Review: KNOW Better Pasta (chickpea pasta)

Trying to get back onto the healthy eating train, and going to do the gluten-free and dairy-free thing again.  Oh the fun. ;)

Tonight for dinner, I tried the KNOW Better Pasta (the twists variety).  It's got one ingredient only - chickpeas - so it's dairy-free, grain-free, gluten-free, wheat-free, peanut-free, soy-free, yeast-free, trans-fat-free, etc. 

I so very much wanted to like this pasta.  It cooked up quickly - only 3-4 minutes once it hit the boiling water.

However, the flavor was terrible.  The texture was ok - a bit mushy, but not inedible.  The flavor was the absolute downfall.  I made cioppino which had lots of onion and garlic and tomatoes (and seafood), and even that flavorful sauce wasn't enough to cover up the terrible flavor of this pasta.  It was awful.  I really hate to throw away food, but I don't know what I can do to try to salvage this pasta for a future dinner.  So very sad to say this, but I do not at all recommend this product.

Nutrition Facts per 1/2 cup serving

Calories 190

Total Fat 2 g

Saturated Fat 0 g

Trans Fat 0

Cholesterol 0 mg

Sodium 0 mg

Carb 28 g

Fiber 7 g

Sugars 1 g

Protein 14 g

Review: Power Crunch Protein Energy Bar Original Chocolate Mint

I thought I'd get back into the swing of things with reviewing new-to-me food items again. At one of my local grocery stores recently, there was a gal sampling various flavors of the Power Crunch protein energy bars, and she gave me a handful of them to try later.

I went back through my blog and realized that I reviewed one of these back in 2012! I was not a fan of the French Vanilla Creme version back then.

So has the manufacturer fixed the complaints I had four years ago?  Sadly, no.  The texture is just weird - it's not pleasant.  After the first bite, I thought to myself, "hey, this isn't too bad..." but after the second bite, I just didn't want to keep going.  The aftertaste really shot through, and it was truly unpleasant.  I also tried the Peanut Butter Creme and French Vanilla Creme versions this week, and all of them had that terrible aftertaste.  I can't recommend these bars because of that.

Nutrition Facts 
Calories 205
Total Fat 13 g
Saturated Fat 6 g
Trans Fat 0
Cholesterol 10 mg
Sodium 100 mg
Carb 10 g
Fiber 1 g
Sugars 5 g
Protein 13 g

Bulu Box weigh loss boxes

Back in April, I bought a Groupon for Bulu Box 3 month subscription. From their web site - "Bulu Box is the first health, nutrition and weight loss discovery box designed to help you feel your best. Each month, you’ll get a custom box filled with a new mix of 4 to 5 premium samples from top brands to try. Every sample is sufficient enough to decide if the product is right for you."

They charge $10 per box (including shipping), but the Groupon was for 3 boxes for $7 total, so I decided to give it a try.  Unfortunately, I'm really dissatisfied with this product.  Here are the photos from their web site along with the items included (per their web site) in each of the three boxes I received:

	July Runa Guayusa Tea Simple Being Simple Diet Movit Energy Gummies Earth's Care Anti-Itch Cream Fusion Jerky
	June Skinny Me Tea RESCUE Pastilles UrgentRX Upset Stomach Relief To-Go Movit Energy Gummies Balance Bare Bar
	May Shapeology Burn Blend SPORTea® Hot Tea Apothederm Stretch Mark Cream SK Energy Shot Ovega-3 DHA + EPA

So the June and July boxes have a repeat item (the MovIt Energy Gummies), and I didn't get the Balance Bare Bar in the June box.  Overall, many of the items are high-caffeine, and I have a sensitivity to that (which I learned via an ER visit!), so I couldn't try over half of these items.  A couple had ginger too, which is my wacky allergy as well.  Nothing from these boxes truly appealed to me.  I most certainly didn't get a $7 value from them --- and holy heck would I be upset if I had paid $30 for these!

Disappointing - I do not recommend this product.

Why is there tilapia in my Muller fruitup yogurt?

Eating yogurt for a snack tonight, I looked at the ingredients and nearly spit it out.

Why on earth is there TILAPIA in my yogurt?!

