Seapoint Farms Dry Roasted Edamame

This past fall, I became a big fan of wasabi peas. Wasabi peas are practically a bodega staple in New York. They come in these little plastic containers next to overpriced Swedish Fish and Japanese cracker mix, and range in color from bright pea green to darker green/faded brown. The peas also vary in flavor from store to store; some are sweet and the wasabi just adds a little something extra to the overall taste while others unleash the fury of a thousand suns upon your tongue and nasal passages. Unless you’re Cam Jansen or you’re purchasing the peas from the same place, you never truly know what kind of peas you’re going to get.

The last time I ate wasabi peas, I looked at the nutritional label on the back and discovered that these dear peas of mine weren’t particularly healthy. However, they also weren’t little balls of toxicity which is still pretty good in my book. But what’s good when you can have great? Why settle for an A when you can have an A+, right? Right! So when I stumbled upon Seapoint Farms Dry Roasted Edamame in Wasabi earlier this week, I decided I needed to try them out.

I opened the resealable bag (which are among the best things in the world, by the way), popped one in my mouth, and almost died. The heat of the wasabi wasn’t a problem, but the taste of the edamame was! It tasted like dirt. I was convinced I was eating dirt. We all know that in order to truly be healthy, you have to go all natural. You have to eat fresh products, go outside, and be both mentally and physically active. Apparently, I had decided to kill two birds with one stone by eating dirt. Who needs to go outside when you can eat the outside?

I tried another one because I obviously couldn’t write a review based solely off of my first impression of a snack, but I already knew that this snack was not for me. “LOL,” said the universe, “Haven’t I repeatedly shown you that you cannot judge a book by its cover?” So the universe, viewing this moment as a wonderful teaching opportunity, provided me with an edamame bean that was spicy yet still had that delicate wasabi sweetness. I was confused. I wasn’t entirely convinced. I had to try more. The next bean didn’t taste like dirt either but it still tried to kill me with its heat. This wasabi edamame wasn’t as bad as I had originally thought. As I continued to eat the snack, I encountered fewer dirt-beans and then it hit me! I had expected the edamame to have a taste comparable to my favorite wasabi peas which tend to fall on the sweeter side of the spectrum. Peas are a relatively sweet legume anyway and since companies often add sugar to the wasabi peas, it was silly of me to expect a similar flavor from a treat with a completely different legume base. Furthermore, that “dirt” I was tasting was clearly the edamame flavor. Basically, my palate is unrefined and couldn’t handle a product tasting exactly like it should.

Fast forward to now and I’m snacking on them while I write this review. This snack is a mixed bag when it comes to spiciness but as I said earlier, that tends to happen with these wasabi-coated snacks. If you like wasabi peas, edamame, and/or spicy foods, I recommend this snack. However, if you don’t like at least two of those three, I don’t think this snack is for you.

According to the store locator map, you can purchase Seapoint Farms Dry Roasted Edamame in supermarkets in every state except for South Dakota. The plot thickens.

Each serving of Seapoint Farms Dry Roasted Edamame in Wasabi has 130 calories. There are 0 grams of trans fat, 0 grams of cholesterol, 130 mg of sodium, 7 grams of fiber (30% of the daily recommended amount),  1 gram of sugar, and 14 grams of protein (28% of the daily recommended amount). The snack is heart-healthy and the label says that in conjunction with a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, 25 grams of soy protein a day may reduce the risk of heart disease. Each serving also contains 2% of the daily recommended amount of Vitamin C, 4% of the daily recommended amount of calcium, and 10% of the daily recommended amount of iron. Seapoint Farms Dry Roasted Edamame in Wasabi is a gluten-free, non-GMO, vegan snack.