June 25th: Comparative Waffling.

Anyone who has read this blog or who has spoken to me in real life will well know I do enjoy a good waffle, as well as liking a munch on the food-stuff of the same name.

There’s plenty of people out there who swear by the ‘Honey Stinger’ brand of waffles when it comes to endurance sports and keeping themselves fueled.

Having seen and sampled them on my travels I have noticed they seem to be identical to the ‘Northwood Caramel Waffles’ available off the shelf in the Lidl supermarket chain, so I thought I’d look in to the two of them by means of comparison as I have energy gels/ jelly.

So here be my Honey Stinger Waffles vs. Lidl’s Northwood Caramel Waffles comparison.

Lidl's waffle offering.

A Honey Stinger.

From the above pictures you can see that they are both very similar in appearance to the point you might think they had been made in the same factory!

Cost

You cannot buy the Lidl waffles individually as you can the Honey Stinger, but at the same time it is not cost effective buying Honey Stingers individually so I have based this on a box of the former as sourced on eBay to a pack of the latter off the shelf from the supermarket:

Honey Stinger: £22.99 for a box of 16
Lidl: £1.20 for 8

Nutritional breakdown per waffle:

                   HS             Lidl
Size            30g            40g
Calories     160Kcal    195Kcal
Fat              7g              7.6g
Saturates     3g             4.8g
Sugar          14g           14g
 
Extrapolating the figures above, for the cost of £0.15 of an individual Lidl’s caramel waffle, compared to £1.44 for an individual Honey Stinger, you get a 30% heavier waffle, giving you 22% more energy, with a slightly higher fat content.

Basically, for 1/10th of the price of a Honey Stinger you are getting something that is superior in all the vital numbers if you are looking for in an energy blast… Ok the sugars that are in the two are different, one being caramel syrup, the other honey, but unless you are racing at an elite level or have specific dietary requirements, then the Lidl’s ones must surely be the way to go based on the punch it packs!

One thing that Honey Stinger have over Lidl is they offer a variety of flavours they offer, whereas Lidl's are only available as caramel - but if you're like me and enjoy caramel then there's no issue on the flavour front!

If you were to buy 16 Lidl waffles (2 packs) then you are spending almost 1/10th of the price of 16 Honey Stingers and getting a bigger blast per item when it comes to fueling, plus you can just venture down the supermarket and get hold of them rather than waiting a few days for a mail-order delivery... For me this is a no-brainer.

Eat waffles.
Drink beer.
Run far.