Divvies if we’re comparing overkill companies—and it isn’t a particularly close call.

Find their products at Whole Foods, Gourmet Garage, Fairway, Union Market, and a bunch of other places, too.

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Mar 31 2016
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Brands, Kosher, Snacks, Truly nut-free

MadeGood Foods: Granola for the wealthy

MadeGood granola bites

I like granola bars, but it’s tough to find brands that don’t put nuts in every other one of their products. Most of the companies without “may contain” warnings on their labels are those with decidedly nut-free facilities—and in my experience, most nut-free facilities that handle granola are free of the rest of the top 8 allergens, too. That’s great, of course, for those with lots of food allergies, but it isn’t quite ideal for those who are only allergic to nuts. Foregoing nuts doesn’t tend to make a product taste funny—but sacrificing wheat, dairy, egg, or soy? Another matter entirely.

In case you can’t tell where I’m going with this: MadeGood‘s granola is free from the top 8 allergens, so it wasn’t as though I had the urge to drop everything and run to the store the second I heard about their granola. Still, a granola bar is a granola bar—and I do like to support allergen-free companies—so when I came across their logo on a trip to Whole Foods, I figured I’d give MadeGood a try.

They make granola bars and granola minis (basically bars in ball form) in five flavors: chocolate chip, mixed berry, strawberry, chocolate banana, and apple cinnamon. I ended up with the chocolate banana minis—I would’ve gone with strawberry, but there were none in sight—and they were better than I expected, which says approximately nothing, seeing as it’s typically a bad idea to expect much at all from allergen-free products. They were all right, though—chewy with a nice banana flavor—but definitely overpriced, at almost $5 for a box of 4 small pouches, each containing maybe 10 bite-sized granola balls.

Really, all I can say is that they’re passable. They aren’t egregiously gluten-free, but they do have a bit of that tellingly dusty wheatless texture to them. I did like their chewiness, though, and the banana didn’t taste artificial in the slightest—so maybe I’ll buy them again one day. (Probably not. They’re overpriced.)

Find them at Whole Foods and maybe Costco, if you’re lucky.

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Mar 22 2016
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Brands, Snacks, Technically not nut-free

Skippy P.B. Bites: an astonishingly decent snack

Two packages of Skippy P.B. Bites, one pretzel and one peanut butter

Quick post, because a) this is unimportant, b) these aren’t guaranteed to be nut-free, and c) a bunch of you are probably allergic to peanuts anyway. But I’ve finally found these elusive P.B. Bites after looking just about everywhere for weeks, so you’re going to have to hear about them.

Allergen information first. P.B. Bites (obviously) contain peanuts, but as far as I can tell, they don’t contain nuts. The allergen information on Skippy’s product information page is as follows: “Milk ingredients present, Peanuts (groundnuts) ingredients present, Soy ingredients present, Wheat ingredients present, Gluten present.” I reached out to Skippy to make sure their products were free of all traces of tree nuts, but they never got back to me. Anyway, I know this isn’t much of a guarantee—but I’ve been eating Skippy’s peanut butter for my entire life, and I’ve never had any sort of allergic reaction.

[Edit: I ended up hearing back from Skippy a few days after publishing this post. I was told that tree nuts are present in the facility in which P.B. Bites are made, but that they aren’t processed on the same equipment, and that Skippy has a HACCP program in place to prevent cross-contamination. Their actual peanut butter is made in a peanut-only facility, though.]

Anyway, I apparently become extremely impressionable the second any sort of food shows up on my TV. I’m not even that into peanut butter, but for some reason, when I saw the ad for these, my pupils turned to spirals and I figured I just had to have them. I used Skippy’s product locator (well, it’s Hormel’s, but whatever), but none of the stores I went to had the stupid things, so I gave up and ordered some from Walmart. Of course, within a day of stopping my search, I spotted them—on a routine trip to Fairway. Go figure.

The anatomy of the P.B. bite is very simple—it’s just a little ball of either pretzel or peanut butter, covered in a layer of smooth peanut butter. Both varieties are fine, really, though the pretzel may be a bit better, due to the added salt and crunch factors. Honestly, I was expecting both varieties to be terrible (though that didn’t make my search any less urgent), but terrible they are not. In fact, they’re astonishingly decent.

