Posts Tagged ‘Ice Cream’

Product: Too Tarts Melted Ice Cream Spray Candy (Flavors Reviewed: Strawberry, Blueberry and Banana Split)
Purchased at: Valley Liquidation
Price: $1.00 per spray

Marisa’s Take: Kids these days have a lot to watch out for. Drinking, drugs, gangs, junk food, Rebecca Black music videos. So I can applaud a company that wants to create a delicious, sugar-free alternative to the normal Snickers and Skittles candy fare in the attempts to curb the childhood obesity epidemic. Innovative Candy Concepts, makers of Too Tarts Melted Ice Cream Spray Candy, had the right idea when they wanted to create a sugar-free spray candy but I’m don’t think it’s the best execution. In the 2007 press release announcing the product, the ICC president and CEO states, “Ice cream just seems to taste better when it’s melted”. I respectfully have to disagree. If melted ice cream were better than its naturally frozen form, they’re be tubs and tubes of melted ice cream sloshing on grocery store shelves. I’m also kind of iffy on the concept of spraying a Splenda sweetened, syrupy liquid into my mouth and calling it “candy”, just like I’m hesitant about pepper spray blasting into my eyes and calling it “caliente eye drops”.

Nevertheless, I picked up all three flavors of Melted Ice Cream Candy – Strawberry, Blueberry and Banana Split, each for 99 cents each. In the mindset of keeping kids safe, it’s somewhat unfortunate that this product looks very similar to fume-filled magic markers that kids should stay away from, lest they catch a whiff and become drug-addled maniacs. Half of the items in our featured  picture are actually markers. We just wanted to point out the similarity (don’t do drugs kids).

I tried the strawberry flavor first. Couldn’t be too hard to pull off, right? My tongue was hit with a chemical-tasting, extremely artificial hit of vaguely strawberry tasting liquid, with no hint of the “cream” part of the ice cream. I had the same exact experience with the blueberry flavor. I don’t even recall blueberry ice cream ever mass marketed by one of the major ice cream companies, but if so, this would be a poor imitation of it. The last time I recall having a banana split was at 2am at a Denny’s with my dad, so I hoped the final flavor would rekindle fond memories of smoky, depressing bar counter but no such luck. Actually, it reminded me exactly of a liquid form of banana Runts. If you’re one of the people who crave that artificial banana flavor, you’re in luck – now you have the ability to spray that concentrated flavor directly into your mouth.

I truly wish this could have been a delicious, sugar-free alternative to my weekly gallon of semi-melted Breyers as I watch America’s Next Top Model, but sadly, no such luck. I’ll just continue to consume my Splenda in less exciting ways like soda.

Ben’s Take: Diabetes, or “diabeetus” as one Wilford Brimley would put it, is reaching epidemic levels in the United States, and around the world. For many people, the disease has been linked to over consuming products that are high in simple carbohydrates, like sugar. Overeating simple carbohydrates leads to a condition called “insulin resistance” which is what happens when your body requires more and more insulin to store or use the same amount of glucose. We all know that diabetics are forced to monitor their caloric and sugar intake so that they can properly dose him or herself with the appropriate amount of insulin via a needle or an insulin pump.

Due to the chronic nature of the diabetes, as well as the rather steady growth people who are afflicted with the condition, we’ve seen quite a few sugar free products hit the market. From Tab, to sugar free candies corporations have tried to keep pace with America’s insulin resistant sweet tooth. Most of these products are pretty all right facsimiles of the products or class of products they imitate, but occasionally someone makes something that just doesn’t make sense.

Too Tarts Melted Ice Cream Spray Candy is one of those products. It just doesn’t make sense as a regular product, let alone a sugar-free product. I just don’t understand who/what Too Tarts is targeting this towards.  Is it for the “I can’t have a sugar-free hard candy so I use a spritz bottle of concentrated flavored sucralose demographic?” Does this demographic even exist? I don’t even know.

What I do know is this stuff is terrible. Just terrible. The bright marker colored bottles should have been an indicator that it was a trap. The flavors we tried tasted nothing like any ice cream, sorbet or gelato I’ve ever shoved in my mouth. (I wonder who would want to eat ice cream that had melted anyways?) Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?

Instead it tastes like hyper sweet artificial flavors that you would find in the lowest quality candies.

Of course, in concentrated liquid form. Perhaps you’re supposed to spray some of this into a beverage? I don’t know but that sounds equally terrible. Really, if this is what you have to eat as a diabetic it’s just a little more incentive to avoid getting it. Not that I go around taste testing every calorie dense sugary product that wanders my way. Too Tarts Melted Ice Cream Spray Candy is just a terrible tasting product that I would actually spend money to avoid having near my mouth again. Really.