Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Odwalla What?

(My inter webs is currently down and out, so until I manage to get it back, Sin's Secret is running on backup posts. See you in a few days!)

Currently Reading: 269 Amazing Sex Games by Hugh De Beer

Along with sex, I created this blog to help people in the area of health, both sexual and general. I think everyone should stay healthy, so I like to talk about it. Just not often, so I only incorporate health into Sin's Secret when I have something particular to say.

That said, I love health food. Really, I'm all for it.
If it's supposed to boost your immune system, give you energy, keep you from getting a cold, strengthen your villi, build up your stomach lining, calm your nerves, or make you horny as a cat in heat, I'm willing to try it. Earth Fare's one of my favorite stores because pretty much everything there is F-ing cool. It's all so pretty, so fresh, and so friggin' healthy.

But really, what- the fuck!- is up with Odwalla?

I wanted to like it. I swear, I really did; I really tried. But seriously, I don't understand how anyone can ingest that crap!

For one thing, it's expensive, 2.99 for a bottle that- if it tasted good- I could drink in a sitting. Health food's expensive, yeah, but usually it's also worth it. To me, this isn't.

Opening my Chocolate Protein Super Protein Soymilk Protein drink, (after shaking, of course), I'm instantly hit with a smell that's both sweet and rancid, like rotten edamame (soy beans). Now I love good brands of soy milk- and chocolate soy milk- to a degree, and I recognize the taste and the smell. This is not that smell.

The taste is okay, if a bit dirt-y and dull. Not dirty as in messy, dirt-y as in like dirt. There is chocolate, definitely, but only as a granular slime used as a botched cover up of that rancid taste, and mostly appears fleetingly as soon as the liquid hits your tongue, and right as it's sliding down your throat. I will give you, however, that the chocolate taste itself is pretty good. It claims "Delicious Dutch Cocoa dream", and I would assert that if the entire drink were made of that stuff, instead of less than 2% of it, it would be pretty damn tasty.

And! I was doing some research for pictures for this entry, and found something really interesting.

Odwalla is owned by Coca-Cola.

Imagine that. The product that claims it's mission as to "nourish People", "respect our Planet", "protect the Soil", and "create good products for the Soul" is parented by one of the most eco-unfriendly companies in the world. Tsk tsk odwalla! But really, no wonder it's so expensive, being owned by Coke and all. Money-hunger bastards. Anyway. Knowing that might actually keep me from buying the stuff. Not that the price doesn't already (along with the taste).

Beyond the taste comes the texture. I picked this up because A) my friend G had a bottle of Vanilla Almond Odwalla yesterday that was pretty okay, and I was looking for that as a lunch substitute, but they didn't have it, so this was my only creamy option, and B) because of the words "Silky-smooth shakeup" somewhere on the colorful, explanatory back. I love silky smooth drinks. Silky smooth anything actually, but that's probably another story, involving sex, as my stories usually do.
But really, of all the lies. This drink is not, in the least bit, silky smooth. I can say that it has a sort of silky-slimy feeling when you first take a gulp, but smooth is not at all how I would describe it. Perhaps its the >2% of cocoa powder they used, because I know soy milk tends to be really smooth, but this stuff is grainy. Not enough that the average person would notice (I'm super observant when it comes to food and drink, they are my second passion), but enough that it leaves that semi-dry feeling on your tongue after you've swallowed and your mouth is clear of the stuff. This feeling drives me absolutely crazy. You can't claim silky-smoothness and then deliver chalky. No no no.


Keep in mind, however, that the bottle is still in my hands. It is half way empty. I still drank it.

Yes, I am a hypocrite, upside down and inside out.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are one fire cracker of a writer! I'm really enjoying your posts. Keep it up (er, so to speak!)

Anonymous said...

Yeah. I miss Fresh Samantha juices because they were just healthy fruit smoothies... none of these protein-enhanced taste murderers. (Odwalla bought out Fresh Samantha)