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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Reviews

KetoCoach is a Home Blood Test Kit for Keto Dieters

I was legitimately nervous about the needle. I realize this makes me a big baby, especially since it’s not even a real needle — it’s the teen-tiny pointy tip of a lancet cartridge. But like a four-year old, I asked KetoCoach Founder, Matt Payne, if his companies ketone blood test was gonna hurt.

This is the second time I’ve gone on the ketogenic diet for a story. I did at the start of the year to test out the Keyto, which measured acetone in your breath to see how deep into ketosis your body is. But while exhaling may be easier, Payne told me that KetoCoach’s blood test provided more accurate results.

So back into a diet heavy on avocados I went to see how the two tests stacked up.

The KetoCoach system has three parts: a lancet, the digital meter and test strips. For anyone who monitors their blood glucose, this should all seem familiar. Place the test strip into the meter, prick your finger (after washing it), place a drop of blood on the test strip and wait a few seconds for the results.

The test is looking for ketones in your blood that show up when you are in ketosis. According to the FAQ:

If you are monitoring your blood ketones, you will be measuring beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), the most common ketone the body produces. Since the blood cannot get altered as much as urine can, blood is considered a more accurate, and more consistent measurement of ketosis. However, be aware that blood levels may still fluctuate (although not as greatly as urine).

There are other keto blood testing kits out there, but Payne says the difference with KetoCoach is that its test strips are individually wrapped in foil, which results in a cleaner test.

Before we begin, I should reiterate that I’m not a doctor or a nutritionist, nor do I actively recommend the keto diet. Check with your physician before embarking on dietary changes.

Much to my (big baby) surprise, the actual needle prick was the easiest part of the test. The hardest part early on was getting enough blood out for a test. Payne said to get a matchstick head-sized drop of blood to have enough for the test — but I wasn’t supposed to “milk” or squeeze the lancing site, as I could introduce other substances from my skin and impact the readings. I actually went through about three or four test strips (and lord knows how many pin-pricks on different fingers) before I was able to figure out how best to get out enough blood (one trick, getting a thicker gauge needle).

Once add your blood to the test strip, the device gives you a numerical reading: Lo, .5 – 3.0 is nutritional ketosis, 3.0 – 8.0 is high ketosis. I wound up doing two separate trials as I ran out of test strips early on and it takes about three days to get into ketosis.

Without getting into too many numbers, the KetoCoach worked as promised. By day 3 of being on a keto plan, the test said I was in ketosis. I never got above a 1.0, which could be because while I was pretty strict about adhering to the keto diet, my carb counting may not have been accurate enough.

Since I still had the Keyto, I decided to use that simultaneously with the KetoCoach. Each test was done around the same time every day. While the two devices operate on different scales, they seemed to line up — with the exception of only two instances. In particular, for the last reading I took, Keyto said I was in high ketosis, but KetoCoach said I was just in nutritional ketosis. Again, it’s hard to verify, but I certainly felt keto-y, if that’s a thing, and like I should be in high keto.

Without a full-on scientific lab to verify results, it’s hard to say that KetoCoach is any more or less accurate than the Keyto, though the theory behind it (a cleaner test) seems solid. The KetoCoach is definitely more complicated to use at first, but pretty easy to run after you get used to it.

For those wanting to measure their progress on their keto diet, it may come down to cost. The KetoCoach costs $50 for the starter kit, with additional 50-packs of test strips costing $35. For comparison, the Keyto breathalizer costs $250, but you can keep using it over and over. There is a little more to carry with the KetoCoach, but it comes with a floppy case that’s easy enough to fit in a gym bag or duffel.

It’s hard to give a flat out recommendation for either device without further testing. But the KetoCoach did seem to do as promised, and after getting over my fear of needles, was easy to do on a daily basis.

An Impossible Whopper Review from a Spoon Reader

Living in the Pacific Northwest has a lot to offer: Trees, mountains, a Starbucks on just about every corner. But one thing we don’t have right now is the Impossible Whopper from Burger King. It’s only available in a few areas in the country, and was recently launched in the Bay Area as it starts to roll out nationwide.

It’s hard to justify a 13 hour road trip just to try BK’s plant-based burger, which is why we were lucky enough to have friend of The Spoon, and Bay Area resident, Tom G submit his review for us. His order of an Impossible Whopper, small fries and a small Coke cost him $11.85, after tax. And what did he think?

“It was good. Probably 85% of the way there. I should have ordered with cheese,” Tom texted me, “I think with cheese and had no one told me it was fake I probably wouldn’t notice.” He went on “It did have a slightly artificial taste but since the Whoppers do already that’s ironically in their favor.”

In addition to the positive review, the good news for Burger King is that Tom doesn’t typically ever go to one of its restaurants and went specifically to try the Impossible burger. Tom’s not the only new customer Burger King has attracted with the new Whopper:

This type of anecdotal evidence helps reinforce that the Impossible Whopper could bring an entirely new, or at least long-dormant, set of customers back to BK. In St. Louis, Burger King locations that offered the Impossible Whopper outperformed the chain’s national foot traffic average by 18.5 percent. The question now is whether these Impossible-curious customers are one-offs, or if they will come back for more.

