Like so many children, my kids grew up enjoying macaroni and cheese as an easy lunch or dinner. It’s a classic combo that’s available from big food conglomerates like Kraft Foods and tiny vendors that offer gluten free, dairy free, and all sorts of other combinations. Goodles, from Gooder Foods, has taken this space by storm and now has quite a wide distribution network, including all the major supermarkets, Target, Walmart, etc. Your local market probably sells their product, though you might not have noticed because they’re probably not at eye level on the shelf.
FYI: Manufacturers pay extra to have their product shelved at eye level at supermarkets. That’s why the big corporate brands are always so easy to find while the mom-and-pop startups and boutique offerings require a bit of hunting. And speaking of fun trivia, Gooder Foods was co-founded by Gal Godot, so it’s food fit for Wonder Woman too.
One thing that’s really fun about Goodles is that the company offers quite a few different flavors of mac & cheese, all with fun names. Cheddy Mac, Shella Good, Twist my Parm, Down the Hatch, and Here Comes Truffle are just a few options in their mac & cheese lineup. The company also packs protein and fiber into the product through plant-based ingredients. Certainly quite a bit more than Kraft or Annie’s.
It should come as no surprise that even as young adults, my kids and I remain fans of this staple food. In fact, when we decided to all get together to watch The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim it seemed like a perfect opportunity for a Goodles taste test. We cooked up a big bowl of veggies and air fried tofu for additions as desired, and proceed to cook up five different flavors:
Left to right, they are Shella Good, Down the Hatch, Twist my Parm, Cheddy Mac, and Here Comes Truffle. Five flavors and five people to taste them. Our hope was that each person would have a different favorite and it kinda worked out that way, rather to our collective surprise.
Me? I was surprised that I didn’t much like the truffle flavor but quite liked Parm (parmesan) and Shella Good (white cheddar) flavors. My daughter preferred the classic Cheddy Mac, while my son was a big fan of the Hatch (green chili) flavor. It wasn’t quite neat, but everyone identified a favorite and most of us mixed in a healthy serving of veggies. Two of us didn’t like the truffle flavor, actually, but everything else was “good” to “delicious” across the board.
How about our movie selection? We were all disappointed with the shallow storyline of the animated two hour film The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, sorry to report, and it was likely we would individually have turned it off before the halfway mark if we weren’t all watching it together. Glad we didn’t spend the money to see it at the theater, sorry to say.
Final score: Goodles: 1. Movie: 0. Fun: 100.
Tip: You can get a six-flavor Goodles taster box from Amazon for just a few bucks a box. Check it out!