Welcome to the 13th edition of “Stuff I Like”, where I talk about products, people, services or shows that I like. I have no financial relationships with any of these companies/brands. Whether you get them or not – I don’t care.

A+ Smoodees

A lot of companies that make hippie health drinks can’t strike the right balance: either they make it “too healthy”. It’s basically kale and arugula. Then, these people pretend it tastes good, while their face puckers as they’re drinking it. Other companies make it taste amazing – but it comes at the expense of health. It tastes amazing for one major reason: it has lots of sugar.

It’s hard to strike a balance between the two, but A+ Smoodees has done it. I got a variety pack of their products.

My favourites are:

  • Their almond shakes (vanilla and chocolate): they’re high in both protein and fibre.
  • Their green juices. Again, most green juices taste well… horrible. These don’t. The main reason is that they include just enough pineapple juice to cover up the taste of actual green veggies, yet not make it into just a basic fruit juice, or even the primary ingredient.

 

Barebells Soft Protein Bars

Protein bars have gotten substantially better over the years. They started to taste better than about 15 years ago, but the texture was still different than a regular chocolate bar.

So imagine my surprise when I finally tasted the latest evolution in protein bar technology: Barebells Soft Protein Bars. It’s basically indistinguishable from a regular chocolate bar, but much more nutritious.

For example, their caramel choco bar tastes just like a Mars bar. If you told me to close my eyes, and taste the Barebell and a Mars bar side by side, I couldn’t tell the difference.

Besides the taste, their nutritional profile is really good.

  • Each bar has 16 grams of protein. Which is not as high as some other protein bars, but…
  • It also has 5 grams of fibre.

 

There are very few snacks that have that kind of protein AND fibre. Most protein bars have 0-1 grams of fibre. This one has 5.

There is a small downside though: each bar also contains about 10 grams of sugar alcohols (it’s a natural sweetener without calories). That’s pretty high. For some people, that’s not a problem, but for others, it can cause diarrhea/loose stools.

 

Shellz

In past editions of “Stuff I Like”, I wrote how much I like the products of the No Sugar company.

In their latest line of products, they came up with a peanut butter cup, that tastes just like Reese’s, but is much more nutritious. That’s their Chocolatey Peanut Crunch. It’s not a protein cup (it only contains 2 grams of protein), but it is a whopper when it comes to fibre. It contains 4 grams of fibre for only 80 calories.

Similar to Barebells, they are sweetened with sugar alcohols, but only 4 grams per cup.

By the way, they do have other flavours besides peanut butter chocolate, like chocolatey caramel pecan, chocolate mint, and strawberry shortcake.

 

Mallo Towels

I’m a pretty basic, no-frills kinda guy. But when I saw an ad for super soft bath towels, I was curious enough to buy a couple (one for me, and one for my wife).

Boy, am I glad I did. Every time that towel touches my skin, I feel like I’m wrapped in a cloud.