In Tom G’s case, he said he’d go back to BK for another plant-based Whopper, though there are enough other restaurants serving the Impossible burger that he wouldn’t go out of his way for it. He prefers The Melt’s Impossible burger, even though it’s more expensive.

Have you tried the Impossible Whopper? What did you think? Did it bring you back to Burger King, and will you go back for more? Drop us a line and let us know!

Review: Magic Spoon is the (Expensive) Kids’ Cereal for Adults, and is Magically Delicious

I have an 8 year old, but we don’t ever buy him sugar cereals, in part because I know I would gobble up most of the box. At my age/metabolic rate, the effects of Lucky Charms tends to linger a lot longer than I’d like them to.

Which is why I was excited to learn about Magic Spoon, which brands itself as “Childlike Cereal for Grown-Ups.” The cereal comes in four varieties: Fruity, Chocolate, Cinnamon, and Frosted, and boasts that it is high in protein, keto-friendly, non-GMO, gluten-free, grain-free, soy-free, wheat-free and has nothing artificial.

Magic Spoon is able to get all the sweetness without all the junk through Allulose, which can be found in certain fruits like figs and raisins.

It all sounds too good to be true and there must be some catch. There is, and it’s the price. You can only buy Magic Spoon in four-packs for a whopping $40. That’s ten bucks for a 7 oz. box of cereal. You can pick up two, 40 oz. boxes of Cheerios for less than $8 on Amazon.

OK, so it’s expensive, and you have to order it online, and thus wait for your breakfast. I actually bought mine about a month ago and had to wait for delivery because the backorder wait time was so long.

So, how does it taste?

Awesome. Magic Spoon tastes awesome.

I dug into a bowl of the Fruity cereal this morning and it tastes just like the sugary cereal of my youth, but has only 8g of carbohydrates 0g of sugar and 3 net carbs for keto counters (Froot Loops has 26g of carbs, 12 grams of sugar and 23 net carbs). It doesn’t really taste like any actual fruit, it tastes “pink” to my tastebuds (which is probably influenced by its shocking pink color), but Spoon Founder, Mike Wolf thinks it tastes exactly like Froot Loops. Regardless of any synesthesia, I ate a whole bowl and was ready to eat more.

If I’m honest, I preferred the Cocoa flavor, which was more in-line with what was advertised on the box and had a mellow chocolate flavor. I’ll update this post when I try the Cinnamon and Frosted (there’s only so much cereal I can eat in one sitting).

My one complaint is that there is a slight aftertaste, it’s not bad, it’s just more like a slightly metallic and, ironically, artificial feeling reminiscent of pre-packaged protein shakes (which is probably because of the whey protein isolate in the cereal). But that’s a minor quibble.

If Magic Spoon catches on, I suspect bigger CPG companies will have to look at jumping in with similar cereals, though they will have to figure out how to appeal to nutrition-conscious customers without cannibalizing their existing sales.

Will I plunk down another $40 for more? I’m not sure yet. That probably depends on how long these 28 oz. of Magic Spoon in my pantry lasts.

The bigger point is, I went from zero boxes of cereal in my house to four, which I will happily eat and share with my 8 year old.

Maybe.

HowUdish Says It Helps You Eat Like a Pro Athlete, but Fumbles on the Execution

A couple years back, Dwayne Johnson revealed his diet: 10 pounds and 5,000 calories of high-protein meals per day. Perfect for building muscle, not so great for the world’s supply of cod. I know that I’m never going to be as huge as The Rock, but there is a hopeful part of me that thought if I hit the gym enough and follow his diet, I could get jacked (bro).

It is this type of aspirational meal planning that got me intrigued by HowUdish. The iOS mobile app is one among many nutritional apps out there, but its hook is that it has enlisted real-life pro athletes to share how they eat. There is the pro football player Brandon Marshall, Bobby Portis of the Washington Wizards, wrestler Jordan Burroughs, MMA’s Cat Zingano, and track and field’s Queen Harrison.

I spoke over the phone with HowUdish Founder, Michael Gayed, who explained these pros are supposed to share the meals they eat both at home and at restaurants as well as nutritional/fitness advice via paid channels on the app. HowUdish users can access this “pro dish” guidance for just $4.99 a month. According to a HowUdish press release announcing the pro feature’s launch in February of this year, these athletes are supposed to post “regularly about their pro-dish-style on their social media accounts and within HowUdish itself.”

Evidently “regularly” is a relative term. I downloaded the app and subscribed to CrossFitter (yeah, i do CrossFit, don’t @ me), Dani Speegle’s channel. But she actually hasn’t posted an update to HowUdish in at least a month. And even then, she’s only posted three times ever: one restaurant recommendation, one actual tip for making a breakfast burrito, and one reminder to log and track your food. Bo-ring, and not really that useful, especially for $5 a month. Thankfully, I was still in the free trial phase for the app, otherwise I would have felt ripped off.

