Tnuva Chocolate Milk 30% Less Sugar + Coupon

שוקו תנובה
30% פחות תוספת סוכר

Tnuva has a new Chocolate Milk on the market. This Shoko line of chocolate milk is made of 2% low fat low lactose milk, it's low Sodium, and contains 96% milk (leaving very little place for many other ingredients like water; which is added to say Yotvata's popular chocolate milk) but most important to Tnuva, it has 30% less sugar than their UHT Long Life Chocolate Milk.

I was wondering why they made a point to say it was 30% less compared to that specific product of theirs, then I remembered that a while back Tnuva lowered the sugar levels in their “Shock” line of chocolate milk by 20% so they had to point out that is this 30% less sugar than in the UHT chocolate milk and not 30% less than their Shock chocolate milks.

Strauss Café Zero

גלידת שטראוס אייס קפה

Back in May I read a few press-releases about Stratus's new ice coffee/ice cream/ices called Café Zero. It was being brought over from Italy after having major success there, and in a few other countries around the world. Until yesterday I didn't see this product in any kiosk, gas-station rest-stop shop or any other store that I checked, but I was on the lookout for it. When I came across it, in a little kiosk yesterday, I asked the owner if he knew why it’s been so hard to find it. He said that only select stores and kiosks were given the option to sell it because it’s still in the pilot stage here in Israel. They are to doing this "test" to see if it’s worth making it a permanent product here. He told me that it sells very well in his small shop and if that’s any indication he thinks by next summer it should be a permanent product and much more readily available here in Israel.

The Café Zero is available here in three flavors; Cappuccino, Espresso and Mocochino. I tasted the Cappuccino flavor. Although I am not a coffee drinker; hot, cold or iced, I do like coffee flavored ice cream so the idea of this cross between ice cream/ices/ice coffee intrigued me and I was very curious to taste it.

Tnuva 0% Fat Chocolate & Coconut Pudding

מעדן תנובה שוקולד קוקוס 0%

Tnuva added a Chocolate & Coconut flavored pudding to their line of fat free puddings.

They had a little "samples booth" at the Megabul supermarket, I was in the other day, so I got to taste this new pudding.

Since I did not buy the pudding I couldn't take a photo of it for this post. The only online photo I found was blocked from being used (you can see it here), so I scanned the coupon that they were handing out at the booth just to show you what this product looks like, sorry it is not a printable coupon. 

Achla Greek Yogurt & Roasted Pepper Spread + Coupon

סלט פלפלים קלויים על האש עם יוגורט יווני בשתי שכבות

Just in time for Shavuot I tried a new yogurt based spread from Achla’s “Tastes of the Shuk/Market” line. 

Last month I told you about the Zucchini Squash & Techina Salad from this line. Since the Greek yogurt spreads is something new for Achla it really intrigued me to try them. 

There are three Greek Yogurt based spreads to choose from. Like the Zucchini Squash & Techina Salad two of the spreads are layered, they are; Roasted Eggplant & Greek Yogurt, Roasted Peppers & Greek Yogurt and the third is the more well known Greek Tzatziki salad. Of the three, the one that seemed the most interesting to me was the Roasted Peppers & Greek Yogurt spread so that’s the one I chose to try.

Yotvata Cold Latte Zero Coffee + Coupon

יטבתה לאטה זירו

Last August I told you about Yotvata's Cold Coffees now they have added a Sugar Free Latte to this line of coffee. They are calling it Latte Zero. My friend who enjoys coffee very much and actually helped me review Illy's Cans of Cold Cappuccino& Latte Macchiato coffees last June was coming over for a visit, I know that she much prefers her coffee, hot or cold, without sweetener of any kind so I thought she would be the perfect person to try this new Yotvata Cold Latte Zero and give me her review for this post.

The bottle says “Coffee beverage made with no added sugar or sweeteners, with milk, ultra-pasteurized, high caffeine content, low lactose.” It also has an “added vitamin D” symbol on the bottle. I found it interesting that they make this coffee with low lactose milk even though all the low lactose milks sold here are way more expensive than the regular bottles of milk on our store shelves. I think it’s nice that this is also suitable for people who need low lactose options.

Muller’s 99 Yogurt Whipped Wild-Berry Topping + Coupon

 Müller 99 יוגורט קרמי עם קציפה

I tried Muller’s 99 calorie, 1.5% fat, Bio yogurt with whipped wild-berries on top. It comes with a passion fruit & peach whipped topping as well but of the two I decided to try the wild-berry one.