That’s about all I have to say, really. I’m just a sucker for new (junk) food products—especially when I can eat them. And these just happen to be all right.

(I’m not even going to pretend I know where you can get your hands on some P.B. Bites of your very own; Skippy’s product locator was decidedly unhelpful—probably because these things are so new. Amazon has them for an absurd price of $12 per 6-ounce cup, and you can order them from Walmart for $3.13 per cup, though the shipping costs more than the P.B. Bites themselves. If you can find them, though—and if you like peanut butter—they’re worth a try. Good luck.)

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Mar 09 2016
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Brands, Kosher, Snacks, Truly nut-free

Who knew Utz was nut-free?

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Quick post, because I realize safe chips and popcorn aren’t all that hard to find. But I bought some Bachman popcorn today and noticed that the bag says they’re manufactured in a nut-free facility, so I did some research, and according to Utz’s website, a whole bunch of their products are nut-free as can be:

Peanuts and other nuts are one of the most common food allergies. All of Utz’s manufacturing facilities are both peanut and tree nut free. If there is a product that we distribute that could contain peanuts or tree nuts, you will always see a separate allergen statement on each package. Refined, bleached and deodorized oils (RBD) such as peanut oil, are not considered an allergen by the FDA. Below is a list of products to avoid if you have sensitivities to peanuts and other nuts.

Utz Gourmet Caramel Popcorn Clusters
Utz Pub Mix
Utz Poker Mix
Utz Chocolate Flavored Covered Special Pretzels
Utz Chocolate Flavored Covered Bite Size Pretzels
Utz Milk and White Chocolate Flavored Covered Special Pretzels
Utz Milk Chocolate Covered Special Pretzels
Utz Butterfinger® Flavored Covered Bite Size Pretzels

Everything else, though, should be totally fine (and well-labeled, according to their FAQ). So although most of their chips are sub-par, they’re certainly an allergy-friendly company.

(Utz brands include Bachman, Zappo, Dirty, and, of course, Utz. Zappo and Dirty do use peanut oil, but it’s a highly-refined, processed peanut oil that doesn’t have any peanut protein left in it, so it’s supposedly safe for the peanut-allergic. No tree nuts, though.)

Find their products literally almost everywhere chips are sold.

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Feb 27 2016
7 Comments
Brands, Kosher, Online vendors, Snacks, Technically not nut-free

Hampton Farms Peanuts

hamptonfarms

One thing that never, ever fails to confuse people is the fact that I’m not allergic to peanuts. Nearly every time I tell someone I’m allergic to tree nuts, I’ll end up getting an earful about how much it sucks that I’ll never be able to try a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a Reese’s Cup or a Butterfinger. (Cue the explanation that no-one really cares about: “Well, you see, peanuts aren’t really nuts; they’re legumes…”)

Point is, I can eat peanuts.

Theoretically.

There’s a problem, though. Products that contain or may contain peanuts? Fine. But try finding actual peanuts that don’t come with a “may contain” warning for every tree nut under the sun. Planters, which are everywhere, won’t work—and before you get all excited (like me) and think you’ve finally found a solution: generic brand peanuts are probably cross-contaminated, too. Sorry.

After a whole lot of searching, though, I’ve finally found a brand that works, and (as you may have guessed from the title of this post) it’s Hampton Farms. There are no “may contain” warnings on their bags, but the absence of such warnings guarantees approximately nothing, so I just took that information as a lead. Fortunately, when I emailed Hampton Farms, I received the following reply:

Our in shell peanuts and jarred peanut butters are produced in peanut only facilities. Our shelled peanuts are processed in several locations, some of which handle both peanut and tree nut products, so there is the possibility of cross contamination.

So I guess I have a lot of shelling to do. Bummer, but whatever. At least I’ve found some tree nut–free peanuts, right?

They come in a few flavors: salted, unsalted, raw, Cajun, and hickory smoked. I’ve tried salted and unsalted and, well, they’re definitely peanuts. (I’m not a huge fan of peanuts that’ve been salted in-shell. They always taste like the sea to me—perhaps because they’ve been salted via a salt water solution. But the unsalted peanuts are A-OK.)

I buy them at Fairway, C-Town, or Stop & Shop, but they’re all over, really, and you shouldn’t have much trouble finding them. For whatever reason, they’re usually in the produce section. Good luck.

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