I can’t confirm how prevalent those type of anemic athlete posts are because you can only subscribe to one pro at a time, and you can’t look at what the other pro athletes are posting. Also, I didn’t see a place to unsubscribe from the one pro I’d chosen so I could have a do over. I’d have to cancel and start again.

I’ve only used HowUdish for a couple of hours, but these types of severe limitations don’t bode well for it having a permanent place on my phone’s homescreen.

I followed up with Gayed who said that unfortunately, the sponsorships were done through a third party, so he doesn’t have too much control over when an athlete posts to his app, but he reassured me that other athletes like Jordan Burrows post more regularly. Gayed also confirmed that there currently isn’t a way to unfollow or change pros in the app, though he said that a fix for this was coming in about three weeks. UPDATE: After the publication of this article, Gayed reached out to say that Pro athlete posts were just a part of their offering, and that the service will match a restaurant meal in your area to what that pro athlete would eat, so you can find food that matches your diet.

Gayed said that HowUdish currently has about 30,000 registered users, but it was “still too early to tell” how much of a boon these pro athletes would be for the service. This pro post inactivity, in part is why Gayed is trying to pivot and make HowUdish more of a service that connects people one-on-one based on their nutrition. Kinda like a Tinder for eating. These features still haven’t launched, but the idea is if you are a high-protein eating person, you could connect with another high-protein eating person and the app would pick a high-protein restaurant you could meet at.

I’m old and married, so I could not have less of an interest in this type of service. But people are potentially finding love from inside their fridge, so what do I know? Maybe healthy-eating millennials would like it.

I’m disappointed that the app didn’t work as well as I had hoped when it came to following pro feeding advice. I could actually see people with high hopes subscribing to a service where a pro athlete walked them through meal prep and planning for a week. But HowUdish isn’t that. So for me, it’s back to smellin’ what The Rock is cookin’.

Proper’s Vegan, Gluten Free and Allergen Free Cookie Dough is a Raw Deal (That’s Good!)

A couple months back, I realized that I was slowly turning vegan, thanks to all of the wonderfully delicious plant-based products coming to market. So I was excited when the team behind the vegan and gluten-free Proper Cookie Dough, told me about their Kickstarter and sent me a couple batches to review.

It’s probably best to define Proper by listing what it lacks. As my colleague, Catherine, pointed out to me, it’s not that hard to make gluten-free or vegan cookies, but making them both vegan and gluten-free is tricky. If that weren’t enough, Proper is going beyond all that, making cookie dough that anyone — even those with food allergies — can eat. To wit, Proper has:

  • No dairy
  • No soy
  • No eggs
  • No nuts
  • No corn
  • No trans fat

Proper is also organic, non-GMO and can be eaten raw or baked (more on that in a moment). The company sent me jars of the Chocolate Chipper and the Triple Chocolate varieties. For each, a serving is 2 tablespoons (HA! Sure.) and contains 130 calories, 9g of sugar, 7g of fat and between 115 – 120 mg of sodium. For comparison, JUST’s brand of eggless chocolate chip cookie dough has 150 calories per 2 tbsp serving, 11g of sugar, 7g of fat, and 105mg of sodium. So the two are pretty similar, though JUST isn’t gluten-free and has soy.

So how’d it taste? Proper Cookie Dough is actually quite good when eaten raw. Both the Chocolate Chipper and Triple Chocolate had a nice, rich flavor with a pretty smooth texture. As you can probably guess, I ate more than 1 serving at a time.

However, Proper’s dough didn’t quite make a, well, proper cookie when baked. I balled up the dough, and used my June oven’s cookie setting to bake them. The dough never melted into a cookie shape and stayed spherical, so it was more like eating a chocolate chip lump. The cookie itself was dry (even when not burned) and not that pleasant to eat. Of course, I should probably have different expectations of a vegan and gluten-free cookie. If that’s the only way you could eat a cookie, it’ll probably be delicious. (Sidenote: Proper should send its recipe to the Big Data, Yummy Cookies guy.)

The good news, though, for this cookie dough, is that Proper has successfully met its campaign goals and raised more than $10,000 on Kickstarter. The campaign still has five days to go, so if you’re looking for an allergen-free cookie, you can still grab a sampler pack at the $45 dollar pledge level (you’ll have to wait until September for it to ship though).

Blow it Out: How the Keyto Device Gamified Me Into the Keto Diet

Listen, this post is going to make me seem like the world’s biggest hypocrite. After writing about gradually turning vegan last week, I’m doing a full 180 to write about how I spent this past week piling up meat and heavy cream to go on a keto diet.

In my defense, it was to try out the Keyto, a breathalyzer and mobile app that tells you when your body is in ketosis — the state where your body burns fat for fuel. As someone who has struggled with his weight for most of his adult life, the opportunity to get paid to shed a few pounds (by doing my job, no consideration changed hands with Keyto) was too good to pass up.

