Hey friends!
It’s a Wednesday’s Eating party, ekhm, I mean – What I Ate Wednesdays! Today is a record of yesterday (Tuesday’s) eats! Yum. I have absolutely nothing else to say so I’m gonna dig right in today’s eats and the later review of these awesome Seed and Fruit mixes.
I recently got a package with some awesomeness…
First off – I got to try a lot of flavors of this Stetch Island Fruit Co. fruit leather I mentioned earlier. I only go to try raspberry flavor before and now I can vouch for the taste of the rest of these. I like them all! They are less than 50 calories each and they provide you with just the right amount of sweetness without none of the artificial junk that comes with fruit roll ups or other commercial fruit leathers. There is no added sugars (because fruit as sweet as they are, duh!) or artificial gunk, therefore these are 100% all natural. They also contain half a serving of fruit in each.
I’ve only tried Bear Naked granola once before. They were giving out small sample packs of the granola at my old gym. I loved the taste of this granola, it was yummy – so I was excited to try more products from this company. Bear Naked is today’s leading adventure food and lifestyle company and it offers a full line of all-natural granolas, cookies, cereals and trail mixes. Launched in 2002, the company is passionate about creating great-tasting, natural foods to fit today’s active, on-the-go lifestyle and is best known for its signature soft-baked granola made from 100% Pure and Natural ingredients.
I recently found the company Healthy Surprise online randomly and reached out to them to try it out. I was very intrigued as there have been many healthy package subscription based programs popping up everywhere but who knows which ones are the best? Truthfully, I think this is it.
There was only one draw back to the experience with the Healthy Surprise… I had to wait quite a bit for the package to arrive. The company also messed up and mailed the package to my credit card billing address instead of the shipping address I specified and they put the wrong name on the box. I don’t even know what nationality the name was meant for, I think it might have been Arabic. Who knows. My mom was very confused when she received the package in the suburbs though and thought it was a mistake. She didn’t send it back though thankfully and when I came to the suburbs to visit them, the package was siting there waiting — sure enough, it was meant for me!
Now on to the the inside of the package… My, oh my, I felt spoiled. The company seriously has got it going ON! The package was FILLED with interesting and yummy looking snacks, I was SO excited to try them all out. There was just so many to choose from. Additionally, all of these snacks were VEGAN and GLUTEN FREE! How amazing!
Happy National Chocolate Day! Such a lovely day to celebrate… Here are some of the chocolate recipes I’ve done in the past:
Check out all of my chocolate recipes here! I use chocolate a lot. Like a lot, a lot. Yes, I am a huge fan of chocolate.
And thank you for continuing with the entries for my Arctic Zero giveaway. If you win that one, your freezer will welcome 8 pints and 8 bars of this delicious low calorie and high protein frozen dessert. Pictured above is the chocolate peanut butter Arctic Zero flavor topped with two Enjoy Life’s double chocolate crunch cookies. Which are the topic of today’s post. Well not those specific cookies but just the crunch cookies in general.
I got to try out Enjoy Life Foods crunchy cookies. Truth be told, I haven’t had cookies in a long time. Not the packaged kind. If I’m to have cookies, I’ll bake them myself or I’ll go for ones that are freshly baked in a bakery or whatever. Which isn’t often anyway. It used to be often, but I’ve tamed myself when it comes to processed and packaged foods. However, these cookies don’t necessarily make me concerned or guilty when eating them (as opposed to bakery goods or other store bought goods).
Well this would never happen. Realistically. I would never sit down with a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream and eat it in a sitting. Depressed or happy, I would just feel way too guilty afterwards. Have I done it before? Yes. Before I started my healthy living journey. Would I do it now? YES! But only because I don’t have to feel guilty about it anymore — not if I’m eating Arctic Zero apparently. In fact, I can now feel GOOD about eating a pint of ice cream.
I was skeptical when I first saw the product at the store. There is no way in hell a whole pint of ice cream could only be 150 calories. Well, not only that, it also is gluten-free, fat free, all natural and organic, with a low glycemic index, AND it has 14g of protein. WTF? Is this real life? Seriously, how is this thing possible? The product has GOT to taste weird. I mean, these claims are just too unreal. So what happens? I get a surprise and my freezer gets stocked with all flavors and two bars. I’m set for life the next few weeks. Arctic Zero team is clearly very confident in their product which lessened my sense of skepticism slightly. Now all I could do was try it out.
I like trying out new food products that are healthy. Especially when they are fast, easy, and healthy. Like bars. As you know I like to eat bars a lot. I don’t eat bars every day, but when I do, I opt for the healthiest ones I can get my hands on. Or try to anyway. So Good Greens popped up on my Twitter suggestions one day and I decided to give them a go. They are very confident in their product and eager to compare it to other category leaders.
