Snacks

I know it's been a while! Hi again! I took a summer class for about 5 or 6 weeks and that kind of took over my life! However, I didn't stop eating! & so I have been saving wrappers & things that I have been wanting to write about!  This entry is going to be dedicated to snacks..not sure what else to call it.  I definitely prefer to eat actual foods, but sometimes if you're in a rush, it's nice to have a snack!

We'll start with the first items:

I spotted these at Commodities (health food store) and thought they sounded interesting! I had never seen them anywhere else, and still have yet to see them anywhere else.   It's hard to see, but in the bottom right hand corners it says "Energy Balls", so that also made me interested!  I loved both of them! I think I liked the almond butter slightly more, but they were both really good & I'd get both again.  There are also almonds in the Spirulina Ginseng ones, so they both kind of taste like marzipan! They are a mixture of soft and chewy.   They are both 170 calories and 80 calories from fat. I don't love that they have agave in them .  I try to avoid agave.  This is a good post about why agave is bad.  Not sure I would run to get them, but I would get these again though. They were very yummy.

omg this is SO GOOD! I discovered this at Juice Generation. I actually don't think I've seen them elsewhere.  The first time I had one..now I unfortunately can't remember which one it was! It was awful so I must have blocked it from my memory! I went back shortly after and asked the woman working "do people like these?" and she recommended the cocoa crunch..I hesitantly bought it..and I am glad I did, because it's SO good!  I love products that have rice crisps in them, I love the crunchyness of them. All their bars are vegan and gluten free. This bar has 12g of protein! 200 calories and 80 calories from fat. It's a great pre or post workout bar & they don't use any refined sugar.  It's sweetened with coconut nectar. Yum Yum Yum. Read more about them & where to buy them on their website.  They donate some of their profit to the non profit Not for Sale which helps to fight against human trafficking.

Lara Bar came out with protein bars! I've just recently discovered these.  Have seen them at Commodities & Westerly.  On their website, they show 6 protein bars, but I haven't seen the other varieties yet. These are both really good, and also really filling!   They use pea protein for their protein source, and these have 10g of protein them. I always liked Lara Bars because they have such few ingredients.  These do have slightly more, but not a lot compared with most bars! (only 8 ingredients!) On the wrapper, it says "1 bar= 1/4 cup of fruit" I think I like the chocolate chip macaroon more, but they're both really good!

Aside from  Lara Bar coming out with protein bars, they have also come out with granola! I actually can't remember where I got this! I'll have to keep my eyes open. I liked the handy single serving bag it came in, and only 5g of sugar! (Granola often seems to have lots of sugar added!) This is made of almonds, sunflower seeds, coconut, pumpkin seeds, cocoa nibs, cashews and cocoa powder are the main ingredients.  I had half in a smoothie bowl and half in some coconut yogurt. It was delicious! If I can find it, I'll definitely buy it again!

I had previously posted about the Chia Bars, but they have just came out with 2 new flavors!! I was excited when I saw them in Whole Foods!  The mango one is good, but I don't think I will get it again.  I think I prefer my mango plain, and not in things.  Oddly, I don't like eating cherries but I love cherries in things, and cherries and chocolate together? So good! I loved the dark chocolate cherry bar & have already gotten it again since getting it the first time.  I love these bars!

Really Goods , gotta love the title "raw fruit and nut thing" at least, I did.  Found this at Green Symphony a store/salad bar/juice bar/hot bar etc. in Times Square.  I occasionally work in Times Square, so I love coming here sometimes to get some healthy food or snack before work. Raw, gluten free, refined sugar free.. made of walnuts, bananas,  pecans, macadamia nuts, coconut, raisins, and sweetened with coconut nectar.  170 calories, 12g of fat. Crunchy and really tasty! I checked the website and it doesn't even list it as being sold in New York, I'll have to check if it's still at Green Symphony! I'd definitely recommend it.

 I was really excited about trying this! I love lemon poppy & liked that there were no "bad" ingredients in it, then when I took it out of the package to see its shaped in a heart..look how cute it is!! I was even more excited. Sadly, it was not "the Great Tasting Energy Bar".  It was SO dry! I took a couple of bites and then gave it to my mom, who wasn't a fan either.  If you see it, skip it.







Lastly [for now], Rave Bites.

These are SO good!! Found them at Westerly. All natural ingredients: dates, cashews, sesame seeds, coconut, raisins, chia seeds, cocoa butter and orange extract.  That's all, 8 ingredients. No added sugars. 5 pieces are 120 calories and 60 from fat, so it's not too bad.  They are so delicious! They have several other flavors, I'd like to try the others, but these were so good, I bought a second bag after I was done.  Super healthy delicious snack!

