Simply Balanced Lime Fruit Juice Bars

Look: I have a sweet tooth, and I know it. I like sweet things. I get cravings for sticky-sweet, candy-esque things relatively often. I'm not proud of it, that's just the way my taste buds are wired. I also enjoy sour, tangy things. These frozen juice bars are both very sweet and very sour/tangy.

But I couldn't really get into them. If anything, they were too sweet—just super syrupy. I mean, sugar was very high up in the ingredients list, second only to water.  And then right after sugar is "apple juice concentrate," which, of course, is also extremely sweet. I mean, thank goodness they didn't use HFCS to sweeten these, but honestly, I think they could have made due with the apple juice alone.

They tasted and felt like concentrated margarita mix frozen solid into popsicles. Like I wanted to melt them down and add tequila, water, and salt just to dilute the syrupiness of the product.

On the plus side, they did indeed taste like lime. Somehow the tartness of the lime juice did power through the sticky sweetness of it all. And really, 90 calories per bar isn't all that bad when one considers how indulgent they felt and tasted.

I guess I was just hoping for a light, refreshing flavor, rather than the gooey, drippy, sickly-sweet product these turned out to be. After mowing the lawn on a hot summer day, I would definitely not turn to these bars for a cool down. I'd go for something a little thinner.

I give these fruit bars 6 out of 10 stars. 

Archer Farms Roasted Jumbo Cashews

Failing to find the milk chocolate cashews I was looking for, I settled for these more traditional, slightly less exciting Roasted Jumbo Cashews as a snack from my local Target.

It's almost pointless to review something as banal as salted cashews, but there are a few things that set Target's offering above other brands. First, the packaging is uber-convenient. There's a little plastic bag inside the small box, sealed for freshness, but once you open it, you can dump the contents into the box for an ultra-simple, pour-exactly-the-number-of-nuts-you-want-into-your-hand-each-time kind of experience.

Also, Archer Farms uses sea salt instead of normal table salt. And while there's a raging debate about whether sea salt is really that much better for you, I'll generally take it over table salt, if only because it's slightly more natural and contains no aluminum.

The size and quality of each nut is on par with any major brand, and really, I have no major complaints...except, maybe, that these are not covered with chocolate. So there you have it: a tiny review for jumbo cashews.

I give this product 8 out of 10 stars.