Simply Balanced Sea Salt & Vinegar Roasted Chickpea Snack

I'm not sure if it's ever come up before on this blog, but I LOVE CHICKPEAS.

Honestly, I've always had a huge affinity for the nutritious legumes. While my childhood friends would pile up croutons and dressing on top of their salads, I remember stacking my plate high with a bed of greens and a massive tower of garbanzo beans. I'll occasionally snack on nothing but chickpeas with a little salt and pepper. In short, I'm a fan.

And recently, these dried chickpea-based treats have been popping up in different flavors from quite a few different brands. This is the second such offering that I've tried.

And unfortunately, I think this product might have scored higher in my book had I not tried a similar offering from Trader Joe's just a couple weeks prior.

The Trader Joe's chickpeas were larger, they had a much better seasoning on them, and somehow they still flaunted more natural chickpea taste. These snacks were very gritty—almost sandy, and much harder to chew than the other chickpea snacks I've sampled. This Simply Balanced product was vaguely salty, but there was very little vinegar flavor, in my opinion.

On the plus side, there's still a good amount of fiber and protein here, and the resealable bag is uber-convenient, as always. Because of my love of the great garbanzo bean, I'd give another flavor a chance in the future.

But as for this particular chickpea snack, I can't go much higher than five out of 10 stars.