If you guys haven't played Metal Gear Solid (which you should if you haven't) we guess a quick background to what CalorieMate is, is in order. A CalorieMate is a nutritious, low-calorie snack that's primarily sold in Japan. It comes in a variety of flavors and comes in block, can, and jelly variants. It became popular outside of Japan when the CalorieMate Block was featured in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, as a consumable item, which full restores your character's stamina bar when eaten.



CalorieMate Block is an excellent food-supplement for all sorts of people on-the-go, whether you're a busy Japanese businessman or a special forces operative who literally tries to eat anything that moves or sways in the wind. But the reason why we're here is to answer the burning question in all of the 90s kids who played this game... so how does it taste?
Well, we've broken up our verdict into bite-sized categories so you guys can get a better grasp of the positives and negatives.



1. Flavor


You actually a lot of flavors to choose from such as Cheese (1983), Chocolate (1993), Fruit (1984), Plain (2014), and Maple (2009). The most popular ones are Chocolate, which actually tastes like sweetened cocoa and Fruit, which has a weird aftertaste that's sort of citrus-ey with kick and a punch of lime. We'd definitely recommend Chocolate over Fruit but that's just us.



2. Nutritional value


Did we feel your stamina bar rise? Honestly, yes. According to CalorieMate's website, the Block contains "a good balance of protein, fat, sugars, 11 vitamins and 6 minerals that the body needs" and maybe it's just some weird placebo effect but we felt a sudden rise in our energy levels like how you feel when you drank some Berocca.



3. Texture


Think hard polvoron and that's pretty much exactly how it is. It isn't that messy to eat so you can bring definitely it with you and eat it on-the-go.



4. Fill


Let's put it this way: It fills you up more than a pack of Skyflakes would but less than cup of noodles. You can actually use it as a diet food like how Para-Medic said since it only has a hundred calories.



5. Umay


Because we were so interested, we actually bought a couple of packs and had two each. You definitely need water (or even milk!) to go with it because it somewhat dries your throat but we'd definitely have it again.
VERDICT: We really wish we had CalorieMate Blocks readily available in convenience stores and vending machines because it's a relatively tasty snack that you can take with you anywhere. We're definitely hoarding these babies next time we visit Japan again!