Testing sweeties without a hint of remorse, for Sweet Junkie

Every so often, as a food blogger, one gets the chance to have samples of certain products sent to you to test and review.  One such, is Sweet Junkie's range of sugar free sweeties.


I mean - sugar free?  It had to be done.  In the name of research, obviously.

First thing, though, was to quiz Michael - the man behind Sweet Junkie, and @SweetJunkie on Twitter - as to what the sweetening agent is for these goodies.  You see, as a household, we are quite adamantly against the use of Aspartame or Acesulfame as sweetening agents.  There has been far too much bad press regarding the both of them, to entertain it.  So you can imagine how happy I was, to learn that the sugar-free sweeties use sucralose and maltitose both of which are perfectly acceptable.

Here you see Basil, hoping he'll get to try some - and deciding which!

Sorry, Basil - but sweeties aren't for dawgies.  :(  You'll just have to go back to gnawing your bone.

Immediately upon emptying the package, son & heir's eyes lit upon the Sugar-free Little Bears and he began to look hopeful.


Needless to say, the Little Bears didn't last beyond five minutes as they were sampled again, and again, until they were gone.  Which goes some way to explaining just how good they were!  The texture is slightly tougher than the ~cough~Haribo~cough~ version, which I found an improvement.  I hate jelly sweeties that wrap around your teeth like glue, flatly refusing to detach until they've dissolved.  These don't do that - which I can't help but think is a good thing, as they're aimed at young mouths.


Next up - and I must add here that all these sweeties were sampled over the course of a few days, rather than all at the same time.  Too many sugar-free sweeties can have the unfortunate side-effect of having you spend far too long in your local "house of easement", as the Tudors so quaintly put it - was the Sugar-free Lun Jeelers.

Now I don't know about you, but I had to enquire as to what a "Lun Jeeler" actually was, before sampling same.  It's all very well trying something, but if you don't know what it is supposed to taste like in the first place, it's a bit of a one-sided taste test!  For those, like me, not "in the know", the name is a contraction of the name "Lung Healer" - so, a type of cough candy.


I sampled mine as I was entering my local supermarket, in the hope that it would a) stop me hankering after the breakfast I'd not had and b) stop me from hankering after naughty additional things that aren't on the list, and finally c) chase away my dry mouth (from missing breakfast, no doubt!).  It was a big ask of a little sweetie, but goodness - it did the job!  They have an intriguing taste, as the immediate flavour is citrus, followed by a very gentle sarsparilla-like effect.  Now normally anything sarsparilla flavoured I just can't abide, but these were very nice indeed.


Regrettably, hubby's opinion of them was rather less printable.  He spat his out very quickly, claiming it had caused one side of his gums to swell up!  Bizarre.

The one sweetie that we had been sent that Hubby was keen to sample, was the Sugar-free Lemon, Lime & Acid drops.  His particular interest was in the Acid drop, as they were a favourite from childhood.


He declared his Acid drop to be a creditable attempt - in that it was indistinguishable from a sugared sweetie, however felt that the Acid was a bit too gentle on the tongue.  I had a lemon drop and son & heir had the lime drop and we both were very happy with ours.  In fact, all mine was missing, was some sherbert in the middle - but then that'd be a completely different sweetie.

I'll tell the truth and say that I was more than a little leery of trying the Sugar-free Mint & Aniseed sweets.


I'm more than a wimp where mint is concerned - and far from it "settling your stomach", have found over the years that it has the exact opposite effect.  As for aniseed, well in small doses perhaps.


I am quite sure that if you're a mint-oholic who likes the flavour of aniseed, you'll absolutely adore these sweeties.  I feel bad about giving them a negative review, because the whole issue is simply one of personal taste.  However, for me (and Hubby) we didn't last beyond the first two or three sucks.  ~shrug~  It wasn't the sugar -v- no sugar, it was simply the combination of mint/aniseed.  Don't let us put you off!

Last contender in this hall of fame, is the ubiquitous Cough Candy.


Now I've been sucking on Cough Candies ever since I was a proverbial nipper - and I can safely say that not only do Sweet Junkie's Sugar-free Cough Candy Twists taste exactly how they should do, but I honestly could not establish any difference in flavour or texture, between the sugar-free and sugared.


