Review: Walden Farms Calorie Free Foods
Author: indianapoliseater | Filed under: At Home, Food ReviewsA few weeks later, I was intrigued enough to give this Calorie Free food a test figuring that it would be flavorless and awful. Since then, I’ve bought several of the other calorie free products and here’s my review of the products I’ve tried so far:
Bleu Cheese Dressing
Bleu Cheese Salad Dressing: This was my first purchase a few months back and what originally caused me to dive into my Walden Farms adventure. To preface this, I should say that I LOVE bleu cheese dressing. I love it on chicken wings, on salads, on celery and just about anything else that I can put it on. The one thing that has always killed me about bleu cheese dressing though is the fat content and calorie count. Because of this, I’ve always tried to curtail my usage whenever possible.
Honey Dijon Dressing
Honey Dijon Salad Dressing: This was adventure number two in my Walden Farms odyssey. This dressing was again watery (you’ll hear this a lot) and had a fairly weak taste (not the usual strong dijon-type bite to the taste) on my first use on top of a salad. I have to say that I was very disappointed. That said, I still had a lot of the bottle to go so I decided to mix it in with a batch of chicken fingers that I had made and it changed the entire complexion. When you mix this dressing with something that has a strong flavor (chicken fingers), it is an excellent compliment. When you mix it in with something that has a weak flavor (salad), you probably aren’t going to like it.
Caesar Dressing
Caesar Salad Dressing: Different from the first two, I’ve only had this on a salad and have not mixed it with any other products. That said, it was just okay. Again, it was watery and it lacked the peppery creaminess you get from ordinary Caesar dressing, but when you are trying to save calories, you have to make sacrifices. I wouldn’t recommend this one unless you really, really want to have a Caesar salad without the guilt of using Caesar dressing.
Peanut Spread
Peanut Spread: Okay, I admit it, I’m ADDICTED to peanut butter. I have it on sandwiches, celery and I eat it with a spoon straight out of the jar. In all honesty, peanut butter is one of my favorite things in the world and when I saw this offering at the store, I was INCREDIBLY intrigued. So intrigued, in fact, that I decided to open the jar in the car on the way home and scoop it out with my finger like I would with a normal jar of peanut butter. This was a mistake. This stuff has the texture of a semi-stiff pudding and is just flat-out weird. It does have a faint peanut taste, but it is not overwhelming like you get from regular peanut butter. Even with my bad experience of eating it straight out of the jar, I was willing to try it on a piece of bread to see if it changed anything and it did a world of difference (I also added a little Splenda on top of the peanut spread based on an online tip). While not nearly as good as normal peanut butter (nothing is), it does make a barely suitable alternative when put on top of something as a compliment and not when it is used as a primary ingredient.
Thick 'N Spicy Barbecue Sauce
Thick ‘N Spicy Barbecue Sauce: I know I’ve already brought up my skepticism regarding these products previously, but when I saw this one in the store, I was incredibly leery of how it might taste. But, for the purposes of this blog and the greater good of science (ha!), I decided to plod on.
Prior to tasting this, seeing a Walden Farms sauce/dressing described as “thick” brought a smile to my face. All my experience with these products has involved the word “watery” and I had no reason to believe this sauce would be any different. But, they were right about this being thick up to a point. That point is that it is thicker than all their other sauce/dressing products but it still has more liquidity than most, if not all, commercial barbecue sauces. As far as taste, it was moderately spicy and actually was pretty darn good. There are lots of barbecue sauces out there that are runny and still good, so I would consider this one to be in the same boat. I’m anxious to use it again.
Chocolate Syrup
Chocolate Syrup: If you’ve made it this far, you’ve probably already figured out that I’m weird (if you didn’t know that already from the blog). Because of my weirdness, I bought this chocolate syrup and decided to try it on top of some oatmeal. Again, it was watery, but of all the Walden Farms products that I’ve tried, this had the strongest taste and I was actually moderately impressed. It actually did taste like a dark chocolate and I’m anxious to try it on other types of foods like ice cream, pancakes, etc.
Would I Buy It Again? Yes, I’d probably buy all of them solely for the aforementioned fact that I’m always looking for ways to cut calories. I’m willing to sacrifice authentic taste (in most cases) in favor of an artificial substitute if it helps me accomplish that goal.
That said, if you aren’t as devout about cutting calories as I am, then these products probably aren’t for you. The only ones that have a taste worth eating (discounting the diet ramifications) are the bleu cheese dressing, barbecue sauce and the chocolate syrup. The others aren’t worth trying, although I will continue to taste the other Walden Farms products (they have more dips, sauces, etc.) in hopes of finding more winners. Maybe we’ll have a part two to this post farther down the line…
By the way, you can find these products either online at their website or you can use their store locator to find them at a grocery store near you. FYI, the prices for these run from about $3.50-$4.00 per bottle at my local stores (cheaper than their website). You can also find them for cheaper than that in most instances on Amazon.com.
-IndianapolisEater
Tags: barbecue sauce, bleu cheese, caesar, calorie free, chocolate syrup, diet foods, Food, honey dijon, peanut spread, walden farms
…so this stuff has literally NO calories? I don’t understand how that can be. I guess I’d be willing to sacrifice some flavor if it’s truly devoid of calories.
