don't buy these things

Some products I'll never buy again:

watery, bland, and nasty

never again

smells good at first, but it's practically tasteless

never tried this one

I watch the Victoria's Keto Kitchen channel on YouTube; in one video, Victoria recommended the above-pictured Zevia brand of soda (made with Stevia, I believe, hence the brand name). The very first swig of the cherry cola tasted all right, maybe because I was in an optimistic mood. But the optimism very rapidly became disappointment, and I had to wonder whether Victoria had been paid to shill for the brand. It was, frankly, awful—watery and bland, with that unpleasant Stevia aftertaste.*

The Walden Farms fruit spreads weren't much better. When the two tubs pictured above arrived, I ended up throwing them away, asking for a refund, and ordering another pair of tubs—raspberry and blueberry this time. The reason was that the vacuum seal on both tubs had been broken in transit, thus filling my brain with fearful thoughts of botulism. Luckily, iHerb (from which I'd ordered the tubs) was quick about approving a refund. A few days later, the new tubs came... and once again, the vacuum seals had been compromised. I was in more of a fuck it mood at that point, though, so I tested both containers and didn't die after twenty minutes. The initial whiff of the jelly-like spreads smelled promising, but as with the Zevia sodas, the spreads proved to be bland and empty of real flavor, a common problem when it comes to store-bought, sugar-free products. Also, as with a lot of sugar-free products, I got the impression that these spreads were made to be used in conjunction with other products or ingredients, e.g., with butter or peanut butter or almond butter. I had also bought two kinds of low-carb chocolate/nut spreads (one almond, one hazelnut like Nutella); when I tried the fruit spreads with those, they tasted a bit better, so I still have both spreads in my refrigerator. I don't recommend either of them, though.

Overall, Victoria has proved to be hit or miss with her recipes and recommendations. I do like her "perfected keto flour" recipe for making my burger/dog buns, and I'm going to try making her keto pasta soon. But her recommendations of Zevia and Walden Farms products both strike me as duds. It's a rough world out there when it comes to keto, low-carb, and sugar-free recipes/products. A wary dieter has to spend a lot of time on trial and error. I don't think enough people talk about how much time and money can be wasted in the quest for decent diet foods, and given the subjectivity of people's tastes, it's a gamble when trusted influencers recommend certain products or recipes.

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*Despite the aftertaste, Stevia is one of the top doctor-recommended sugar substitutes because of its natural origins: it's a leaf extract, not an invented chemical. BochaSweet, which I like a lot more, is a natural kabocha-squash extract. The products made with BochaSweet are also hit and miss (God, those awful sodas), and there's the added disadvantage of how expensive the faux sugar is, plus the fact that you can't order it directly for delivery to South Korea: you need to use a mail-forwarding service like Malltail to receive it. When I was in the States recently, I bought myself a bunch of BochaSweet to take back with me in my checked baggage. I've got enough "sugar" to last me for months and months. I also ended up liking the pancake/waffle kit and the vanilla-cake kit, both of which I'd happily buy again. The chocolate brownies and chocolate-chip cookies, by contrast, turned out to be a letdown.