I met a lot of great vendors at the Seattle Gluten Intolerance Group’s expo a few months ago. One of those vendors was El’s Kitchen. They make Medleys snack mixes: with gluten-free bagel chips, corn nuts, potato chips, gluten-free pretzels, and corn chips in three flavors – original, cheddar, and sour cream and onion. They also make Snaps – their gluten-free bagel chips and a dry rub for meats. They gave us a few bags of their Medleys to sample.
SOUR CREAM AND ONION
Contains: Flaxseed Corn Chips (yellow corn masa, flaxseeds, soybean oil & salt), Corn Nuts (corn, oil, salt), Pretzels (corn starch, potato starch, tapioca starch, palm oil, dextrose, cellulose gum, baking powder (sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium bicarbonate, corn starch, mono-calcium phosphate), salt, citric acid, yeast, soy lecithin, soda), Potato Chips (potatoes, safflower and/or sunflower oil, sea salt), Gluten-Free Flour Base (sorghum flour, tapioca flour, white rice flour, sweet rice flour, brown rice flour, organic evaporated cane sugar, chicory root, millet flour, molasses, honey, rice bran, sea salt, xanthan gum, active dry yeast), Canola Oil, Water, Flax Seed, Whey Solids (milk), Nonfat Dry Milk, Onion Powder, Sour Cream ((cream, cultures and lactic acid), cultured nonfat milk solids and citric acid), Salt, Lactic Acid, Parsley, Paprika and Natural Flavors.
ALLERGEN: Dairy
ORIGINAL
Contains: Flaxseed Corn Chips (yellow corn masa, flaxseeds, soybean oil & salt), Corn Nuts (corn, oil, salt), Pretzels (corn starch, potato starch, tapioca starch, palm oil, dextrose, cellulose gum, baking powder (sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium bicarbonate, corn starch, mono-calcium phosphate), salt, citric acid, yeast, soy lecithin, soda), Potato Chips (potatoes, safflower and/or sunflower oil, sea salt), Gluten-Free Flour Base (sorghum flour, tapioca flour, white rice flour, sweet rice flour, brown rice flour, organic evaporated cane sugar, chicory root, millet flour, molasses, honey, rice bran, sea salt, xanthan gum, active dry yeast), Canola Oil, Water, Distilled Vinegar, Flax Seed, Organic Gluten-Free Worcestershire Sauce (organic rice vinegar, organic wheat-free tamari soy sauce (water, organic soybeans and salt), organic evaporated cane juice, salt and organic spices), Cane Sugar, Sea Salt, Paprika, Black Pepper, Chili Powder, Cumin, Thyme
ALLERGEN: Soy
CHEDDAR
Contains: Flaxseed Corn Chips (yellow corn masa, flaxseeds, soybean oil & salt), Corn Nuts (corn, oil, salt), Pretzels (corn starch, potato starch, tapioca starch, palm oil, dextrose, cellulose gum, baking powder (sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium bicarbonate, corn starch, mono-calcium phosphate), salt, citric acid, yeast, soy lecithin, soda), Potato Chips (potatoes, safflower and/or sunflower oil, sea salt), Gluten-Free Flour Base (sorghum flour, tapioca flour, white rice flour, sweet rice flour, brown rice flour, organic evaporated cane sugar, chicory root, millet flour, molasses, honey, rice bran, sea salt, xanthan gum, active dry yeast), Canola Oil, Water, Flax Seed, Nonfat Dry Milk, Cheddar Cheese (pasteurized milk, cheese cultures, salt and enzymes), Disodium Phosphate, Buttermilk Solids, Sour Cream ((cream, nonfat milk, cultures), cultured nonfat milk, citric acid, tocopherols, ascorbyl palmitate) Salt, GMO Free Dextrin, Lactic Acid and Natural Flavors.
ALLERGEN: Dairy
Their bagel chips and potato chips and corn chips were my favorite part of the mix, but I could have lived without the pretzels and corn nuts. I’m just such a fan of plain pretzels, that the flavored ones aren’t doing it for me. And I grew out of corn nuts as a child. However, I did finish all of these bags. It was so good to find a tasty snack mix that’s safe to eat for Celiacs.
However, the flavors are really powerful – so if you don’t like cheddar flavor or sour cream and onion flavor – stick to the original. Also, they range from 140-150 calories for each serving size, and there’s 5 servings in a bag. Needless to say, you’ve got to watch how much you consume when you’re snacking on this.
PS if you have nut allergies, it’s also produced in a facility that produces nuts.
Overall I give these snacks a 3.5 – but the cheddar for me gets 4. It’s really flavorful. What would it take for this to earn a 5 in my mind? I wish that they weren’t so caloric. I let a coworker taste it and he had no qualms with it, but was shocked to see the nutritional information on the back. Also, I wanted to see more potato chips and bagel chips – they were so good, seriously the best part of the snack mix! Knowing that their Snap products are just the bagel chips – I’m all in for those next time!
They retail online for $4.99 for a 5 oz. bag online.
