I am in chocolate heaven

Some time ago, I was browsing Whole Foods looking for a healthy, tasty, gluten-free snack- not an easy task- and I came across a display of little plastic tubs full of various kinds of cookies and brownies of a brand called "Laura's Wholesome Junk Food."

Now, I've had some pretty good gluten-free cookies before (Like these, from Enjoy Life Foods), but I still view them as treats. Most cookies that describe themselves as natural, organic, allergen-free, etc., are nevertheless primarily comprised of refined flours and sugar, and in many cases saturated fats. They may be marginally better than the mass-produced types you'd find in most grocery stores, but they are not nutritious by any means.

So, when I saw these snacks by Laura's Wholesome Junk Food, I did not get my hopes up. "Wholesome," if you aren't aware, doesn't mean much of anything and carries no implications whatsoever for the nutritional content of the food it describes. Then I read the ingredient list for one of the varieties: Xtreme Chocolate Fudge Bite-lettes. The first 8 ingredients were: rolled oats, dates, expeller pressed canola oil, fruit juice, natural grain dextrins, chocolate chips, and unsweetened natural cocoa. The remaining ingredients were all similarly natural and mostly healthful. Each 2-bite-lette serving contained 110 calories, 2 grams of fiber, and 7 grams of sugar (most I'd expect comes from the dates and fruit juice). I decided that the product was acceptable from a nutrition standpoint, so I bought them.

It turns out that they are delicious. I can't really compare them to anything else because they are pretty unique in their texture and flavor. They don't exactly taste like brownies or cookies. But they are rich and very chocolatey, with undertones of fruit and a hint of lemon that somehow makes perfect sense. The consistency is a cross between a soft oatmeal cookie and a chocolate truffle. Something about this particular flavor combination gets all the right neurons in my brain firing and is as satisfying to my inner child as a slice of ice box cake fresh out of my grandmother's refrigerator.

Maybe I'm getting a little carried away. I'm sure not everyone will agree with me, but they are certainly worth trying if you are looking for a new healthy snack. Apparently there are lots of other varieties, but I've been so enthralled by this one that I haven't bothered to sample the others! If you can't find them at your local Whole Foods Market, you can order them online at the links posted above.

Nuts that taste as good as they are for you!

If you pay any attention at all to health and nutrition research in the news, you've probably heard that nuts are good for you. And this is one bit of information from the mainstream media you can actually trust. Nuts are nutritious; they provide protein, fiber, healthy fats, and vitamins and minerals. People who eat nuts regularly have been found to have lower rates of heart disease, metabolic syndrome, and diabetes. I would call all nuts healthy, but walnuts do have a bit of an edge on other nuts- they are the only ones that contain omega-3 fatty acids.

A lot of people avoid nuts because they are high in calories. I think this is somewhat misguided, and a good example of throwing out the baby with the bath water. It is important not to eat large portions of nuts if you are watching your weight, but it is much better to eat small quantities than to not eat them at all. Observational studies have consistently found that people who eat more nuts actually tend to have lower BMIs. Although paradoxical, this may be partially due to the satiating effects of nuts. In other words, nuts suppress hunger and thus may reduce total calorie intake over the course of a day.

So far, it sounds like nuts would make a perfect, healthful snack. And if nutrition is the only thing that matters, then that would be true. However, most of us think about taste first and nutrition second (even me!). Now, it's not that nuts don't taste good... but let's face it: they don't taste great. Pure, unadulterated nuts are pretty bland. I have long incorporated nuts into my diet, but it has been more out of a sense of obligation or self-righteousness than real desire. This is with the exception of almond butter, of course, which is like sex on a spoon (see my previous ode to AB here).

But in the past couple of months, I have noticed a trend in the snack food industry. There seem to be more and more jazzed-up nut products on the shelves. My feelings towards most of them are mixed. My old airport convenience store/gas station standby is Planters honey roasted cashews. These are quite tasty and only have a few extra grams of sugar in each serving. But I've grown bored with them. Blue Diamond has a new line of flavored almonds that sound like dessert: vanilla bean, cinnamon brown sugar, and dark chocolate. I tried all of these, and was a little disappointed. They were good enough, but they still lacked a certain something.