Very appealing. Truthfully, the nutritional stats are amazing. The bars are also big and yummy! Besides having such great facts about their nutrition, the company does more than just provide products that taste good. Their whole ordeal has to do with the word “good” and they have three sections of the website: eat good, feel good, and do good. They want to make sure they provide products that taste good (if not great), that make you feel good about eating them, and encourage us to do good by attending various community events they support and sponsor. The whole thing makes me feel happy that the company cares so much about customer happiness and satisfaction beyond just the simple flavor quality.
Have I mentioned before how much I love getting packages? Well, who doesn’t though, right? Today I got a lovely package from the Attune team with three different types of Erewhon cereals. While I don’t usually eat cereal by itself I LOVE it as a topping for my yogurt! I have been wary of cereals for a long time now, I already know how many additives and sugars they contain and it’s pretty hard for me to find any cereal I like that meets my nutritional preferences.
Erewhon (Air-wahn) thinks similarly and they recognize that it’s important to expand the availability of packaged goods that are actually organic and healthy. Their cereals are allergy friendly as they contain no dairy, soy, peanuts, nor tree nuts. They are made in a peanut free, tree nut free, egg free, and dairy free facility. They offer many varieties of gluten-free and regular cereals (many more GF options than not, which is awesome!)
Hello friends, happy marvelous Monday to you all! Thank you for the beautiful Katie for hosting MIMM 🙂
It’s marvelous to have been catching up with my friends I haven’t talked to in a while. I saw a lot of friends over the past few weeks that I’ve missed and I’m happy that this summer is proving to be super fun, eventful, and beautiful (in terms of weather). This weeke was also Pride Week 2012 and my friend and I went over to the Boystown neighborhood in Chicago to support our gay friends. We didn’t stay at the parade long and went straight to Wrigleyville for some day partying which I’ve missed so much.
This song is marvelous and I’ve been lovin’ it the past 2 months and I’m still not over it. I absolutely suck at genre-naming but I guess I’ve totally shifted towards the whole chill indie music over the past year. I used to listen to house all the time and now the only time I really listen to house is when I’m working at the club. On my own, I’m like this chill machine that listens to the calmest music. Strangely, Jango thinks that City and Colour is similar to some crazy rock songs and my City and Colour station is randomly intertwined with screamo, crazy indie hip hop, and then chill indie. It’s one confusing station. I have to click the thumbs down button quite a bit when I listen to it, haha.
Another marvelous thing that has happened recently is that I’ve completed the ChaLEAN Extreme program! So I think it’s a perfect opportunity to talk about how marvelous this program was and what my overall opinions of it were. Personally, I loved this program. I love Chalean Johnson – she rocks! She is very motivational and not throughout the whole 5 months was she annoying or boring. Never have I thought to myself “Oh God, Chelean, just SHUT UP already.” Nope. Which says a lot considering she’s been the first person I’d see every day (almost) for the past 5 months.
I just seem to have awesome luck, or maybe it’s just good timing? As soon as I ran out of chocolate chips the other day, I get a package from Enjoy Life with these semi-sweet chocolate mega chunks and double chocolate crunch granola. I love good timing!
All Enjoy Life products are gluten free and allergy friendly. I really like companies that are committed to helping people lead healthier lives without sacrificing flavor and quality. Enjoy Life is one of those companies. All of their products contain NO: wheat, dairy, nuts, egg, soy, fish, shellfish and most are free of potatoes, sesame, sulfites, and casein. In addition to the allergen info, the products contain no artificial ingredients, no GMO ingredients, nor trans fats. Love these stats. We all know I’m more and more of a health freak as I get older and I spend a lot of time searching for the right products, it’s nice to find companies which are totally and entirely dedicated to healthy lifestyles.
I have a huge love for Lifeway kefir. It all started in 7th grade when I moved to the States. We drank kefir back in Poland quite often but I don’t remember the brand. Then we came here and started buying the Lifeway brand… these flavors are simply out of this world. They have such a huge variety of flavors, it’s ridiculous – it’s impossible not to find something you like, no matter how picky you might be. Kefir is slightly tart in flavor which is a perfect kick of freshness and complexity to this already delicious high-protein and high-probiotic drinkable “yogurt.” I talked about the benefits of kefir in one of my earliest posts and you’re welcome to check it out if you aren’t convinced of the amazeballs quality of this product yet. They should be paying me for how much I advocate and promote their product haha. Just kidding. Kinda. 😛
Anyway, when I moved to downtown Chicago for college, I came upon Starfruit Cafe. It’s a froyo shop except.. they use Lifeway kefir instead of yogurt. You can only imagine my excitement. I’ve been a frequent customer here ever since. Thank God for Groupon having deals on their giftcards sometimes or else I would be broke like a joke by now! haha
Sensual Appeal 