Yeah, if you read the label on the back it says ZERO calories per serving (some of them say that there is a trace of calories, but not enough to qualify as one calorie). I have no idea how that is possible either (yellow mustard has zero calories as well), but somehow they make it work. Chalk it up to the miracles of modern science.
I have to admit, I am shocked. I know indianapoliseater and his spending habits. When I saw the post I knew the product would be expensive, low calorie foods are almost always more expensive. After scrolling for half an hour to reach the bottom I couldn’t believe it was tested by indianapoliseater.
Yeah, the prices make me sad. But, in order to save the calories, I suppose it was worth it.
wait, no calories?!!! i went to the website. i’m stumped. i get how mustard is calorie free: herbs and vinegar. fine. but bbq sauce? i get no fat, but no calories? and cheese has so many calories. i’m curious to try the bleu cheese. i’m flabbergasted. and a little bit scared.
I had all the same emotions, but some of these are actually pretty decent. I had the bleu cheese on a salad last night and was once again happy with the taste (and saved 400+ calories).
Also had the peanut spread on a sandwich yesterday and while the taste wasn’t great, it did the job and saved me 200+ calories versus using regular peanut butter.
I am pretty sure that companies can call a product “calorie-free” if it contains less than 5 calories per indicated serving. I usually pretend each serving has 4 and extrapolate that to the entire bottle.
(Many mustards actually claim 5, not 0, by the way. Assume about 3 or 4.)
Even so, the Walden stuff still holds up pretty well compared to the alternatives. I’ll have to give ‘em a go and see if I can choke ‘em down!
Yeah, even so, I guess 2-3 calorie per serving peanut butter is crazy.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but for the peanut butter, I see a serving is two tablespoons and there are 12 servings in a jar. So the maximum number of calories in the 12 oz. jar is 48. That’s still pretty impressive. And done with these ingredients:
Triple Filtered Purified Water, Cellulose Gum, Salt, Corn Starch, Xanthan Gum, Natural Fresh Roasted Peanut Flavoring, Natural Peanut Extract, Peanut Flour, Caramel Color, Lactic Acid, Propolyene Glycol Alginate, Sucralose.
I just saw all of these at the grocery store today! They were all in a clearance cart near the dairy section. I think they were marked 99 cents per bottle. Why so cheap? Probably because I’m in Wisconsin…
While it’s great that they are lower in calories, I’m scared to know what they are actually made of. I see the ingredients that ChrisSh listed above for the peanut spread, and it looks like a whole lot of fake food.
Just like the “fat free” dressings, etc., that taste horrible, I would prefer to eat a smaller amount of something that is made with natural ingredients than to eat something calorie-free that is made of chemicals. Think about what you’re putting into your body and it might be better to put more calories in than chemicals. Just sayin’.
Oh, and don’t think I’m some organic-vegan wacko – I just ate an Egg McMuffin for breakfast, LOL.
I ‘ve eaten the ” calorie free” blue chesse dressing several times, and found your review to be dead on accurate. I love blue chesse dressing (the refrigerated kind, sold in the produce section. like Marie’s, O’ Charley’s etc… but not the 150 to 200 cals per serving. If you are expecting it to be like that, you will be very dissapointed. But It does have real flavor, just watery, as noted. Would I buy it again? well, yeah, for normal everyday use, to lose or maintain weight. But I would use the real stuff for special or holiday meals. I like real butter too, but usually eat promise or smart balance spread
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Haha! I loved your peanut butter story, I almost did the same thing with mine on the way home from the store! I feel absolutely the same way about peanut butter, but I am plodding through the jar, I eat it with apples and celery, just a little bit at a time, and it is bearable. The balsamic vineagrette is wonderful, and I love the BBQ sauce, however, be careful when it comes to the onion dip. It tastes somewhere between clay and play dough. Nasty! PS. the Caramel dip and Chocolate dip are wonderful!
I’ve actually had more of their products since this review and I could not agree more on the chocolate and caramel dips. They are awesome. The Caesar, Thousand Island and Creamy Bacon dressings aren’t bad either. I’ve even developed a taste for the Peanut Spread, so it just goes to show that anyone can force themselves to like anything if they really are dedicated to cutting calories.
Where in Minneapolis does anybody carry Waldon Farms products
@Pat: Check their website. I’m sure they have some store locators on there. If not, amazon.com sells Walden Farms products, as does the Walden Farms website.
I ordered several items but have only tried the peanut butter. In my opinion, it is awful . . . there is no other word for it — I don’t think it even resembles peanut butter! Very disappointing. . .
I just bought their Creamy Italian, that claims that there’s no sugar. It’ s digustingly sweet, and in the ingredients it has an element of sucrose, which is Suplenda or a derivitave of frustose. Huge sweetner! If they could balance it in their blend, it might not be so bad. Hell, if I want a bowl of sugar on my salad, I’d rather do that than use this fake stuff!. What a rip! Glad I bought this crap on sale.
Go back to the kitchen or lab – figure it out and come up with something conceivable!…like something that tastes Italian for our salads or marinades but not like a cannoli! (It actually has a good base. Try adding some of the right vinegar to it….?)