On this blog for a couple years I have touted the benefits (and yumminess) of coconut water--low calories, high electrolytes, good debloater, refreshing chilled, subtle sweetness. I probably mentioned how much I liked Zico natural coconut water.
Er, no more. They have a bottled version now, and it's from concentrate, and it tastes horrible. It's not at all like old Zico. Skip it.
Alternatives to try. O.N.E. has one in the tetra pak that's pretty good. My new fave , however, is Nature Factor's organic coconut water. Not from concentrate. Super numnum. If you exercise vigorously in this warm weather time, coconut water is a great refresher and replenisher. Try it! Both of those are available at Amazon.com (and Nature Factor's coconut water is in the subscribe and save program, and I took advantage to order 3 cases.)
But please, don't buy bottled Zico. It's a letdown bigtime.
Showing posts with label healthful beverages. Show all posts
Showing posts with label healthful beverages. Show all posts
Easter Sunday I was over at my big bro's home. He has two grandkids and I got a look at the elementary school lunch menu. It was taped to the fridge and smack in front of my face as I stored the extra chicken satay.
What crap we feed our kids. How come taxpayer dollars go to feed kids fattening, unhealthful crap? Chicken nuggets. Meat pizza (I'm guessing NOT on a whole grain crust or with low-fat cheese). Hot dogs (omigod). Corn Dogs (doubleomigod).
A quick google got this article with this summary of research findings regarding obesity and these crap school lunches:
If I were Empress of the US, school lunches would be the epitome of healthful, balanced eating to give kids a great start and energy to get through their studies. Whole grains. Nothing fried. No caffeine. Nothing with sugar (except for rare treats on a holiday times or other special occasions). No sugar-laden chocolate milk, for sure. No sodas--diet or otherwise. No junk chips (unless baked and low-salt and ideally made from something that has fiber). Fruit cups would have no added sugar. Certainly no hot dogs would be featured. Egads.
I know, they'll say this: kids won't eat healthful stuff.
Guess what? Tough patooties. Give parents before school starts an idea of a menu and what items are included. "If your child has not been trained at home to eat these foods, then please pack as suitable brown bag or bento or boxed lunch for them each day."
I figure it's up to parents to train kids to eat fruits, veggies, whole grains, etc. If they don't, then make lunch. I, as a taxpayer, don't wanna finance the ticking time bomb that is obesity and diabetes. I am a product of this junk food lunch system training kids to want and like more and more crap. (I remember grilled cheese sandwiches DRiPPING with margarine, fatty meat pizzas, oily fried chicken, sloppy joes on white buns, oily fries, huge-sized cookies.) Funny, cause at home we got rice, beans, salad with avocado and olive oil, and things that were far less damaging than what schools gave.
So, today, I caught Jamie Oliver on The Doctors (where I got a look at a liver and a heart that probably look like mine, given I'm obese. Ick.) He was showing kids how gross chicken nuggets can be made. It was vile. But when he fried them up and asked which of the kids would eat them, all of them raised their hands. Even after seeing the globs of fat and goo that went into the nuggets, they'd eat 'em. Hah. Jamie was shocked.
They also showed the crazy amounts of salt and sugar in kid's lunch meals. One could weep.
I really am amazed parents tolerate those menus. Corn dogs. CORN DOGS???
Insane.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I caught a couple episodes of LOST IT! on Discovery Health channel. I wanted to see if the stories could up my mojo factor. It's always nice to see folks get it off and feel happier and healthier. One lady did WW. One did Jenny Craig. One guy did hypnosis tapes, which actually looked maybe interesting.
I'm not feeling all that motivated, but I did feel a tad more hopeful watching. :)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gotta admit that the Shapelover meals this week have been very good. Their food is tastier than when I first tried them more than a year ago (for a brief while). Very tasty. Yesterday, I had the Normandy Beef consomme, and while it wasn't so much consommeish (it had thick veggies in there), it was really delicious and hearty.
