Fructose - 54 Reviews

Just like that we have come to the last submission of the 2017 Shake it Off Challenge. So far the contestants have been decently chocolatey and mostly enjoyable. For this final installment we will visit the shake whose packaging looks the most medicinal. With a name like Medifast and the Caduceus logo how can one not think of a doctor's office while drinking this? I understand that they are trying to show how healthy this beverage is and show that it is recommended by physicians, but the symbolism has me expecting this to taste like garbage medicine. Sometimes you hate when your expectations are met. This is clearly my least favorite of the three shakes we reviewed for the challenge. The chocolate tastes fake and chalky (yes I shook it up for as long as recommended). While the other shakes let you feel like you're cheating and drinking some sort of desert, this never lets you forget that it has a function and that is to help you lose weight, which will not be enjoyable. With 14g of protein and 100 calories, it's pretty close to the others in that regard. Unfortunately the taste does not match up.

Round two of the 2017 Shake It Off Challenge has begun, and I have to say I think we have a contender on our hands. Nutrisystem is a long running company and they have had that time to perfect the “diet' shake powder. This is downright delicious. This is the kind of thing that would make dieting easy. I'm not even on a diet and I want to drink these all of the time because it tastes great and there is no guilt in consuming it. What other chocolate beverage can say that?

It is ridiculously creamy and it tastes like decent chocolate, not like garbage chocolate that you would swear is actually more plastic than food. There is some stevia and monk fruit extract in here as well as fructose to sweeten it, but none of them interfere with the chocolate taste. That is a feat onto itself. The numbers for this are less than the Wonderslim. It has 13g of sugar with 150 calories, but with this you will recognize the names of more of the ingredients, and you can't argue with that flavor. I personally feel much better drinking this than the competitor.

We have one more contestant in this game. Will Nutrisystem remain on top, or will they be ousted? Only time will tell.

We were contacted to participate in the 2017 “Shake it Off” challenge, where the company sent us three different shake mix products and we are to write about them and compare them. While they are a couple years too late for the name of the challenge to be timely, I'm always up for a challenge, especially when chocolate is involved. Do you think Taylor Swift's legal team is going to get involved? They are quite litigious, right? Did I make that up?

For my first tasting I'm going with the WonderSlim Chocolate Cream. This is a meal replacement powder that can be made into a shake, or pudding. The outcome just depends on how much water you add to the powder. Whichever way you choose to consume this it has 15g of protein, 24 vitamins and minerals and comes in at only 100 calories. There are A LOT of ingredients in here. Most of which I have never heard of before. I'm sure they all serve some sort of dietary purpose, but I still get wary when there are so many hard to pronounce things in my food.

Flavorwise this has a nice chocolate taste to it, but unfortunately there is an undertone of diet-ness due to the sucralose used as one of the sweeteners. While you're drinking it, you don't really notice it too much, but a little while after you swallow that unmistakable flavor starts taking over your mouth. If the sucralose were not present this would be downright delicious. It is slightly chalky, but nothing too terrible and it's easy to look past that.

Overall this is better than I would have expected from a company named WonderSlim.

Vemma is back with yet another mangosteen based beverage. This time it's a shot for those who are always on the go, and have limited time for nutrition. First off, reevaluate your life people. I know some of the people who don't have time are sincerely working constantly to put food on the table for their families, and I commend them for their efforts. Let's be honest here though, this drink is not for those people. Those people aren't going to throw down their hard earned money for a supplement shot. It seems to me that this drink is marketed towards business folks who are constantly working and deals and such, not those doing nitty gritty manual labor. It's these people who have the option to eat healthy, but instead decide to continue working. If that's what you love in life, who am I to argue, but I personally like to enjoy the life I live and not spend so much time on work that I don't have time to eat a healthy meal. Now, I'm not faulting Vemma for this; these people would exist whether their product was around or not, so why not help them live healthier with their choices?

This is a 2oz shot that is jam packed with vitamins and minerals to help you get through your day in a healthy manner. It's no secret that shots generally taste completely wretched. This though, this has got something going for it. It tastes like mangosteen juice that has had a multivitamin dissolved into it. It's downright pleasant. It's what I would imagine a teenage version of a Flintstone's vitamin would taste like. You know for people who aren't; ready to take on straight up vitamins, but the regular Flintstone ones just seem too juvenile. This is so good in fact that I have been slowly sipping it, instead of slamming it like you normally would a shot. It's nice to have a beverage that is this healthy and tastes this good.

