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Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Trader Joe's Roasted Coconut Chips

Since Hurricane Sandy paid us a visit this week, knocked over some trees in our neighborhood here in the Philly suburbs, and took away our power from Monday night into Tuesday morning, we've been thinking a lot about her Caribbean origins. Her Caribbean origins made us think about coconut. And our thoughts of coconut led to our purchase of a bag of Trader Joe's Roasted Coconut Chips.

It's mature coconuts soaked in young coconut juice. The best of both worlds. No need to choose experience over youth or vice versa. I'm pretty sure young coconuts are greenish and old coconuts are brownish, but other than that, I don't think I could tell you much about them. But I've always liked coconuts and coconut-flavored things, and this bag of snackaliciousness is no exception.

They're satisfyingly sweet, and they're big enough to treat them like bite-size snack chips, yet small enough to use them as toppings on cakes, ice cream, pudding, or what have you. At $1.99 for a bag, I'd say they were a pretty good value. If you're a fan of coconut, go ahead and shell out the 2 bones for something that I think could very well find itself appearing regularly on your TJ's shopping list.

They have a similar texture to that of the shredded coconut bits that we all know and love—the kind that are used as toppings on cakes and other desserts, but these "chips" have properties similar to other chips. They're flat and extremely crispy. They crunch when you eat them, and they have significantly more surface area than a bit of shredded coconut. 

Sonia gives them a score of 4 stars. She wishes the bag were larger, but other than that, she was quite pleased. I agree that in this case, more would have been better, but this relatively healthy snack was tasty enough to garner 4 and a half stars from me.

Bottom line: 8.5 out of 10.

15 comments:

  1. I love your blog always... where in TJ's did you find these? Chip aisle? with the sweets?

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  2. In the TJ's we bought these at (Center City Philadelphia) they were in the chip aisle, near the dried fruit snacks and nuts, Laura.

    Thanks for your kind words :)

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  3. I don't think I would call a product with this much fat healthy....but for a treat I will check out my TJ's as soon as the power is back on her in RI.

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  4. That's certainly a valid observation, Mary. You'll note that I said *relatively* healthy...when you compare it with, say, a meal from The Cheesecake Factory, a bucket of lard, or Trader Joe's Mexicaine Quiche. Plus, everybody knows that coconut fat is "good fat." ;-)

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  5. I have almost picked these up a billion times (there is a TJ in the lobby of my office building so I am in there every day)...now I definitely need to try them! I picked up those coconut mango bites on your advice...heaven! :-)

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  6. We have gone through a few bags of these now. I love the chips all on their own but they are fantastic on Greek yogurt parfaits too especially with the honey roasted almond slices.

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  7. Mary, coconut is a very fat source. I love these, and their literally about 1/2 the price you would pay for coconut chips elsewhere.

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  8. Saturated fat is good for you. It's the poly unsaturated and hydrogenated and all grain oils that are bad for you.

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    1. No.. That is not true at all. Unsaturated fats are the fats that are good for you!
      I think the jury is still out right now on the saturated fats.. It was once that they were bad bad bad but I think they're probably good in moderation and from the right sources (which in this case is oil, no doubt)
      Trans fat is the one that is truly awful that comes from partially hydrogenated oils and the like.

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  9. Saturated fat may be good for you, but getting 100% of your DV from a small bag of (highly addicting) coconut chips might not be. And I'm willing to bet that's why they kept the bag size at what it is. :D

    (But I'm not knocking them, I don't know what my life was like before these chips. Probably real sad and devoid of coconut.)

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  10. I spotted these on my last trip to Trader Joe's in Seattle and bought two bags having never tried them or read any reviews. Regrettably I only opened them when I arrived back home in Canada and wish I had bought a whole box of them. Drat! Super delish - I agree with your comments: Snackalicious!

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    1. You can order these from Amazon, but theyre def more $$

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  11. My mother is absolutely obsessed with these. Before TJs opened where she lives, I was forced to buy 10 at a time and mail them.

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