So in my second installment of Home Free cookies which follows my first tasting of Home Free’s mini chocolate chocolate chip cookies, I tasted a sample of their chocolate chip cookie:

This was a full-sized cookie as opposed to the mini sized ones.

Average sized cookie. If you hadn’t read my last post on the Home Free cookies, Home Free makes these cookies without using common allergens: there are no eggs, nuts or dairy ingredients and emphasizes whole grains. This cookie looks like a regular cookie, but there is defintely an “off” taste to it. I blame the barley flour. Not nearly as bad as Real Food Daily’s use of buckwheat flour, though! If you’re used to eating regular dairied/egged cookies like I am, the taste will hit you as a little odd at first but it only detracts from the overall taste in a minor way. I was very happy with the cookie to chips ratio. It’s not sweet, nor is it soft; eating this cookie gave me one of those experiences where parts of the cookie that I didn’t bite into (but were adjacent to parts of the cookie that I *did* bite into) broke off.

One cookie at 140 calories made with whole grains and sweetness derived from fruit juice = again, a healthy not-as-bad-for-you cookie (come on! It’s still a cookie.). This cookie and the mini chocolate chocolate chip cookie have almost the same nutritional content and my assessment can be viewed here.

• Taste: 7
• Crust and center moistness: very crunchy, a little dry
• Value: These individually wrapped regular-sized cookies for $1.79 a cookie or $16.90 for a dozen ($1.41 a cookie). 30 mini cookies go for $4.99 in select Whole Foods, Shaw’s and some institutions like schools and sports venues or $5.69 + S&H at www.homefreetreats.com. I think the price of each cookie in a dozen and the minis are a good price for a cookie that people with food concerns can eat.
• Overall: If you are picky about your food choices, or want a not-as-bad-for-you cookie, pick these up, totally worth it. This is one of the better cookies that I’ve tried that do not contain eggs, dairy or nuts. I personally would not buy this if there were other choices, but if they were in front of me I’d eat them. 7

I was totally STOKED when these came in the mail!! They are, and I quote:

…a brand of organic, ready-to-eat, whole grain cookies that solve the debate of nuts in schools as they are free of common food allergens including peanuts, tree nuts, dairy and eggs.

My favorite parts about these cookies:

• they’re organic
• they contain no common food allergens (there is soy lecithin in here though) and are vegan
• they are made with whole grains
• they are sans trans fats (and cholestorol but I don’t have to worry about that too much) and corn sweeteners

I first tried the mini chocolate chocolate chip cookies, because I could eat 6 of them for only 130 calories

They’re crunchier than I wanted, and by “crunchier” I really mean they are a bit dry. I couldn’t really taste the chocolate chips, but there is definitely a chocolatey taste all around. I would have liked to differentiate the chocolate chips from the rest of the cookie in my mouth, but I kept reaching for more quickly, one after the other, which says a lot. For some reason, for me, the law of diminishing returns didn’t apply; each cookie I ate was better than the last. Despite the lack of raw sugar in this cookie (sweeteners include cane juice crystals, 3rd ingredient listed) it still is really sweet and satisfied my after-lunch sweet tooth. Couldn’t tell that it was made from whole grains, although I will note that this cookie is “heavier” than other cookies (might be the barley flour).

Since this is a “healthier” cookie I will go into the nutrition facts. As mentioned above, it’s 130 cals for 6 minis — actually really good compared to regular cookies at 170+ calories a cookie. Only 20 carbs, but they’re whole grain, so that’s almost moot. Same with the 11g of sugars, most of which comes from the fruit juices and cane juice crystals. The rest — 1g fiber, 2g protein, 0% of all vitamins and minerals except for the 6%DV or iron, is negotiable with other cookies. I hesitate to say that these are healthy cookies since, they are, after all, cookies, but I will say that I know a thing or two about nutrition and these cookies are definitely not as bad for you as other cookies.

**UPDATE** I also sampled their regular chocolate chip cookie! Take a look at my review here: Home Free Chocolate Chip Cookie.

• Taste: 7
• Crust and center moistness: very crunchy, dry even
• Value: 30 mini cookies which is 5 servings for $4.99 in select Whole Foods, Shaw’s and some institutions like schools and sports venues; pretty darn good for a cookie with organic ingredients and few allergens. but if you can’t find them in store, they go for $5.69 + S&H at www.homefreetreats.com. They also have individually wrapped regular-sized cookies for $1.79 a cookie. That price is a little steep for me — I’d go with the minis, they’re more fun to eat too!
• Overall: If you are picky about your food choices, or want a not-as-bad-for-you cookie, pick these up, totally worth it. If not, they’d be good to try if you’re not craving a chewy chocolate chocolate chip cookie and they were convenient to obtain. 7

So Kashi, who makes some of my favorite cereals, has expanded into a few more areas. Frozen entrees, check. Crackers, check. Snack bars, and even pizza? Double check. COOKIES?! CHECK!!!