John left from a long day of work and he was exhausted. He looked out the window of his of car and it was snowing and he knew that his day was not over because he knew before he was going to be able to kick off his shoes and sit down he was going to have to shovel. He didn't hate shoveling but after a long day of work, he just wanted to relax. He pulled up to his driveway and saw the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Someone had plowed his driveway. He had no idea who it could have been. He ran inside to get a gift and started knocking on his neighbor's doors to see if he could find out who it was.

He went to one neighbor who owned a plow but he wasn't home. He went to another house and his wife answered the door. John asked if her husband was home and she said that he was and went to go get him. A short moment later he came to the door. John asked him if he plowed his driveway and he told him that he did.

John was so thankful he nearly hugged the guy. He held back and thanked him graciously and handed him a carton of a drink. The man asked what the drink was to which John replied, "It's milk tea." The man didn't know what to think and John said that it was a great secret that he would pick up at Asian markets every once in a while and he thought that he would thank him with it. The man thanked him and asked if he wanted to split it with him. John said he would and they both went into the house.

The man poured the drink into a glass for him and drank out of the carton himself. He took a small sip and then took a larger sip. He told John that he liked it. He said that it tasted like a cup of tea with some sugar and milk in it and that it was so simple it made it even better. He said that the milk kind of disguised the actual tea flavor but that it was still good and he was happy he knew that this new product existed.

John and the man finished their drinks and John once again thanked the man for plowing his driveway. The man said that it was no problem and if he ever had some extra time and a car wasn't in the driveway that he would do it again. John was happy to have a neighbor as nice as that.

Which of our forefathers stated the words, “Give me chunks or give me death!”? That was Ben Franklin right? Mr. Franklin had a thing for the ladies, and perhaps he had a fetish for those of the Asian persuasion. Perhaps then they turned him onto aloe drinks and he fell in love with sweet, fruit flavored drinks with fun little chunks in them. I bet he liked to catch the chunks in his teeth and then chew on them after he swallowed the liquid. Ben always was a kid at heart. Unlike us here in modern day America I bet he was unfamiliar with mangos and I also bet he loved their taste. What an exotic drink this must have been in the 18th century. It's so sticky sweet like the fruit that flavors it. Oh, did I mention it actually tastes like mango as well? It tastes like your grandmother decided to eat a mango like she eats her grapefruit; by dumping a bunch of sugar on it. Man it's no wonder everyone had wooden teeth back then.

Ben Franklin had it right when he ranted about aloe. Maybe he had some weird thing with regurgitation, or just maybe I got that famous quote wrong.

It's been a while, old friend. What has happened to the days where we would sit together and spend time with each other? Me basking in the sun like some sort of fancy Frenchman and you sitting in your bottle like you liked to do? The last few months have been smooth sailing and I mean that in all aspects of the word. Smooth. There has been nothing substantial in my drinks and it just sort of happened. Have we grown apart? It's not that I have forgotten. It's more that you haven't shown up and I am fully aware that the phone works both ways but you know how things go. We've been busy living our lives.

It is good to see you back. Shall we get right down to business like old times? Yes, let's. Let me get you something a little more comfortable for you to wear like this nice glass. That bottle looks constricting and I know how you don't like it in plastic. It's been a long time for me, too. I'll go gentle at first.

I see you haven't lost a step since we last met. You're everything I remembered and you taste like pineapples. The bits of aloe act as if there are real bits of pineapple in there, like you crushed and poorly strained pineapples out of a can. No, you don't taste like you came out of a can. You taste wonderful. We should do this more often. What happened to us? We used to be so close. Let's promise to not spend this much time apart again. I feel at times that I need you. I don't normally open up like that but it's true.

Herman the local meteorologist was very concerned about two things. The first and foremost is the weather and atmospheric conditions. It is his livelihood. It helped him put his kids through college, buy that eight series Bimmer he's always wanted, put a roof over their heads and food on the table. He is constantly studying weather patterns to try to be on top of his game and be the best at predicting what's going to happen so the people of his fair city don't get caught in surprise thunderstorms or bundle up for perfectly clear and warm days.