Hubby really liked his pork fricasse with carrots that I served him with the mashed new potatoes that came with my blue cheese beef dish. Today, for lunch, I had a pesto beef lasagna for lunch that was excellent, if a tad tad tad salty (prolly the cheese sprinkled on top was to blame for that). It came with a tomato basil onion salad that had a lovely balsamic/basil flavor. The chocolate berry dessert was so good for 70 calories. Mmm.
Been eating a lot of strawberries, too. The harvest right now is huge from Central Florida, so prices are low and berries are sweet. :D I hope you check for them when you go shopping this week. Good for ya!
~~~~~~~~~~~
Hubby went to get some home repair stuff, and I asked him to pick me up some carrot juice and the new Five Fruit Frenzy smoothie that Jamba Juice has been highlighting as having "five servings of fruit in a 16 oz serving." I asked for the smaller size (in case I'm not wild about it, anyway). It's got strawberries, blueberries, banana, mango, peaches--ye five fruits there--mixed in peach juice, berry juice with ice. I'm a sucker for mango, so I hope this is numsy.
If ya wanna try it, get a dollar off with a printable coupon until 4/10.
What crap we feed our kids. How come taxpayer dollars go to feed kids fattening, unhealthful crap? Chicken nuggets. Meat pizza (I'm guessing NOT on a whole grain crust or with low-fat cheese). Hot dogs (omigod). Corn Dogs (doubleomigod).
A quick google got this article with this summary of research findings regarding obesity and these crap school lunches:
Research presented this past weekend at a meeting of the Annual College of Cardiology determined that kids who eat lunches served by their schools are almost 60 percent more likely to be overweight or obese when compared to children who bring their lunch from home. The survey of nearly 1,300 Michigan-based sixth graders, taken over three years, also found that school lunch eaters ate more fat-intensive meats and sugar, as well as fewer vegetables than their counterparts—which contributed to them showing elevated levels of bad cholesterol in their bloodstreams.
If I were Empress of the US, school lunches would be the epitome of healthful, balanced eating to give kids a great start and energy to get through their studies. Whole grains. Nothing fried. No caffeine. Nothing with sugar (except for rare treats on a holiday times or other special occasions). No sugar-laden chocolate milk, for sure. No sodas--diet or otherwise. No junk chips (unless baked and low-salt and ideally made from something that has fiber). Fruit cups would have no added sugar. Certainly no hot dogs would be featured. Egads.
I know, they'll say this: kids won't eat healthful stuff.
Guess what? Tough patooties. Give parents before school starts an idea of a menu and what items are included. "If your child has not been trained at home to eat these foods, then please pack as suitable brown bag or bento or boxed lunch for them each day."
I figure it's up to parents to train kids to eat fruits, veggies, whole grains, etc. If they don't, then make lunch. I, as a taxpayer, don't wanna finance the ticking time bomb that is obesity and diabetes. I am a product of this junk food lunch system training kids to want and like more and more crap. (I remember grilled cheese sandwiches DRiPPING with margarine, fatty meat pizzas, oily fried chicken, sloppy joes on white buns, oily fries, huge-sized cookies.) Funny, cause at home we got rice, beans, salad with avocado and olive oil, and things that were far less damaging than what schools gave.
So, today, I caught Jamie Oliver on The Doctors (where I got a look at a liver and a heart that probably look like mine, given I'm obese. Ick.) He was showing kids how gross chicken nuggets can be made. It was vile. But when he fried them up and asked which of the kids would eat them, all of them raised their hands. Even after seeing the globs of fat and goo that went into the nuggets, they'd eat 'em. Hah. Jamie was shocked.
They also showed the crazy amounts of salt and sugar in kid's lunch meals. One could weep.
I really am amazed parents tolerate those menus. Corn dogs. CORN DOGS???
Insane.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I caught a couple episodes of LOST IT! on Discovery Health channel. I wanted to see if the stories could up my mojo factor. It's always nice to see folks get it off and feel happier and healthier. One lady did WW. One did Jenny Craig. One guy did hypnosis tapes, which actually looked maybe interesting.