In fact, I've held on to the other two that were in the packet - and nobody's having them except me!

The long and the short of this review, is that if you're diabetic or watching your weight, but just love your sweeties - go along to Sweet Junkie and order up some to try.  (You can find Sweet Junkie on Facebook, too!).  I am quite sure you won't be disappointed - and they have just so many different types, other than those I've mentioned above.


For those of you who are lucky enough to not be diabetic or weight watching, go along and have a look at the glorious selection of sugared retro sweeties.  You'll find yourself exclaiming "oh, I've not had those for years!" and reaching for the order button.

Just to confirm that this is a sponsored post. I was sent the sweeties free of charge for the purposes of this review, and received no financial reward. Any views expressed are my own or as expressed to me at the time.

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Friday mumblings ... and a zombie Jack Russell

Well, here we are at another Friday.  How do the weeks go so fast?  This week has been somewhat blissful for me, as I worked on Monday but not on Thursday, nor the Monday coming - which means I'll have 9 days straight without having to go to work.  Yummy!

I do love my work - I'm the person who makes sure all the suppliers get paid for a Bournemouth hotel that specialises in ballroom dancing holidays - and it only happens two days a week for four hours each day, but all the same, it's lovely to have some time off.

As I'm sure you all know, I menu-plan for a week ahead.  When I do the menu (usually on a Sunday), I then convert it into two shopping lists - one for the online order (which I place on a Sunday) and one for Saturday's top-up shop where we fetch in the meat and vegetables for the weekend, plus anything critical that's either run out or we find we need before next Tuesday's delivery.  It sounds a bit complicated, but I've been doing it for so long now, I don't think I would know how to run the shopping without menu planning!

This morning, I checked the shopping list to see if I needed to go to the butchers - which I could see I did.  Except, from the distance of the side of my bed, the scrawlings on the notepad where Saturday's shopping list was, looked like "6 pork steaks and landmines".  LANDMINES???  ~rubs eyes, looks again~  Oooh, not "landmines", but "lamb mince!".  LOL  I was sure, all the way to the butcher, that I'd ask for landmines instead of lamb mince.

As it was, my unruly tongue behaved itself (for once) and I asked for lamb mince.  However, unfortunately, they didn't have any!  Can you believe that?  I'd been talking to a nice fellow (@sweetjunkie on Twitter) about how people are apparently not eating as much lamb mince as we have done, these days.  It's not surprising, if the butchers don't have any!  Although I do admit that may be because there just isn't call for it these days.  I dunno - and I hope not!  Having had some lamb mince from the butcher recently, I wouldn't want to have to go back to supermarket pap again.  I came away with 600g of beef mince which I put in the freezer, as a fall-back position just in case I can't find any lamb before Sunday.

Hubby came back from town yesterday, reporting that the greengrocer in the market place had some blood oranges!  Unfortunately, he didn't get any as he thought we'd a plethora of oranges in the fridge already, but has gone back there today in the hope that he'll be there again.  We've had a bit of a run on orange-themed dinners just lately that has eaten into my orange supply, so I'd be glad of some lovely blood oranges.

Can you see them?

In the "news from my garden" department, I noticed yesterday that the Gooseberry seems to have teensy tiny microscopic gooseberries appearing!  I can't really believe that - so long as the birdies leave it alone - I'll have THAT many gooseberries, but it'd be lovely if so!

The postman has just arrived, bringing me some sugar-free sweeties from www.sweetjunkie.com to try!  Yay!  I knew it was going to be a good day!  Here is Basil, pondering on whether dogs like sugar-free sweeties and if so, which one to start with.  LOL  Son & heir as already decided it's to be the sugar free little bears.  Me, I fancy starting with the Lun Jeelers - has anyone got any idea what the heck a "Lun Jeeler" is?

Uh-oh!  From the sounds of despair coming from the kitchen (where son & heir is trying to reproduce the toasted ham & egg sandwich I had for breakfast), I'd better go and lend a hand.  'Till later!

By the way - and just quickly before I go - here's the Jack Russell in zombie glasses that I promised all those Twitterers would see if they visited my blog.  There, I bet you're glad you did, now!  :)

Whoooooo - scary!

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