I searched on their site and they do have a FAQ about it:

Why is there tilapia in FrütUp?
We use kosher gelatin from tilapia to maintain the light and airy texture of the fruit mousse.

Seriously, weird.  This is what I get for trying something different (and it wasn't very tasty either!)

Review: Trader Joe's Macarons Varies

Ahhh, I love macarons.  Seriously, love love love.  When I was in Paris a few years ago, I went to a half-dozen macaron shops in one day to do a taste test. ;)  So yes, I know and love the macaron.

Bonus for my gluten free diet: macarons are gluten free!  There are few ingredients in macarons - the shells are made out of almond flour, sugar, egg whites and cream of tartar.  The filling varies, of course, but is usually a ganache or buttercream or curd - gluten free.

So when I was at Trader Joe's yesterday, I saw this rainbow box of macarons in the freezer section and had to try it.

There are six flavors in here, and I'll run them down now:

• fig: eh, it's okay.  The filling is more like a fruit gel, and reminds me of a Fig Newton ;)
• lemon: yum.  My favorite of the batch.  The filling is also a fruit gel but good lemon flavor.
• apricot: okay.  Not much apricot flavor in the shells but very present in the filling (also fruit gel).
• coconut: good.  Coconut flavor is present in the shells and the filling, which is a white chocolate concoction (based on the ingredients).
• pistachio: horrible!  I usually love pistachio pastries, and this was awful.  The shells were bad, but the filling tasted like vomit to me.  It was so terrible.  Ugh.
• salted caramel: okay.  The filling was a decent salted caramel, and the shells had a light caramel taste to them.

Overall, it's a hard one for me to rate - I think I have to lean towards not recommending, because I only really liked the lemon, I detested the pistachio, and the others were only okay.  For $4.99 for the box of 12 - each macaron was about 1 1/2" in diameter - it's a great price, but overall it was a let down.  I am glad there were no coffee flavored macs in here - seems like they always throw that flavor in an assortment! ;)

Review: Bluebonnet 100% Natural Whey Protein Isolate Powder

As part of my adoption of the Slow Carb Diet, one of the guidelines is to eat 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up.  It's a tall order, especially with a baby to take care of and feed as well.  So I'm turning to protein shakes to help with this one.

I picked up this Bluebonnet 100% Natural Whey Protein Isolate Powder at my local Sprouts supermarket (it was on sale!).  I got the "natural original flavor".  26 grams of protein in each serving!

It's terrible.

It's supposed to blend easily, but it doesn't for me.  I put my cold water in my cup, add the powder, and then shake for 5-10 seconds.  I get a lot of foam at the top, and still have clumps of powder in there too.  I really try to chug this as fast as I can, and still end up almost gagging about it.  It's really unpleasant.  I've tried other protein powders in the past, and this one is terrible.  I will not be buying it again!

Nutrition Facts
Calories 125
Total Fat 0.5 g
Saturated Fat 0.5 g
Trans Fat 0
Cholesterol 15 mg
Sodium 100 mg
Carb 3 g
Fiber 0 g
Sugars 1.5 g
Protein 26 g

Review: Caramel Nut Blast Balance Bar

Next up on the snack bar train - Caramel Nut Blast Balance Bar.

This is definitely not one of my favorites.  I don't know what exactly it is that I don't like - but clearly the Balance folks have been tweaking it (see the "original recipe - it's back!" notation on the wrapper).  The caramel nut top layer is okay, but I really don't care for the base layer, which is the biggest part of the bar.  Too little caramel to balance out the meh base layer.  These are not in my snack bar rotation any longer.

Nutrition Facts 
Calories 200
Total Fat 7 g
Saturated Fat 4 g
Trans Fat 0
Cholesterol 0
Sodium 150 mg
Carb 23 g
Fiber 0 g
Sugars 14 g
Protein 14 g

(I purchased this bar on my own with no influence from the manufacturer.  Read more about my series of snack bar reviews)

Review: Power Crunch Protein Energy Bar French Vanilla Creme

Today, the Power Crunch Protein Energy Bar, French Vanilla Creme flavor.

