Taste of Penn Part VI: NuGo Nutrition Bars

This is part of the series about the Taste of Penn.

I got/am still pretty sick with a cold/cough/fever/snot flowing out of my nose so I decided to curl up and burn and freeze (oh fevers.) while reading The Da Vinci Code instead of blogging last night. The last time I had read The Da Vinci Code was the night before/up to when I turned 13. It's kind of weird reading it again, because I had missed many facts and I think I misunderstood some of the plot line, too. Or, well, I guess I read it with both more skepticism and an open mind this time (if that makes sense. Skepticism, because "APPLE" was a really obvious answer (although factually incorrect, I think?, because the Bible never mentions an apple. It mentions fruit, yeah, but not apples), and everything is just implausible and bombastic. Open mind, because I guess I know more about religion now and I see each character in a more neutral light now than I did before. I guess the worst part of growing up for me is that I stop believing in fiction, and Dan Brown isn't that cool to me anymore.

Anyway.

My last blog post about the Taste of Penn concerns NuGo Nutrition.

In all honesty, I nearly skipped going to this table, because I figured it'd be something like Zone bars or Balance bars, and I'm not really interested in them. But I had pretty much looked around at all the other tables, so I decided to take a sample from NuGo and ask the cliche question. The representative sounded pretty knowledgeable. "We use REAL dark chocolate. You know where we get our cooca from? The best place from chocolate in the world. Java." (At least, I think that's what he said. I apologise if my memory is a bit off).

And that sparked my curiosity, because nutrition bar companies don't usually boast about the chocolate part of the bar. They usually boast about the protein content or glycemic index.

The representative at the table and I ended up talking a lot. Dude dislikes Zone bars too, when I mentioned them. "You know what's in those things? Chocolatey coating! Not real chocolate!", which is actually kinda true since a lot of chocolate flavoured nutrition bars don't have any real chocolate; it's all chocolate flavouring. A few years ago, the Hershey Kissables were labelled as chocolate candy, and not actual chocolate because there was no actual chocolate (cocoa) present in the candy. Likewise, many companies, to cut costs, don't actually use real chocolate in their chocolate flavoured products; it's just this really cheap, weird-textured waxy sweet stuff that offers no flavour, but visually looks like chocolate (and I didn't copy that from the pamphlet, but it appears that the pamphlet used the same adjectives to describe it. Funny.). And, being visual consumers, we buy into it.

According to the pamphlets, there are 7 subsets of NuGo, each catered to a certain audience. At least the CRISPY CAT brand touts itself as a candy bar as opposed to some healthy granola bar, which Kudos sort of advertises. In looking at the nutrition label of the mint flavoured NuGo Dark, which the representative gave me for free (Whoot!), I think that it's pretty comparable to Clif Bars; 10 g protein, around 200 calories, 5 g fat...

I was pretty happy with the representative's knowledge. I asked him why only some of his bars had the "USDA Organic" label on it, and he said that most of the bars ARE basically organic, but they aren't certified because it costs a lot of money. TRUE.

He then agreed with me that Clif Bars are pretty much the only other company that offers nutrition bars made with "better/more natural" ingredients. They also retail at Penn for similar prices: $1.89 for Clif Bars, and a purported $1.79 for NuGo Bars (they haven't come out at Penn yet). Either way, it's more expensive than buying Clif Bars at Shoprite or Costco, because Penn Dining likes to rip us off.

In all honesty, I prefer Clif Bars over NuGo Bars because they taste better, but that's just a personal preference. The nice side of NuGo compared to Clif is that they aren't ridiculously sweet. Then again, I do have my cold and everything tastes less delicious :( Having a cold and eating food is like sleep-eating (not that I've ever done any sleep-eating, but Chowder has, in one episode): you eat all the food, but you don't get to enjoy it.

One issue I have with one of the pamphlets is: "The vegetable fat in fake chocolate is an unhealthy saturated fat that raises bad cholesterol". Oh my bad, palm oil is apparently high in saturated fat, according to Wikipedia.

At some point, the representative mentioned the whole thing about various companies starting out with good ideas, e.g. the South Beach, Kellogg's - the people who started these diets all had this whole natural, fresh foods diet, but now, the stuff "they", as a company, sell is pretty unhealthy.

Since I might end up working for some food company, I asked the representative about his job. He said that he majored in Management and he gets free NuGo bars. Another business major?! Whyyy!?! As a science major, will I always be in the shadows, 7 degrees away from the free food and outward face of the company? It seems like every food company I check out wants business majors!

I think this is a sign that I should go to med school :(

Dude isn't this pretty?

Taste of Penn Part I: Overview

In order to generate student enthusiasm/democracy in choosing the vendors for next year's Penn Dining program, Bon Appetit (our caterer) decided to sway all the current people on a dining plan with this huge food-free-for-all. To the typical student, it was just a mountain of samples. I noticed that a lot of students actually were paying attention to the vendors' speeches, although most just walked around, picked up samples, and left. Of course, it was a subtle advertising gimmick because JT, who complains about Commons food--okay, don't we all--, said that "this would be the only reason I'd get a dining plan next year", which of course is a hyperbole, but it still shows how stealthy/skilled businesses are at manipulating us.