I'm not feeling all that motivated, but I did feel a tad more hopeful watching. :)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gotta admit that the Shapelover meals this week have been very good. Their food is tastier than when I first tried them more than a year ago (for a brief while). Very tasty. Yesterday, I had the Normandy Beef consomme, and while it wasn't so much consommeish (it had thick veggies in there), it was really delicious and hearty.
Hubby really liked his pork fricasse with carrots that I served him with the mashed new potatoes that came with my blue cheese beef dish. Today, for lunch, I had a pesto beef lasagna for lunch that was excellent, if a tad tad tad salty (prolly the cheese sprinkled on top was to blame for that). It came with a tomato basil onion salad that had a lovely balsamic/basil flavor. The chocolate berry dessert was so good for 70 calories. Mmm.
Been eating a lot of strawberries, too. The harvest right now is huge from Central Florida, so prices are low and berries are sweet. :D I hope you check for them when you go shopping this week. Good for ya!
~~~~~~~~~~~
Hubby went to get some home repair stuff, and I asked him to pick me up some carrot juice and the new Five Fruit Frenzy smoothie that Jamba Juice has been highlighting as having "five servings of fruit in a 16 oz serving." I asked for the smaller size (in case I'm not wild about it, anyway). It's got strawberries, blueberries, banana, mango, peaches--ye five fruits there--mixed in peach juice, berry juice with ice. I'm a sucker for mango, so I hope this is numsy.
If ya wanna try it, get a dollar off with a printable coupon until 4/10.
I had another high salt eating day yesterday. I think something hormonal is going on to make me crave saltiness so intensely. Last night, I went for sushi and salad with miso dressing and a ginger-honey stir fry with brown rice, with all but the rice soy intense, meaning SALTY. I had some--okay get ready for TMI, you've been warned--spotting from my nethers, so I do think the salt vampirism has to do with my female fluctuations.I'm sipping a Starbucks unsweetened passion green tea as I blog. I used this to make up for giving up my venti 2% sugarfree vanilla lattes. I had a tall vanilla latte instead, iced and skinny style. It gave me that vanilla coffee flavor kick with fewer calories and fat. The tea is to make up for lost flavor volume. :)
Interestingly, I got a lot of compliments today about my chipper personality--one lady called me delightful, one effervescent, and one gal at Starbucks gave me a spontaneous size upgrade and a free latte. Surprised me. I guess smiling and being nice to people can bring rewards. I will admit, post Pilates, my muscle pain lessened by the activity and stretching--pain leftover from the hours of labor when the water heater flooded my kitchen--that I am a happy camper. Maybe my Joy Gravity Field is pulling people in. Heh.
Now, on to the soup:
I really, really liked Dr. McDougall's Vegetable ready-to-serve soup (which I reviewed earlier). Even my super-nitpickey, veggie-unloving hubby liked it when I packed some for his lunch earlier this week. I didn't feel the same way about the lentil. Now, normally, I dig my lentil soup. But I like my lentil soup savory/herbally/garlicky/oniony (pick one or several of that list). This one tasted very vegetable-ey, notably celeryish and carrotish. I do not care for celery much, but I can tolerate celery (raw especially) in salads and soups if discreet. This was not discreet. For me, this lentil soup needed more spicing and less celery flavor. But, YMMV, as you may be a celery and carrot fiend.
The texture was just as nice as the veggie one--thickish, without being too thickish. It had lentils and rice as the notable main components, offering more protein than the veggie soup, naturally, and a complete protein, of course. A cup is 115 calories (contrasted with 75 for a cup of the veggie soup).
So, while I won't repurchase this one due to its not suiting my taste bud needs, I think some of you will just love it like mad. It's healthful for a convenience food and not high in calories with a good mouth feel... and it's vegan. So, it hits a lot of spots and lets you get some veggie and legumes into your meal plans without a big caloric punch.
I'm super lethargic after having a late lunch, so off I go to try and stay away. ::sipping tea:::
Happy Thursday, y'all!!!