I love love love sugar wafers.  I haven't had them in years but I do love them.  So I was excited to try this one out... and my friends, this is no sugar wafer.  Everything was off on this one.  The coating was waxy.  The filling was extremely chalky.  And there was a weird after taste on the whole thing - almost acidic.  Maybe from the stevia used in it?  Weird.  Definitely will not be buying this one again.

Nutrition Facts
Calories 205
Total Fat 12 g
Saturated Fat 5 g
Trans Fat 0
Cholesterol 0 mg
Sodium 115 mg
Carb 10 g
Fiber 1 g
Sugars 5 g
Protein 14 g

(I purchased this bar on my own with no influence from the manufacturer.  Read more about my series of snack bar reviews)

Review: Lemon Meringue Crunch Balance Bar

Stepping away from the chocolate bars, I gave these Lemon Meringue Crunch Balance Bars a try.

I'm torn on recommending them - I only tried one of them, and it was okay.  I liked the change of pace from the chocolate varieties, but the crunch layer wasn't particularly awesome.  The lemon meringue top soft layer was nice though.  The lemon flavor came through without being totally overpowering.  But I guess overall, I wouldn't rush out to buy this one again.  That base layer just wasn't very tasty, and I want the whole thing to be good, not just the soft top layer!

Nutrition Facts

Calories 200

Total Fat 7 g

Saturated Fat 4 g

Trans Fat 0

Cholesterol 0

Sodium 210 mg

Carb 23 g

Fiber 2 g

Sugars 14 g

Protein 14 g

(I purchased this bar on my own with no influence from the manufacturer.  Read more about my series of snack bar reviews)

Review: thinkThin Chocolate Covered Strawberries Protein Bar

Today's entry is the thinkThin Chocolate Covered Strawberries Protein Bar.

First off, you have a visual in your mind that this is going to be a chocolate covered red strawberries bar - but it's not red inside.  It's a pale color (I ate this at 5-something in the morning and in the dawn's early light, I can't tell if it was white or beige), which kinda throws you off a bit.

But honestly, it's not about the color.  If it's tasty, who cares about the color, right?  Unfortunately, it's not too much of the tasty.  It's chalky and the flavor is just odd overall.  It didn't taste like true strawberry, which was a big let down for me.  I appreciated the 15 grams of protein and ZERO grams of sugar, but I wouldn't run back to this bar.  It definitely left me with an artificial sweetener aftertaste.

Nutrition Facts
Calories 200
Total Fat 7 g
Saturated Fat 3 g
Trans Fat 0
Cholesterol 0 mg
Sodium 120 mg
Carb 23 g
Fiber 3 g
Sugars 1 g
Protein 15 g

(I purchased this bar on my own with no influence from the manufacturer.  Read more about my series of snack bar reviews)

Luna Bar Lemon Zest

I needed a bar today since I knew I would need to eat while on the go. I picked up this Luna Bar yesterday to give it a try. If you're not familiar with Luna, it's "the whole nutrition bar for women", and also 70% organic.

I wanted something that wasn't chocolate (I know, a shocker!) so I went with this flavor. Unfortunately... and this is coming from someone who loves lemons... this is an 11 on the lemon-o-meter. It truly is like eating a ton of lemon zest wrapped around a bunch of soy crisps. Even after finishing it and then chugging a bunch of water, I still sit here with lemon zest flavor permeating my mouth. Fooey.

I'm also not thrilled about the 2 grams of saturated fat - why?! I should've spotted that before I bought this :(

Nutrition Facts

Calories 180

Total Fat 5 g

Saturated Fat 2 g

Trans Fat 0

Cholesterol 0

Sodium 115 mg

Carb 27 g

Fiber 3 g

Sugars 18g

Protein 9g

DiGiorno Deep Dish Pepperoni pizza

I don't remember how I got it, but I had a coupon for a free DiGiorno Deep Dish pizza that was expiring, so we decided to pick it up for dinner. The coupon was max value of $3.30, but one store had it for $4.79 and the other store had it for $3.79, so we bought it at the second store. Crazy that the base price at our local groceries is always higher than the max value of coupons for a free product, but that's another rant for another day...