They have 3 varieties of cookies: Happy Trail Mix, Oatmeal Dark Chocolate and Oatmeal Raisin Flax. Of course I skipped over the oatmeal ones and got Happy Trail Mix:

Happy trail Mix. “Naturally Yummy.” “No Hydrogenated Oils – Zero Grams Trans Fat – All Natural.” SO natural, that in fact, they provide a “freshness” packet along with the cookies that you are instructed NOT to eat. Let’s see how this turns out…

So they’ve got this 3-part thing going on to their cookies. You open the box, then you gotta open the bag, then slide out the tray:

When I first picked up the cookie, I noticed it wasn’t hard like other cookies. It was pretty soft and I was holding the cookie very delicately in fear of smushing it.

(do you like that little sideways smiley we got here?)

It’s a good-sized cookie, keeping the calories at 130. I bit into it — ugh! a little oatmealy. Not as bad as Pepperidge Farm’s Crunchy Granola Cookies though. I actually got used to it really quickly. This cookie is bursting with different textures: 7 whole grains, sesame, raisins, coconut, peanuts, sunflower seeds, cranberries and walnuts are to thank. There’s crunch in the softness, and softness in the crunch. Also, don’t expect a sweet cookie, either; the only sweeteners here are evaporated cane juice crystals and honey. It tastes ok. Less than ok to me, because I hate oats (but I love granola..??), raisins and coconut. The coconut taste is pretty prevalent to me (maybe because I dislike it I notice it?) and I hit a raisin every once in a while.

Because Kashi is a “healthy” brand, let’s go into their nutrition facts. 130 cals for this snack, which is not bad. 4g fiber and 2g of protein, plus 7g of sugar… meh, I’ve seen worse. Not ideal, but I’ve seen worse in snack bars. My real beef with this cookie is that there are NO vitamins or minerals listed at all. For something that boasts “7 whole grains” I would really expect to find more nutrition in here. Compared to a regular cookie — let’s take Pepperidge Farm Soft-Baked Chocolate Chunk Milk Chocolate – it’s almost the same. 150 cals, 1g of protein and you even get 6% of your DV of iron. BUT you lack the 4g of fiber that Kashi has.

• Taste: 6
• Crust and center moistness: soft with different ingredients that crunch all over
• Value: 8 cookies for $3.49 at Target — pretty good
• Overall: I’ve got my anti-oatmeal working for me here, so I’d pass (I also hate raisins and coconut). The lack of real nutrition in this cookie doesn’t make me feel guilty when I choose to pick up another cookie instead. 6

I was so excited! It’s the first time I had ever eaten a raw cookie I found these at Whole foods for a [deep breath here] quite EXPENSIVE $7.99:

So going even further than my last cookie review, Michelle’s Naturally Vegan, I will review a raw cookie. Raw food is that which has been unadultered by the heating or freezing process. Raw foodists do not consume any meat, dairy or eggs. I have the back of the package here that shows the ingredients:

..not that you can read the ingredients, thanks to the flash. The raw fruit burst cookies only contain Organic Cashews, organic agave nectar, organic coconut oil, organic oranges, organic dried cranberries, organic raisins and sea salt. As you can see, nothing that has to be cooked and everything can be eaten fine in its purest form.

These cookies came inside a plastic bag with a zip top to keep these cookies fresh. Tiny cookies that literally look like what the ingredient list lists, all ground up and meshed together. However I couldn’t taste the different ingredients individually except that it had a distinct nutty flavor. The cookies were smooth, thanks to the cashews. They were soft, pliable with your fingers even. It didn’t have enough fruit in it; I wouldn’t have minded some extra whole dried cranberries to change up the texture and taste in every bite (I don’t like oranges or raisins so I’m fine with the little amount they put in there). The best thing I can compare this to would be a Larabar. Larabars are snack bars that contain only dried fruit and nuts so you can imagine the resemblance. This cookie tasted great; nothing like a regular cookie though. I think the only reason that this is called a cookie is because it’s round. Larabar could probably make a “cookie” out of the ingredients they make their bars with with this definition. Then we go into what makes a cookie? Combo of sugar and flour?

