Random Weekend Picture 3

Three days ago, I took a walk around the neighborhood and noticed that the Setsubun Aero and KitKat bars which I reviewed in February are being relegated to bargain bins at Okashi no Machioka. One of the reasons not to release such bars is that the date at which they were released is so obvious. The original price was 120 yen ($1.33) and the sale price is less than half that at 59 yen (65 cents). Note that there are more KitKats left than Aeros. I guess the Japanese aren't any fonder of the dirt-like flavor of the Setsubun KitKats than I was.

This sort of steep discounting is actually quite rare.

Asahi Reset Body Bar (chocolate and orange)

Before I make my final review of a health/diet food for this week of such products, I'd like to say that there are tons of things which I didn't review, but many of them are very similar to what I've already mentioned and each other. One of the most common types of these foods which I passed on was granola bars. There was a cavalcade of them in a variety of flavors, including chocolate, vanilla, maple, and various fruits, but they all are essentially the same thing; that is, they are small portions of a standard granola bar fortified with certain minerals and vitamins. I skipped them because I didn't expect they'd be vastly different from any other candy bar parading as health food that you'd buy anywhere in the world.

I chose this bar mainly because it had a goofy name and was made by a company better known for its beer than its health food. Perhaps this is a little karmic balance for the good folks at Asahi. They destroy your liver on the one hand and then try to fix you a bit with a "diet support" bar with the equivalent of a multi-vitamin in it. Note that this is part of Asahi's "Slim-up" line of products.

I picked this up for about a hundred yen ($1.12) at a drug store not too far from my home called Tomod's. Tomod's is a chain so you're not unlikely to see them sprinkled all over Tokyo. They have quite a big display of health food bars including wafer, protein, granola, and meal replacement bars like Calorie Mate. Many of them aren't low calorie despite being marketed overtly as diet foods. I go to Tomod's mainly for the cheap toilet paper, and it was walking past their health food snack display that inspired me, at least in part, to do this week of reviews.

The bar is about 60% the length of its total package size.

When I opened the package, this smelled like a brownie with a chemical mixed in with it. It smelled good for a brief moment, then not so great. I think what I detected as "chemical" may have been the orange flavoring. I noted that the packaging is incredibly misleading in regards to the size. The calorie information also is for one of the two bars, not for the whole package. I think this is meant to make people think they're going to get more for the calories than they do. The size is about the width of one finger of a KitKat bar, though this is a bit longer.


Unsurprisingly, this has a cocktail of sweeteners and chemicals. The first ingredient is flour and the second is Polydextrose (a sugar substitute). Shortening, Erythritol, and Maltitol also appear high in the list of ingredients and Sucralose makes a guest appearance near the end. The only surprise is "coconut milk powder", though I didn't taste or smell any coconut.

In terms of taste, it's okay. It's like a low quality chocolate brownie with orange mixed in, though I did experience a strange metallic aftertaste in my mouth after eating one bar. The main problem is the texture which is tough and chewy. It reminded me of the evil spawn of an unholy coupling between a Tootsie Roll and a brownie. It was just weird and brought home the fact that this was something no one would ever eat for pleasure, but only in some vain attempt to get nutrition from some food-like substance. Of course, if you're an Asahi beer customer and are drunk enough, you may not be able to tell the difference.

Smart Time Mild Chocolate Gum

There are two flavors which I've always found disappointing when they are used outside of their "proper" place. The first is cola. You can make lollipops, fizzy candies, etc. with cola flavor, but it's always flat and weird. Cola belongs in a carbonated beverage. The other flavor that is hard to transfer to unconventional places is chocolate, though it is certainly more flexible than cola.

When I bought this Smart Time Mild Chocolate gum, I was aware that I was flirting with potential disappointment. Chocolate isn't one of those things which tends to come across well in gum. Part of the reason for this is that gum has no fat, and chocolate foods usually have it. Part of the reason is that the texture of gum seems to exist in discord with the harmony of chocolate as a flavor, at least in my flavor world (of which I am the high queen as it's my blog and I'll rule if I want to).