Anyway, yes, this is a healthy living blog, so why am I talking about pizza? Well, this pizza claims it is two servings, and one serving is a mere 300 calories so it would work into a healthy-ish diet for a rare occasion.

Side rant: this pizza's total weight is 7.5 ounces. I didn't measure the pizza before we ate it, but the box is only six inches along the side. This is not two servings.

Additional rant: the nutrition facts don't add up. One serving - 1/2 the pizza - is 300 calories, but the whole pizza is 590 calories. C'mon. We're not stupid.

OK, so - did it taste good? NO! I'm from Chicago, I know deep dish pizza. This never even met a deep dish pizza. It never saw a photo of a pizza. It was pathetic. I get more satisfaction from the pepperoni pizza Lean Pocket. What a ridiculous waste of money and fat. The crust was butterlicious, but I had to go find something else to eat and felt ripped off for those 300 calories.

Nutrition Facts for 1/2 pizza : whole pizza
Calories 300 : 590
Total Fat 17g : 33g
Saturated Fat 8g : 16 g
Trans Fat 0g : 1g
Cholesterol 25mg : 45mg
Sodium 470mg : 950mg
Total Carbohydrate 26g : 52g
Dietary Fiber 2g : 4g
Sugars 2g : 4g
Protein 12g : 24g

Nabisco 100 Calorie Fudge Petites Mint Fudge Chocolate Shortbread

New! A new 100 calorie pack from Nabisco!

Notice the fine print... there are only 5 packs in this box. The "regular" 100 calorie boxes come with 6 packs. This new product is the same price as the others. I am *not* pleased with the ol' grocery-shrink-ray action here.

But I am a chocolate addict, and I love nothing more than chocolate and mint. So I had to buy a box to give it a try. And... I won't be buying another box. These are okay. They've got this white chocolatey coating on the bottom which is a little odd. The flavor is okay, but frankly, these are not as good as the Keebler 100 Calorie Grasshopper cookies. And the loss of one pack from the box is the nail in the coffin on this one. Lame move, Nabisco.

Nutrition Facts
Calories 100
Total Fat 4.5 g
Saturated Fat 1.5 g
Trans Fat 0 g
Monounsaturated Fat 1 g
Cholesterol 0 mg
Sodium 95 mg
Total Carbohydrate 15 g
Dietary Fiber 1 g
Sugars 7 g
Protein 1 g

Progresso Traditional Chicken & Wild Rice Soup

It's surprisingly cold out these days, so soup was on the menu today. I cracked into a can of Progresso from the cupboard - Chicken & Wild Rice today. In January, Progresso provided me with some free cans of soup but I don't remember if this was one of them.

The wild rice was too crunchy for my taste. I don't usually eat much wild rice, so maybe it's not the rice but it's me. I just prefer the long-grained rice that's in the other soups. I was also surprised by the slightly odd tomato chunks in the soup - they were kinda stringy (like sun-dried tomatoes that were re-constituted).

Anyway, the soup was better with the addition of lemon juice. Overall though, I'd go with a regular chicken & rice (not wild rice) soup and kick in that lemon juice. Though I'm tagging this as "not-recommended", it's not a strong not-recommendation - I just would prefer a different soup but wouldn't scream if I was served this one. ;)

Nutrition Facts (per cup, about two cups per can)
Calories 100
Total Fat 1.5g
Saturated Fat 0.5g
Monounsaturated Fat 0.5g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0g
Trans Fat 0g
Cholesterol 15mg
Sodium 650mg
Total Carbohydrate 15g
Dietary Fiber 1g
Sugars 1g
Protein 6g

More on the Godiva Chocolate Cupcakes

I posted last week when I received the Godiva Chocolate Cupcakes as a gift from my family for my birthday. Since they arrived frozen, I just put them directly into my freezer and then thawed them last night. Finally just tried one, and... absolutely totally not worth the $28 cost, and then you add the absurd shipping charges - over $50 for the 6 cupcakes, and they are *not* worth it.

Godiva's web site describes them as:

"These sublime little cakes conceal an irresistible surprise inside – a luscious center of Godiva chocolate ganache. Our rich, moist, chocolate cupcakes are offered by the half dozen, all iced in pink vanilla buttercream especially for Valentine’s Day, or three each in chocolate and vanilla buttercream for a romantic weekend’s worth of indulgent nibbling."