We wrote up the Keyto back in November, when the company raised $2.5 million and launched an Indiegogo campaign (where it raised another $1M). The good news is that unlike so many other crowdfunded hardware devices, there is an actual device that I actually used, and the company says it is shipping the first batch to early backers (who paid $99, the device will retail for $179) this coming week.

As a refresher, the Keyto is roughly the size of a vape pen. After you start your keto diet (very few net carbs, lots of fats), you blow into the device three times a day. The Keyto measures your breath for acetone, a by-product that your body makes when going through ketosis.

The Keyto talks to the accompanying app on your phone which calculates your “Keyto Level.” A level of 1 – 3 means your body is still using carbs for energy, 4 means you’re in “light ketosis” and your body is using fat for fuel, 5 – 7 means you’re in full ketosis and using mainly fat for fuel, and level 8 is “Deep Ketosis” which I think rips open the space/time continuum, allowing you to travel back in time and inhabit your 22-year-old body.

In addition to rating your ketosis level, the Keyto app also provides food recommendations. There’s a quick list of foods to eat and avoid, as well as recipes and meal plans. The app also has a community feature and some general advice about following the keto diet.

So. How well did it work?

Before we go any further I should say that I am not a nutritionist, do not advocate the keto diet for everyone, and suggest you consult with your doctor before making any changes to your diet.

Having said that, first, let’s talk about the device. The box comes with the main breathalyzer, four mouthpieces, a battery and a travel bag. The Keyto itself feels solid and is easy to self-assemble. My one issue with the build is that the button you push to turn on the device sinks below the line of the rest of the device, so it feels “stuck” when it’s not. It’s not a big thing, but it cheapens the feel of the product.

The app is still in beta, so I had to get a special link to load it onto my phone. Installation and registration were easy and I could get up and running with my first Keyto breath check in just a few minutes. The app looks fine and is easy to figure out, but it’s pretty dull. We’re living in a golden age of app design and Keyto’s boxy UI feels hobbled together.

Oddly, the instructions for blowing into the device were surprisingly complex. The app counts you down to get you ready to blow (but don’t inhale too deep!). When you do blow the app starts by saying “Blow powerfully” and then almost immediately it says “Blow normally.” Which is it? And how does it impact my score? A company rep told me that it doesn’t really matter as long as you blow till the end of your breath, where most of the acetone will register.

I spent last Sunday pigging out on cakes and ice cream, knowing that I’d be giving them up the next day. I did my first breath test in the midst of that sugar rush and sure enough, I blew a 2: my body was still using carbs for energy.

With that carb caravan was behind me, I became pretty strict about being on keto. I haven’t had a slice of bread or piece of candy since that Sunday. The general food guidelines offered by the Keyto app were actually quite helpful (especially if you love avocados), and provided me with enough food variety to where I didn’t feel bored by being on this diet.

By the end of Tuesday, I had blown my first 4 — light ketosis! I had broken though a barrier, and it was enough to keep me going. Then on Thursday I blew a 5 – full ketosis. Jackpot! Now I was addicted and started blowing into the Keyto more than three times a day. It was a game, and I wanted to win.

To be honest, it’s become such a game that I stopped and blew once while writing this post (I got a 6).

Now would be a good time to say that I have no way to verify the Keyto’s results here at home. I could go get a blood or urine test, but I can’t do that every day (let alone multiple times a day). From a product review perspective, the device seems to work as advertised. You blow into it, it gives you a score. The longer you adhere to the keto diet, the higher your score goes. Whether or not that score is entirely accurate, I can’t say.

I can also see how this gamification could get extreme and possibly unhealthy. I became obsessed with my Keyto score, checking it more than three times a day (see above) and trimming away anything that might lower it. I wanted to win. Win what, exactly, I wasn’t sure, but I certainly don’t want it to come at the expense of my overall health.

This has been a good experiment, and the Keyto made cutting out processed sweets and constant snacking easier than writing what I eat in a food journal. But now that I’ve blown it out, I’m ready for moderation–and to bring back those vegan treats.

I Tried ChefStep’s JouleReady Bags: How a Sous Vide Virgin Became a Convert

I have a confession: I am a full-time writer about food technology and the smart kitchen, and I’ve never tried my hand at sous vide. Maybe it’s because I don’t eat much meat, or because I have a pint-sized kitchen, or because — gasp! — I actually gravitate towards old-fashioned cooking techniques. Half the time I don’t even use a recipe.

But a few weeks ago Mike and I went by ChefSteps HQ to learn about their new Joule Ready sauces, a line of sous-vide-ready bags filled with sauce, which CEO Chris Young told us they’d developed in part to “help first time sous vide users.” So I decided to shed my Luddite culinary ways and give the Joule a spin. Here’s how it stacked up:

ChefSteps launched the initial 12 flavors of Joule Ready with 8,000 of their community members this month, ranging from Sauce au Poivre to Roasted Red Pepper Walnut Muhammara. I decided to try Thai Green Curry, which I thought would go best with the salmon in my fridge.

