Tag Archives: pumpkin spice products

HOSTESS PUMPKIN SPICE TWINKIES

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Welcome to day 23 of Tag Sale Tastes’ Pumpkinpalooza!

Today I tried Hostess Limited Edition Pumpkin Spice Twinkies, described as “golden sponge cake with pumpkin spice creamy filling.”

IMG_6900I was really torn about whether to buy these.  The picture on the box did not look appealing — kind of like a post-apocalyptic corn dog.

The ingredient list did little to persuade me to buy these:

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Vegetarians, and probably non-vegetarians, will be disappointed, maybe even shocked to see “beef tallow” and “hydrogenated beef tallow” among the ingredients.  According to my research, beef tallow is primarily used in producing soap and animal feed.  What is it doing in Twinkies?

Each box contains 10 individually-wrapped Twinkies:

IMG_6903Here’s a Pumpkin Spice Twinkie:

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A look at the filling:

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Between the beef tallow and the flesh-colored filling, I was not looking forward to biting into the Twinkie.  And my instincts were right.  These were downright nasty — a word uniformly used by my other tasters (including my friend Joe, who accidentally sampled the Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Flavored Dog Treats and, I think, found them preferable to the Twinkies).  The sponge cake part was fine, but the unpleasant artificial flavors in the filling came through loud and strong.  Shaking my head.

Rating:  1 pumpkin (out of 5)

TRADER JOE’S PUMPKIN FLAVORED DOG TREATS

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Welcome to day 22 of Tag Sale Tastes’ Pumpkinpalooza!

Today my dogs tried Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Flavored Dog Treats, because really, they should have in on the fall fun too:

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Check out this ingredient list — pumpkin, molasses, cinnamon.  No shellac?  No artificial and natural flavors?  No food coloring?

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These sound better than most of the pumpkin spice products I’ve sampled this month.  I think they might be right when they say that the ingredients “are so pure and tasty that you could even sneak one yourself if you must.”

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But . . . probably not a great idea.  I sent some to my friend Joe in a bag marked “DOGS” along with some other pumpkin spice leftovers, and he accidentally tried one of the dog treats.  He said they were very hard and not very good.  🙂

The biscuits are pretty large, and very hard:

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Let’s see what Jasper and Maisy, my pumpkin-spice colored dogs, think of them:

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Jasper would have given them two thumbs up, if he had thumbs:

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And Maisy said they were A-OK:

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Both dogs loved them.  Props to Trader Joe’s!

Rating:  5 pumpkins (out of 5)