The "Smart Time" line of gum, which is marketed under the Recaldent brand and made by Cadbury, is primarily designed to get women to chew gum rather than snack. That's why it's called "smart time". Smart women chew 3-calorie nibblets of gum rather than give in to the temptation to tuck into a drawer full of sweets. The liquid center is meant to offer the consumer a burst of satisfying flavor.


I found this gum for about 70 yen (78 cents) at Okashi no Machioka. Usually, a 9-piece pack of this gum is 100 yen ($1.11), so part of what made me decide to roll the dice was that I could sample on the cheap. Also, I've been chewing more gum lately as a way of eating less, and perhaps I can fool myself into thinking this 3.6 calorie per morsel gum is going to satisfy a chocolate craving.

The gum smells vaguely chocolate-like, and the first bite is a muted chocolate flavor mixed with coconut. Though there is no coconut in the gum according to the ingredients list, there is something called "butter oil" and that might be similar. It also contains cocoa butter, cocoa powder, and the artificial sweetener, Maltitol. The flavor is not quite what one would hope for if one were expecting a nice chocolate and the texture of gum after the burst of cocoa flavor feels disconcerting, but this is fairly good gum albeit a bit sweet.

If I was in need of some gum, this would certainly be a possible purchase for me in the future. That being said, this reminds me vaguely of a type of diet candy that my mother bought when I was a kid. This candy was little caramel-like blobs that women were supposed to eat to help suppress their appetite and tasted sweet, but a bit weird. This gum is a lot like that. It doesn't make it bad, just quite different.

The web site for Recaldent and Smart Time gum has an online coloring book where kids can color in the animated tooth mascot for these sugarless gums, Hamii-kun. If you have kids, or miss spending days with a box of Crayolas, it's here.

TopValu Light Meal Konnyaku Jelly (Lychee)

Some time last year, I started to notice more and more zero calorie jelly (what we call gelatin) products for sale in convenience stores. This "light meal" nutritionally balanced drinking gelatin is something which has also been around for years, albeit not in as many zero-calorie forms. I wanted to sample it for my week of diet/health foods, but I'm a bit squeamish about the prospect of a drinking jelly.



I squeezed some of this into a glass, and what I saw didn't encourage me. You can't see it from the picture I took, but there are little wispy shreds of clear jelly suspended in a yellowish liquid. They resemble amoebas with a thyroid disorder. Of course, you're not supposed to squirt this stuff into a glass and drink it. You're supposed to suck it out of the tube at the top. This is good because it's very difficult to squeeze out. The packet is designed to keep it from spilling out. It works like a steel can of evaporated milk that only has one hole pocked in it. There's not enough of an exchange of air to allow the free flow of the jelly.

This is made with konnyaku jelly, something which I have been far less than keen on in the past. I tend to dislike the texture of it when it's put in stews and other Japanese dishes. If you don't want to read the Wikipedia entry, I'll tell you that it's jelly, often in a mottled gray block form, made from a plant (konjac). Konjac is a "corm", which is similar to a tuber or yam, but doesn't have the same properties. It is consumed for its texture, and its high fiber, which fills the stomach and aids digestion. In Japan, it's usually salty and used in traditional dishes, but it's popular in Asia in jelly drinks as well. People sometimes choke to death on it, but I can say that there is little risk of choking on the soft konnyaku in this beverage. It's too wispy for anyone to get lodged in his or her throat.


I chose the TopValu brand because it was cheap. I paid 98 yen at a local supermarket for this 180 gram pouch. There are a plethora of other choices, and I'm guessing most of them are roughly similar to this one in consistency and in having a huge list of added nutrients. Clearly, this is meant to fill the belly of dieting people who want to feel full, get nutrients, but consume no calories. This packet was fortified with B vitamins, D, E, Folic acid, and Panthothenic acid. It contains a pretty hefty cocktail of artificial sweeteners including Erythritol, Acesulfame K, and Sucralose. It also contains kale, which is popular in Japan for its nutritive properties. You can buy powdered kale and dissolve it in water to drink; it tastes as good as it sounds.