Then, in the span of a few weeks, I came across two products that HAD that something: YumNuts toasted coconut cashews and Sahale Snacks pomegranate vanilla cashews. I found the YumNuts (gotta love that name) cashews at a Whole Foods Market and instantly fell in love. These cashews have a light coating of sweet, subtle, coconut fairy dust. Eating them was a completely new experience and nothing like any other cashews I'd had before. I thought this was as good as nuts could get.

But THEN, I discovered Sahale Snacks' cashews at my local Starbucks. I was on my way out for drinks with some friends and it was a couple of hours after dinner, so I needed a little something in my stomach. My husband and I stopped at Starbucks so he could load up on caffeine and I could grab something- presumably unsatisfying- to eat. I bought these, fully expecting to have the same disappointing experience I had had with the vanilla almonds. Instead, I discovered that a healthy snack could taste as good as candy. I could not stop eating them. The combination of flavors was perfectly delicious and complementary to the cashews. This product does contain 6g of sugar per serving, but this is is still far less than any other snack food that would taste as good.

Both of these brands have a number of other varieties of nuts, but I have not yet tried them. If you are interested, check out their websites to view their other products:

Yumnuts Naturals

Sahale Snacks

Coconut deliciousness

It seems like coconut is a love-it or hate-it kind of thing. I don't know too many people who don't have strong feelings about coconut, one way or the other. If you're not into coconut, I'm sorry but this post won't interest you, you strange person you. If you do like coconut, you will LOVE these macaroons from Aleia's Gluten Free Foods that were recently introduced to me by my technology-challenged cousin, Thea, who will never read this. There are some pros and cons of this product, which I will outline below. But, overall I highly recommend it.

First let me get the Cons out of the way:
- They are expensive- about $8 for a bag of 24 (Yikes!)
- They are difficult to find- I have so far only seen them in some natural food stores and occasionally Stop and Shop in the New Haven, CT area. But, according to their website, they are available in many stores across Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island

Now for the Pros:
- Each cookie has only 30 calories, 1g of fat and 2g of sugar
- Each cookie has 2 grams of fiber!
- There are only 5, all-natural ingredients: coconut, water, tapioca flour, sugar, and egg whites
- They are gluten-free
- They are also available in chocolate
- They are soft and chewy
- They stay soft and chewy pretty much forever
- Most importantly, they are insanely good!

I have to mention.. these are still cookies and shouldn't be eaten with abandon, but if you're going to eat a cookie, you won't find a better combination of taste and relative innocuousness (yup, it is a word. Spellcheck says so). So, unless you are one of those inexplicable coconut-avoiders, I suggest you try to find these near you. At 33.333 cents per cookie, I'm not sharing!

Food I am loving right now: Baked Kettle chips

This post will be brief. I just want to share one of my new food finds. These baked chips, by Kettle, are a big improvement on the baked Lays chips that I once ate on a regular basis. They are not mashed up potato mixed with extra starch and formed into chip-like shapes that break into shards at the smallest disturbance. No, these are actual slices of real potato, baked with just a small amount of oil and sea salt. And they are delicious! They taste like real potato chips, but without all the grease.

And another bonus: because they are thick and extra crunchy, they hardly ever break! I put a ziploc bag of these in my schoolbag, mashed up against my laptop and notebooks all day, and I still end up with hardly any small pieces. It's great because even a small serving seems like a lot of chips! If you are a salty snack fiend looking for a low-calorie and relatively unprocessed food to satisfy your cravings, I highly recommend giving these a try!

One-ingredient wonders

Recently, I've been thinking about what I'll call one-ingredient wonders: those foods that are perfect and delicious just the way they are. You can eat them by themselves with nothing else (except maybe a little salt) and be completely satisfied. I think these very special foods deserve a little shout-out. Interestingly, tasty single-ingredient foods are almost always nutritious as well. This is probably because it is only when we start to take foods out of their natural context that they become harmful to our health. Some of the treats we find most enjoyable are combinations of refined, calorie-dense ingredients. For example, a doughnut is comprised mostly of flour, sugar, and oil. But any one of these ingredients alone would hardly be as desirable as the end product. In contrast, when we eat whole, unprocessed foods, we are eating the way nature intended (i.e. the way we evolved to eat). Of course there are exceptions to this rule- fatty cuts of beef come to mind, but they are few.