Anyway, that’s beside the point. I finished this package in about 2 days (didn’t want the fresh ingredients to go stale, you know…). All in all, they tasted great, but $8 at WF for a box of cookies hurt my wallet more than pleased my mouth and stomach.

• Taste: 7
• Crust and center moistness: very moist and soft all around
• Value: $8 for 8 raw cookies, 84 cals each; eat two and that’s 168 calories. There aren’t that many Raw companies out there, so when you consider the scarcity of products you’ll understand that Raw foods have to be on the pricier side. Not being a Raw foodist, I don’t have to eat these cookies; I actually think this is the most expensive cookie I’ve ever eaten. However, I can officially say I’ve eaten a raw cookie now though, so I have paid $8 to join this club. Therefore I will rank the value at a 2.
• Overall: I’ll have to do more “research” on Raw cookies to see if this brand is more worth buying than other Raw cookies. In terms of cookies in general, I’ll never pay $8 for a box of these cookies again. They are “healthier” than other cookies but.. come on, it’s a cookie. 6!

YES! Another cookie review! I came across this in the cookies aisle at Ralphs (I wandered over there from the produce section after I bought fruit and vegetables. Seriously. No, seriously, the layout has it so that the cookie aisle is RIGHT BEHIND the produce. What genius thought of that???) and HAD, HAD, HAD to buy them. And this is a chick who doesn’t normally buy things that aren’t on sale. But I had to. So here goes…

Pepperidge Farm has come out with a new-to-me line of granola cookies. I suppose it is their “healthy” line of cookies? I’ve never seen these kinds of cookies with granola in them; usually it’s oatmeal, and you guys already know how I feel about oatmeal *shudder*. I debated over the $3.99 pricetag, which then led to the question of which cookie I should try:

As you can see there are 4 types: Trail Mix, Triple Nut, Dark Chocolate Almond and Fruit & Nut. I immediately went for the Dark Chocolate Almond I’ve decided to let the nutritional information influence my decision on cookies in this blog since it usually does when I eat them. Therefore it’s worth mentioning that all of these cookies except the Dark Choc Almond had 140 calories per cookie while the Dark Choc Almond had 130. However, the Dark Choc Almond was lacking the tiniest bit in protein. I also am a huge sucker when it comes to dark chocolate so I had to pass up on the nuts and fruit ones.

Is it just me or are the cookies from PF getting smaller..? I suspect that because these cookies are “healthier” they had to lessen the portion size so that they can keep the calorie count low:

Fits right into the palm of my hand. I took the cookie out and my mom asked me to help move the printer — agh, the agony of suspense! After I finally helped her move the printer (along with some books too) I hesitantly bit into this cookie, thinking it was going to be oatmealy. The word “crunchy” on the package also sent images of crumbs falling faster than I can catch them too. Unfortunately, it is a bit oatmealy , but much better than oatmeal :/. The texture is really in between a regular cookie and a cookie with oatmeal in it. Secondly, to my surprise, it’s really not crumbly for how crunchy it is! The taste is definitely different, but I might be able to get used to it. As the major ingredients include “rolled oats, whole grains and steel cut oats,” it’s a lot meatier for a cookie. I understand that my standard for the amount of chocolate a cookie contains is high, but if you reference the picture above, you can see that there isn’t actually that much chocolate in that cookie. The distribution of almond bits was perfect; they blended in great with all those oats.

Now, the big question: would I buy it again? At a non-sale price of $3.99 for 8 cookies, it comes out to $0.50 a  cookie. It doesn’t taste as good as Michelle’s Vegan Cookies (review to come soon!!) which are a comparable 135 calories a cookie but a much more expensive $4.69 for 6 cookies pricetag ($0.71 a cookie). I’m going to have to just say it and vote no. The oatmeal-y / granola-y taste is too much for me (even though I love granola) and the small / medium amount of chocolate they include on the cookie is not enough to make up for it. <3 PF, and I’m happy they are deciding to introduce some “healthier” (in actuality I really mean “not as bad for you”) cookie options. To those of you who can do oatmeal: I urge you to buy these!

• Taste: 7
• Crust and center moistness: Crunchy, but not crumbly
• Value: $3.99 for 8 cookies, that’s ok. 130 calories per cookie, that is GREAT! 8
• Overall: I hate oatmeal but I love granola; this doesn’t do it for me. If you like oatmeal, then you’ll be pleased with this cookie. 7!

What do you think of the idea of a granola cookie? Way to stand out apart from the oatmeal crowd, PF! Have you tried any of the other 3? What do you think?