VitaRound-Up

Here’s my summary of the sampler pack Vitalicious sent me.Thanks, again, to the company, and I sincerely hope you give some of these a try–I know you won’t be regretting the decision!

Anything labeled Deep Chocolate deserves a tasting, right? My main concern was that these would be very similar to Chocolate Brownie Z-Bars, which are cheaper and are more portable. Nutritionally, these are packed with fiber, are a good source of calcium and iron, and have 8 whole grains per serving. They are also only 100 calories.  I heated mine up in the microwave for 18 seconds just as the package says and out came a lovely lukewarm vitatop. The chocolate flavor was present in every bite, and the consistency was much like a fresh baked cake-yum! I was surprised something this light and airy could come from a freezer.

This smelled just like a Fig Newman, which I loved. After being thawed in the microwave a bit it was ready to be eaten. I thought the flavor was pretty decent, but I wasn’t rushing out to buy more, which I normally am tempted to do with limited edition things. Maybe it’s because I’ve had fig almond blondies and fig jam at my disposal all summer that these didn’t taste as special as they sounded. Don’t get me wrong, they were definitely delicious. But I would stick with the deep chocolate variety in comparison.

From the beginning I was worried about this one–worried for its own sake. Anything that calls itself “fudgy” and “peanut butter” is setting some high expectations for itself. “Fudgy” is a little misleading since I’m pretty sure this has the soft, cake-like base as any other chocolate vitatop. That’s one of the things I really like about them; they taste like a light and airy baked good even though they’re from the freezer. The fact that there were 4 peanut butter chips across the whole top seemed a little sad; and the peanut butter tasted a bit more like dietetic peanut butter than the real deal. If I were a dieter this might be more appealing, but I could use all the calories I can get and prefer to smother things with peanut butter, so this was a bit of a let down. Overall, the vitatop was OK, but didn’t leave me loving it.

The last few vitaproducts I’ve had hadn’t impressed me very much. This brownie totally redeemed the vitaname for me. I nuked it in the micro for 30 seconds until it was soft but still moist. I loved the little addition of nuts on the top, which is a helpful reminder that eating healthy, diet food does not mean giving up the health benefits of nuts–so many people think this which saddens me and my beloved nut butter stash quite a bit. Back to the brownie, the flavor was like a fudgy chocolate; this might have had bits of chocolate chips in it, but if it did they melted during the microwave process. I love the texture, too, which is more cake-like than dense. I love cakey brownies and always added extra eggs to my box-mixes as a kid. Of course, the nutrition is spot on like any vitabrownie.

This vitatop was spot on. Not so surprisingly, the healthy vitatops I’ve tried I’ve really enjoyed. Their taste is authentic, and this has some great blueberry/cinnamon/bran action going on. I also like that it doesn’t have sugar alcohol, which I’ve heard(though haven’t experienced yet) can cause inflammation. If you’re looking for a good, breakfast vitatop I’d definitely recommend the BlueBran to start your morning chipper and nutrient-loaded.

This was the last of the chocolate flavors I had to try, so you know it wasn’t going to last very long with me. The first thing I noticed was it had a good amount of white chocolate chips, which was appealing. I microwaved it and it came out nice and melty; the chocolate base was the same as the other vitatops, which I like because it reminds me more of an airy cake than a dense brownie. Unless we’re talking chocolate brownie Z-bar, I’ll take the cake any day. The white chocolate chips had a marshmallow-like taste. It wasn’t quite white chocolate, but it was very vanilla, which I thought contrasted perfectly with the chocolate. I think if it were real white chocolate chips the calories would be a lot higher. Still, I enjoyed it whatever it was and would gladly get these again because my name is Evan and I’m a vanillaholic.

This was one of, if not my absolute, favorite “healthy flavor”. I couldn’t really pick out the apple chunks like I could the berries, but the apple flavor was diffused throughout somehow and made this so sweet and delicious. I loved the medley of blueberries and cranberries for days when you just can’t decide whether you want sweet or tart, ya know?

Oh my god. This has got to be one of my favorite flavors. It taste like a fresh banana muffin from the bakery, but the nutrition is clearly amazing. Vitalicious has really outdone themselves with this flavor, and it’s now one of my favorites.

had to try my corn muffin Vitatop while I had a grill handy so threw that on, too. This flavor left me really confused in the end. I liked it, but it wasn’t what I was expecting from a corn muffin. Most of the corn muffins I’ve had were quite savory, whereas this one was pretty sweet. It tasted more like something for breakfast, but I wasn’t sure how to fit a corn muffin into any of my breakfasts. I liked the flavor, and maybe as a brunch food along with quiche this would be great, but I just wasn’t sure what to do with it. Personally, it could do without the sugar alcohol which would make it less sweet and more understandable nutritionally, but maybe that’s just me and my muffilosophy.

The nutrition for this vitatop threw me off a bit; I wouldn’t have imagined something “bran” having so much sugar. But I was happy there weren’t sugar alcohols and the ingredient list was about as simple as could be. The flavor was just what I expected and hoped for: bran. Believe it or not, sometimes I don’t want everything to taste like a dessert(though I give you plenty of reason to not believe me, there). I would definitely buy this vitatop as a morning-starter, though if I had the choice of flavor I might go for one of their fruitier healthy flavors like BlueBran or AppleBerry.

This was the last vitatop I had to review, and I wish it ended on a better note. Cranberry is such a New England Fall flavor but this one didn’t have me feeling it. There was a generous amount of cranberries, which I liked, but they lacked tartness or flavor. And the base wasn’t like the other bran bases and a little too bland, even for a “healthy” flavor. I’d definitely rather have the BlueBran or AppleBerry.