SmartSweets – Sour Blast Buddies
Growing up, we didn’t really know how pervasive the sugar issue was. We knew it was bad for you, but we didn’t know exactly how bad, and that it was in basically everything. Apparently “big sugar” paid a lot of good money to hide the dangers of it from the public for long enough that they got everyone on the hook and well addicted. This all sounds crazy as I type it out, but you can look this up. It’s honestly not that surprising, when you consider that big tobacco convinced people for the longest time that smoking was safe, and even went so far as to convince people it was healthy for a period of time. But I digress.
I don’t usually go for things because they’re healthy or better for me, but these definitely piqued my interest. It was the combination of the packaging, the size of the bag and the price tag. These suckers are not cheap, even on sale. For roughly the same price or lower depending on sales, a typical bag has 50 grams compared to the standard bag of the other candies that are at least double that. But then again, I am a big proponent of quality over quantity. A big selling point, especially for parents would be that there’s not much guesswork if you want to eat the whole bag. The nutrition is for the entire bag so it’s pretty straightforward. Of note, there’s only 3 grams of sugar, and 28g of fiber. If you’re looking to clear the system, grab a big mug of water and eat a bag of these.
There appear to be five different flavours, lemon, lime, orange, blue raspberry and berry. I say berry because much like Swedish Berries and Sour Patch Kids, no one’s really sure what berry the red flavour is based on. One of life’s many great mysteries I guess.
The texture of these is quite different from what you would expect from Sour Patch Kids. They remind me more of a jujube or a gum drop. It has a somewhat firm texture, that doesn’t bounce back when you chew, and is nowhere near as soft as a Sour Patch Kid. It is however, just as stick, and expect to get some of these stuck in your teeth, much like jujubes. It’s not a deal breaker for me because I’m an experienced jujube eater, but this might be a problem for some. It’s not sticky enough to take out a filling though, so don’t worry about that. Another thing to note is about the sour powder. While typical sour candies just pour on citric acid, these ones seemed a bit different. It wasn’t particularly sour, but the coating itself was less powdery. Not sure if it really changes anything, but thought I’d just throw that out there.
There’s five different flavours, so I’ll do a quick run down of each. The orange has a nice zesty taste to it, but it’s also strong enough to leave that dreaded citrus burn in your mouth if you have more than 3 or 4. The lemon is also just as zesty but same issue. The lime is the mild one of the bunch, and reminds me of a sugar free sprite. Blue raspberry is kind of nondescript, like eating a candy version of a raspberry flavoured sparkling water. Without the sparkles of course. And last, red. Who could forget red. This one isn’t as confusing to pin down as Swedish Berries, and this one is probably the best out of the five flavours. This one reminds me a lot of a strawberry jam…if it was sugar free. I guess if I had to summarize an overarching flavour profile for these, it would be that they remind me of diet sodas. It’s not bad, but you know it’s not quite the same as the OG sodas, and something about the sweetness is just slightly off.
The company has a number of different snacks that try to make a healthier, more guilt free version of popular snacks. While these ones weren’t to my liking, I would definitely consider trying some of their other things. The execution is lacking a bit, but I honestly was surprised they got as close as they did. Big points to them for trying, and getting pretty far.