I thought the generous layer of whipped wild-berries on top of the yogurt was a flavorful, tart and sweet addition to the creamy 1.5% fat yogurt in the container. It was an interesting consistency, light and fluffy, but somehow it worked for me and I enjoyed it very much.

Elite’s Splendid 70% Dark Chocolate Bars Ginger & Coffee

עלית שוקולד ספלנדיד בטעמים ג'ינג'ר וקפה

I feel like I say this way too often on this blog but I will say it yet again, I’m a self proclaimed dark-chocoholic! So naturally I was curious to try something from Elite’s new bunch of 70% Cocoa Solids Flavored Chocolate Bars. They are available in a few flavors including ginger, wild berries, coffee and orange plus one with no added flavor. A part of me wanted to try all of them but I “controlled” myself and only bought two. The ginger one sounded the most unique and intriguing to me and I thought the coffee flavored bar would be the one my friend, who was meant to stop by that weekend, would most likely enjoy so those are the two I picked.

Strauss’s Hazelnut Low Calorie Ice Cream

Happy Spring Everyone!

שטראוס גלידה מיני לייט אגוזים

I thought today, being the first day of spring, would make today the perfect day to tell you about another ice cream I tasted recently. It’s one of Strauss low calorie ice cream pops that I have never tried before. I am not 100% sure if it’s a new flavor or not. It doesn’t say new on the box and I didn’t read a press release about it (yet) but I had never seen it in the stores before. So maybe it’s not new but it was new to me so I decided to blog about it regardless.

Yotvata's Shokolata Cold or Hot

יטבתה שוקולטה

In the summer I told you about Yotvata's Ice Shoko (Cocoa); a thicker chocolate milk in a small bag that can also be frozen and enjoyed as ices. Now that winter is in full swing Yotvata has come out with a limited edition thick chocolate milk that can be drunk cold or warmed up in the microwave to give you a nice thick hot chocolate drink.

This weekend was rainy and cold; the perfect weather for a hot drink. Not being a fan of coffee I was excited to try this Yotvata Shokolata nice and hot.

Klik Chocolate Coated Peanut Butter Flavored Snack

קליק חטיף בוטנים

Kilk's latest chocolate covered snack fits right into what seems to be a trend at the moment for Israeli snack companies. I'm of course referring to the peanut butter and chocolate combination "trend". Just recently we had Pesek Zman's  chocolate coated peanut butter flavored wafer fingers, shush's chocolate filled "bamba"  and now Klik's chocolate coated "bamba".

I know peanut butter and chocolate combos are not new to most of the world but somehow it feels like the Israeli companies just noticed it and realized how well they work together. I for one am a huge fan of the peanut butter/chocolate combo so I was very happy to try this new peanut flavored Klik snack.

Kolios's Today 3% Greek Yogurt with Honey

יוגורט יווני עם דבש מחלבות סלוניקי

As a result of this past summer's "cottage cheese boycott" some changes have been made to make it easier and cheaper to import dairy products from other countries. The idea being if there are more options in the refrigerator that means more competition and therefore local dairies will have to lower their prices. In the end we the consumer benefit from having another option to choose from and hopefully fairer prices. One such new imported yogurt is from a Greek company called Kolios. It's being imported via Villi Foods for Shufersal.

Carmit's Milk-Chocolate Coated Marshmallows

כרמית מרשמלו מצופה שוקולד חלב

Carmit's latest Marshmallow treat is a box of 5 individually wrapped colorful "twisted" marshmallows that are coated in a thin layer of milk chocolate.

The first thing that came to my mind when I saw the press release for this product was wow that sounds perfect for s'mores I gotta check them out.

Elite's Peanut Butter flavored Pesek Zman

פסק זמן חמאת בוטנים

I noticed three new (limited edition) Pesek Zman chocolate wafer finger bars on the candy shelf and could not help but try one. The three new flavors are Cappuccino Truffles and Peanut Butter.

I've mentioned in the past that I'm not a huge coffee flavor fan/coffee drinker so the cappuccino one didn't sound so exciting to me.

Elite's "Chocolate Para" Kids Cake + Coupon

עלית עוגות שוקולד פרה לילדים

As I have mentioned in past reviews of Osem and Elite cakes I'm not a fan of mass-produced cakes. If I can't have something home baked I'd much rather get something fresh from the bakery. So when I read the press release for these new Elite Chocolate Para Cakes I thought I was going to skip them.