For those who haven’t used the Joule app before, it’s a piece of cake. The app has tips and tricks for sous vide newbies, and also offers a myriad of recipes organized by protein type. My only qualm is that their “beginner guide” only has four options, all of which are meat. I’m a pescetarian, and I know that most people get sous vide to perfect their carnivorous cooking — but I’d appreciate at least one fish, egg, or vegetable dish on there.

When it comes to the Joule Ready, however, it’s even easier. You just scan the QR code on the bag and the app prompts you to select your protein, pick how done you like it, and note its thickness. You can also choose to follow the Featured Recipe for that particular sauce, which will show you how to make a full meal out of your protein. For the Thai Green Curry the featured recipe is chicken over rice with grilled eggplant and a sweet pepper and herb salad, but I went with salmon instead.

Once you’ve entered in your protein info the app then tells you to put the sous vide in your water vessel, plug it in (not the other way around!), and connect it via bluetooth so it can start heating the water to the exact specifications for perfect cooking. Once it reaches the right temperature, the Joule app alerts you that it’s time to put your protein into its saucy bath, pop it in your water, and start the timer. I didn’t even use a clip to affix the bag, and yet the salmon stayed perfectly submerged.

My sous vide setup.

After 40 minutes my app alerted me that my protein was ready, though I kept it in the water for a few minutes more while I finished my brown rice (doesn’t it always take longer than you think?) and sweet potatoes. One of the benefits of sous vide: your food will never dry out!

After I messily extracted my (perfectly cooked, perfectly tender) salmon from its saucy bath, I was left with the sticky problem of how to get the tasty green curry sauce out of the bag and onto my plate. ChefSteps is clear that the sauces are meant not only as a marinade/cooking accompaniment to your protein, but also as a finishing sauce.

Spooning it out worked, but not without plenty of it getting all over my hands. I realized after the fact that I could have snipped one of the corners of the bag and squeezed the sauce out like I was piping icing — I’ll try that next time.

My completed Joule Ready meal of Thai Green Curry salmon with rice and kale.

A few thoughts:

  • Yes, yes, I’m a sous vide n00b — but I didn’t realize that you were supposed to sear your protein before putting it into the bag, lest it the sugars in the sauce burn. My Joule app didn’t instruct me to pre-sear after I scanned my Joule Ready. Luckily the salmon worked well tender and didn’t need a caramelized exterior, but for some proteins I imagine you’d really need that sear.
  • Eventually, it would be nice to have multiple recipes for each Joule Ready sauce. The more customizable the recipe, the more people would use it; after all, people want the sauce so that they have to think less about what to make for dinner, not brainstorm a whole extra side dish or starch just because they don’t eat/want the particular meat recommended by the recipe.

In the end, Joule Ready delivered on its promise: it made sous vide cooking simple, even for someone who’d never tried it before. Forty minutes isn’t a quick meal by any account — and it would take even longer with, say, steak — but with a little planning ahead it was simple to pop in some protein, put on a pot of rice, and have a way above-average meal for a Tuesday. Bonus: if you get distracted doing laundry or watching TV while you wait for your food to cook, you don’t have to worry about returning to a smoky kitchen and charred dinner.

I haven’t (yet) tried out other devices from Anova or Nomiku, but with Joule Ready, ChefSteps did the hard work of getting me — a sous vide skeptic — to actually give this kitchen technology a whirl. Plus, I love how the sauces are shelf-stable, so I can make a fancy-pants sous vide entrée anytime the mood strikes, without having to order pre-made meals ahead of time or plan out a recipe.

Good thing I have six more sauces in my cabinet to try out.

Ripple Yogurt Review: High Expectations Crushed By (Very) Bad Taste

Nobody wanted to like Ripple yogurt more than me. As a recently diagnosed lactose intolerant person who loves ice cream, cheese, and yogurt more than most things, I’ve been having a hard time cutting down on dairy. So this week I decided to give Ripple, a brand about which I’d heard some great things, a go.

I bought their single-serve Greek Yogurt Alternative in strawberry flavor, which packs a whopping 12g of protein in its 150g serving size — roughly the same protein as dairy yogurt. Ripple is made of pea protein, meaning it’s soy and nut-free and safe for those with allergies. It also has added active cultures, meaning it’s gut-friendly like dairy yogurt.

I was optimistic when I dug in. Sadly, that optimism disappeared almost immediately.

The texture of the yogurt was actually pretty good: it was creamy and thick, not exactly Greek yogurt-level thick but still impressive. But the taste, sadly, was straight-up bad. The strawberry flavor came through lightly — there are pieces of strawberry throughout the yogurt — but it had an overwhelmingly artificial flavor, which led to a bitter, unpleasant aftertaste. The yogurt somehow dried out my mouth and tasted gritty, though its texture was smooth. Someone sitting across from me at my office noticed my disgusted face and asked me if I was okay. I threw it away after a few bites.