Now, without further adieu, here are my selections for the tastiest additive-free foods:

Avocado

Probably one of my favorite foods of all. It's creamy with a subtle but wonderful flavor. It is often featured in sushi rolls, in guacamole, and atop salads, but my favorite way to eat avocado is straight out of the skin- its very own serving dish, with a sprinkle of salt. I've been in the habit of eating an avocado a day as of late, mostly because it's so darn good but also because it is portable and needs no refrigeration or heating. I might look a litle strange to others when I take one out of my bag and start cutting it up, and I did have an unfortunate mishap in class the other day when a wayward pit ended up rolling across the floor; nevertheless, I enjoy my daily avocado too much to give it up.

Nutritionally, avocado has a lot going for it. Although avocado is often vilified for its high calorie and fat content, it contains mostly healthy mono-unsaturated fats. Diets high in monounsaturated fat, like the Mediterranean diet, have been associated with lower risk of heart disease. One avocado also has a whopping 9 grams of fiber and 15-30% of the daily value of the B vitamins, vitamin E, and folate. If you are watching your weight, you should use avocado as a condiment and limit portion size. But if you are an athlete or have an otherwise high calorie requirement, feel free to eat the whole thing!

Eggs

I love eggs. From my head down to my...okay I'm being silly. But truly, I think eggs are another near-perfect food in terms of taste. Whether they are scrambled, fried, or hard-boiled, all they need is a little salt and pepper. I have been eating eggs in one form or another every day for breakfast for the last 7 years. I have yet to grow tired of them.

Eggs often get a bad rap because they are high in fat and cholesterol. But in fact, eggs are relatively low in saturated fat. It's true they are high in cholesterol, but more and more evidence is suggesting that dietary cholesterol is not as important as once thought. Numerous studies have found that regular egg consumption does not adversely affect blood cholesterol levels or other markers of disease risk. Omega-3-enriched eggs may be even better than conventional eggs. Eggs are not only good sources of protein, but also B vitamins, vitamin A, and many minerals. They are also satiating and may reduce total daily calorie intake when eaten for breakfast.

Almond Butter

Some nut butters have all the luck. While peanut butter basks in the glory of the nearly universal love it receives from Americans who loyally pack it in their kids' lunches, spread it on crackers for a quick snack, and hand it out to trick-or-treaters in chocolate cups; almond butter has been relegated to the rarely visited aisles of the natural food section of the grocery store, embraced only by a small group of crunchy granola types. I think it deserves better. Although its only ingredient is almonds, almond butter somehow has a taste that far exceeds that of mere nuts. I can't really describe it. You just have to try it for yourself, if you haven't already. You could use almond butter the same way you would peanut butter, but I prefer to eat it by the spoonful out of the jar. Aside from the fact that its additive-free nature makes it somewhat less spreadable than peanut butter, I think that eating it alone is the best way to appreciate its unique flavor and texture.

Like avocado, a serving (2 tbs) of almond butter has a lot of calories and healthy fats. It also has half of the daily value of vitamin E, plus a good amount of magnesium and other minerals.

I'm sure there are many other foods that I could include in this list, but I think this post is long enough already. So, in conclusion, I encourage you to try to incorporate more single-ingredient foods in your diet, and discover what a fantastic chef Mother Nature is.

I heart Chobani

If you haven't jumped on the Greek yogurt bandwagon yet, you need to get on it. And the best brand (in my not-so-humble opinion) is Chobani. What makes Greek yogurt so special? It's super thick and creamy, which makes it ideal as a substitute for sour cream or as a decadent sweet treat. Another reason why I love it is that it is nutritionally superior to other yogurts. It is much higher in protein than other yogurts, which means more nutrient bang for your calorie buck, and probably a lower glycemic index as well (though I can't be sure of that; I don't think it's been tested).

For example, 6 oz. dannon nonfat plain yogurt has 80 calories, 12g sugar, and 8g protein. This is pretty good!

But Greek yogurt has even better stats: a few more calories (100), but only 7g of sugar and a whopping 18 grams of protein!!

