Diet Food Reviews

Walden Farms Apple Butter

By: Ellen | Jul 23, 2009

Walden Farms products are definitely hit or miss (and maybe a little bit more miss than hit), but that hasn't deterred me from being adventurous (some would say foolish) in trying their products. Take today, for example, when I decided on a whim to purchase the Walden Farms Apple Butter. Would it taste as artificial as the others, or would this one hit the right notes? I couldn't wait to find out.

The first thing I did was scan the ingredient list to see what I was in store for, and I was met with lots of chemical-sounding compounds. I must say, though, I expected no less from a zero-calorie product. Those ingredients are: triple filtered purified water, apple flavor, dehydrated apple, natural flavors, sucralose, citric acid, cellulose gel, and xanthan gum. Actually, I think most of those are in there to give this product its jam-like consistency, so maybe it's not as artificial as it could be.

I cautiously opened the product and took out a spoonful. I know it seems strange that I chose to eat it straight, but I wanted to get a sense of what it tasted like on its own before using it as a topping or spread. I must say, I was very surprised and pleased with the taste! The apple flavor was surprisingly real (I guess that's because it actually has dehydrated apples in it), and it had a little bit of a cinnamon-like kick at the end. The consistency isn't quite as thick as jam, but then again apple butter generally has somewhat of a different consistency to begin with. It's more of a jello-like texture, but once it's spread on something, you don't notice it. I smeared some on a slice of bread and added peanut butter to another slice for a delicious sandwich.

The nutritional information is straight 0's for everything. Bear in mind that the ingredients add a trace amount of calories, and that for a product to be called zero-cal, it can have have up to 4 calories per serving.

It's true that many jams are made in 10-calorie formulations these days, and they're significantly less expensive than the $4.29 price of this one, so I'll probably stick with those. However, it was nice to find a Walden Farms product was palatable!

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