The second is pure, unaltered food. He proudly condones the raw food diet, eats a lot of nuts and seeds as snacks, and will never order meat prepared any other way except raw. He likes his cheese stinky and his juice pulpy. The later of which on one particular day would merge his two loves together to form one super products for Herman.

Herman went into an Asian grocery store as he did most days to pick up things like bok choy, durian, and fish. He was about to walk out and saw a new orange drink. He picked it up to see what was in it and one of the ingredients was called "white cloudy." In addition, it was also bottled with pulp. He decided to bring it to his office and give it a try while watching the doppler radar for inconsistencies.

He sat down and opened the can and was blown away. It was the pulpiest drink he had ever drank and whatever white cloudy was, it was like the white, fluffy clouds of the heavens opened up and gave him this drink. It tasted like a tremendously pulpy orange juice that was perhaps a little sweeter than regular orange juice.

That day he was so excited he stayed late at work, did research on a tornado, and stopped to get another can at the store on his way home. He had truly found a drink made for meteorologists with a special ingredient tailored for them.

I like good chocolate milk. Who doesn't? It's chocolate milk. It's kid stuff that just follows you through the years that wonderfully never leaves. You reach adulthood and then you realize there is a world of different products out there including the beloved chocolate milk. Some of them are good and some of them are bad and some of them are the same products that have been out for twenty years that are just fine as they are. This falls into the "bad" category. It's a "natural chocolate shake" but it is more like a protein drink that tastes like a diet protein drink because it's filled with an array of different sweeteners that just makes it feel like chalk and low grade chocolate. What else is there to say? No thanks. If you're on a diet and can't find any other chocolate milk, fine, go with it, but if you can find even a local gas station chocolate milk, steer towards that. Just don't do it with your car. Buffalo is becoming synonymous with people driving through stores and restaurants.

Show me someone who doesn't like peaches and I will show you a being that is obviously not human. Peaches are glorious. They are juicy and delicious and I just can't get enough of them. The thing about peaches is though, they should not be chopped up into chunks and left to float in a can of peach juice. They tend to start to break down a bit. Being the consummate professional that I am, that doesn't bother me one bit, but I feel the texture of these chunks could be a turn off to some people.

I also don't understand why this can needs to contain things such as citric acid, xanthan gum and white cloudy antifoaming agent. Juice, water, sugar and peaches are all you should ever need/want in a juice like this; well you could even do without the sugar. That being said this juice is fine. It tastes like peach juice and it has a ton of peach chunks. Aliens would be so pissed.

There were two things Johnny Snake Eyes loved in life: his switchblade and his dice. To be fair, he really only pretended to care about his blade to give him a tough appearance. He really just lived for his six sided friends. You could almost always find him in some back alley or subway platform running a game of bones. It was more than a game to him. It was a science. He knew the laws of probability and used it to advantage to always come out on top.

He took his love of the game to new levels. The only ate vegetables if they were diced. He would only take a dare if someone said it was dicey. Most importantly for our reading audience, he always had a bottle of Sappe Aloe Vera drink on him. The reason was that the aloe chunks in it were not only diced, but they were actually the exact size of his beloved shakers. Seriously, the chunks are that big and they are wonderful. His particularly enjoyed the apple variety. When he first picked up a bottle (he won it in a game of cee-lo from a worker in an Asian bodega) he had expected it to have that terrible fake apple taste, that is so specific, but in reality tastes nothing like fruit. Luckily the odds of probability were in his favor, and it did taste more like a real apple. The sugar gave it a little bit of a candied flavor, but it was mostly fruit. For that he was thankful.

Next time he's in that area, he plans on playing the shop keep again for a different flavor. It may be a while though because the comic book store that sits beside it always has a gaggle of nerds outside that always challenge him with their twenty sided die, and Johnny Snake Eyes just doesn't roll that way.

On our tour de food, we have gone all around the world without leaving Western New York. We have been trying to not go to the same place (country) trice, especially twice in a row but we did last week. That exotic location? A Vietnamese restaurant in a Puerto Rican part of town. Jay and I fell in love with their bahn mi and we decided to give it a go two weeks in a row. I got the pho this time around and had “order regret” instantly. I like pho and I am no connoisseur, but this was bland. I added quite a bit of hoisen and Sriracha to give it something. In between disappointing bites of a seemingly endless dish, I washed it down with this fantastic treat.