A harsh review, I know. I wish it wasn’t. I’m one of the growing number of people purchasing dairy alternatives for health or ethical reasons. I’m all for non-dairy products that don’t use almonds, which are very water-intensive and are pretty protein-poor. Ripple could have fulfilled my dairy-free needs while assuaging my environmental guilt — and pea protein has served us so well with Beyond burgers!

Ripple, which launched in 2016, also makes pea milk in original, vanilla, and chocolate flavors, a product called “half-and-half,” and recently debuted nutrition powders and shakes. I haven’t tried any of their other products, but after my experience with their yogurt, I’m not really rushing to the store.

According to Crunchbase, so far Ripple has raised $108.6 million in funding. That’s some serious dairy-free dough. But while their product seems like it would hit the sweet spot, it left me with a (literal) bitter taste in my mouth. If they can’t get me — a millennial consumer who avoids dairy, is open to plant-based alternatives and enjoys trying new products — to buy their yogurt, who will?

Perhaps I’ll have better luck with coconut yogurt, which my colleague Jenn Marston tried and liked — though I’ll have to find my protein somewhere else. And maybe when lab-made dairy products, like the ones that Perfect Day is developing the technology for, come to market, they’ll be able to eliminate that pesky lactose and still make tangy yogurt and gooey mozzarella and all the things I hold so dear. Until then, it looks like I’m having toast for breakfast.

Update: Ripple Foods’ PR team reached out to me with this to say:

We saw your recent review on The Spoon and wanted to apologize for your not so delicious experience as well as share that the brand is definitely listening and will be working to revamp the yogurt line over the next few months. They want to provide consumers with a quality product and feel the current one needs some tweaks.

A Smart Kitchen Gift Guide for Last-Minute Shoppers

Well, you’ve done it. You’ve waited until the last minute to do your Christmas shopping and now it’s here. But don’t worry! Your friends at The Spoon have you covered. Here’s a Smart Kitchen Gift Guide for your favorite cooking companions packed with items you can still get before the big day.

Sous Vide Wand: The Joule was on our 2016 gift guide, but really either it or the Anova is a wonderful addition to your kitchen cabinets. Sous vide elevates cooking proteins like steak to another level, yet is versatile enough to make a range of foods including pies and cookies.

Hestan Cue System: If you’re like me, you enjoy deliciousness, but aren’t that great a cook. Enter the Hestan Cue system. It’s a combination of induction burner, pan and smartphone app that work together to provide you with guided cooking, so you can turn from average Joe Cook into Julia Child.

Nutribullet Balance: Smoothies are a delectable treat, but they aren’t always as *nutritious* as we’d like to believe. Give the gift of a healthy 2018 with the Nutribullet Balance, a Bluetooth smart blender with companion app that calculates the nutritional value of your smoothie as you add ingredients.

Ember Mug: Disclaimer, we have not tried this $80 coffee mug, but we loved it’s $150 traveling counterpart. The idea of keeping our hot coffee or tea at the perfect temperature is way too tempting. It’s too late to order online, but you can check your local Starbucks to see if it’s in stock.

PicoBrew PICO Model C: Is there a hop head homebrewer in your family? It’s not cheap, but PicoBrew makes it easy to brew beer from the comfort of your own kitchen. The Pico C is available via Amazon and in brick and mortar retailers.

Amazon Key Kit: For the adventurous early adopter, give them the gift of Amazon delivery people entering their unattended home! Snark aside, Amazon Key’s kit includes a cloud connected security camera and lock (hopefully they’ve patched the security hole) and gives users (in select areas) the ability to accept grocery and other Amazon deliveries when they’re away from home.

Dash Egg Cooker: Okay, so this device isn’t “connected,” but it is a smart idea for anyone who likes hard boiled eggs. Forget waiting for a pot of water to boil and timing when the eggs are done. The Dash Egg Cooker has been a game changer in my house, cooking up six hard boiled eggs in around 20 minutes.

Whatever you decide to get friends and family this year, everyone at The Spoon wishes all of you the happiest of holiday seasons.

Enjoy the podcast and make sure to subscribe in Apple podcasts if you haven’t already.

Going Beyond The Stick: New Options Emerge For Sous Vide In 2018

While the ultra-early sous vide enthusiasts among us started their precision cooking journeys with water ovens like the Sous Vide Supreme, the last few years in home sous vide have been all about “the stick.”

That’s right, as sous vide enters the zeitgeist, immersion circulators from the likes of from Anova, Nomiku, and ChefSteps are the default option for everyone from Modernist Cuisine types to those dipping their toe into the precision heated water for the very first time.

But, as 2017 draws to a close, there are some new sous vide products coming to market that gives consumers an option beyond ‘the stick.’

Here’s my look at some of these new products:

Mellow Smart Sous Vide

After a long delay, the Mellow smart sous vide machine is shipping. This unique-looking cooking machine, which features a cooling system that allows you put your bag inside throughout the day, is now available for general purchase on the company’s website for $399 ($299 through cyber Monday!).

