Trader Joe's Apple Fruit Snacks Mango Jalapeño

While not quite completely in love with the analogy, it does make the point so I'm just gonna roll with it. 

If my house were a prison, and my family the inmates, fruit snacks would likely be the equivalent of cigarettes. This excludes my lovely bride, which works because if we're going this way with with the metaphor I may as well just call her the warden. Just don't put me in solitary, babe.

Fruit snacks are not just for bribery or trade. As evidenced by the occasional trove of found and opened wrappers, we all got a stash somewhere that gets sourced from the large Costco box in the basement. I work down here all day, so when I need an early afternoon sugar hit, it's the easy get. We've found them in couch cushions, in kid's beds, stuffed in pockets at laundry time, tucked away inconspicuously in the trash, beside the beer fridge...you name it. But there's a bit of the code: don't touch my stash, I won't touch yours.  Not that there's not temptation to do so.

With the introduction of Trader Joe's Apple Fruit Snacks Mango Jalapeño, we may have found a basis for a truce. In the words of the great James Brown, papa's got a brand new bag. 

The magic word here is "jalapeño." My kids see that, figure they're way too spicy, and spicy fruit snacks sound weird anyways, so they'll just pass without question, leaving me with the whole bag to consume at my speed and not worrying about little grubby hands sneaking in. 

That being said, the jalapeño really does add a nice little touch, more on the backside of the flavor experience. It takes few chews to kinda get it going, as the fruits take first turn. These fruit snacks are primarily fruit based, with natural fiber and just a touch of pectin, instead of corn syrups and starches and whatever else, so there's legit verifiable actual apple and mango going in here, which balance out each other well in a sweet, understated yet flavorful way. The little specks of jalapeño add just the smidgiest of amounts of noticeable heat. It's delicious, kinda like a decent simple fruit salsa in fruit snack form, if that makes any sense. 

Going back to the ingredients, this shouldn't be a surprise, but if you were expecting/hoping for the big soft gummy kinda of fruit snacks, these are not them. Move along. Instead, the snacks are more of a tougher, more fibrous variety, kinda like fruit leather chunked up instead of rolled out. Those with dental work, be appropriately cautious. At least they're not really all that sticky or anything. I just noticed all the mango jalapeño guys are actually shaped like little hot peppers. That's so cute! I love it.

I think the pouch was only about $2 or maybe $3 at most, which is a decent enough deal for the 5ish servings each contain. That's good enough of a deal to make them a regular buy. Not sure what all else to say, so time to lock down this review. Double fours. 

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Apple Fruit Snacks Mango Jalapeño: 8 out of 10 Golden Spoons