Then as I was standing in the supermarket trying to decide if I should spend the 14.90 NIS, and possibly be disappointed, I got a call from a good friend who told me that she and her husband where here in Israel for a few days and before they get back on the plane this afternoon she'd like to pop by for a quick hello. I was really excited to see her. I knew I wouldn’t make it to the bakery in time so I decided to get this cake. As an extra bonus I'd be able to give you two more opinions, other than my own, in this blog post.

Elite's Neshikolada Chocolate Bars

שטראוס עלית נשיקולדה

It seems there's been a huge demand for years now that Elite bring back their Neshikolada Chocolate Bars, which was very popular in the late '80s early '90s, before I had the privilege of living here in Israel. By the time I made Alyiah they were gone from the store shelves and I never heard about them until I read all the requests on the My Strauss Website I told you about in my review of Elite Strauss's White-Chocolate Kif-Kef . So after bringing back the Alma gums that everyone seemed to miss so much, Strauss decided that Neshikolada Chocolate Bars was the next nostalgic treat to remake.

Tzuriel's Goat-Milk Pear Yogurt

יוגורט עיזים אזס - צוריאל

A few months ago in my reviewed Tzuriel's Mildly Sweetened Whole Goats-Milk Yogurt I mentioned that they also had a few goat-milk yogurts with added fruits but I never did try those yogurts. Now Tzuriel has added a new fruit flavored goat-milk yogurt to that line. This time its pear flavored.

I actually had a hard time finding it in any of my local supermarkets but when I finally found it there was only one on the shelf but that’s all I needed in order to try it.

Elite's Honey Hazelnut & Almond and Elite's White-Chocolate with Almond Pieces Chocolate Bars

 שוקולד עלית דבש אגוזים ושקדים

I noticed two new Elite chocolate bars on the supermarket shelve last week. One was a Milk Chocolate Bar with Honey, Hazelnut & Almonds and the second one was a White Chocolate Bar with Almond Pieces.

I know I've been reviewing quite a few chocolates recently (including from Merci & Loacker) and I still may have a few more chocolate reviews to post before the Holiday. It seems that Rosh Hashanah is a very popular time to début new chocolate. Many people are looking for treats to help sweeten the new year for their family and friends. So here are two more options to choose from.

Honey Hazelnut & Almond Milk Chocolate Bar

It took about a second for the strong honey flavor to overpower the chocolate taste of this Honey Hazelnut & Almond Milk Chocolate bar. If you’re a fan of say honey cake I think you might enjoy this honey flavored milk chocolate bar. It has the distinct sweet taste honey is known for.

This chocolate bar is also "chock full of nuts". They add wonderful texture, flavor and crunch to the chocolate bar. I just wish the Parah chocolates were a little bit of a better quality chocolate and didn’t seem so chalky to me.

Bottom Line: Given what a big star honey is over the Rosh Hashanah holiday this Honey Hazelnut & Almond Milk Chocolate bar can be a perfect Rosh Hashanah treat for anyone who enjoys Elite's Parah line of chocolates.   

White-Chocolate with Almond Pieces Chocolate Bar

שוקולד לבן עם שקדים של עלית

The White-Chocolate With Almonds didn’t seem all that unique to me. It was exactly what I expected it to be; Elite's Parah white-chocolate with an abundant amount of chopped almond bits. Only problem is, as I mentioned above, I always find the Parah line of chocolates to be a little "grainy". This chocolate bar was "OK" but it's far from a high quality chocolate.

I was sort of surprised that Elite has yet to make a white-chocolate bar with almonds but it clearly said "NEW" on the wrapper. I noticed that both of these chocolate bars are part of Elite's "Megadim" line, which has a Badatz Hecsher.  

I looked to see if maybe it's only new to the Megadim line. I didn't see a white-chocolate with almonds anywhere else among the many Elite Parah chocolates in the candy aisle or on Elites website, so maybe it actually is new to the Elite Parah line of chocolates or maybe it's just new to me?

Bottom Line: if you like almonds and Elite's Parah white-chocolate, you're likely to enjoy this White-Chocolate with Almond Pieces. I personally think there are much better quality chocolate bars available to choose from.