Uh, that surprise was so well-hidden that we didn't see any sign of it. Even cut a cupcake in half, and no ganache in there. Seriously, what the heck? Completely and ridiculously overpriced, and not at all sublime or indulgent - or moist even. Sad.

and I'm still irritated by their web site description:

"We take as much care in shipping your Godiva order as we do in making our delicious confections. This product requires the overnight delivery method to ensure freshness."

Yes, so very fresh that they are *frozen*. Shame on you, Godiva.

Godiva Chocolate Cupcakes

Today is my birthday. Anyone who knows me knows that I love cake. Despite this blog being mostly about weight loss, I am a huge fan of cake. ;)

My family lives 2000 miles away, so my stepmom so generously ordered cupcakes for me from Godiva!

She sent the "Limited Edition Chocolate Cupcakes" pictured here. From Godiva's web site:

"These sublime little cakes conceal an irresistible surprise inside – a luscious center of Godiva chocolate ganache. Our rich, moist, chocolate cupcakes are offered by the half dozen, all iced in pink vanilla buttercream especially for Valentine’s Day, or three each in chocolate and vanilla buttercream for a romantic weekend’s worth of indulgent nibbling."

For the six cupcakes, Godiva charges $28. Ouch, but c'mon, they're adorable. However, they also require overnight shipping ($23) - "This product requires the overnight delivery method to ensure freshness." So, over $50 for 6 cupcakes. But if they're tasty and fresh, perhaps worth it?

Well... they arrived today, and they're completely frozen. The card inside the box says "For best thawing results, place the Godiva Cupcakes in the refrigerator overnight." Are you kidding me? They spent over $50 on cupcakes, and they're frozen and I can't even enjoy one on my birthday today?!

*Nothing* on the Godiva web site indicates that they're shipping a frozen product. I called Godiva to express my disappointment, and the gentleman tells me "they're fresh-frozen", as though that's going to make a difference here. I am certain no one would spend $50 to send frozen cupcakes to a loved one.

The box was wrapped with a card that has the pretty picture on the front and the ingredients & nutritional info on the back (I'll post the nutritional info at the bottom here like my regular food posts). It also includes a lot number (34891), which I would give anything to be able to translate into an actual production date. Many companies start with the day of the year in their lot codes, and "348" would translate to December 14 - over two months ago.

Extremely disappointed by Godiva here. Disclose that you're shipping a frozen product baked who knows when and don't force the customer to pay a $15 overnight shipping surcharge for a product that won't even arrive fresh-baked.

Nutrition Facts (per cupcake)
Calories 430
Total Fat 23g (35% daily value)
Saturated Fat 11g (55% daily value)
Cholesterol 70mg (23% daily value)
Sodium 150mg (6% daily value)
Total Carbohydrates 52g (17% daily value)
Dietary Fiber 2g (8% daily value)
Sugars 43g
Protein 3g

Sweethearts disappointment

I love February 15 - the day after Valentine's day, when all the candy goes on sale. ;) Yesterday I was delighted to pick up a bag of NECCO's Sweetheart candies - the cute little conversation hearts. My favorites are the white (mint) and yellow (banana).

Well... I forgot that I had heard that they changed their formulas. From their web site:
"All new flavors for 2010 Sweethearts® include Strawberry, Green Apple, Lemon, Grape, Orange and Blue Raspberry. The new Sweethearts® have been re-formulated to be softer and more fun to eat."

No more white mint hearts.

No more yellow banana hearts.

My heart... it is breaking.

The new flavors, quite honestly, suck. I love lemon candies, and this lemon is awful - way too tart and... just tart. Blecgh. No lemon flavor at all. The grape was decent, and the strawberry was tolerable, but overall, it was a bag filled of disappointment.

Bring back the old flavors, please! :)

Banana Fudge VitaTops

I've written about other VitaMuffin products in the past - their vitabrownies (not recommended) and their triple chocolate chunk vitatops (recommended). I haven't ordered any in awhile since they're really pricey and I haven't seen any good specials in ages.

