I know I shouldn't but I do love Haribo sweeties, normally I'm more of a Tangfastics fan but at the weekend I treated my nephew to a bag of his favourite sweets which are the Starmix variety of Haribo. Being the little champ that he is, he kindly shared his sweets with me and I have to say I really enjoyed them. I bought the 275g bag of sweets in Sainsburys for £1.00, they normally sell for £1.35 in there but at the moment they are on special offer and this is when I tend to buy them. They are available in loads of places though including supermarkets, Wilkos and Home bargains. Although they do cost a bit more than supermarket own brand equivalent, I would say that the extra cost is worth it in terms of quality.

The Starmix sweets come in an attractive blue bag, with a big red haribo logo and a picture of a small boy in a rocket. I think the packaging is appealing to both adults and children. There is a clear panel on the front of the bag so the coloured sweeties are visible so you can see what you are getting. On opening the sweets my nephew and I were met with a waft of sweet fruitiness, we both delved into the bag to pick out our favourites, everyone always has a favourite don't they?

My favourite is the good old cola bottle, a cola flavoured jelly sweet shaped like a mini cola bottle. When I was younger I used to enjoy biting the top of the bottle and pretending to drink the cola (ok, this sounds a bit weird now). These yummy bottles really do taste of sweet cola and are very chewy. They really give your jaw a good workout. My nephew's favourite is the fried egg which is a sweet, amazingly shaped like a fried egg. It has a round white foam upon which sits its small yellow jelly yolk. Again, there is a lovely contrast between the soft white foam and the chewy yellow jelly. Mrs B's favourite, like many girls is the red and white hearts, so I make sure I always save her one. These pretty looking heart shaped sweets have a strawberry flavoured jelly on their top and white foam on their bottom. You get the chewiness from the jelly and then the softness from the sweet creamy foam. Now that's everyone's favourites sorted it leaves me with the two remaining sweets in the Starmix pack, these being the jelly rings and the jelly bears. The bears are just that, different coloured jellies shaped like tiny bears, so tiny I can eat a few at a time. These are delicious, especially the orange ones though they are quite chewy. Lastly, the two toned ring, I'm sure there are many people including myself who have either tried the ring on there finger (luckily they do stretch) or given it to somebody else to wear. Once you do get round to eating them they give off a tasty fruitiness which is very addictive.

Unfortunately, for any vegetarians these sweets are not suitable. They are gluten free and also free from artificial colours. I won't list all of the nutritional content (nutrition, what nutrition) but suffice to say these sweets, as to be expected are full of sugar, 100g contains 344 calories and 0.2g of fat. Therefore it really is best to share a bag of
these sweets :O)