Food In Real Life

Trident Green Apple Golden Pineapple Layers Gum

I’m bringing you something a little bit different today – an unboxing of the latest gum offering from Trident:

The new gum is called Trident Layers, and you might have seen the commercials for it on TV, where everyone wishes that they would get paid in gum instead of money.

Appropriately, the gum packaging unfolds like a wallet, revealing the silver-wrapped gum dollars within:

I shivered in anticipation as I removed the first gum bill from the cardboard sheath:

As I unwrapped it, music started playing softly and the room began to glow. This is no ordinary gum.

Each piece of this gum has three layers (hence the clever name); the two thick layers are like regular gum, but the skinny inner layer is a flavor explosion. (No gum chewers were harmed in the flavor explosion.)

Taste: As soon as you bite into it, you can taste intense citrus and green apple flavors, much moreso than from any other citrus gum I’ve tried. Sadly, the intense flavor disappears after a few minutes, but the gum maintains a lighter flavor and chewability for about two hours. 4 out of 5

Tyson Anytizers Ranch Flavored Chicken Fries

Looks: The only difference I found between the box and the real deal is that the real fries have a significant number of black specks on them (probably part of the Ranch seasoning). You might also be able to make the argument that the fries on the box have a bumpier texture than the fries inside the box, but I don’t think it’s an argument you’d win. 4.5 out of 5

Taste: Ranchtastic. Wait, I want to say Chickentastic instead. Wait, I mean… Ranchickentastic. Whatever word I use, the fries were crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside, with just the right amount of ranch flavor – not so little that you can’t detect it, but not so much that your breath smells like salad dressing the rest of the day. 4 out of 5

Heath Klondike Bar

Looks: The bar on the box appears to be taller than the real bar. Other than that (and the fact that I couldn’t bite into it without cracking all of the surrounding chocolate), it is accurately advertised. 4 out of 5

Taste: Very good – I enjoyed this bar much more than a regular Klondike bar, and the only difference is the Heath bits in the chocolate shell. The ice cream is creamy, the chocolate shell isn’t too thick, and the toffee breaks up the monotony of the chocolate/ice cream combo (if you could call such a partnership monotonous). The only beef I have with this bar is that I think it’s about 30% too big – when I get two-thirds of the way through, I feel like I should be done, but there’s still four or five more bites to go. 4 out of 5

Marie Callender’s Old World Rigatoni Bolognese

Looks: The noodles are right, but the sauce is all wrong. Instead of being a thick and hearty tomato sauce with chunks of beef, it consists of some dried-up pieces of meat and a scant amount of liquid. It really makes the difference in how edible the dish looks, wouldn’t you agree? 2 out of 5

Taste: The taste mirrors the looks: the noodles are ok, but the sauce is just meh. The different parts of the sauce never seemed to coalesce, but rather just separated into tomato and beef and liquid. Not only did the sauce not form one mixture, but the different parts of the sauce didn’t stick to the pasta, further separating the dish into “noodles and tomato and beef and liquid” instead of Rigatoni Bolognese. 2 out of 5