Weird Food Oddities #3

First of all, let me apologize for my long absence from this website. Recently, I've been putting the hardest work ever performed by a man with the iconic alter-ego-nic name of Bionic Taffy. In other words, I've been writing my novel trilogy with the working title of Air Pressure, describing a man who has distaste for humanity and develops an arm-exploding ability of air manipulation. I've tried submitting it to Random House as well as Doubleday, but neither has shown much interest yet. If anyone can recommend a better listening publisher, please message me about that. However, I'm getting off-track, so let me continue.

The second reason as to why I've been gone is actually rather related to this review. I've had a part-time job at a Hy-Vee, something of which sadly pays just as much as Associated Content does for up-front payments, and have been working constantly in the Kitchen area of the store. Only recently, however, I was asked to start working in sacking and other low-end jobs of the store, simple because people are, to be frank, sucking at their jobs. This allowed me to explore my store and find out just what has been changed. The only changes I noticed at first were that 20% of the people I used to know were now gone and that the cashiers were constantly breaking the rules and being insistently lazy. But, then I actually walked into the aisles and found that we had gathered a massive amount of novelty foods.

"Do you know what this means?", I sigh in enthusiasm.

Yes, it seems I'm gonna be doing one review every day for you all, so I better be seeing a lot of readers coming up. I counted and that makes about a couple months' worth of items. I dunno if I'm gonna schedule everything or just go on random trips to the store. Does a schedule sound good for you guys? It could be posted somewhere so you'll know. But, I've been thinking, however, that there may be changes depending on the readers who pop out. In any case, we've gotten that out of the way, let's get to our truly overdue review: Giant Gummy Bear on a Stick.

I'll be honest, the first time I looked at it, I didn't know whether I would eat this or a Fried Twinkie on a Stick (which, by the way, we may get to that soon, seeing as one of the bakeries around here is starting to sell that stuff) because, let's face it, do you really want to eat a giant gummy bear? Seriously. The bag they come in states that they are "a 1/2 pound of pure sweet gummy goodness". Let that sink for a moment. You're eating half of a pound of gelatin. That's like eating half a pound of a McDonalds hamburger. It's freaking unhealthy!

But, on the plus side, the bear LOOKS good. Seriously, it looks exactly like a gummy bear if you examined it with a microscope and noticed the little details on it that made it so cute. That said, though, wasn't that supposed to be the gimmick? Candy gets by usually on look, so gummy bears tend to be cute since you can put a whole bunch in your mouth and they can still smile. But, when you bite into THIS bear, it's like it's mocking you at eating it since you could only eat its ear and have completely destroyed its beauty. I'm dead serious, I felt bad when I bit into the bear and I couldn't eat the rest. I think you'd have to be a sick man to not get sick and eat the whole thing in one afternoon.

The range of gummy bears goes by flavors, so there's Strawberry, Raspberry, Grape, Lemon, Pineapple, and, the most disgusting flavor for anything, Licorice. I bought one of every flavor (unfortunately), so I'll review them by their flavors.

Strawberry: You know those strawberry preserves you buy when you want jelly (as in the stuff that isn't jelly in the first place)? Yep, that's the stuff you're eating. Just read the ingredients, considering it has "strawberry preserves" as the 5th ingredient. That being said, does this mean you're eating an actual strawberry? Not really, considering there's a reason they're called preserves. First of all, they're processed in the first place so they CAN be preserved. Second of all, they take a crapload of the good stuff in a fruit out of the finished product. So, yes, you're eating one hunk of gelatinous unhealthy fake-fruit shaped in the Charmin mascot. As far as taste, though, it tastes just like I described: "Strawberry preserves". Enough said. I say absolutely "No".

Raspberry: Just like the previous flavor, it once again is made with "preserves". God, they really don't want to be healthier in their food-making, do they? The taste is interesting when one is considering this is from a raspberry, which is purple in its original incarnation, and this bear is colored blue, possibly because kids freak out when something is blue. I don't think blue when I taste it and I don't think raspberry when I look at it, so what the heck is it? Something seems really off about this bear and I REALLY don't like it. I say "No way, Kame".

Grape: You know what's odd? No one ever likes grape and yet this actually was made with REAL grapes. What the heck? Why is this the only one besides Licorice not to be made with preserves? Did they not have enough money on it or something? In any case, this is definitely the best of the bears. It actually has a distinctive grape juice and white wine taste to it, which sounds a lot better than you might think. The bear itself is a purple colour, which I suppose is why the Raspberry is Blue (who could tell the difference?). Amazingly, this gets my recommendation. How could they make grape awesome!?

Lemon: There is something REALLY odd and not right with this flavor. It has a yellow color to it, so it's even suggesting that there is a lemon flavor to it, but there is no indication of lemon in this gummy bear whatsoever. The ingredients don't even list "preserves" in there, so what the heck is wrong with this lemon gummy bear?! Are you kidding me, people? You seriously could not make this gummy bear taste ANYTHING like lemon? I mean, what, did you spend all of the money on the grape flavor, the one people will never try yet it is the best out of them all? What sense does that make!? This "THING" gets the second-lowest recommendation I've given today.

Pineapple: Surprise, Surprise! Finally, something I like and it's even the healthiest of all the gummy bears! Real pineapple was utilized in the mixture, the bear has a cool see-through effect because pineapple supposedly looks like that, and the bear tastes like an actual pineapple. What is not to love? This is quite possibly the best out of them all and that says a LOT. Full recommendation! Out of all of them, you need to get this to save your sweet tooth.

Licorice: Let me be blunt, considering licorice is one of the worst and most foul things in all of humanity's invention circle. I took one bite, knew that this was absolute horse dung, and vomited my internal organs. I don't like it, never will, NEVER.

So, let's tally the scores

Strawberry: 6/10
Raspberry: 5/10
Grape: 8/10
Lemon: 2/10
Licorice: "H-to-the-NO" 0/10

Finally! We've reached the end of this disaster! Now it's time to move on to bigger and better things out there. Hopefully better food. *sarcastic face* Don't worry, though, I'll be back sooner than you think. See you next time when we take a look in more novelty candies!