Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Wednesday Review - Granola Lab

Coffee and Chocolate Granola


First, the name. I like that instead of conjuring up what granola usually does, for me anyway, patchouli and body hair (both in excess) I envision stainless steel ovens.  This is a big plus.

Price: It's $7.50 a pound which is quite reasonable. This comment is not meant to encourage GL to increase its prices.  In fact, if you are GL, skip this part. Given that the ingredients are organic and top notch and the product is hand made by some folks in Brooklyn, its a nice price point. I'd be hard pressed to pay more, it's perhaps worth more, but it's all about me right now.

Shipping: Fast. This is really important when ordering food online as normally you are ordering it because you want to eat it NOW.

Packaging: Brown coffee type bag with a plastic peekaboo window. Nice label, cute design. Ingredients listed in order. My only thought is that a caloric serving size type label is needed. I don't need the whole how many whatever of vitamin A, but, I would like to know how many calories are in how much granola. In this case, ignorance is not bliss.

Flavor: I ordered the Gingersnap and the Coffee and Chocolate flavor. Yum! In fact, despite the healthy things like raw sunflower seeds, my ten year old son LIKED the Gingersnap. I just forbade him to look at it before he tasted it. Not because it looks yuck (see pic) but because it doesn't look like a Ho Ho and therefore would be judged inedible.

Ginger Snap


The balance of flavor and ingredient is something to behold, nothing overwhelms, at no time are you feeling like you are eating something you have to because it's good for you. The Gingersnap in particular is fantastic. Think gingersnap dipped in milk.

Plus, they don't put too many raisins in it. I can't tell you how many good cereals have been ruined because of raisin overload.

The Coffee and Chocolate flavor has coffee nips in it that have been ground up enough that you don't crack a cap or lodge a nib. What? That's never happened to you? The chocolate is subtle, which i Appreciated, I was a little worried it would be like Cocoa Puffs or something but its all very cohesive.

In fact, cohesiveness is really where Granola Lab excels. I'd imagine they got pretty sick of granola by the time they figured out the right balance.  It's baked perfectly, obviously they signed a pact with Satan or something because that, in homemade granola, is not an easy thing to master.

So there you go, that's your Wednesday  review and it's tasty one too.


UPDATE: I have been in touch with the talented and charming Alex and GL is in the process of writing up a nutritional label. Alex warns that this label may not be great news, as granola is high in calories. I assured Alex that anyone who cares enough to ask is painfully aware of that. The trick is finding granola that is worth the caloric intake, which, I can state with utter conviction, GL's is.

No comments:

Post a Comment