Product Review: Zukay Live Foods

There are already a lot of reviews out there for these awesomely raw, fermented condiments.  The folks from Zukay must have gotten to me a bit late, but I was still more than happy to try out their salsas and relishes!  The really cool thing about Zukay products is that they have probiotics in them, from the fermentation.  As a vegan who takes a probiotic supplement because I don't really eat that many fermented foods (I used to do the Activia thing as a vegetarian, ha!), I was pretty excited to see what these were all about.  I read up on them and was interested to see the bubbling up out of the jar thing that happens when you open them (because of the live cultures), but ours arrived super cold (or, frozen, some might say), so this didn't happen.  Still!  I am a huge salsa fanatic (it's one of the few things I don't skimp on at the grocery store) and was psyched to try out something new.

Michael and I immediately dumped the entire jar of hot salsa in a bowl and started munching away.  I was already prepared for the fizzy feeling from the FAQ on their site, but honestly, nothing can really prepare you for fizzy salsa, guys.  It was effervescent to the extreme!  Kind of like salsa flavored soda.  For those of you (like me) who might be a little weirded out by that fact, do not fear:  the effect dies down (literally?) the longer the salsa sits out.  Or maybe I just got used to it.  Whichever is true, I know that by my 5th or so mouthful, I was not longer bothered by any fizziness.  The flavor of the salsas are really nice and full...fresh tasting.  But the hot left a lot to be desired in the heat area.  We ended up putting a bunch of hot sauce in ours to give it more heat.  Still, we just had a conversation like 2 days ago about how what we used to think was hot isn't anymore and how we both just put crazy amounts of hot sauce on practically all of our food.  So maybe that's just us.  However, if you are looking for an extra healthy, very flavorful salsa, do check these out!

As for the relishes, I am in love.  The garlic dill relish has graced every single sammich I've made this week.  I've gone out of my way to make sammiches just to put the relish on them.  I tried to convince Michael to add it to our ruebens last night (no go).  The horseradish is yummy as well, with just enough punch.  I highly reccommend these relishes!  They make an ordinary sammich (or!  they would be SO GOOD on a soydog!  by the way, I always get Yves brand soydogs, for those of you who were curious from my last post) taste like something out of a gourmet restaurant.  I didn't notice any of the fizziness with them, probably because it was diluted by the rest of the sammich.  Go order some of this relish, right now!

Also, I hear from Scott at Zukay that a line of salad dressings may be in the works, so keep your eyes open for those!

p.s. this was my second bit of news, but it is highly diluted in the excitement department, as most people have already heard of these products by now.  still!  it's the first time that i was contacted by a company to do a review and that made me all squealy inside.  yay!  sorry if all my news was uber disappointing, haha...  i do have something else up my sleeve, but i'm only mentioning it to make you all crazy.  :)