Orihiro "Standing" Jelly

The latest in my continuing marathon of reviews of my ZenPop box is a "health" drink/snack from Orihiro. Orihiro specializes in food targeted toward women who are calorie-conscious and up on all the latest food fads that are supposed to keep you younger looking and in the pink. These are the women that keep the price of Manuka honey in the stratosphere because someone told them it'll cure every illness known to man and they believe much in the same way Fox Mulder believes in aliens - they want to believe.

People think wasabi KitKats are part of the "weird" Japan food culture. They've got nothing on this squeeze pouch of mutant gelatin snack. I have to say this one caught me by surprise in multiple respects. The first surprise was when I sqeezed the tube to see what popped out and some juice squirted me in the face. This is less a tube of jelly as it is thick gelatin globs floating in some sort of juice.

You have to make sure it is in your mouth when you squeeze it. It'll be a textural Russian roulette which one you get. My main problem was that I wanted to see what it looked like and get a picture for this blog. My loss is your gain since you won't have to actually have the bottle disgorge anything onto your body in order to know what is inside before you suckle on it.

In terms of how this tastes, the peach flavor is actually very pleasant and tastes a lot like nectar drinks. The ingredients list includes real peach juice. The main problem is that it is insanely sweet and you can taste the artificial sweetener all too well. It's made with both Sucralose and acesulfame K. Honestly, for something that is sold by a company with "health" in their URL, this is not especially healthy. It's a chemical cocktail to satisfy your sweet tooth with a low calorie load, but it's even sweeter than conventional sugar-free gelatin.

I wanted to like this, but it was just too fake-tasting for me, and I'm someone who uses Splenda everyday in hot beverages so it's not a sensitivity to sweeteners. I think they really just needed to dial back on the overall sweetness level and this could have been a nice way to satisfy a craving.