Last week they ran a free shipping offer with a Halloween pack where you could choose four chocolate flavors to make your own pack. I ordered on Monday morning, which their web site said would have the products arriving to my door on Thursday. They didn't even ship my package until Wednesday, and it came on Friday (which was nervewracking because we were heading out of town for a long weekend and I didn't want these to stay outside that whole time!). I chucked one of the banana fudge and one of the chocolate mint into my bag and took 'em with us on our trip.

I tried the banana fudge a day later, at room temperature. I almost always eat vitatops from the freezer, popping them in the microwave for 30 seconds so they get warm and melty. Since this one was room temperature, it wasn't warm or melty, but it was still okay. I did not get much of a banana taste in this product, which was very disappointing. I am a huge fan of bananas and was really looking forward to this item! I've had their banana nut vitatops in the past, and they're tasty (would be even better without the nuts!).

Overall, I guess I can't really recommend these? It's a hard call. I've now tried all four of the flavors I bought, and this one is just okay. I wouldn't throw them out, but I wouldn't order them again. There are better flavors.

Nutrition Facts
Calories 100
Total Fat 2g
Saturated Fat 1g
Cholesterol 0mg
Sodium 220mg
Total Carbohydrates 24g
Dietary Fiber 5g
Sugars 8g
Protein 4g

Fruit 2Day Mango Peach

Fruit 2Day's web site says "It's not a juice. It's a snack."

No, it's not a snack either. It's a very frustrating waste of 120 calories.

It's a fruit juice blend with small bits of fruit in it. The Mango Peach flavor I bought contains:

"White grape juice from concentrate, mango puree, peach pieces, orange juice from concentrate, pineapple puree and pieces, acerola cherry juice from concentrate, lemon juice from concentrate, pear pieces, carrot juice from concentrate, natural flavor."

I would've thought - hey, how about just mango and peach in there. But they throw in no actual mango pieces - but pineapple pieces and SIX other juices. What the heck?

I didn't like the flavor and I didn't care for the texture. Yes, it's juice with little bits of peaches and PINEAPPLE (no mango pieces in here) - and the bottle design, though they think it's cute, means you can't actually get all of the fruit pieces out of the bottle. Their web site brags about how this product helps your "on-the-go lifestyle" - but not if you are going to be trying to get this product into your mouth while driving or anything. Sheesh. And it's expensive too - two bottles (one serving each) for $4.

So very not recommended.

Too lazy to type all the nutrition info, but it's 120 calories, 0g fat, 28g carb, 2g fiber, less than a gram protein.

Fiber One Nonfat Yogurt, Strawberry

I'm a big yogurt fan. I've been eating yogurt every weekday now for a couple months, and have taken lately to throwing a cup of it in the freezer after lunch so it's nice and frozen (but not frozen solid!) in time for my afternoon snack.

I also like fiber, as you may have noticed from my previous posts. ;) So I thought I'd give this Fiber One Nonfat Yogurt a try.

It's small - 4 ounce cups, available in a four pack. I tried the strawberry flavor. For your four ounce cup, you get only 50 calories, no fat and five grams of fiber - a "miracle" 0-point food for those Weight Watchers in the crowd. And Fiber One/Yoplait got Hungry Girl to endorse it, so it's got everything going for it. But... it's way too small. Seriously, four ounces is nothing. (My usual yogurt is 6 ounces, and I sometimes go for the 8 ounce cups instead.) It's got a few pieces of strawberry in each cup to add to the flavor and texture.

Speaking of texture, you know the old joke about how eating fiber is like eating cardboard? Well... I got a bite of something that was very cardboard-esque. I spit it out and it's a brown fiber of some sort - could be cardboard for all I know. It was gross (it's about a centimeter long by half a centimeter wide, and flat). Totally lost my appetite - except I didn't, because this silly four ounce cup did nothing to satisfy me.

Overall, pass on this - it's too small, too expensive, and too cardboardy. ;)

Nutrition facts
Calories: 50
Total Fat: 0 g
Saturated Fat: 0 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Cholesterol: 5 mg
Sodium:55 mg
Total Carbohydrates:13 g
Dietary Fiber: 5 g
Sugars: 4 g
Protein: 3 g