In theory, this is a great idea. The big question is about how it works in practice. The texture isn't nearly what I thought it would be. It's not slimy, but rather like drinking super soft tapioca bubbles. I have never had bubble tea, but I imagine this is a distant cousin to it texturally. The smell is rather fruity, like a cross between an apple and a peach. The taste at first is very sweet and like a fruit gelatin. I rarely eat lychee, so I can't know how faithful the flavor is to the fruit. It's not an impressive flavor, but it's unoffensive. The main drawback is that there is a bitter aftertaste after you've sucked down (literally) some of it. The only other drawback is that I feel goofy as an adult suckling on a tube like a baby with a bottle.

This type of food isn't meant to be some fantastic and tasty snack, but rather as a palatable health food to stop you from snacking on things that aren't good for you. I can say that it is inoffensive, and the sweetness is initially quite gratifying if you're hungry. I can also say that, without a doubt, it made my stomach feel full and that I would recommend anyone who counts calories and struggles with hunger give this a try. I don't know if it would actually replace a meal, but it would certainly help you stave off a case of the munchies between meals and I'd buy this again. In fact, I wouldn't mind keeping one on hand when I'm having one of those days when I just want to eat all day. Note that these last for months.

Yakult Fermented Milk Drink

I've watched all of Michael Palin's travel shows and in one of them I recall that he drank fermented yak's milk. That sounds rather scary, but people in Japan drink Yakult on a regular basis and it's fermented cow's milk. Somehow seeing Mr. Palin drink from a bowl he's handed by a man who looks like a professional sherpa makes one feel more stand-offish than buying a tidy little bottle of liquid in Japan.

I've been aware of Yakult since my early days in Japan when I first saw Yakult ladies cycling around the city with insulated boxes full of bottles of their freshly made products. They trundled to various offices in the area I worked in and peddled their wares to health-conscious office workers. I never really looked into what the deal was with their drinks, until I decided to review Yakult. Note that this product has been around since 1935 so it has a long history and most people know about it.

You can do a search on Google and you'll get plenty of hits on the health benefits of drinking Yakult. The thumbnail version of it is that it is full of active bacteria cultures that aid in digestion. Mainly, that means that Yakult will put good bugs in your intestinal tract to fight bad bugs. One of the benefits of it is that it can survive your stomach's gastric juices and make its way to the places where it can help the most. This is unlike some supplements that claim to accomplish the same task, but burn up in your stomach before its little buggies can get to where they need to go.

The two bottles that you see at the top are very tiny. The packaging is like a milk jug, cloudy but clear so the color you see is the color of the drink itself. There is only 65 ml. of drink in it. Consider that the average can of soda has 350 ml. and you can get a greater sense of how small it is. The price reflects the tiny size. I bought mine out of a vending machine next to a Yakult distribution center. I had to buy 2 for 80 yen (89 cents) so it's 40 yen (44 cents) a bottle.

After peeling off the foil cover, I gave it a sniff and I couldn't smell much of anything. The first sip revealed intense sweetness coupled with intense yogurt-like sourness. It really is like drinking hyper-concentrated yogurt which is nearly as thin as water. The ingredients include sugar, powdered skim milk, and water. It's not bad at all, and I like yogurt so it certainly wasn't offensive to me, but those who dislike yogurt may find it rather unpleasant.

Here's the thing about health foods and beverages like Yakult; if you have a problem with your digestion, they are invaluable and, if you don't, you're essentially not gaining anything by drinking them. This is full of sugar and you can ingest the beneficial cultures through other means (including probiotic yogurt) without the sugar. This is simply one of the easiest and fastest ways to get them into your body and it's such an old and established product that you can be nearly certain it'll live up to its health claims.

Though I found the taste pleasant enough on the whole, it's not the sort of thing I'm going to be drinking for fun because of the sugar. Sure, it's only 50 calories, but I don't need a sugar shot of good bugs on a regular basis and if I want yogurt flavor, I'll eat yogurt. If I have a stomachache or gastrointestinal problems, I'll probably pick 4 or 6 of these up and drink them for awhile. One of my students told me she likes these as a good wake up elixir. The strong sour yogurt flavor and sugar are likely to pep one up, but, I'm not likely to buy it again unless I develop gastrointestinal problems.