Chia Pod, Coconut Water Probiotic and Hot Lips Soda

Review on several products that I liked recently from the grocery store.

First, this Chia Pod snack.

It came in a small cup with many different flavors including this mango one that I had.

Chia seed was a healthful ingredient that was packed with very high amount of plant-based omega-3 fatty acids and lots of fiber.

It was very similar to the chia pudding that I got at Chaco Canyon minus the coconut milk.

The particular mango one tasted like Asian mango pudding with tapioca with a rice pudding consistency, and quite filling.

Chia seed products were not cheap and for about 6 oz. this cup cost about $3 on sale.

It was most definite an occasion healthy snack.

Next was the Good Belly probiotic coconut water.

I was very happy to find a non-dairy non-soy probiotic product — got the benefit of good bugs to aid in digestion without dairy and perhaps GMO soy.

Good Belly offered many fruit juice versions with probiotic as well; I figured coconut water was the better option with its high electrolyte content vs. fruit juice that mainly contained sugar.

This coconut water drink still had grape juice in it, perhaps to satisfy the sugar requirement for fermentation.

Its flavor reminded me of the Japanese yogurt drink that I grew up with called Yakult — a fermented milk-base yogurt drink — but much lighter, less creamy and more refreshing.

Mild coconut flavor with slight white grape flavor, it was still a little sweeter than my liking; nevertheless definitely enjoyable over ice or with extra fizzy water.

Finally, relatively “healthier” delicious soda from Hot Lips.

We seldom drink soda because at the end, it was still empty calories of sugar.

However, in the rare occasion hot days that we had been experiencing in the Pacific Northwest, Hot Lips were mostly definitely treats for us.

Hot Lips was a small pizza chain out of Portland, OR, and they bottled their own sodas that could be purchase at Total Wine or BevMo!

What made them highly coveted for me was the sodas were made with real fruit juice and certainly one of the cleanest ingredients one could find, usually contained sparkling water, fruit juice, lemon juice and cane sugar.

Juice content ranged anywhere from very low percentage for lemon and ginger (which were potent juices and understandably low amount of juice usage) to my favorite berry ones were about 10-15% juice to more than 90% for pear and cranberry.

Only the pear one was made with juice concentrate.

The fruits were all locally sourced in OR and native for us Northwesterners.

They had an array of flavors including exotic Marionberry, black raspberries, along with cranberries, pear, lemon and cherries to name a few.

On their website, they stated that they had special seasonal flavors on tap at their pizza stores — they were definitely on my to-go list next time I visit Portland.

My favorite was the Marionberry soda.

I loved that when I poured the soda into the glass, it was murky (black raspberries and red raspberries were also murky).

Literally as if berries where crushed into pulp, and fizzy water was added to it.

Beautiful purple color, with distinctive marionberry flavor, wild, light and refreshing, it felt like Pacific Northwest in a bottle.