Paleo Wrap Review

Ahhh…Paleo.

We do not have a good relationship. If we’re talking the meat and vegetables, fruits and seeds kind of Paleo diet, I have no problem with it. But when we start baking things out of coconut flour and almond meal, it all starts going down hill for me.

I’m still learning and experimenting, so I won’t poo-poo the Paleo diet completely, but if you thought going gluten-free was challenging, you’re in for a real treat (enter sarcastic tone here).

So on we go.

Disliking this Paleo-ish adventure I’m on doesn’t stop me from experimenting and trying new things. I ran across these Paleo Wraps (Paleo Inc.) on Amazon a couple of weeks ago and thought, “what the heck, I’ll give them a try.”

They are $10.99 for 7 wraps. That comes out to $1.57 a wrap. If you have a large family ( I do not) of let’s say 2 adults and 4 children, that means you’re going to spend a total of $18.84 for each of you to have 2 wraps. Which of course you would have two or more each if you were making spring rolls or tacos, or that type of meal. I find $19.00 for a family of 6 to have two wraps each, steep. Add the inside ingredients and side dishes and that’s a pretty expensive meal for the average family.

Upon opening them, I was a little shocked to see their lack of moisture and pliability.

They’re extremely thin and kind of remind me of spring roll wraps but not as dry and you don’t have to re-hydrate them. But similar in texture and feel. They smell strongly of coconut which was of no surprise because the ingredients are coconut meat, coconut water, and coconut oil.

Very thin.

The first taste test revealed a sweet and strong coconut flavor. Again, I wasn’t really surprised considering the only ingredients are derived from coconut.

There aren’t any directions on heating the wrap on the back of the bag, just a recipe for a ground beef breakfast wrap where the wrap is not heated or toasted. I was curious to see if it would become more pliable and desirable looking if I browned it in a pan like a regular flour tortilla.

The good news is that the wraps do brown. The bad news is that they become crisp very quickly. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing either. When I tasted the wrap it was crunchy and I immediately thought it would be quite tasty with some dairy free butter melted on top and cinnamon sugar.

For a sandwich wrap though…I would have to start over. With the flame on 4 I very quickly, maybe for 3-4 seconds browned the first side.

Then flipped, and browned for only a couple of seconds.

I removed the Paleo Wrap from the pan and spread olive oil mayo and spicy brown mustard over it.

Then added lettuce, avocado, red onion, home roasted turkey breast, tomato, and bread and butter pickles.

The butter pickles are Bubbie’s brand. My absolute favorite. I ate almost a third of the jar while taking photos. My ankles will not be pleased with the salt this evening.

Once I rolled up the Paleo Wrap, I could pretty much tell it wasn’t going to turn out like I had hoped. Just a bit too stiff. When picked up to take a bite, the wrap doesn’t form around the inside ingredients so has to be held tightly in order to keep things inside.

But still on the somewhat tasty side. Which I think is probably based on 75% of me just wanting something that resembled a real wrap and 25% of really being “tasty”. The ingredients inside the wrap masked the sweet coconut flavor pretty well, which was surprising.

Had I not toasted it, it may have held together a bit better but definitely would have been less appetizing looking and tasting. Toasting it brought some of the oil to the surface which made it seem more like a food item. Without being toasted, my opinion is that the texture and color just falls too far over into the non-food, unappealing category. Kind of like blue jello or that hideous colored ketchup if you know what I mean. It’s still may be ketchup and jello, but something in your brain when it sees that it’s blue is telling you, “don’t eat that!”.

The wrap below is straight out of the package. It does roll, but has to be held together to stay in that form. It’s also possible that if you were to fill it with chopped, smaller items, even if the wrap was toasted, it may stay together a bit easier.

So here’s my overall vote:

Appearance:

3 out of 5. It doesn’t look like food, but neither do spring roll wraps so I’ll give them a break in this category.

Texture: 

Uncooked I will give it a 1 out of 5. I liked that it softened from the ingredients inside, but didn’t become soggy.

 Toasted I will give it a 3 out of 5.

Taste: 

I will give it a 4 out of 5. I think taco ingredients would completely mask the coconut flavor and that the texture of the wrap (very lightly toasted) would work nicely. The only ingredients are coconut, so it is sweet and tastes like coconut. Toasted, even to the crisp point, I think it would be very tasty with some fruit sauce and whipped coconut cream, or like I mentioned above, melted dairy free butter and cinnamon sugar.