UFit Pro 50 - Protein Shake (@Tesco) [by @NLi10]

As part of the continued drive to achieve a BMI that raises me from the underweight to normal categories I've been doing exercise. Due to this I've been eating a bit more and trying out whichever protein drinks are on special offer.  While a comment on a previous post suggested that the protein powder itself is much better for this I think that these kinds of drinks are more the way that us regular folk will come across this.  Also I kind of want the sugar and calories to use to fuel the exercise - its not like I have anything else to burn!

This time I picked up the Ufit Pro 50 range - purely because Tesco had them for half price.  I saved them for when I was actually going to be doing exercise and then drank away.  Here we see the bottles on the bus on the way to training.

And here we see the wrestling ring under construction.  I drank one before the training session with NXT star Joel Redman (who wrestled as Oliver Grey), and one afterwards.  There was less cardio than my normal weekly workouts but more stability and core work. Lots of rolling about and throwing people too which is much more fun than running towards a wall at the gym.

The flavours of these drinks were pretty similar, not too sweet, milky with a hint of that odd protein taste layered under the advertised flavour on top.  They were not bad at all, and I'd happily drink these.  The texture was very pleasant, not like the odd Nourishment can, and closer to the original one from a vending machine (see all the Protein posts here).  

These were on special so about £1.50 each but I think they would be double that normally.  I think that this science food for exercise people is a big growth area where there are lots of confusing premium products whose effects you can't judge from one session.  I did manage to survive OK (I have a sore neck from landing on my head a few times) and my muscles are not achey so maybe they did their job.  I'm also the heaviest I've ever been - hooray - but still short of the target.

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Hope and Greenwood Sour Vintage Jelly Buttons (Waitrose) [By @SpectreUK]

Hope and Greenwood are "purveyors of splendid goods" such as "fruity jellies for fine folks". I know this because it told me on the front of the packet, and why would they lie? In the absence of "fine folks" I stole myself away to eat these sour jellies after dinner one night. Hope and Greenwood would have to cope with my greedy self instead! There were four flavours of sour jelly buttons in the bag. First up was the green coloured Apoplectic Apple. On first taste I was very glad I'd hidden myself away. There was an immediate face twisty sour sugar taste followed by a tangy natural apple flavour. Crazy Cola was next up being a mid brown colour and whilst not being as sour as the apple flavour, these jellies had a good sourness and a more refined traditional cola flavour rather than the regular zingy cola bottles you may find in a Pick and Mix. The yellow Livid Lemon jelly was next and it took me right back to face twistiness. There was a sherbet lemon flavour mixed in with the almost fizzy sourness. Great stuff! Last up was the raw pink coloured Mad Cherry flavour. Never keen on cherries this flavour was purposefully left until last. How wrong was I? These Mad Cherry jellies were just as sour as the Livid Lemons and had a mild sweet cherry flavour which was both a slap in the kisser followed by a velvet lip smacking sweetness like a smack and a kiss from cheeky companion. Great sweets here. Resealable bag: phah! Don't eat them in groups.

Information on the bag;
100g bag at 312 calories (which I polished off in about ten minutes), with 71.8g of sugar and 0g of fat. Ingredients included; sugar, glucose syrup, water, gelatine, citric acid, tartaric acid, natural flavours, and natural colorants.

By Spectre

Lotus Biscoff - Spreadable Biscuit [By @Cinabar]

There have been few occasions when I have been eating toast, and thought to myself “I wish I could have some biscuits on this”. By few occasions, I really mean never. The two things just don’t sound like they should go together.
I really like Lotus biscuits, I adore the chocolate coated ones, and they are certainly in my favourite list. When they got in touch and asked if I wanted to try their spreadable edition, I was rather curious, but by no means convinced that it was going to work.
I fired up the toaster, and opened the jar labelled ‘crunchy’. It looked a lot like peanut butter in its consistency, and colour to be fair. It was fairly firm, but spread well on the toast. As the toast was hot the topping melted a little and went glossy on the top.
Before I took my first bite in the toast I passed Spectre the knife, so he could put it in the sink. He licked the knife and his face changed enraptured by its contents.
I took a bite of the toast, and totally understood. Don’t ask me how or why biscuit on toast works, but its magic. The spices, the texture, the sweetness, its buttery and it melts. Everything was so spot on. Put down your peanut butter pots, and who needs jam - this is the future. In fact lets forget the toast too, just give me the jar and a spoon, this stuff is awesome.

By Cinabar

New Coca-Cola Life (Newsagent) [By @Cinabar]

There is a new Cola on the shelves, as Coca-Cola Life has just been launched here in the UK. I’m pleased to say that it doesn’t have any names on the bottle, so that is good at least. The wrapper is different to the usual Coke offering and is mostly green, with the line “Lower Calorie - Sweetness From Natural Sources”. I was trying to work out if this meant that the drink was all natural, and to be honest came up on a bit of a blank. It contains E150d as its colouring, which translates too Sulfite Ammonia Caramel, which doesn’t sound natural, but I have to admit to being a bit lost in the technicalities. Phosphoric Acid also doesn’t sound very pleasant, but I only read the Wikipedia page, I’m no scientist.
What is curious though is that despite this being sweetened with Stevia, a natural but low calorie sweetener, there is still quite a bit of sugar. There are 136 calories in the bottle (68 per half bottle), so this is neither a completely natural product, or a calorie free one, it is in some grey area in between. Which is a bit of an odd target audience.
That aside, the taste is actually really nice. It is sweet yes, but did taste a lot more like proper coke. I did prefer it to Diet Coke, but have to admit I never liked Coke Zero and proper Coke has too many calories for regular purchase. I have become accustomed to Diet Coke, but this is actually a rather nice alternative. The problem is I switched to Diet Coke as it has almost no calories, I eat enough snacks/naughty food, and I’d rather my liquid intake didn’t count towards my calorie intake. So as much I liked this, I’ll be back to buying Diet Coke I’m afraid.
It is a shame they didn’t make an all Stevia sweetened drink, with a far lower calorie count as then you would have swayed me into buying it. I guess Coke didn’t want a third ultra low calorie drink out on the market, and they though this would be something new. They could have gone with an all natural product, or an almost calorie free drink sweetened with natural sources (Stevia) but they didn’t commit to either idea in the end.

By Cinabar