Not really for diabetics............. ...... (Natural Orange & Lemon Flavoured Jelly Slices)

Member Name: i_am_joy

Product:	Natural Orange & Lemon Flavoured Jelly Slices
Date:	29/05/08 (83 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: They taste lovely and have authentic flavours

Disadvantages: Very sugary

I have not seen orange and lemon jelly slices for so many years that I had completely forgotten about them until I had a glimpse of someone eating them on one of the soaps, I couldn't get them out of my mind so did not rest until I had sourced and bought some.

I struck gold on about the third shop I tried and saw a rather cheap looking box of Orange & Lemon Flavoured Jelly Slices made by a company called Natural. Priced at only 89p I was not imagining they were going to be anything special but my craving was so strong that I bought a pack anyway.

For my 89p I got a box containing 14 jelly slices, nicely arranged in the plastic tray alternating between orange and lemon with a round piece of orange jelly in the centre. Unfortunately I have diabetes and cannot eat the quantities of these slices that I used to consume some 20 years ago when they were a staple Christmas treat, but I allowed myself a couple of slices of each flavour - and of course that round piece in the middle was just crying out to be eaten!

The slices as you can see in the picture above are made to look like real slices of orange and lemon and I must say they taste very authentic too. They are all a uniform size and shape and generously coated with sugar which adds much needed sweetness to the quite tart tasting jelly.

The orange slices taste lovely with a delicious citrus tang which hits you as soon as you start chewing. These slices put me in mind of premium priced orange ice lollies because they have a sugary taste which underlies the bitterness of the flavour of real oranges.

The lemon ones are not quite so real tasting because who would want to eat a jelly slice flavoured with real lemon? That would be awful, so Natural have created a blander lemon flavour that is more well rounded than fresh lemon and without the natural sour flavour of the fruit. These are very similar to lemon flavoured sorbet and are lovely and tangy.

Considering how much sugar these jelly slices contain I do not find them terribly sickly as I thought I would. I don't think I could manage to eat anything like a full box, but this is more to do with the fact that all the sugar and sweetness of these slices makes my teeth and gums a little sore. They have the lovely moreish consistency that only jelly sweets can give you, you need to chew them for a while before swallowing and the jelly gradually congeals into itself to give a thick sugary syrup type of jelly which is a joy to swallow.

Nutritional details are not given on the box, but considering the two main ingredients are sugar and glucose syrup I would not say these would be the best thing to eat all the time from both a weight point of view and also they would not do your teeth very much good!

Summary: Remember these?