Hot Wheels Jelly Bellys

Something went wrong at the Hot Wheels Jelly Belly Factory, and maybe that's why these were on Max Clearance at the store. Motor oil in the orange bean former, maybe? On a bit of a losing streak with sweets lately, but you're a fool if you think it will deter me! In this bag we have

Cherry: Not my favorite, 5/10
Grape: A strong grape flavor... better than a grape dum-dum at least. 6/10
Lemon: Wonderfully lemony, this one is good 8/10
Blue: This is blue, like blue Kool Aid. Pretty fun 7/10
Orange: This is the real horror. Like rubber bands or vasoline! Coconutty?! Disturbing. Did not eat beyond the first. 2/10

Overall
Cost: 8/10
Taste: 5/10

Pop Tarts - Girl Scouts Frosted Coconut Caramel

Nope. Not good. Nope nope nope. Dunkin' often has a winter line of Girl Scouts coffee flavor swirls, and their coconut caramel one is also (if I recall correctly) quite artificial and gross, but that's par for the course with Dunkin' flavor swirls. Alas, soon that'll be the pop tart reputation too if things keep up (I mean, they're already usually gross, but the artificiality is more recent; they used to just be pure sugar with a bit of natural flavor). These have an overpowering coconut smell, but the flavor is mostly plastic, sunscreen, and expired cinnamon bread. Like a lot of other bad pop tarts, the badness is really concentrated in the filling; the icing is just generic chocolate (fine) and the bready bit is just generic bready pop tart shell. On the upside, they're very convenient, and filling if you can choke 'em down. 

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 5/10

Cheez-It Smoked Cheddar

I dunno why I got these, since I never liked Cheez-Its much to begin with, and I absolutely hate "smoked" flavor on anything (especially Chee(z)e). It's like I see a "new flavor" label on something I'm not allergic to and I fully dissociate until I'm home eating them. Very cool behavior. Anyway, these taste about like you'd expect. Baseline Cheez-it with smokey fake flavoring on top. Somewhat addictive once you get going. They do have MSG, which is either a migraine trigger or simply racism (or both). I didn't finish the last gross smoked Cheez-It box I bought, but it's about to be summer, so maybe I'll be so bored I'll finish these. It won't be a pleasure, though!

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 5/10

Cinnamon Toast Crunch Hershey's Kisses

These seem like they'd be gross, but they're actually pretty good. Not milk choco (or even white choco if we're being real), but the essence of cinnamon toast crunch milk in a kiss shape. Cinnamony, milky, and with little hard "cereal" pieces in the middle. Like a less cloying, more cerealy dulce de leche kiss. The texture is good and interesting. The taste is like cereal, which is not really "delicious", but is tasty. They also have a buttery inside for some reason (a "cookie finish"), which elevates things. No allergy concerns, no migraine concerns, just the usual "junk food probably bad for your health hehe" concerns.

Overall
Cost: 4/10 [6$, also limited edition so probably unbuyable now]
Taste: 8/10

Filippo Berio - Extra Virgin Olive Oil

I use a lot of olive oil in my line of work (consumption), and so I like to get this one, because it's usually the cheapest non-store-brand option. The allergy situation seems to be good as far as nut oil cross-contam, because I think these guys just make olive oil (and pesto, but that's, like, presumably on another line). It tastes like olive oil. What more can one say?

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

Mutti Passata

This isn't a cookie! (Or else it's a very very bad one.) I got this tomato puree (passata for snobs) to replace pasta sauce/ketchup/manwich/other tomato things with added ingredos so that I could control my ingredient consumption. To that end, this is great: it's just tomato and a little salt. But it's also pricier than all the more dolled up things it replaces, I guess because it's clean & classy. Anyway, no issues, but also nothing special to recommend it besides what it doesn't contain! 

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

Pop Tarts - Girl Scouts Thin Mints

I told my doc approx 1 year ago that the only things that seemed to have a positive impact on my (physical) misery were eating sugar and walking around. That still seems to be true, so I sure hope all the walking around counteracts whatever all these cookies and pop tarts are doing to me.

Anyway, I like a thin mint, so this is a good pop tart. Definitely not a great pop tart. But there's no weird cinnamon vibe or any other weird flavor notes, just vaguely bready chocolate with a very subtle/light mint flavor. The unfilled edge crust is probably the best part. I can't eat actual Thin Mint but as I recall, they taste nothing like these. Nevertheless.

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 7/10 (on a pop-tart scale, not an overall scale)