9 May 2013

Kallo - Rice and Corn Cakes, Blueberry & Vanilla, Caramel [by @NLi10]



There are a lot of low calorie foods out there, the most tasteless of which is the rice-cake.  This in it's original form was essentially styrofoam with a bit of flavour sprayed on.  Fast forward to the present and we find that the product has evolved, past the point at which it was merely edible and has arrived  as we se it above - a premium product that people who aren't even concerned about calorie intake may consider.

Kallo are a brand I'm not all that familiar with but appear to have been around a while.  These are part of a wider range of other rice-cake based snacks of a variety of flavours and sizes. As snack popcorn is becoming quite popular I can see these being a hit, but are they any good?

The only real way to test low-calorie food is to take it into work and see what happens.  As expected not everyone would try one - many are likely to have been scarred by previous texture free tasteless versions - but those that did were usually happy to try the second flavour.  I shall talk about them in the order that I tried them.

Being a fan of fruit over most things I went for the Blueberry and Vanilla first.  The disks are similar in appearance to other brands, if not a little more haphazard in the grain of the surface.  On these this is a purple sheen which got a few people more interested.  They look more edible than expected and the mixed grains give  more interesting texture and are much more pleasant  than I'd thought likely.

The vanilla flavour is really just a hint and not as noticeable as I'd hoped but this isn't an issue.  The Blueberry is zingy enough to banish all thoughts of tastelessness. In fact the rice/corn combo actually has a flavour of it own that works as a complementary base.  Overall this is a light snack that is tasty enough and enjoyable enough to eat.  Sure - the big disks are a bit unwieldy but as a desk snack this isn't a problem.


The second flavour is apparently caramel, but everyone who tried it said it was basically pop-corn.  I'm not a massive fan of caramel or pop corn but I have to say I enjoyed this too.  THe almost burnt caramel flavour worked well with the natural grain, and due to the production method there was no hard kernels to battle with.

While I wouldn't take the large disks to the cinema I think that you could find the smaller varieties and take those quite happily.

The general consensus was split - people were fans of both. Some didn't like one or the other, but most liked both.  I fully expected to eat one of each and then to consign these to the communal food area where they would sit for a few days.  I've taken them to lunch to share for one day only, they are now kept on my desk so that not only can I have more tomorrow, but I can take the remaining home to share with family.

They are only 36 and 40 calories so it's no good eating these to get energy, but if you want something to fill that gap and tide you over til the next actual meal then these are surprisingly good.

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