I’ve been testing the Mellow for the last few weeks, and I must say this: If anything, the Mellow is by far the most interesting looking sous vide appliance. That’s because unlike sous vide immersion circulators, with the Mellow you drop your plastic bag into the large transparent tank which allows you to watch your food suspended in water while it cooks. While it may seem strange to say it, watching a ribeye cook in a water bath can be surprisingly mesmerizing.

Here’s a video I took of the Mellow cooking a ribeye:

Like the immersion circulators mentioned above, the Mellow has an app that serves as the primary control interface for the device. The app is pretty solid, with a decent support/FAQ section, a limited selection of cooking guides and a good looking design.

And of course, the built-in chiller for sous vide is a nice benefit for those who want to program a cook for a specific time such as when they get home from work.

All this said, the Mellow has one downside: It’s fairly big. Not only does it have a large footprint, but it’s tall. Really tall. Like most, my storage space is at a premium, and I don’t have the space to store a device with the dimensions of the Mellow.

The Mellow is also a bit more expensive than immersion circulators (again, the company is selling it for $299 through Cyber Monday), but if you’re looking for the latest in sous vide gadgets, you might find the regular price of $399 well worth it.

The Cinder Grill

Want to move beyond the bag? The Cinder Grill might be for you.

The Cinder Grill allows you to cook sous vide without the water or the bags. The device, which looks like the love child of Tesla and the George Foreman Grill, has two precision heating surfaces that allow you to precision cook meat, vegetables or other food and also lets you finish the food with searing functionality.

The two-in-one sous vide and sear capability is an obvious benefit of the Cinder. I also like the idea of cooking without plastic, not so much because I am afraid of toxins within the plastic, but I feel bad about throwing away plastic after every cook.

Like the Mellow, the biggest downside of the Cinder is its size. I’ve been testing it out for a few months, and while it’s become probably one of my favorite ways to cook meat, the device has a really big footprint. And while it does have the benefit of being a dual-tasker (cook and sear), even with multifunction capability I would find it a struggle to stash the Cinder on one of my shelves.

You can see how the Cinder looks in action here:

Like the Mellow, the Cinder also has an app, which allowed me to set time and temperature and also notified me when a cook is finished. But unlike the Mellow (or even more so with sous vide immersion circulators like the ChefSteps), the Cinder app doesn’t go very deep with the cooking content itself, something I am sure the company plans to build out over time.

If you want to get a Cinder Grill, you can order one on their website, but it might take a little while before you see your Cinder. The company has started shipping to some of its backers, but is still in the process of ironing out some production kinks, and likely won’t reach wide availability until early next year.

Still, if you like the idea of precision cooking without the water and plastic, you might want to put in an order. The Cinder costs $499.

Sous Vide Supreme Touch+

And any mention of home sous vide appliances should include the new Sous Vide Supreme Touch+, the latest generation Sous Vide Supreme water bath. And while the idea of precision water baths are hardly new, with this product the company has completely remade their flagship product complete with a touchscreen, a see-through lid, Wi-Fi, an app (of course) and Alexa voice integration.

If you want to get in on the new Sous Vide Supreme Touch+ at a significant discount, you can buy it for $200 off the retail price at $399 on Indiegogo.

Anova Precision Oven

While 2017 has been an interesting year for the oven, 2018 is likely to be even better. One of the products I’m most intrigued about is the Anova Precision Oven. The device, which includes a steam oven, convection, and connectivity, also allow you to sous vide. The device, which was originally slated to ship in 2017, now looks on track for a mid-2018 ship date.

There’s no doubt that immersion circulators are easy to use, but by giving consumers more options to cook sous vide, will open it up to a wider audience.

In short, nowadays sous vide is more than the stick.

You can hear an audio version of this post here on our Daily Spoon podcast (add the Daily Spoon Alexa Skill here to get this podcast on your Echo device):

Scripps Network Targets Hungry Millennials with Multiplatform Genius Kitchen

Scripps Networks shows off its curation chops with the launch of its new multiplatform channel, Genius Kitchen. This venture is a collection of personality-driven cooking shows, with a touch of viewer interaction thrown in for good measure.

Wrapped around a weekly pop-culture take on food news, hosted by the bubbly duo of Akilah Hughes and Mike Lockyer, Genius Kitchen is comprised of more than 150 hours of content including original shows such as “Carnivorous,” an array of content from independent producers such as “Pop Culture Baking Class” and some international programming from notables such as “The Delicious Miss Dahl from Sophie Dahl.” Ms. Dahl, who shares her childhood food memories, is the granddaughter of author Roald Dahl. The interactive twist, for those watching on iPad or Fire TV, is the ability to click to have the recipe viewed on the screen sent to your email.

