When I first heard about these, I thought they were going to be more like the White Cheddar flavour of SmartFood popcorn. But in different flavours (like sour creme and onion, which might’ve made me die from joy). As a life-long fan of Frito Lay products, I was pretty excited. Once they arrived, I was surprised to see they were popcorn clusters, and not in savoury flavours. So more like caramel corn, I thought, or Cracker Jacks. I thought about them often but still had not tasted them because I’ve been so overwhelmed by finals, it just didn’t occur to me to eat anything that wasn’t already a comfort food (mostly this meant a lot of things from the “-ito” food group). This thought did not hold true for my boyfriend, however, who happily crunched his way through them, dutifully leaving me one bag of each kind to try.* Well, except the cranberry ones. He didn’t really care for those.

I digress. They come in three flavours. There’s the honey multigrain, the cranberry almond and the chocolate cookie caramel pecan (that’s a mouthful, huh?). I’ll just go in order and tell you about all of them.

The honey multigrain flavour was my least favourite. It was a slightly sweet but mostly bland version of Cracker Jacks, minus the peanuts. This was the most neutral of the flavours, and I think that for people who like things that aren’t super-strongly flavoured, these will be a favourite. My boyfriend gobbled these up after he polished off all the cookie ones, so they were not his least favourite. One thing I really think is cool about this product is that there’s no HFCS (though there is some soy). Also, while the caloric value of one package is only 110, it comes with a whopping 5 grams of dietary fibre (which is amazing, really - that’s more fibre than a serving of oatmeal, the perennial health food) and is a fairly satisfying snack in terms of curbing between-meal hunger. I like to joke that I have two stomachs: one meal stomach and one snacking stomach. When I’m hungry, one or both of my stomachs is “open” and when I’m full, the stomachs are “closed.” My snacking stomach was wide open (only my snacking stomach; my meal stomach closed after I ate Taco Bell then followed it with a big bowl of couscous) when I tried this flavour and afterward it was closed. Since I really love to snack almost every minute I’m awake, this is significant.

Next we’ll do the cranberry almond. The first time I tasted this, I nabbed one bite from the bag my boyfriend was eating. Unfortunately, I tasted it directly following a bag of the cookie one, so I wasn’t hugely impressed. I mostly got a sense of nuttiness but just felt “meh” about it. The next time I tried my own bag, I was in the car, stressing out about being late to an exam (I wound up being 30 minutes late, though I’m not really sure how that happened) so my snacking stomach was only cracked open. My meal stomach was closed. Sometimes stress makes me think I’m full, sometimes it makes me think I’m starving. This was a full day. Usually when we feel mostly full, foods don’t really taste that great. This is what told me that my first assessment of the cranberry almond snack was unfair. Because despite feeling full, I thought it was delicious. Tart and a little sweet, still with the nuttiness I previously noticed. This package was 120 calories, and still had the 5 grams of fibre and no HFCS. I would definitely buy these; they have a good flavour and are perfect “on the run” snacks.

Lastly comes the chocolate cookie caramel pecan flavour. This one was my favourite, though primarily because it filled me with nostalgia. I remember being a kid and sneaking a box of cookie crisp cereal (y’know, the one with the cookie thief?) and reaching my whole arm into the box to grab to stuff little handfuls of this cereal into my mouth dry. The popcorn clusters, remarkably, tasted exactly like that. These tasted the least reminiscent of “food” but I liked them the best. I had a hard time not shoving the popcorn in my mouth by the handful, as I used to do with the cereal. Despite it tasting like real junk food, it still had all the healthy benefits of the prior flavours, also at 120 calories. Objectively, this flavour is probably not the best one, since it is NOT really like real food. But I liked it the best anyway.

I would definitely buy the cranberry almond and the cookie ones again. The honey ones were too bland for my liking, though still were good. If you have kids, I think these snacks are really a win, since you’re able to give them “processed food” that doesn’t have the stuff that worries so many, and does have some extra things that’re good for them. If you don’t have kids, keep a few packets in the car. They’re quite helpful when you’re stuck in traffic.

*My boyfriend, not being the most verbose person in the world, had this to say for the review: “They’re really good. But I don’t like the cranberry ones much.”