Back in the early days of my colitis-ing, I had a lot of "safe" foods I would turn to when I was feeling icky or needed something "easy" to eat. The irony is that now those foods exacerbate my colitis symptoms. Really amazing, that.
One of my safe foods (among Teddy Grahams and Goldfish) was animal crackers. I really like animal crackers because they are just little animal-shaped puffs of cookie, lightly sweet, very crunchy, and not really good or bad for you. They just ... are.
It's been a real struggle to find something to be my "safe" food since then. Most foods are not safe to begin with, and then those that are "safe" often contain hard-to-digest things like oodles of fiber or nuts or tough, fibrous fruits. I can't get Rice Chex in this country.
I was pretty thrilled to find these gluten-free animal crackers in the "special diet" section of Foreign Buyers Club. Animal crackers! That I can eat! Oh joy of joys!! I put them in the cart and waited my 32-39 days.
These cookies, I feel I should start, contain eggs, milk, and soy. They are not good for people who are sensitive or allergic to those items. And they claim to be produced in an area full of wheat and nuts, although their products meet "gluten-free" guidelines. Okay, we've got that out of the way ...
On the front of the package I can see a bear, a buffalo, a camel, and a ... a ... is that ... what on earth is that? It looks like a cross between a baby cow and a bear. What on earth is a cross between a cow and a bear? I can't even adequately make a humorous combination of the two words. All that comes up in my mind is "crowbar." I guess that almost works.
I opened the bag and there was a pleasant vanilla scent. I don't know if these actually contain vanilla ("natural flavorings") but they do smell like a nice cookie. (The bag has an excellent design so that you can fold it over and keep the cookies as fresh as possible. I have to say I was impressed.)
I pulled out a cookie. We'll say it was a camel. My first impression was that it was flat, not puffy like an animal cracker. Then I bit into it. It wasn't crumbly either, like either kind of animal cracker (the kinds in a plastic tub or the kinds that come in the train car box and taste like McDonaldland cookies). It was kind of hard. I bit through it and the cookie was very buttery, like a shortbread cookie but with a different texture. It was a good flavor, but not an animal cracker flavor.
I ate a few more. They were pretty good, and pretty un-caloric. A serving of crackers is 10 and that gives you about 130 calories, so they are very diet-friendly like an ordinary animal cracker. As for nutritional value, you won't find much more than a little iron and protein. I suppose, like an ordinary animal cracker.
After eating a few I started to notice the aftertaste. I'm not sure what flour or ingredient causes it, but they do have a pretty unpleasant aftertaste. Kind of sour and bitter. And the only cure is to eat another cracker, which may be some kind of devious plot on the part of the folks at Mi-Del. (I guess you could also eat/drink something else.)
So in conclusion ... good flavor, bad aftertaste. I can't really recommend these for people who are aching for an animal cracker, as they don't resemble them in anything but shape. But if you've been dying for Walker's Shortbreads? These are like a flat, crunchy version of those, shaped like bear-cows. And they would make a good snack for you or your kids (or you if you're a kid) or whomever else. They come in a conveniently tall bag and they don't have any trans fat. So if that's one of your big worries in life, worry no more. Huzzah.
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