During our family vacation in Hawaii, we have been staying at an ocean front condominium, which has really saved us a lot of money on our food expenses. We have purchased all of our groceries locally and have been preparing them right here at our place of residence instead of eating out at expensive local restaurants.
Last night my husband and son-in-law ran up to Longs Drugs to pick up a few items, and my husband came home with a bag of Maui’s Best Sweet Guava Rolls, made by the Home Maid Bakery in Wailuku, Hawaii. I had seen these rolls previously, but they did not look appealing to me and I didn’t buy them. We have been experiencing a lot of island fruits such as papaya, mango, and guava.
They come in a clear 16 ounce bag, and you can easily see what the rolls look like. They are square and fluffy, and remind me of a Hawaiian roll that can be purchased on the mainland. The tops and bottoms of these rolls are golden brown, and look like many other yeast bread rolls, but when they are broken into individual sections you can see they are a bright pink color. This color was, to me, very unappealing and unappetizing. I told my husband that they must contain red food coloring, but he thought they were pink from the guava or guava juice.
Looking at the list of ingredients on the bag, these are made from flour, water, sugar, eggs, vegetable oil, margarine, wheat gluten, powdered milk, potato flour, yeast, salt, guava flavor, enzymes, dough conditioner, FD&C; red #40, and calcium propionate.
So the only thing “guava” in these rolls is “guava flavor”. What does that mean? Not guava fruit or guava juice! And the taste was extremely disappointing as well. Out of the four of us, only my husband liked them (but he eats anything). We all tasted the Maui’s Best Sweet Guava Rolls, but nobody had seconds except my husband. They did have a sweet flavor, but in my honest opinion, they didn’t taste anything like guava. These were a huge disappointment. Furthermore, there was not any nutritional information on the package we purchased. I have no idea how much fat, saturated fat, or trans fats they contain. I don’t know how many calories are in these rolls. I am very health conscious and really like to know this kind of information. They were also quite expensive, retailing for $4.99, which I find very over priced for the quality we received. I would not purchase these again.
