Can we have Taste Test Tuesday every Tuesday please? Today, Tuesday, April 24, in the cafeteria, students in all four lunches got to sample a variety of different products, including snack mixes, granola bars and even frozen fruit bars. In case you guys didn’t get to try everything, here’s a quick synopsis of the products I got to sample:

Blue Bell Fruit Bars: Do they taste good? Yes. Should they have actual chunks of fruit in them? Not so much. The frozen fruit bars come in a variety of different flavors, including lime and coconut. I tried the available flavors, strawberry and peach. The strawberry bars actually tasted like strawberry, but the peach had the taste equivalant of grass. The popsicles were good, but I wouldn’t buy them at lunch if they were available for purchase.

The Switch sparkling juice drink: compared to Izze, The Switch tastes so much better. I picked up the Grape and Kiwi Berry flavors. Nothing with grape flavor is ever too appealing, but I still liked it. The Kiwi Berry tasted even better. I really liked how fizzy the drink was. I couldn’t believe that they were made with 100 percent juice and are actually somewhat OK for you. Six of the eight flavors have 28 grams of sugar and the other two have 29 grams of sugar.

Hippie Chips: I have to say, these aren’t as good as popchips, but they are edible. I sampled the barbeque flavored Hippie Chips and they kind of tated like spicy rice. They had this weird texture, too. The crisps had a crunch to them, but they had a certain “melt-in-your-mouth” quality to them as well. I probably wouldn’t buy Hippie Chips, but if they were the only thing to eat, I wouldn’t mind eating them.

Sunchips Morning Mix-Ups: This was probably the weirdest product I sampled today. I had no idea that a chip company could create a breakfast food that tasted good. The apple cinnamon mix had really good flavor. The O-shaped pieces had the texture of the mini breadsticks in Chex Mix and the chips were just like a SunChip. I didn’t really appreciate the chip itself, but the O-shaped pieces tasted good. If I see it in stores, I will definitely pick up a box.

Sweet Emotions snacks: My lunch group got the whole bag! I love anything with chocolate, and these Chocolate Passion rice cake snacks were perfect. There wasn’t a whole lot of sweetness, but they still tasted really, really good. This was the second best snack that I sampled today, behind The Switch fruit juice soda.

Taste Test Tuesday made lunch so much better. The products I sampled were a lovely addition to my chicken patty and tater-tots. I had no idea that there were snacks that were good for you and tasted so good, too.