I love honey. My aunt has a beehive in the country and it brought in around one hundred gallons of fresh honey. I use it on sandwiches all the time. Ham, too. Yeah, I know I'm Jewish, but I don't care about it. Ham is wonderful. This drink was chocked full of honey and lemon. Jay hates lemon tea and liked this. That speaks volumes. I have been milking this bottle for three days because it's very good. Sure that place is a mile or two away and I can go whenever I want to and get another but I've got this one and am going to get some length out of it. It's so honey-filled that I'm surprised that it's not thicker, like if you somehow liquefied honey lemon candy and drank that.

I will go back to that Vietnamese restaurant again and again as I have to try their vermicelli and will repeatedly eat their bahn mi. That pho, well that might as well just leave the menu. It's not your strong suit, friends.

With each sip I grow more uncertain as to whether I should review this or not. It's not the flavor. That is nice and pineappley as it should be. It tastes like it was squeezed right from the fruit, but somehow a lot of the acidity was lost. My concern is that this can has so many chunks of pineapple in it that I no longer know if I can refer to it as a drink. When the ratio of physical fruit to juice is tipped to the fruit side, is it still a drink? Is the juice instead a vehicle to keep the pineapple “fresh?” I like fruit chunks in my drink, but this is just out of control.

You know in the movies where it will show a dog getting hurt and it will say in the credits, "No animals were harmed in the filming of this movie?" I would like to know how many strawberries we just slaughtered in the making of this drink. I think that this drink is nothing more than people trying to stuff an entire one of those clear, plastic containers of strawberries into this tiny, baby can.

This drink is chocked full of strawberries and tastes only like strawberries. For that reason, I can't fathom how they kept the price low. I mean strawberry juice is one thing but poorly pureed strawberry chunks is another. Without exaggeration, there are probably two whole strawberries in this drink at least. It's great. I've got no complaints. Keep 'em coming.

In the dizzying haze of strobe lights a giant of an old man's face flashes in and out of the darkness repeating the words, “Something's wrong.” Even though that horror occurred years ago in a bowling alley, the sight was fresh in my mind as I took a sip of this juice. One of the numerous ingredients in here that are not mango left a wrong flavor to this. As soon as it hits your tongue you are greeted with mango, but nearly instantly some rouge shadow pushes the great fruit out of the way and blocks the doorway to proper flavor. On top of that the pulp in this are little cubes of mango that don't have a long shelf life floating in juice and other delicacies. The way they squish in your mouth gives the illusion that they are rotting. Knowing that they are not does not help the voyage. SOS, this ship is going down.

S - Hey man I have an awesome drink for you to try.

L …€“ Oh that's cool. What is it?

S …€“ You don't even know man it's Way 2 Cool.

L …€“ Okay well what is it?

S …€“ No man, the company is called Way 2 Cool. It's ginger ale.

L …€“ Oh I like ginger ale. Let me have a taste…€¦..There is definitely something off about this ginger ale. Are you sure it's not about a decade expired?

S …€“ No man, that's just the barley malt in it.

L …€“ To quote my ex-roommate, “That's the kind of thing you tell a goddamn man!” Seriously malt beverages can be decent, but it's not the kind of thing that you sneak up on someone. If you don't know it's there the drink just tastes like it's gone bad.

S …€“ Dude, malt makes everything better…€¦.like liquor.

L …€“ Okay, you're just an idiot, and this drink isn't very good. It's most certainly isn't “Way 2 Cool.” Actually it's barely passable. I don't even think I could finish this bottle. I like malt when it's mixed with apple or pineapple, but it does not mix well with ginger. If it wasn't for that stupid malt this would have actually probably been a decent ginger ale. It has real ginger in it, plus limejuice and cinnamon. I bet it would have been interesting, and more than likely tasty. Here I sit though trying to make it through this weird malt that is overpowering every other flavor, while somehow slightly tasting like moldy bread. I can't believe that there is no mention of malt on the label besides the ingredients list. It's just going to turn off 99% of the people that would buy this. Also dude, why on Earth does this label say “Free Tibet and Taos?” Isn't that a bit insulting? I mean grouping in human rights activists with a couple of snowboarders that want a town to let them ride there? I'm beginning to think a bunch of suburban hippies started this company, and that makes sense why it tastes like garbage. Those type of hippies ruin everything.

