Boots Meal Deal: Santa Fe Salad, Metcalfe's Skinny Cinnamon Popcorn and Apple & Elderflower Vitamin Still Water

This rather brief review is a 3 in 1. Whilst travelling and on the hunt for something for lunch, I decided to give the Boot's meal deal a go. I'm a pretty big fan of its range because it offers so much more variety and some really cool and quirky brands in its selection unlike places like Tesco and Sainsbury's, which force you to choose from a more limited selection.

I also love how most of the Boot's options are slightly more healthy and, in my opinion, this coupled with the breadth of choice more than justifies the additional 29p it costs compared to other meal deals. It was a tough choice (especially when choosing from the wide variety of snacks) but I eventually settled on the Santa Fe salad, a bag of Metcalfe's Skinny Cinnamon popcorn and the apple and elderflower vitamin water.

Intially the salad looks slightly underwhelming and not that appetizing with a lot of lettuce. However, hidden beneath this is actually quite a generous layer of deliciously sweet mixed bean salad with a little bit of a kick to it.

There's a good helping of tomatoes and sweetcorn too and lots of lovely shreds of creamy cheese that is slightly salted and works well with the crisp freshness of the leaves. The cheese is in quite thin strips that help keep this under 200 calories yet still packs a subtle punch. My only criticism was the scant supply of Mexican spiced chicken, which was full of flavour and I would have liked more of.

Score: 7/10

The cinnamon popcorn was nice but didn't exactly blow me away. I do like Metcalfe's but felt this didn't live up to what I was expecting. I love anything cinnamony so was sure I'd love this but felt the coating wasn't strong enough.

Every now and then you'd get a piece fully smothered in the sweet spice, which was really delicious with a lovely warming sensation but, on a lot of the pieces, the scent and taste was too underwhelming. It still made a healthy snack though at only 117 calories and isn't as sugary as most treats.

Score: 6.5/10

The apple and elderflower vitamin water I chose more for taste than health as I'm pretty sceptical about these type of claims and realise plain water is probably the best thing you can drink. It's a lovely vivid green colour and has a really nice smooth apple flavour that has a subtle tang but is mostly refreshingly sweet. Elderflower, which can be quite a tricky flavour to get right, was distinct and provided an interesting, sharp aftertaste. The whole drink was also pretty thirst quenching.

Score: 7/10

Overall, I really liked the Book's meal deal. It offered value, a great choice with some hard to find brands and was a healthier alternative to a lot of lunch deals out there.

Price: £3.29
Available: Boots