Go Raw Bars & Fed Up Documentary

In a recent swap, I was given a Go Raw Spirulina Energy Bar. I didn't eat it for a while because I had tried Go Raw's cookies before and wasn't a fan at all, so I wasn't too excited about trying it.  Then I did one day & since then I've been hooked. Yes it's green which might weird some people out but I really love the taste.  It's very crunchy.   I love it as a pre-workout or post-workout snack or a snack on the go.  I love that there's only 5 ingredients in it.  I recently decided to try 2 of their other bars: the Banana Bread Flax Bar and the Granola Bar.  The Banana Bar only has 4 ingredients! and the Granola Bar has 6.  The last two I mentioned are softer than the Spirulina Bar. I also wound up buying their granola cereal, which has the same ingredients as the bar.  As for the bars, the Spirulina one remains my favorite.

I love that these bars have such few ingredients and that they're healthy! They are high in calories and fat but it's healthy fats.

I haven't tried the Apricot Bar or the Pumpkin Bar because they both have agave in them, which brings me to my next topic.. the documentary Fed Up. 

I first heard about this movie several weeks ago, through a woman I know, whose daughter was one of the producers. Since I am into health & nutrition, I wanted to see it.  After seeing it, I can say , it's a movie EVERYONE NEEDS TO SEE! It's all about the sugar industry and what it's doing to children and our society. It's very sad; children who are 13 and weigh 400 pounds, the lunches they give kids in schools these days etc..

At the end of the movie they suggest going on a 10 day "Fed Up Challenge" which is giving up all sugar & all sweeteners for 10 days.   I've gone without sweets before, once for 2 weeks, but have never given up sugar completely.   It's crazy sugar really is in EVERYTHING!  Here are some other names sugar goes by that you may not be familiar with:

 

In my opinion, sugar should be left for things like cookies, cakes, ice cream etc.  It shouldn't be in the food we eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner & it's kind of maddening how it really is in everything.  "Found in 80% of the 600,000 food products found on American shelves." An Odwalla juice contains almost as much sugar as Coke. Three Oreo cookies contain the same amount of sugar as a Luna Bar.  For a while (though not in several years), I did drink Odwalla and eat tons of Luna Bars thinking I was eating & drinking healthy.

I recently bought the new (or new to me..I've never seen it before) Pacific Foods Unsalted Vegetable Stock which has a lovely 6 healthy ingredients, whereas before, I had been buying the 365 Low Sodium Vegetable Stock, which has more than 6 ingredients, one being cane sugar!! Why would one add sugar to vegetable stock?!  Before seeing this movie, I did look at ingredients, but now that I'm doing this challenge, I'm thinking about it in a different way. I would avoid foods that were high in sugar, but now it makes me angry! 

The Go Raw bars for instance, do have on average 12-14g of sugar, but the sugar is from dates and bananas and our bodies don't process natural sugar the same way as added sugar.

The movie isn't going after the desserts we eat, but about how the industry adds sugar to all these food products.  My parents thought they were eating healthy by eating fruit from a can (which I've always been against them doing & they would tell me it's just the fruit and the juice from the fruit).  However, upon inspecting their cans..95% of them had added sugar! [After they're done with what they have, they said they won't buy them anymore]  

Even so called healthy places like the chain Juice Generation add sugar to everything.  Some of their smoothies have bananas, dates AND agave.  There was a period where I was going almost daily and would always say "no dates or agave" and the smoothies with just bananas and other fruits were still SO sweet.  I thought to myself "can bananas really make a drink this sweet?" and I finally asked them why their smoothies are so sweet.   Turns out they use sweetened almond milk AND sweetened acai! Ridiculous.  I found this so maddening.  I thought I was being healthy (& of course I still was in retrospect to other things I could have been eating/drinking) but it was upsetting to know how much sugar is added.  I've asked other smoothie places & almost all use sweetened almond milk or soy milk.  When I asked why they' ve told me people didn't like it when they used unsweetened.  

Conclusion is of course it's better to make your own smoothies & food which I have been doing a lot of this year.

The American Heart Association recommends no more than 6-9 teaspoons of added sugar a day..of course how can you know how many teaspoons you're eating because everything is listed in grams, well I have this handy formula:

Some candy bars have 24g on their own! so this is a really good equation to think about.

I highly recommend just going and seeing this movie & reading labels & trying to avoid sugar/sweeteners in your every day meals. Look at your pasta sauces, breads (I'm a big fan of Ezekiel Bread), your drinks, your protein bars,  yogurts, dressings, cereals, veggie burgers and other boxed food, etc)