The theory was that students would sample food from vendors and choose the ones that they wanted in next year's dining halls. Because I have connections went to a "student focus group/give your opinions of the dining plans" dinner a few months ago, I had the marketing manager's email, so I contacted her about the list of caterers because I really couldn't remember them all. She emailed me back with this list:

Against the Grain, Applegate Farms, Organic Beef Stadium Hot Dogs, Barilla, Dr. McDougall's Right Foods, Flint Hill Farm, Food Should Taste Good, General Mills, Jack and Jill, Kegel's Produce Incorporated, Kellogg's, Kiss My Face Corporation, Lundberg Family Farms, Market Access Culinary, NuGo Nutrition, Pulmuone Wildwood, Inc., Rockland Bakery, Smithfield, and Springfield Creamery/Nancy's.

There was also a Danish bakery (with a Danish name that I can't recall) that didn't have its name on the list.

The ones in bold are the vendors with whom I talked (yes, discussions happened.). The ones that are italicized AND bold are links, meaning that I'm going to make a separate blog entry about them, because I spent more than 5 minutes talking to them, and they showed me some interesting perspectives in the food marketing world (why am I a Biology major? Why am I not transferring into Wharton?).

I didn't bother talking to every vendor because

1. Applegate Farms, Organic Beef Stadium Hot Dogs, and Smithfield had animal flesh products.

2. Barilla sells pasta. There is always Barilla pasta in my house for some reason. It's not that novel for me.

3. Food Should Taste Good's representative wasn't present at the table so I just grabbed some chips and moved on.

4. Jack and Jill had one representative who was occupied with scooping ice cream for other people. Jack and Jill is currently the ice cream vendor in all of Penn's dining halls. A few months ago, I checked the ingredients list on its website and pretty much every flavour has HFCS (speaking of which, I will blog about my Nutrition paper later) and, again, ice cream like this isn't exactly novel.

5. Kiss My Face Corp. isn't a food company. I just took the free lip balms and soaps.

6. Kegel's and Market Access Culinary... I know one of the vendors in the list is responsible for making the fries at our dining halls, and I suppose it's either of these two, but I can't remember. I did ask how they make waffle fries, and the representative said something about using a special type of potato cutter, but it was pretty vague.

So now, I will talk about the vendors in bold.

1. Against the Grain - gluten-free bakery products.

Using tapioca and other flours as a base, the gluten-free baked goods by Against the Grain were amazing! The quality of the raisin bagel and cheese pizza were really high, and honestly tasted like wheat flour bread! Sure, it was a little dryer, dense and glutinous, but the overall flavour and texture was strikingly similar to wheat flour baked goods; there were holes, the bread was squishy, and it could be toasted! While I was chewing my bagel piece, I listened to the representative talk to two other girls about gluten-free baking. One of them asked whether a gluten-free diet was healthier compared to a gluten-including diet. This was the moment I was waiting for! I wanted to see how the representative would answer this question. Would he lie and say that gluten-free foods are healthier, in order to sell his product? Would he claim that gluten makes us fat? Would he say that gluten is a nasty chemical?

No!

He said something along the lines of, "Well, celiacs are allergic to gluten. You know, some people say that gluten-free is associated with [certain health stuffs], but there really isn't enough scientific evidence to say for sure".

Now that's what I want to hear.

2. Flint Hill Farm

The representative showed us a video of cows and fed us some cheese and buttermilk. I don't think that I like buttermilk (I've never had it before)... The mozzarella was pretty good, and Flint Hill Farm apparently supplies the mozzarella in my sandwiches when I get Express at the dining halls. I don't recall much, but there was a lot of clutter on the desk advertising the farm...

3. General Mills

I was unaware that I was at the General Mills table when the representative offered me some oat bars. There were two types; the original soft-baked one, and a chocolate chip one. Both were pretty standard. I asked him what made his company stand out, and he said "well, all the brownies in your dining hall come from us, using this brownie mix here, and these bars come premade; all you have to do is bake them."

So our dining halls don't actually make the desserts from scratch. Not cool, in my humble opinion.

4. Kellogg's

Apparently Kellogg's makes the black bean burgers at the dining halls. I ate a sample of quesadilla with a mashed-up-black-bean-burger-patty filling, which kinda defeats the purpose of it initially being a burger patty. The representative offered me a recipe that I declined.

5. Rockland Bakery

To further ruin my impression that the dining halls make their own desserts, I learned that Rockland Bakery basically makes all the baked goods beforehand, and our dining halls just bake/defrost them. Also, apparently Rockland Bakery makes cherry cheesecake and lemon bars, which I have yet to see in our dining halls! What is it with feeding us hard sugar cookies instead of cherry cheesecake!? In response to "What makes your company cool?", the representative told me, "Well, we supply all of your desserts". Sigh. I did tell her that I loved the key lime pie that they make, but she looked at me skeptically and said "Uh huh." and offered me more dessert.

6. The Danish Bakery

I'm not super fond of danishes with jam in the middle, but the one I had was ridiculously buttery and flavourful. The jam was pretty tart too, and everything was so flaky I was scared that I'd end up having to eat the pastry with a spoon. When asked "What makes your company cool?", the representative told me that all the butter comes from Denmark (pastries are shipped here frozen), where the cows are fed a ton of grass and such and are therefore super fat. All that milk from the cows also comes from the winter, when the cows are even more fat, making the butter super fatty, flavourful, and nutrient dense (compared to other butters, of course). I don't know how truthful this all is, but the danishes were definitely pastry, not bread. Rockland Bakery danishes taste like smooshed dense white bread with glaze and jam. This company's danishes taste like flaky pastry with a nice crispy sugary touch on the exterior, and more airy pastry in the interior.

The other vendors will be the topics of other blog entries.

If I ever become a food writer/critic/socialite, this is what I envision my job to be: going to trade

shows/expos/food sample events and just taking free stuff. However, chances are that I'm just gonna be working in a lab.