100 gram chocolate bar – 7.49 NIS

Kosher Dairy Badatz

Disclaimer: All items were purchased by me. No one is paying me for this review. All opinions are my own.

Carmit Ego's Dark-Chocolate Coated Pretzels & Milk-Chocolate Coated Grissini

A few months before I started this blog Carmit, under their Ego line of products, was the first (and as far as I know still the only ones) to make a line of chocolate coated pretzels here in Israel. Their first two products were milk-chocolate coated pretzels and white-chocolate covered pretzels. Being the dark-chocolate fan that I am I was waiting and hoping that they will expand the line to include a bittersweet-chocolate pretzel as well. Low and behold, the other day I found just that; dark-chocolate coated pretzels, on the store shelf, along with milk-chocolate coated mini grissini (mini breadsticks)

          כרמית אגו בייגלה מצופה שוקולד מריר וגריסיני מצופה שוקולד חלב

A few days later I saw a press release about the new products that also mentioned a new chocolate coated cookie but I didn’t see that in the supermarket. If I find/taste the cookie I will either add an update to this post or, if I think it warrants it, I will give it its own review in a separate post.

I got my first disappointment when I opened the package to find that all the chocolate coated pretzels must have melted and then "re-hardened" to form a large lumped together mess. The chocolate had obvious sighs of chocolate bloom (whitish spots on dark chocolate). The blooming indicates that sugar and/or fat have separated due to poor storage. At some point the chocolate underwent a change in temperature, causing the chocolate to soften and re-harden. Although that's not an indication that the chocolate has gone bad, it still makes the chocolate and in this case, the coated pretzels, very unappealing to me.

As I mentioned in my reviews of Loacker's Wafer Snacks and Lindt's Double Milk Chocolate Bar, summer in Israel is simply the wrong time of the year to début anything chocolate or chocolate coated. I think Carmit should have waited just a few more months to release these chocolate coated pretzels. Or taken a cue from Elite's summer/refrigerator chocolate and made a product that can or should be refrigerated.

My second disappointment was with the lack of salt on the pretzels. If they are going for the sweet/salty trend, I thought they needed just a touch more salt to give the proper sweet to salty contrast.  

Finally, I was slightly disappointed, yet not surprised, when I realized that the dark-chocolate coating was a dairy dark-chocolate. I guess they add dairy to the chocolate because they think it needs it to improve the taste, but there are high quality dark chocolates on the market which are non-dairy that they could have used. Then again nothing about the chocolate coating on any of these Ego products resembles a high quality chocolate. So what did I expect from the dark-chocolate version?

I don’t have much to add about the Milk-Chocolate Coated Grissini other than the fact that I found them crispy yet very bland. I thought they needed a flavor of some sort or at least a richer/better quality chocolate coating.

Bottom Line :I was fairly disappointed with both these products. I'd say the Dark-Chocolate Coated Pretzels needed a bit more salt and the Milk-Chocolate Coated Grissini could have used some sort of flavor as well. In my opinion, they both needed a better quality chocolate. Lastly, I thought it was a mistake to début them during the hot Israeli summer.

120 gram bag 9.99 NIS

Kosher Dairy Badatz

 Update: Winner of 2012 Product of the Year Award Israel

Disclaimer: All items were purchased by me. No one is paying me for this review. All opinions are my own.

Yotvata's Cold Coffees

Being that I am not a regular coffee drinker I wasn't going to review Yotvata's new line of cold coffees, even thought I was curious how it compared to Illy's Cold Coffee, which I recently reviewed. Then, a few days ago, I was at a breakfast event where they had Yotvat's new Latte as one of the options on the elaborate drinks buffet. This gave me the opportunity to try the coffee and also get the opinion of some coffee drinkers at my table.

יטבתה לאטה קר, מקיאטו קר וקפוצ'ינו קר

Yotvata's new line has 3 coffees to choose from; Latte (mild), Macchiato (strong) and Cappuccino (coffee with added cocoa) as I mentioned, I tasted the Latte.

I actually enjoyed Yotvata's Latte more than Illy's Cold Cappuccino, most likely because this Latte is a more mild coffee, not being a regular coffee drinker I don’t really care for strong coffees. I did think there was quite a bit of milk in the Latte but that didn’t really bother me like it bothered most of the heavy coffee drinkers at my table. They all would have preferred to taste the Macchiato which is the stronger coffee in this Yotvata line.