S …€“ But dude! If you drink to the top of the label and put in orange juice it's a straight-edge brass monkey!

L …€“ Oh my god, you are an idiot. Please never give me another drink. Actually, please never speak to me again. I think I became dumber in this brief conversation.

This is one of those times that I REALLY wish a company had a working website. The website http://www.way2coolsodas.com is on the side of the bottle but it leads to nothing. I doubt this company is out of business because I found this bottle at a Whole Foods in Santa Fe, NM a few months ago. Since I have no way of contacting anyone from this company, I am going to conduct a fictional interview with their owner.

Who are you?
I'm Lloyd, I live in Santa Fe, NM and I founded Way 2 Cool Sodas.

Why did you name it "Way 2 Cool"
I was sitting in my dorm room one day and I was thinking about how awesome it would be if I made my own soda. I thought to myself that if I actually did it, it would be way too cool. So since I couldn't think of anything more radical than that, it stuck.

Do you realize that "Way 2 Cool" is possible the worst beverage name I have ever seen? Even Kronik is better than that.
No way dude! You just don't get it.

And look at the artwork on the bottle! It looks like someone on an acid trip painted it.
I painted that and I do not admit that I did an eighth of shrooms and smoked a bowl before painting it.

The only way the horrible name and art would be redeemable would be if this root beer was exceptional, but it's not. It's pretty generic tasting root beer. I wouldn't be surprised if you took Safeway brand root beer, poured it into these glass bottles, and called it "micro brewed"
That's like, your opinion man.

There you have it. How this got on the shelves of Whole Foods, I will never know.

Before I even begin to think about describing the flavor of this drink I have to mention the packaging. Is it necessary? I don't know, but I can tell you that it is really, really cool, even if it is a bit impractical. It's like someone took a 20oz bottle, but it in half and put the top of a can of pop on top to seal the goodness in. I really don't see any benefits of this, besides looking awesome. The joy of plastic is that it is resealable, which this is not. Also, I don't know how well it would work for stacking the cans. It seems like they would fall over a lot easier with that bottom. Oh well, I'm not a stock boy so it's not my problem. I'll just sit back and admire the strangeness of it.

Now on for the purpose of this site, to let the public know how different beverages taste. I shockingly really enjoyed this. Flavored sparkling water isn't really my forte (I can't stand the seltzer taste), but I guess when you add a bunch of sugar to a carbonated water it technically becomes a pop. This tastes like a very light pop that actually tastes just like mangoes. There is no seltzer flavor in this can at all. My only issue is that by the time you get towards the bottom of the bottle/can (should we embrace "bottan" or "cannle" for it's name?) you get a slight hint of the aspartame that is hiding towards the bottom of the ingredients list. Other than that this is great with about half the sugar of normal soda.

It's weird when a drink tastes exactly like the flavor it's supposed to be. Many times it's advertised to be something, but somewhere between the taste testers and the packaging department something went awry. Not with this Slap energy drink, it really tastes like a crisp apple with a slight green tea aftertaste. I'm glad it's not strong on the green tea because I am not a huge fan and was kind of dreading this drink for that reason.

This is a great energy drink because there's no gross taste to it. If you wouldn't have told me, I would have just thought it was an apple green tea soda. I wanted to write this review about someone slapping this can out of my hand and not caring, but I couldn't do it because it tastes too good.

If I am not mistaken this drink is all about me. Finally a drink for the egotistical and self centered geniuses of the world. I think it takes on a different flavor to suit whoever is drinking its taste buds. I have to say they had it dead on for me. Tangerine and pineapple are a way to my heart. They were on the road to perfection but then the creators got sidetracked and added erythritol as a third sweetener. Ugh. They have instantly turned my brain and me as a whole off. Had they left out that one tiny ingredient, that doesn't seem to play much of a role other than being gross, this would have been great. A buy and buy again beverage. As it stands it can sit dusty on the shelves.