This will be brief and I’m not posting a picture because you can use your imagination to create a silver wrapper with the logo on it or just find it somewhere else.  I bought this candy bar, the 3 Musketeers Dark Chocolate Mint last night when I was forced to hang out at JoAnn’s Fabrics with the Ms.

It was a good light experience and I recommend this bar if you like to impulse buy at the counter.  The mint is just right. Where often mint is a little overwhelming in cheap candy. Yeah I’m talking to you York Patty. The dark chocolate is just right. It’s a winning formula.

I give it an A.  And I’ll even give JoAnn’s a B for carrying the bar and also for having a pretty cool American made toolset for jewelry-makers.

I’ve been wanting to show some of the superior aspects of vending machines in Japan for some time. It’s disappointing about the lack of variety and technology in vending in the United States. Certainly not all vending machines in Japan are bursting with innovation and flavor, but thankfully they are different and should give us ideas of what is possible. Vending Craze in Japan via Dark Roasted Blend.

Scientific American has an article on “The Science of Snacks: Thinking Makes you Hungry.”  It makes me want to say ‘duh’, but I suppose given that when there is a passage of time and assuming that my brain is nearly always thinking, that there’s  either a correlation of thinking and being hungry or there’s not.

FTA:

A study in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine contends that intellectual work—that’s right, I’m calling writing this stuff, ya know, intellectual—induces a big increase in caloric intake.

Though the finding of a gray hair and fear of aging likely spawned the author to write it, this article has some good snack ideas and interesting mentions of health studies. I enjoyed it. Hopefully you will too.

7 anti-aging super foods.

Could writing about snacks be more challenging? You look for tasty things, snacks you can share, even ones that have more wholesome ingredients, and then you find out that you can be undermined by a small detail like Acrylamide. Such is the case for several brands of potato chips that I have enjoyed in the past. Apparently, a carcinogen Acrylamide forms naturally when starchy foods are baked or fried. Which resulted in some lawsuit, settlements and eventually, some labeling requirements.

The company, Jay’s, makers of Krunchers was not named in the lawsuit but since they still are making kettled fried chips, who really knows if their chips are any safer. I figure, if you are eating chips anyway, these aren’t going to kill you any faster. Look for the Krunchers Chips in the white bag. They are 40% Less Fat, plus less salt, and the ingredients are only, potatoes, salt and oil. I thought they tasted great and seemed to have a lot going for them. I can’t say whether they are more or less a risky food, when it comes to Acrylamide. All I know is, I have no reason to eat the black bag of Krunchers, when the white bag is a little more pure, from what I can see.

I’m not stealing this idea. I wanted to share it with you in case you like to make your own desserts. These look so good, like something inside the glass case at Panera. The recipe comes from a website called smittenkitchen.

Blueberry Crumb Bars

You know the cereal aisle at the grocery store. Go ahead and skip all that. Because an average cereal aisle has been corrupted for years. I wish it was funny that you have to go to the health food section to get some quality cereal. It’s really not funny, just sad and pathetic. You want less processed and above all, little or no sugar. When I was growing up, I never made good cereal choices, and now that I want to, I’m having a lot trouble finding them. Because many of the choices are misleading. If you want a healthy cereal, first you need to find whole ingredients. Next you need to make sure it hasn’t been dumped over by the sugar industry. I don’t know where the blame lies. Some say that with government subsidies, the sugar industry has to find any and every food it can, and fill it up with sugary essence. Others would say that the cereal companies are simply giving the public what it wants. Solving the problem will no doubt require battles on both fronts. But you can fight your own consumer war by buying really good cereals, and writing letters saying you want less sugar. How do I know this works? Because it worked for peanut butter.

My best two choices for you in cereals are: Uncle Sam’s Cereal with Mixed Berries and Kashi Go Lean Crunch, Honey Almond Flax.

A word of warning. Start small with the Uncle Sam cereal. If you are not used to bran, it can actually cause you pain. You have to build up your “resistance.” I was hungry one morning, and had a couple bowls of it. Don’t do that. You’re stomach and bowels won’t approve. What I’ve been doing lately is getting a bowl of the Kashi, and then putting the Uncle Sam flakes on top. Sound boring? Sure it is. Then you ad some more fruit (because freeze dried fruit is not nutritious) like blueberries and strawberries. And you’ve got a real breakfast meal there. After you do that for a while, you’ll wonder what kind of idiots would buy Oreo or Reese’s cereal. I know because I used to buy those cereals, and I was an idiot for doing it.

I love nearly all things open source. It means that you know the components that make up the device, er, the meal. Check out opensourcefood.com. I’ve linked to the snack tag, hopefully it will fill up with all kinds of great things to make and enjoy.

opensourcefood.com

Most people probably don’t know what Aspartame is. It’s a sweetener found in a lot of processed food and drink, candies and gum. There is a controversy around aspartame which is whether its chemicals, or byproducts are carcinogens, cancer-causing agents, from ingestion of the chemicals or the reaction and change in them that occurs during digestion. Read the Wikipedia entry on the Aspartame controversy, and please check the label on any goods that are sweetened without sugar. It’s probably Aspartame, or Splenda. Probably avoid both of them. Diet Coke would be the most popular product using it.

You don’t have to listen to me though. Research for yourself. I think you’ll find that interestingly products containing Aspartame aren’t anything remotely important in your nutrition anyway, so it’s very logical and easy to avoid them. Diet Soda? I mean come on. You want diet soda? It’s called water, or even tea. Add a little lemon if you like.

Divine Caroline, a website lists a good collection of snack and regular foods that you might want to consider. 20 Healthiest Foods under a dollar. This is timely information for me, as I need some inspiration for some important sustenance I’ll be needing on an upcoming wilderness camping trip. More on that later.