Today was a tough weigh-in. I had avoided the scales for, what, just over a week, but it was time to face up to the damage done. (Cue classic Neil Young, one of my fave hippie-era songs, only the Princess version would be "The Eating and the Damage Done.")279.6
That's the highest I've been since October of 2007! A huge step backward, really.
It is just too damn easy to regain, people. Look upon my weigh-in and be very afraid if you are thinking of slacking off even a little. Don't!
Ah, well. At least I felt calmer today. Not worse. And I didn't have crazy cravings. For breakfast I used 9 points, about 450 calories as follows:
~2 lowfat blueberry pancakes from Diet-To-Go (found them stuffed in my freezer from late last year) with one soy sausage.
~I made some sugarless compote from some blueberries hubby bought me Monday, because the berries were super-gritty and not fun to eat. The compote was passable. Start with a not-great berry, get not-great compote. But, hey, it was fruit and a pretty juiciness on the pancakes.
~I also had 1 organic, free-roaming, vegetarian egg, fried in Pam, with 1 slice Horizon organic American cheese. Just the egg and cheese was 4 points, but I wanted the extra protein/calcium.
~The highlight of my breakfast was using--for the first time--my birthday gift from hubby: a hand-made Technivorm Moccamaster coffeemaker with the gourmet coffee I ordered with it. Yum. Best cup of coffee I ever had.What a wonderful coffeemaker. But not cheap. But hey, I'm turning 49. I need the consolation of superior cuppa joes.
So, breakfast went okay.For lunch (which I just had, so it's more like dunch or linner), I decided to go vegetarian with spicy Indian food, so I could maybe feel comfortable with lots of flavor without having to eat a bingey 2000 or 2500 calories. I had half a cup of dal and half a cup of matar panir with a cup of rice and a very small piece of nan (about 3 inches by 2 inches) with a tablespoon of onion chutney, and one veggie samosa with a tablespoon of tamarind chutney. I had water and another cup of coffee, too.
I have no idea what the calories are (have to look it up), but my guess is that it's gonna be something like the following in points(respectively) 3 + 5 + 5 + 1 + 1 + 3 + 1. That's 19 points. About 950 cals.Total Points: 28 so far, about 1400 cals.
And I still need to get more fruit and maybe a small salad before bed, so I get my produce in.
Now, on that Model Thing: I was browsing the March 2009 issue of Ladies Home Journal, and I noticed the model in one of the fashion/style spreads was a regular at my Pilates studio. If you want to take a look, go HERE and it's the model in the green dress, smiling. If you click the back arrow at the top left, you go to a previous page with her looking to the right out a window. Though I've only chatted with her a few times in passing, she's very amiable. (If you own the magazine, she's on page 51, 52, 54, and 56).
Updated: Thanks, Lyn. I have no idea why I wrote Neil Diamond. That's weird. :)
I don't know how many coconut water afficionados are out there, but if you've read this blog for a while, you know that I am one. I use the refreshing and subtle beverage as one of my pre-Pilates drinks to minimize my muscle cramps.
But I just like it. :) Plain or with a pack of Splenda. Mmm.
(Though nothing beats fresh and chilled from the coconut itself, like I had a couple weeks ago when we drove to a nursery in South Miami, not to buy plants, but to get some chilled coconuts for the water.)
I also like how it's helpful in keeping blood pressure in the healthy range. (I like some salty convenience foods, like canned soup and mac-n-cheese, and I love cheese, and I try to drink coconut water when I have very salty stuff to ease the bloat effects.)
Well, amazon.com has a special on one of their in-stock brands of coconut water. Even though I got a case today of my usual Zico coconut water, I placed an order for this, cause I figure--two times the water for the price of one? I'm not missing that.
Besides, I am curious to see what tangerine puree does to coconut water. (The free case is of the tangerine flavored one.)
Interested? Visit HERE. Follow the directions exactly to get the $21 dollars off.
Note: I haven't tried this brand--Vita Coco--but like the two I've tried from amazon.com (Zico, ONE), they come from Brazil and (except for flavored versions) state they are 100% coconut water.
~
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