Junk Food Nation, today is the LAST DAY to enter my Q Kola giveaway!  Go forth and tweet tweet tweet!

Also, a quick rant about my office breakroom.  It’s a place where sometimes people leave food things for others to have.  Like a typical breakroom, people will bring in donuts, or extra desserts they don’t want to keep around the house.  I once saw protein bars and another time a few open bags of chips.  They all go on the same table.  And usually, it’s fine. And usually – I indulge.  Yeah that was me you saw sneaking three donuts back to his office.

But there are things I draw the line at:

1)      OPEN SODA BOTTLES.  Yeah, I don’t care if there’s more than 50% left in an open 2-Liter bottle…I get weirded out by drinking someone else’s liquid unless I saw it being opened and poured, etc.  Don’t ask me why.  Call me a germaphobe…but how do I know someone hasn’t backwashed into this bottle a couple of times? I used to drink straight from a 2L bottle when I was a teen – who knows what happened with this one!  Not ok. Nope.  Even weirder if the bottle left in the breakroom is a half full 1L bottle, or smaller volume.

2)      LEFTOVER CHINESE FOOD. Yikes. Why the heck is this being left in the breakroom.  I DEFINITELY don’t know how old this is, and why would you think anyone wants a room temp open box of half eaten lo mein?  When I see this, I am not going to “help myself,” I’m going to throw it in the trash. Filthy.

3)      FRUIT TRAYS. This is generally ok if the fruit just came from another office gathering.  But when the fruit tray is loaded with just pink liquid from the watermelon section, and all the leftover cantaloupe and pineapple is just sitting in a 2 ml pool of liquid…..GROSS.  Firebomb that sh*t.

How about you, Junk Food Nation? What kind of things do YOU find UNACCEPTABLE to be left for others in the breakroom? Let me know in the comments below.

Today’s goods come from CVS Gold Emblem!

CVS Gold Emblem

CVS recently mailed me another care package full of goodies from their Total Home and Gold Emblem line of products.  Plus, instead of a football helmet, this time CVS gave me a nice summer-y insulated lunch bag!  The Junk Food Gal snatched this up immediately.

Besides the snacks/drinks, they are sent me some napkins and disinfectant wipes. Hey why not?  Let’s go through what they sent me that WAS edible.

CVS Gold Emblem

CVS Gold Emblem

First up is this CVS Gold Emblem Sparkling Strawberry Kiwi beverage.  I have to admit – I went through a period of time where I drank a TON of these, or things like it – every grocery store has their own version of it.  Usually, all the artificial sweetener gave me a HUGE HEADACHE, which is why I STOPPED drinking these years ago.  Still, this one looked pretty good, although the eerie green color sort of weirded me out.  It had a nice strong strawberry flavor, and a nice kiwi aftertaste.  For being somewhat artificial, the flavor profile was spot on.  No sugar, and honestly, didn’t taste THAT artificial.  The Junk Food Gal found it to be too sweet, but I thought it was pretty good.

CVS Gold Emblem

CVS Gold Emblem

CVS Gold Emblem

Next – CVS Gold Emblem Dried Mediterranean Apricots.  I like dried fruit – I mean, who doesn’t? The drying of the fruit ups the sweetness as the sugar is concentrated. It’s nature’s candy, right? Am I right? (crickets.) Ok, whatever.  These dried apricots were pretty standard if you’ve had dried apricots before – chewy, and full of apricot flavor.  I don’t know what makes these Mediterranean, and there was some inconsistency that I’ve ALWAYS found with dried apricots, CVS brand or not – some of hard and chewy, and some feel like sacks of goo.  Ah well.

CVS Gold Emblem

CVS Gold Emblem

CVS Gold Emblem

CVS Gold Emblem 100% Natural Granola and Berries was my favorite item CVS sent me.  This granola was not toasted at all, which I liked – it felt raw, was still plenty sweet, and I got a nice oat-y flavor from it.  Plus, the dried berries – blueberries, cranberries, and raisins – provided plenty of sweetness.  The dried blueberries were a nice touch – normally I don’t see them in the trail mix or granola I eat, so they added a nice unexpected burst of sweet.  I liked this granola a LOT.  Would definitely buy this again.

CVS Gold Emblem

CVS Gold Emblem

Finally, we have these CVS Gold Emblem Raspberry and Crème Shortbread Cookies.  Growing up, I feel like I had versions of these cookies too – another one of those store brand standards that every grocery had.  These were good, but not as good as I remembered.  The cookie was nice and buttery, like any shortbread cookie should be.  The crème was pretty good too – full of a vanilla-y flavor and plenty creamy.  The problem for me was the center.  I feel like back in the day, the jelly center was more gooey – this one, however, was sort of chewy and hard, like a gummy, rather than a jelly.  Plus, this gummy had raspberry flavor, but wasn’t EXPLODING with raspberry flavor.  These were ok, CVS.  Not great…just ok.

So there you go!  Don’t forget to enter my Q Kola Contest!  Happy Hump Day!

Thoughts? Please comment below or hit me up on Twitter @junkfoodguy or LIKE my Facebook Page and message me there. Also, you can always email me at junkfoodguy@junkfoodguy.com. Let’s do this.

Sincerely,

Junk Food Guy