Repulsive falafel mix in a box. (Granose Meat-free Falafel mix)

Member Name: worst_trip

Product:	Granose Meat-free Falafel mix
Date:	15/10/09 (56 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None - please see attached review.

Disadvantages: Taste of not much then make you feel sick. Lower nutritional value as made from breadcrumbs. Horrid.

Paper does indeed take on anything, which must be why the people who make Granose Meat-Free Falafel Mix have gotten away with describing their product as: 'a middle-eastern snack made from chick peas' so far.

Some people would argue that the strictly accurate definition of falafel is that they are: 'a middle-eastern snack made from BROAD BEANS' but for the purposes of this review, that is neither here nor there. Even sticking with the chick pea definition, in the case of Granose Meat-Free Falfel, it is still totally misleading.

This is because, according to the ingredient list on the back of the Granose packet, chick peas, far from being the main component of these horrendously bad falafel, only contribute 21% of the constituents. By a large margin what these atrocious falafel are made of is whole-wheat bread crumbs. 31% of the Granose falafel is in fact bread-crumb-based. Therefore I'd surmise that in addition to not being very nice to eat, they're not even particularly 'good for you' - in a 'look at me here eating my vegetarian pulse-based lunch' sense.

The Granose product is supplied dried, in two sachets per box to which you add water and mix. After standing for 10 minutes or so, the falafel mix is ready to be shaped into balls and fried in oil. According to the cooking directions on the box, each sachet purports to make 6 falafel, but this is an overwhelmingly generous over-estimate. If you like your individual falafel to be closer in size to actual chick peas, instead of proper falafel-sized, then I would say that's about the only way that that estimate of 'makes six falafel per sachet' could ever be said to be anywhere near accurate. One box containing two sachets of the dried falafel ready-mix costs about £1.50 from your local health-food shop, so it's not expensive, but still not cheap for what's effectively a box of mostly breadcrumbs.

Once fried in oil these falafel are light and crunchy / saturated with oil on the outside, but on the inside have much the same loose texture as cooked 'Paxo' sage and onion stuffing mix, which shouldn't come as much of a surprise to anyone, since both products share the same basic dried breadcrumb main ingredient.

Though the taste of these falafel isn't terribly strong at first, oddly, it gets much stronger after they have been eaten. I was tasting the three from the half 'makes 6 falafel' sachet I ate for lunch all afternoon and the effect grew increasingly unpleasant as the day wore on. By teatime I was seriously considering sticking my fingers down my throat to bring an end to this apparently endlessly repeating falafel taste-effect; I stress that this is not the kind of thing I usually do - unless I have reason to suspect that I have inadvertently eaten crushed glass or been food-poisoned, or something silly like that. This is a most unsavoury detail to include in the review I realize, but one I feel I have to mention in substantiation of how dreadful I thought these Granose Falafel were.

I threw away the second sachet of Granose falafel mix unopened, of course.

It is entirely possible to buy very good, convenience / ready to mix falafel in boxes quite cheaply (personally, I would advise against buying anything that costs less than £1.99 per box), but Granose's product is nothing like good falafel should be. They ought to be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for marketing this rubbish.

Summary: If these are the only falafel you're able to get hold of, give up.