Full disclosure: I received samples from these folks for review. I receive no other compensation.
I get quite a few e-mails from places that would like me to review products on the blog. Most of them are products that I wouldn’t want to sample or to recommend. Just because it’s labeled healthy doesn’t mean it is healthy, and when it comes to recommendations, my standards are pretty high.
I received an e-mail regarding Funky Monkey snacks and after checking out their website, I decided to give them a try.
They sent me Bananamon, Purple Funk, and MangOJ.
The concept behind these snacks is very simple: fruit with a spice or juice along with it, freeze-dried. Bananamon = banana + cinnamon; Purple Funk = banana + açai; MangOJ = mango + orange juice. That’s all. Two ingredients.
Added bonus: all of the ingredients are organic.
They advertise as “fruit that crunches” and it does! I suppose this is a result of it being freeze-dried instead of sun-dried or dehydrator-dried.
These snacks are fruity and crunchy — not quite crunchy enough to be comparable to potato chips made from fruit, but pretty crunchy.
For my own personal tastes, these are not a snack I would buy to munch on every day, mainly because I’d rather have regular ol’ fruit. However, these would be a great snack to keep in my desk at work or in the diaper bag for when I’m hungry and didn’t pack a snack — places where I can’t just leave fruit until I need it because it rots.
I think these would also make a great snack for kids. They’re vegan and completely nut-free, accommodating most special diets. Do your kids eat fruit snacks? See if you can sneak these into the rotation — they’re much healthier than the gummy snacks otherwise available.
Bottom line recommendation: give them a try!
