Junk Food Nation, a brief NBA note: back in December, right when the NBA Season came back after a labor stoppage, I made some predictions about how I thought the playoffs would shape up. To sum up, here are the eight teams I thought would make it from the East: New York, Philly, Chicago, Indiana, Miami, Atlanta, Orlando, and Washington.

I got 7 of 8!  Not bad, except I massively botched picking Washington over Boston…Boston only finished in 1st place in the Atlantic Division, and Washington had the second worst record in the league.  Yup.

In the West, I chose: Dallas, Memphis, Clippers, Lakers, Golden State, Minnesota, OKC, and Denver. Yeah, 6 of 8 isn’t horrible, but putting in Golden State and Minnesota over San Antonio and Utah feel slike a major mistake in hindsight.  I even said the Spurs were too old.  They only tied for the best record in the entire league.  Ouch.

Still, guessing 13 of 16 playoff teams isn’t bad. I’ll revisit my predictions as the playoffs progress.

Today’s junk food may be the healthiest snack food I’ve eaten so far, with apologies to Snikiddy and Popcorn, Indiana.  The kind folks at Snacklemouth reached out and sent me a sample box of their products – five different flavors of their healthy granola nut clusters!  Today I’m going to review three of them: Peanut Cranberry, Almond Berry, and Almond Pecan Maple.

GAAAAH!  I know.  When I opened this box, it scared the shit out of me too.  As someone who doesn’t LOVE clowns or things that smile too much, these boxes definitely gave me the heebie jeebies.  Still, how could I be scared when they potentially contained deliciousness??

Snacklemouth is a funny word, too. For some reason, it reminds me of the Alice in Wonderland poem, regarding the Jabberwocky:

One, two! One, two! And through and through
   The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

The back of each of these Snacklemouth Granola Nut Clusters boxes contains this really cool description of the company’s origin.  Makes sense that these healthy granola snacks would come from a place like Denver, CO, what with their beautiful scenery and perfect hiking conditions.  So jelly over here.

Anyways, let’s get started.  I’ll kick it of with the Peanut Cranberry Snacklemouth.

The first thing you’ll notice about these Snacklemouth Peanut Cranberry Granola Nut Clusters is that they are crunchy and not very sweet…which is nice.  The agave syrup they use instead of sugar provides some nice sweetness, but there is no sugary taste to this granola. Usually when you eat a granola bar it’s loaded with syrup – this is reminiscent of Bear Naked Granola, which I also enjoy.

You get an immediate peanut buttery taste from the salty peanuts that makes the entire granola cluster taste a little sweet/savory. And then when you hit a nice juicy plump dried cranberry, it kind of tastes like a PB&J, to be honest. Very hearty, and the occasional almond gives this flavor many different layers. You definitely get more peanut taste with these than cranberry taste.

Next up: Almond Berry Snacklemouth!

With this flavor of Snacklemouth Granola Nut Clusters, I immediately got the taste of dried blueberries before anything else.  Distinctly sweet and somewhat tart, the dried blue berries mixed with the flavor of the granola and almonds quite well.  As the flavor of the dried blueberries faded, then the round nuttiness of the almond would emerge.  Don’t get me wrong – there were plenty of almonds in this batch. But I felt like even with clusters that appeared to have NO blue berries (or cranberries), I still got the sweet taste of blueberries with each bite.  These were really good.

And finally: Almond Pecan Maple Snacklemouth!

This variety of Snacklemouth Granola Nut Clusters was probably my favorite of the three.  As soon as I opened the package, the sweet sweet smell of pecan pie came wafting out.  And I LOVE me some pecan pie.

Keep in mind that ALL of these granola nut clusters are still only flavored with agave syrup.  Still, as I chewed these Almond Pecan Clusters, I was amazed at how sweet this was.  Maybe it was the combo of the raisins and pecans, but this cluster combo was really tasty. The combo of pecans and almonds gave these clusters a real hearty nuttiness that complemented the granola really well.  Throw in the raisins and dried crans and you had the perfect balance of nut and berry.  Unlike the previous two flavors, where I felt the balance was shifted to one side or another, this variety was in perfect balance.

Really really good.  I rank them (3) Peanut Cranberry, (2) Almond Berry, and (1) Almond Pecan.  Thanks to Snacklemouth for giving me a chance to try these!  The final two (new) flavors tomorrow!

Any thoughts? Tell me in the comments below or hit me on Twitter @junkfoodguy or on my Facebook Page.

Sincerely, Junk Food Guy