I nipped up to Safeway for some odds and ends last week, I don?t normally shop there, but it is handy sometimes as it is the nearest supermarket to me. I was standing in the crisp aisle about to pick up my usual 10 pack of Monster Munch, when this green, yellow and cream pack caught my eye. A closer inspection revealed that it contained 5 bags of Roast Beef Monster Munch (my favourite) and 5 bags of Vanilla Ice Cream Monster Munch. I was dubious at first as I thought it sounded disgusting, but I picked the pack up anyway, knowing that my boyfriend (who loves everything vanilla) would like to try them.

Got them home, and noticed that I could smell the vanilla aroma as I unpacked the shopping. As I sat down to watch some television, my boyfriend dived in and opened the pack of Vanilla. He ate a few of them, I looked over and saw him screw his face up, ?Odd?, I thought, ?he usually loves vanilla, and he loves Monster Munch, what can possibly be wrong?. He held the bag out to me, ?Try one?. Tentatively, I took a crisp and put it in my mouth. It was the most disgusting thing I have ever eaten, honestly, they should use them as a challenge on Fear Factor on Sky One.

The Packaging
Part of a multi-pack, the top part of the bag is green with the pink ?Roast Beef? monster and the cream coloured ?Vanilla? Monster. At the top left hand side it says ?Walkers Snacks?, in the usual Walkers logo. At the right hand side it says in yellow writing on a red background ?New Dinnertime Pack?. I don?t know if this means that you are supposed to put one Roast Beef bag in your kids lunchboxes as their crisps and the Vanilla one in as a dessert. That?s a bad idea if you ask me, because if you see the sugar and fat content in the bag, you will be shocked. At the bottom left hand corner it is yellow, with ?Roast Beef flavour? on a brown background. At the bottom right hand corner it says ?Vanilla? in blue writing, then ?Ice Cream Flavour? in red writing.

The indi
vidual crisp packets are blue at the top, again with the Walkers logo in the top left hand corner. Then you see the Vanilla Monster and ?Monster Munch? is written in green and red writing respectively. The bottom left hand corner says ?New? in a red banner with the writing in cream. It says ?Vanilla? in blue writing and ?Ice Cream Flavour? in red writing underneath this, in the bottom right hand corner.

On the back of the pack is the statistics about the new Vanilla monster; his name is Fabrizio, he is 1.6 metres and weighs 8465 litres ? no wonder with all that fat and sugar! His chest is ?variable?, his occupation is ?Chillin? out? and his favourite food is himself - don?t know why!

The Nutritional Information is shown on the left hand side of the packet. I am going to compare it against the Roast Beef Flavour so you can see how bad it is, be prepared:

Vanilla Roast Beef
Per pack (25g) Per Pack (25g)
Energy kj 551 498
Kcal 131 119
Protein g 1.1 1.7
Carbohydrate 15.0g 14.5g
OF WHICH SUGARS 3.8g 0.8g
Fat g 7.5 6.0
WHICH SATURATES 3.5g 2.8g
Fibre g 0.3 0.4
Sodium g 0.1 0.3

They are suitable for vegetarians, although I can?t possibly see anyone actually liking them. I decided to take the remaining bags into work and let everyone try them. They went down like a lead balloon, out of about 30 people, only about 2 said that they were ?Ok?. I even got my three nephews to try them, now the oldest one who is ten, eats absolutely anything. Guess what, even he hated them!

I suppose I should try and describe the taste and smell to you. I kept back one bag, to jog my memory when I came to write this op as I requested it especially. Okay, Im bracing myself to open the bag now.

Right,
the bag is now opened and I am surrounded of a strong vanilla smell, which is very similar to Ice Cream Soda. It just does not smell like a packet of crisps should smell.

Okay, I have taken a glass of water (to cleanse my pallet). I have a tissue ready so I can spit. The crisp is now in my mouth, it has all the texture you would expect from these baked corn snacks. As I start to chew, I can taste a very sweet crisp, with the vanilla flavour coming through. This is simply now how a crisp should taste. When I was asking around at work for comments on the flavour, all I tended to get was ?Yuk?, or ?Gads? (a term we use up here in Aberdeen, meaning yuk, not sure if I have spelt it properly). But a couple of people compared it to ?sweet popcorn?, or ?those corn pops cereals?. I wasted around £1.79 on this multi-pack, although at least I got my Roast Beef.

My overall verdict is, do not buy these crisps for the following reasons:
They are absolutely disgusting
They are practically one third fat
They are almost half sugar
They leave a horrible aftertaste
They are simply not how crisps should taste.

Thanks for reading, I apologise if this is a bit long, it just shows you how strongly I feel about these crisps.

Leigh :)
P.S. I would like to hear if anyone else has tried them and likes them.