Drinking kale juice in the morning is gross. I gave it a shot, and it's not for me. (My boyfriend enjoyed it, but it makes me miserable.)
I did it to be cool and healthy like all the fancy lifestyle food bloggers out there with their coordinated dishwear, fabric napkins, and aged wooden table food photos, but I just can't do it. That's not me. I'm a messy, junk food eating, blank-background photo food blogger. Kale chips are way more my speed.
This is my second ranch-flavored veggie product from Aldi this week, which is really odd because I'm more of a balsamic vinegar-kind of girl, but I really wanted to check these out because they look so different from the kale chips my family and I make at home.
If you've never had kale chips, they're exactly what they sound like. You take bunches of kale, sprinkle them with sea salt and a little olive oil, and bake them in your oven/dehydrator to create light, crunchy, potato chip-like snacks that are healthier for you. (Well, healthier than normal potato chips anyway.) I may follow a raw or vegan diet, but the wonderfully quirky Laura Miller is one of my favorite YouTubers and I love her recipes. Check out her handy video showing you how to make your own kale chips if you're curious and want to learn more about them. (Although I'm sure she'd hate these pre-made ones from Aldi. I'm sorry Laura. Don't hate me. AsifsheknowsIevenexist.)
The packaging is nothing to write home about, so I'm going to skip over my usual design portion and get right into the review.
I opened the bag up and these "chips" smell...like sweat socks and spinach dip. Not gonna lie, the smell instantly made me regret this purchase. Then I reached into the bag for a chip and my expectations sank even lower.
These chips are so hard! (Giggidty. insert your "That's what she said" jokes here) No, seriously. They're not light and crispy like the ones I make at home in my oven, they feel like jagged little rocks. Okay, rocks are a bit dramatic, but in the realm of crispy, light, and crunchy kale chips, this is super stale bread/crouton territory. I guess they had to thicken things up so they could take a beating on the shelves, but this is NOT the kind of kale chip I know.
Taste time! I grabbed a jagged little clump of ranch seasoned fossilized compost and...it's not as bad as I thought, but this is still the worst kale chip I've ever had.
It tastes like I just ate a spoonful of spinach-dip mix right out of the packet. The flavor is really overwhelming-seasoned, and the veggie portion is really hard, crunchy, and stale. Normally it's the light airy texture of kale chips that kept me coming back for more, just like my beloved seaweed snacks, but this is too intensely seasoned for me. After 2-3 chips I started feeling a little sick to my stomach due to the heavy seasoning and almost cheese-like flavoring. I'm looking this bag over and it claims to be vegan, so I am guessing there's nutritional yeast in there somewhere, but I've had vegan cheesy-products before that used nutritional yeast, and they were really yummy! (So being vegan is no excuse!)
I don't want to eat any more of this stuff, but it was pretty expensive as far as Aldi groceries are concerned, this bag was about $3.00! Urg. I hate wasting money, and food. What can I do with it? I was thinking of breaking it up and mixing it into a dip or something to mellow out the seasoning and kind of hide the texture by softening it up, but I might be better off dumping it. I'll keep you posted on what ends up happening to this stuff just in case you find yourself stuck with a bag in your pantry.
I wonder if Aldi's return policy is like Trader Joe's where can return without any questions
ReplyDelete