Unicorn Cake Truffles | Genius Kitchen

The multiplatform distribution aims to take advantage of the many viewing venues a consumer takes when ingesting food content. The lean-back experience on a Fire TV focuses on entertainment while offering the practical ability to harvest an appealing recipe for later exploration. With a robust search engine, the lean-forward play on YouTube or on a mobile device is ideal to find a recipe a home cook wants to make today or for an upcoming weekend party. For those who want to ensure they are eating what’s au courant, there is a clever “what’s trending” feature at the bottom of the recipe page.

“With Genius Kitchen, we set out to develop content that was inherently social and work with the talent that could truly connect with young audiences,” said Rich Lacy, Senior Vice President of Digital Brand Creative at Scripps Networks, said in a company press release. “This unique, seamless experience explores not only great food but also the people and fun surrounding it.”

With a host of other food properties in the Scripps Interactive stable, the aim here is directed toward a specific part of the millennial culture—those who care more about food experiences than slaving over a hot stove (or even microwave). On an episode of “Chuck’s Day Off,” for example, the theme centers around Canadian chef Chuck Hughes arranging a blind date for two friends in the restaurant business. The recipes are fun, but food takes a back seat to the drama of two strangers breaking bread as their meet-cute experience.

Genius Cooking is a very niche experience which will have strong appeal to a select—and possibly large—demographic that is willing to make their food-as-entertainment budget a priority.  The obvious current business model is ad-supported (no many how many times I see that ad, I have no plans to visit New Mexico), but by gathering email addresses and recipe likes, selling everything from meal kits to adventure travel is fair game.

Wired’s Joe Ray Reviews The Spinzall And The Results Are Cloudy

Let’s get this out of the way: I love to read Joe Ray’s kitchen gadget reviews. Perhaps more than any modern cooking gadget reviewer, Ray not only keeps real-world consumer concerns front of mind as he evaluates new products, but he does so in a way that shows off a strong understanding of advanced culinary concepts all while explaining new technology in an approachable way.

And oh yeah: he’s funny too.

The result of this unique combination of skills makes his reviews a joy to read, and so when I saw he’d written a review of Dave Arnold’s new home centrifuge, I suspected it’d be the definitive wrap-up of this intriguing product.

I was right.

For those of you not familiar with Arnold or his newest contraption, here’s a quick catchup. Arnold himself is a modern day culinary renaissance man: part mad scientist, part award-winning food writer, part museum curator. In 2014, Arnold won the James Beard award for the book Liquid Intelligence, a Modernist Cuisine for the craft cocktail set, which added to an already sizable cult following from years of writing, podcasting and inventing interesting culinary hardware products.

So when Arnold announced his latest product, the Spinzall, there was understandably a lot of interest. The product is an $800 countertop centrifuge. While that price may be somewhat eye-popping, it’s a downright bargain compared to most high-end centrifuges which can cost thousands of dollars.

The excitement was also fed in part by Arnold’s emphasis on the use of centrifuges in Liquid Intelligence. Here at the Spoon we’ve been following the Spinzall’s journey to market, all the way back when Arnold first started pre-selling the device and through his crowdfunding efforts. We even had him on the podcast.

And now the Spinzall is finally shipping, which brings us to Ray’s review.

Ray begins his review in a way that reminds of how my wife reacts every time I bring home a new product: shoulder-shrugging indifference combined with bemusement at how excited I am for something that, for normal people, doesn’t seem all that life-changing:

NOT LONG AGO, I poured a bottle of fancy whipping cream into the gadget I was reviewing, started it up and watched in awe as the machine’s rotor began spinning rapidly, creating a vertical wall of solidified dairy that stayed in place after the machine wound down.

“Behold,” I exclaimed as my wife Elisabeth passed through the kitchen. “I made butter in a centrifuge!”

“Wow,” she said with a tone that foretold bubble bursting. “Did they run out of butter at the store?”

Before long, Ray rolls up his sleeves and jumps into the review with vigor. He makes two versions of a clarified lime juice recipe, one with the Spinzall and one with a method the same Dave Arnold wrote about in 2009 in which he said, “Not only do you not need a centrifuge, you don’t need the bag and you don’t need the vacuum.”

At the end of his lime juice journey, Ray found he got better results with Arnold’s 2009 non-centrifuge technique.

He then tried out making spreadable yogurt and flavored oil to decent but somewhat eventful results:

I made the labneh and spun up some basil oil, and they were tasty but the machine had a hiccup while I was making the oil where the lid rotated toward the open position while it was running. I couldn’t get it to open any further, but it no longer felt fully secure, which is disconcerting when the rotor below continued to spin away at 4,000 rpm.

In the end, Ray suggests Arnold’s centrifuge probably makes sense for bartenders and craft cocktail enthusiasts trying to take their art to the next-level, but the Spinzall didn’t seem worth it for someone without $800 and a surplus of counter space to spare:

The Spinzall certainly has some neat tricks up its sleeve. It might solve a problem or two for owners of small bars (a larger bar would need several machines) or make for good entertainment for food nerds who like to throw parties and have $800 to blow. For the most part, however, it’s hard to justify awarding it a space on your counter.

Go read Ray’s full review here. I think you’ll enjoy it.