Monday, January 21, 2008

Product Reviews

I don't normally do product reviews but after I lost all the photos from the past two weeks, why not.

First is Ricera. I was excited about a rice yogurt coming to market but it was clearly lacking - a soy, diary and glutten-free yogurt. Unfortunately, this is not the product to eat. It's thin and tastes like chemicals. I consumed about half of the package before my mouth just refused to swallow. You know that feeling when you need to take a pill and it's in your mouth but you just can't swallow it? It was the same thing - terrible. However, I needed the calories so I tossed the spoon and put my head back to get it into my system without touching my favorite taste buds along the way.

I imagine the process to decide when the product was to go to market was something along the lines of, "well it's 100 times better than our first try!"

One thing I will give this product is that the packing uses as little plastic as possible, with a cardboard wrap to make it more sturdy. But that's no reason to buy it. Stay away!


What you should eat, if you're in Portland, is the peanut sauce from Vege Thai. They have this great sweet and lightly spicey peanut sauce they sell by the bottle, which is good because I can drink this stuff by the bottle!

Here's some rice noodles I cooked up with vegetables and smothered with Vege Thai Peanut Sauce. YUM!


Another great product I've found is a smoked salt I am very happy with. I've been tasting for one that's not too heavy or too light. I found this great one at Williams-Sonoma. It's an Oak-Smoked Sea Salt. The thing that's so different about this one is that the oak is actually from old barrels that once contained Chardonnay, or so they say. I don't care if it's true or not because it's the flavor I've been looking for. It's salty, it's smoky and slightly sweet. I can't wait to make some mashed potatoes and sprinkle this on as a finishing salt.

17 comments:

Melisser; the Urban Housewife said...

Ooh, I've been wanting to buy some smoked salt!

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

maybe it's different where you live, but where I live, the ricera contains vitamin D3, which is animal-derived (and therefore not vegan) - bummer! so yours doesn't have D3?

Webly said...

Veggiegirl - That's interesting because it had a vegan society symbol on it. When I was at the grocery store yesterday I went to see it again and I think they took it off the shelf!

Cakespy said...

That sea salt looks really good! Thanks for the tip, I have tons of gift certificates to spend!!

erica said...

I just have never been able to get behind any kind of artificial yogurt, they're all kind of icky.

You are a brave, brave woman.

Dawn Foster said...

You should take a trip to The Meadow a specialty salt store on Mississippi . http://atthemeadow.com/salt/ The
Halen Môn Gold smoked salt is really good, and you can taste any of them while browsing the store. This is where Nutshell gets their salt.

Webly said...

Thanks Dawn. I have been there, but it's been awhile. I should probably go back.

Karla said...

yeah, i threw away about half of my Ricera Strawberry flavor. i just couldn't force myself to eat it. i tried to think about the starving children that would (maybe) love to eat it. but, alas, i wasn't truely starving so in the trash it went...

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

according to their website, the yogurts still contain Vitamin D3: http://www.ricerafoods.com/products.html

Webly said...

veggie girl - it looks like they fixed it. On their homepage they have this, "Thanks very much for visiting our website, and for your enthusiastic response to Ricera organic rice yogurt.

We want you to know that we had made an unintentional error in our choice of Vitamin D enrichment. We now know, thanks to correspondence from many dedicated vegetarians, that Vitamin D3 is animal-derived (from lanolin in sheeps' wool), and we should have used Vitamin D2, the vegetarian version.

Our recipe is now revised using Vitamin D2, and we will begin producing a true Vegan yogurt. This will be in effect as of our production run on August 10 -- the "best by" date code will read 10/5/07, and from that point forward, the Vitamin D issue will be a thing of the past!

However, the label reprint will take a bit longer; so for a time, the label will still say "Vitamin D3", but the contents will contain the desired Vitamin D2. The key is the dating that is mentioned above, and you have our assurance that Ricera will meet Vegan standards at that time.

Ricera's "reason to be" is to create a yogurt that is ideal for consumers with special dietary requirements and/or food allergies:

*

Certified Organic
*

Whole Grain Brown Rice
*

Live Active Cultures
*

Wheat and Gluten Free; Non Dairy
*

Contains 3 grams of Protein per serving
*

Great tasting and made with the highest quality ingredients

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience or confusion, and we value your support very highly. We thank you for your patience during this period, and you will soon be able to fully enjoy our delicious organic rice yogurt in complete confidence. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us at info@ricerafoods.com"

But that doesn't mean it still doesn't taste like ass!

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

HAHA!! Webly, you crack me up with your comment about its taste - I'm afraid to even try the stuff, since I still don't trust that they're now using Vitamin D2 instead of D3; and since you thought that it tasted horrid, I DEFINITELY don't want to try it - so sorry you had to endure it!!

Chris said...

Curious to know if you'd be interested in being part of a testgroup to try 4 new PROBAR flavors. E-mail me at probarfeedback [at] Gmail [dot] com. Thanks

Anonymous said...

Speaking of product reviews. My grandmother picked me up a few Betty Lou's Vegan Bars in Berry Berry and Chocolate Tangerine. They tasted like protein bars (powerbar etc) so I wasn't a big fan. Apparently she bought them at a 7th Day Adventist supply store...

julie hasson said...

Hi Webly! I'd been wondering about that rice yogurt. So happy for your feedback before I bought it.

That salt looks great!

Anonymous said...

It's a shame that, based off the reviews, that Ricera sucks. Hopefully they'll improve on the product - if I see it in the store I'll have to give it a try. There's a bunch of vegan alternatives that I remember trying way back when that tasted bad but nowadays are great.

Michelle said...

ick, too bad that rice yogurt was disappointing.. i will steer clear of it, thanks! looks like the noodles made up for it though!

Anonymous said...

Good words.