Simply Asia Noodle Bowls. Spicy Kung Pao, Sesame Teriyaki, Roasted Peanut, and Soy Ginger. $2.69 to $3.19 per 8.5-ounce bowl.
Bonnie: At first glance, the Nutrition Facts on these new Simply Asia Noodle Bowls looked amazingly good. Then I realized that each bowl is supposed to contain two servings. It wouldn't in any household I've ever frequented! Doubling the calories to a realistic single-serving size gets you to 400 to 550 calories per bowlful. That's fine for a meal. It's the sodium level that's way too high (although typical of many Asian prepared foods). One bowl contains about 1,500 milligrams of sodium, or about 70 percent of the suggested daily limit. The Soy Ginger contains the least with only 1,234 milligrams.
The fat in the Roasted Peanut is also troubling: It contains a hefty 24 grams of fat, or more than in two scoops of Breyers ice cream, a Sausage McMuffin or a Quarter Pounder With Cheese.
These all-natural noodle bowls are better for you than that Quarter Pounder and, to me, tastier, especially with added minced scallions. But I still wouldn't recommend eating them too frequently.
Carolyn: The next generation of shelf-stable cup meals is being pioneered by Asian food companies. Both Annie Chun and Simply Asia offer vacuum-sealed bags of pre-cooked noodles instead of dehydrated ones for a significantly better taste. The serving sizes are also considerably bigger — more on the order of bowls than the old cups.
These new Simply Asian ones do resemble the old cups in their touted "vegetables," which are actually dehydrated slivers that serve mainly to give a savory counterpoint to the sweet sauces. All four varieties taste good, but almost the same. (Large product lines, one food company rep recently explained to me, have more to do with creating a visual splash on the supermarket shelf than with giving consumers real variety.)
Looked at positively, this means that any variety of Simply Asia Noodle Bowls your grocer carries would be worth stuffing in a desk drawer for some day when you forget to bring lunch or don't have time to go out and get some.
Snickers Almond Ice Cream Bars. $3.69 per 10.5-ounce box of six bars. Also available in 2.3-ounce single-serve bars.
Bonnie: Snickers Almond candy bar now has a new ice-cream cousin, the new Snickers Almond Ice Cream Bar. As its moniker suggests, this contains almonds in lieu of the peanuts found in the original Snickers and the original Snickers Ice Cream Bar. Almonds contain more calcium than any other nut, and are an excellent source of iron, riboflavin, zinc, magnesium and vitamin E. And a recent study at Purdue University found that almonds can actually assist in weight loss.
Obviously, you can't get that effect with the few almonds in this ice cream bar. In fact, if weight is a problem, you should essentially stay away from anything bearing the name Snickers.
Carolyn: Even a "fun" business like candymaking can be pretty cold-hearted. A case in point is the way M&M/Mars recently changed the name of its Mars Bar to Snickers Almond. Mars may have been the name of this company's founder, but the quite-similar Snickers is infinitely more successful and better-known. In copying its name, M&M/Mars was hoping to copy Snickers' success. Candywise, the ruse has worked.
Will this new Snickers Almond Ice Cream Bar be as popular? I wouldn't be surprised, given how good it tastes. It's just as good as regular Snickers Ice Cream to me, and will seem even better to people who prefer almonds to peanuts.
T.G.I. Fridays Snacks. Onion Rings Snack Chips and Mozzarella Snack Sticks. $1.49 to $1.69 per 4.75-ounce bag. Also available in .75-, 3- and 7-ounce sizes.
Bonnie: The folks at T.G.I. Fridays hope you'll buy their snack chips to satisfy your craving for the appetizers they sell at their restaurants. Onion Rings and Mozzarella Snack Sticks, their newest chips, resemble their namesakes only in shape: The onion ones are round, and the sticks are, well, stick-like. The Onion Rings contain too little onion power to make that the predominant taste. The mozzarella sticks are brown like cooked cheese sticks, but don't taste anything like mozzarella, never mind mozzarella sticks.
The only positive thing I could say is that nutritionally these are closer to potato chips than to the even more sinful deep-fried hot appetizers.
Carolyn: T.G.I. Friday chain's attempt to transform several of its popular appetizers into snack chips has resulted in two variations on the cheese puff. The Mozzarella Snack Sticks are basically cheese puffs with a more natural (but also, alas, much less cheery-looking) dark-brown cheese coating. The Onion Ring Snack Chips are onion-infused circular cheese puffs minus the cheese. In other words, they're Funyuns.
Really the best thing about these — especially if you eat them on a Monday — is the possible mental transportation lent by the brand name to kicking back at one of these good-time T.G.I. restaurants at the beginning of a weekend.
Bonnie Tandy Leblang is a registered dietitian and professional speaker. Carolyn Wyman is a junk-food fanatic and author of "Jell-O: A Biography" (Harvest/Harcourt). Each week they critique three new food items. © Universal Press Syndicate