Review: Kraft To Go!

Some people would look at this product, which is essentially a serving of Kraft cheese and crackers packaged in a plastic tray and sold for $1, as a product for someone too stupid and/or lazy to slice cheese. As someone who regularly brings cheese and crackers to work, and as a fiend for single-serve packages AND wee things of all types, I look at it and say, "Geeeenius!"

I first saw them at Target last night, and as soon as I spied the baby triscuits, I knew I must try them. Not wanting the baby Ritz to feel neglected, I bought a 2-pack of each variety, for $1.89 each.

I brought one of the triscuit & co-jack packs to work today, and they were nearly everything I hoped they would be.

Pros:

They're fast. I'm perpetually running late, so it's nice to take the prep-work out of one of my favorite snacks.

They offer built-in portion control. With its relatively high fat content and small serving sizes, cheese is one of those foods that it's very easy for me to overdo. Hell, I could eat a whole box of triscuits and a block of cheddar in a single evening (and maybe even call it dinner). Having these in the house instead keeps me from doing that.

The triscuits are sealed off from the cheese, so the crackers don't get soggy or rubbery (like they do if I bring crackers and cheese in the same baggie). Both the crackers and the cheese tasted reasonably fresh.

The cheese was all the same size, and the crackers were all intact, which satisfied my more OCD tendencies.

The pieces are teeny. In addition to being cuter that way, it's somehow more satisfying to eat 20 mini-triscuits with cheese than to eat 7 big ones.

At 170 calories per serving, it's a sensibly-sized snack.

Cons:

At 11g of fat (6g saturated) per serving and only 1g of fiber, it's not exactly weight-watchers friendly. I don't know the points value since I don't do it anymore, but it's probably 3-4.

There was one more cracker than there were cheese bits, which aggravated my aforementioned OCD tendencies.

And finally, if you bought a box of triscuits ($3.75) and a block of cheese ($3.15) and made your own equivalent packages of cheese and crackers, you'd save about a quarter per serving* and possibly the Earth or something (plastic packaging, etc).

Overall, though, they get the Joy Seal of Approval.

*Of course, that could be said of a lot of things...If I bought my yogurt in 16 oz. tubs it would save money and packaging, I suppose, but it would go bad uneaten in the fridge much more often than my individual Yoplait Lights. I'm just sayin'.

Posted by Joy at September 29, 2005 03:20 PM