For people who aren't into plain yogurt, Chobani makes some great flavored yogurts, too. I had the pleasure of trying two of their new flavors: 2% strawberry-banana and 0% raspberry. They were both delicious! I hadn't ever tried the 2% yogurt before, but that could be a special indulgence because it was SO creamy and rich. Both of the yogurts had the fruit on the bottom that reminded me of the yogurt I ate as a child, before I cared about calories.

But even the sweetened yogurts are well within a reasonable range of calories for a snack. The flavored 0% yogurts have 140-150 calories, 20g sugar, and still pack 14-16g of protein. The 2% pineapple yogurt has 160 calories, 21g sugar, and 13g of protein.

In comparison, Yoplait light yogurt has fewer calories (100) but about the same number of carbs (19) and only about a third of the protein (5g). Original Yoplait's nutritional value is abysmal with 170 calories, 27g sugar and still only 5g of protein! You might save a couple of calories eating the light version, but the Chobani yogurt will be more filling (so you'll be apt to eat less later on) and will probably have a smaller impact on your blood sugar, which is more important than you know. I will be dedicating a post to this topic in the near future, so keep an eye out for it.

And if the superior nutrient profile isn't enough to convince you to switch to Greek yogurt, it just tastes a whole lot better! I know Yoplait has this "thick and creamy" line out, but that just tastes like yogurt mixed with jello, and essentially, that is what it is. The yogurt is thickened artificially with gelatin. Chobani, on the other hand, is naturally thick and creamy, and way better than anything else out there.

My only complaint about Chobani is that they don't have any truly "light" yogurts, sweetened with sugar substitutes. Although the flavored yogurts aren't very high in calories, I just can't bring myself to eat that much added sugar. I don't care if it's "natural" sugar, it's still sugar. As a result, as good as the new flavors are, I am going to stick with what I've been eating almost daily these days: Chobani nonfat plain yogurt, to which I add splenda and thawed, frozen blueberries. I don't think anything they could make could trump this combination in taste, but it would be nice to be able to have a no-sugar-added but still sweet version of this to take on the go when it's not so convenient to mix it myself.

Chobani, if you're listening, what are you waiting for?!! So many weight-conscious yogurt-eaters out there are currently gobbling up that watery, chalky tasting excuse for a "light" yogurt that's being pushed by that OTHER yogurt company (you know which one I'm talking about) simply because it's the lowest calorie option available. This is a travesty! With a few simple adjustments, Chobani could make the best-tasting AND most nutritious low-calorie yogurt on the market. I get that they're committed to "all-natural" ingredients and don't want to use artificial sweeteners, but even that's not an excuse anymore, what with Truvia and other erythritol-containing natural non-nutritive sweeteners now widely available. Time to get on the ball, people!

Check out Chobani's website
Become a facebook fan

Product Rave! Powdered Peanut Butter

Okay, I know it sounds weird, but this stuff is probably the best food innovation I've seen in quite some time. It's exactly what it sounds like.. powdered peanut butter. You mix the powder with just a little bit of water and it makes a paste that is similar in consistency to peanut butter. It's a little thicker and not as oily, but it is perfectly spreadable and has all the flavor of regular peanut butter. Now here's the kicker.... it's only 53 calories per serving!! In case you weren't aware, regular peanut butter has 180 calories per serving. A serving, by the way, is 2 tablespoons. It's not really that much. Oh, and while the powdered peanut butter has one EIGHTH of the fat of its conventional counterpart (1.87g vs. 16g), it manages to keep almost all of the protein (5.65g compared to 7g for regular peanut butter).

If you ate a peanut butter sandwich every day and switched from regular pb to the powdered kind, you would lose about a pound a month, or 14 lbs in a year, without changing anything else! Or, you could look at it a different way... and eat an extra 130 calories each time you make the substitution. So, for example, instead of having just a pb&j, you could have a pb&j AND

a 6oz. Yoplait light yogurt

a very large apple

a 100-calorie pack of your choice

1/2 cup light ice cream

a chocolate truffle

a glass of 1% milk

2 cups of baby carrots

a small bag of baked Lays potato chips

a single-serving box of Frosted Flakes

2 fat free fudgsicles

2 apple cinnamon rice cakes

OR

5 more tablespoons of powdered pb!

The possibilities are endless! You can order this little miracle here. They also have a chocolate flavored version that I haven't tried, but I can just imagine how yummy it is.