General Mills Simply Fruit snacks

The best surprise you could give Child Me was a packet of fruit snacks in my lunchbox. It was as close as you could get to giving me magic every lunch. Well, some things never change. I still love fruit snacks, but I'm a little more careful about them now. A lot of fruit snacks - while undeniably tasty - are also full of things that have nothing to do with fruit.

General Mills is changing that with their Simply Fruit line of fruit snacks.

The two varieties of Simply Fruit snacks that I've seen are Fruit Roll-Ups and Twists. The Fruit Roll-Ups are extremely reminiscent of the all natural fruit rolls that Dave used to get me when I was a kid. Child Me liked them more for their sticky, real-fruit taste instead of the plasticlike texture of regular brand name Fruit Roll-Ups, and these Simply Fruit ones are just like the offbrand organic ones he got me then, right down to the way they leave my hands sticky and a little gross feeling after I'm done eating them.

The Twists are a little easier to eat, because I can leave them in the wrapper as I nom them. These are also really good: full flavored and real tasting, almost overpoweringly fruity, and not at all sickeningly sweet.

The best part about these? They're the same price as their artificially flavored, plastic-y brethren. Each roll/twist is made of all natural ingredients with no bullshit or questionable qualities to them. Fruit juices and purees, fruit pectin, and natural flavor is all that goes into these babies, and it shows. The end result is a solid fruit snack that kids will like and grown ups can approve of. (And enjoy themselves if you're like me.)

Each roll has 50 calories; each twist has 60.