Yotvata's Latte does have sugar added but I didn’t think was too overly sweet, whereas most of my friends who never add sweetener to their coffee thought it was too sweet but not way over done.

All that having been said, no one HATED the Latte but then again the regular coffee drinkers didn’t really consider it their "morning coffee" and I saw quite a few of them enjoying a hot coffee "made to their liking" before the event was over.

I am not 100% sure why there's a warning on the bottle saying "It's not advisable for pregnant women (and children under 12) to drink this Latte", the children under 12 part I understand, but I'm wondering why they wrote that pregnant women should avoid it. As far as I knew most studies show that it's ok to drink up to 3 cups of caffeine a day when you're pregnant. Maybe this one Latte has so much caffeine that is surpasses the limit, I don’t know? But I gotta say it didn’t seem strong enough to have all that much caffeine in it. So maybe it's not the caffeine that’s the issue but something else?

 Could it be the ultra pasteurized milk that’s the problem, I wonder? When I checked Google I saw a few places where they said ultra pasteurized milk is not advisable for anyone because of all the "good bacteria" and vitamins that get "cooked out" of the milk in the ultra pasteurizing process but I didn’t see any warning particularly regarding pregnancy so I still don’t know for sure why they have the warning on the bottle. But whatever the reason may be, it kinda of freaks me out when products have such warning. Usually such warnings keep me away from a product even if I'm not pregnant.

Oh by the way, they also had frozen Yotvata Ice Shoko(Cocoa) for the kids, but regardless of age, everyone who tried the frozen shoko seemed to really enjoy it.

Bottom Line: I thought Yotvata's Latte was an enjoyable enough "coffee flavored milk" but if you're looking for a cold coffee to give you a caffeine "wake me up" or you really enjoy the taste of strong coffee I don’t think this Yotvata Latte is the right choice for you.

 250 mL bottle 5.99NIS

 Kosher Cholov Yisrael

הרב משה הדאיה שליט"א

Disclaimer: The coffee was purchased by my friend who was hosting the breakfast. No one is paying me for this review. All opinions are my own and those of my friends at the table with me.

 

Nestlé's Skinny Cow Ice Cream

גלידות "סקיני קאו" נסטלה

I was really happy to read that  Nestlé Ice Cream started importing the "famous" Skinny Cow Ice Creams to Isreal. I had heard for years from friends back in the US how much they love the taste of this ice cream and the fact that Skinny Cow Ice Creams can be enjoyed without guilt; considering it has a fraction of the calories that most ice creams have. Now that they are also available here I was excited to try it too.

 There are 2 ice cream pops and 3 ice cream sandwiches available here in Israel from the Skinny Cow line; Vanilla Lemon Sorbet Ice Cream Bar (87 calories), Vanilla Strawberry Sorbet Ice Cream Bar (88 calories), Chocolate Ice Cream    Sandwich (129 calories), Mascarpone Ice Cream Sandwich (135 calories)  Cookies & Cream Ice Cream Sandwich (141 calories).

The Cookies & Cream Sandwich was the natural choice for me, seeing as ice cream sandwiches have always been a favorite of mine and cookies & cream ice cream is one of my "go to" flavors, so that’s the one I chose to try.

The photo on the package is ever so slightly deceiving. I sort of expected a wider sandwich filled with more ice cream than it actually had but, in fact that is where my disappointment ended, and on second thought, for a 66 gram sandwich this Skinny Cow Ice Cream was a nice and indulgent size treat.

The round and "decorative" chocolate cookie/biscuit part of the sandwich was chocolaty, soft and chewable. To me it tasted exactly like many full calorie ice cream sandwich cookies tastes and I really enjoyed it.

The ice cream inside was soft and creamy. Had I not known it was reduced fat I never would have guessed! The vanilla ice cream was jam packed with the tiny cookie crumbs, just as cookies & cream ice cream should be.

Bottom Line: In my opinion, everything about this Skinny Cow Cookies & Cream Ice Cream Sandwich was indulgent and enjoyable. What started as an experiment back in 1994 by two entrepreneurs in New Jersey will now become a permanent fixture in my freezer here in Israel. Thank you guys! I will absolutely be trying the other flavors but I have a feeling the Cookies & Cream Sandwich will remain my favorite.        

Box of 6 Ice Cream Sandwiches 26.99 NIS

Kosher Dairy Badatz

Disclaimer: All items were purchased by me. No one is paying me for this review. All opinions are my own.