Zukay Products Review (Mailing Mishap) and Hewing to the Simple

When Zukay Foods contacted me to ask if I'd be interested in reviewing their products, I was enthusiastic. I love fermented foods, and with my current mission to restore gut flora, it seemed so timely. Unfortunately, the timing got kinda wrinkled from there on, which is why this review appears several weeks after first contact!

My package arrived in the middle of the Kachemak Bay Writers' Conference, so you know that my attention was all elsewhere! It had not been treated well by USPS: apparently fermented products, glass jars and USPS don't go well together. I know that Averie and the Pure2Raw ladies had this explosive experience too! 
The 'carrot ginger kvass' was missing entirely, and you can see that the salad dressing jar is mostly empty.

Funnily enough, it's my experience that the plastic lids are the vulnerable spot on these glass jars, and so it proved here: the lid on the salad dressing bottle was broken and all the liquid was all over everything. Since the dressing features turnip and onion, and fermentation, it was quite the aromatic package by the time poor Phil picked it up at the Post Office!

Kvass is another kind of probiotic rich fermented drink, originally from the Caucasus and typically made with beets. Fermentation plus beets sounds like all kinds of good--blood purifying, gallbladder-supporting, vitamin and mineral-rich, good bacteria...

I drank the beet-ginger kvass right away, and I really loved it. It's fairly thin in flavor, not full-bodied. Somewhat similar to pickle juice, but without the salt. It has just a hint of fizz, less so than kombucha, and neither the beet nor the ginger are overpowering at all. And with the slightly wide-mouthed glass bottle, it gives you a wonderful purple mustache!

And then we went to Oregon, and the rest, and the review, had to wait.

I was a little puzzled by the salad dressing's claim to be the 'best salad dressing ever' juxtaposed with the recommendation to add olive oil to make a vinaigrette. The 'best ever' claim implies that it's complete in itself. But, as Gena pointed out, and as the vinaigrette suggestion shows, it contains no fat. On the one hand, this is great; on the other, many people love to have some lubrication on their lettuce, and having some fat with salad is smart for helping absorption of fat-soluble vitamin K, in which green leafies are so rich.

So, I was planning to do something with the sweet, spicy, aromatic pulp left at the bottom of that salad dressing jar.

I'd bought a disappointing jicama: it was way starchy and dense. I adore crunchy, juicy jicama so much that I almost never make anything with it, preferring to eat it 'straight' (although that 'slaw I shared a while back was pretty good, I thought). This one wasn't edible 'straight.' Some kind of jicama 'slaw with a dressing salvaged from the Zukay bottle seemed in order.

But then Phil had a suggestion. He said: "Do you think that if you sliced up the jicama and soaked it in ice water, it would firm up?"

So we tried that, with a little squeeze of lemon, and it worked! Awesome tip, Phil (and he doesn't even like jicama).

In fact, it's quite uncanny how all the 'prepared' foods (whole fruit doesn't count under this) that I most enjoy are precisely foods that Phil does not like. I've pretty much given up trying to make something that'll work for both of us. Between preparing two meals each time and all the busyness of writing, editing, translating, gardening, kitchen-remodeling (which I haven't yet touched since we got back), very often, I forego elaborate recipes that brew in my head in favor of something simpler.

This is what ended happening with the jicama and Zukay dressing pulp: (excuse bad picture)

 Blob the pulp on to a jicama slice, eat and repeat ad lib. It was just fine! Spicy!

One thing I can do that suits both of us, especially now that I'm eating starch, is to cook up a bunch of potatoes and then fry Phil's or make regular potato salad with them, and do different things with mine. There are some really easy and yummy things...

...this was potatoes, thawed peas and sauerkraut in a sauce made from some of the potato water with a teaspoon of miso mixed in, some chopped chives from our garden, a couple tablespoons of coconut kefir and some curry powder. Kelp powder sprinkled on top. Lettuce and nori sheets on the side. Great dinner.

Do you find yourself with elaborate recipe ideas and no time to make them? Do you enjoy the 'simple' version anyway?

Vega Book Review and Giveaway: "Must Have Been Something I Ate" by Peggy Kotsopoulos

When we returned from our trip a couple weeks ago, I was excited to find a box of goodies awaiting me!

Vega protein powders are always a delight, but I was even more excited to receive two copies of Holistic Nutritionist Peggy Kotsopoulos' new book, Must Have Been Something I Ate: The simple connection between what you eat and how you look and feel. Two copies, yes: I'm giving one of them away and I'll get to that shortly. First, here's my review of the book.

What's In the Book?
The first part of the book consists of twelve chapters, organized into four parts, on the connection between Food and Mood, Weight, Beauty and Health. The second part contains twenty-five recipes illustrating the principles laid out in the first part. There's a full listing of resources and references at the back.

Two Beautiful Things About This Book
I want everyone to know these two things about Must Have Been Something I Ate:
1) As part of commitment to human empowerment through educated choices, a portion of the proceeds from each sale of the book will be donated to the Because I am a Girl initiative, a global movement for social change that seeks to help eliminate global poverty and claim a brighter, safer future for girls globally.
2) Peggy Kotsopoulos dedicates this book to her parents, for thinking, amongst other things, that she's not 'totally nuts (more like a seed).' Wouldn't you love to be 'like a seed' rather than 'nuts?' 

What's the Pitch of the Book?
The meta-message from the way that the book is presented is that Peggy is your fun, empathic friend and aide. You may be far too busy to pay attention to food and diet, but Peggy can hold your hand, sympathize, explain what's going on in simple terms, and show you fun ways to make things better. The tone is familiar and colloquial, full of words like "BFF," "fave," "delish," "'Kay?"--and since I'm a collector of words, I have to mention that she's responsible for introducing me to the most hideous hybrid word I've seen or heard in a long time: "thuttocks" (horrors)!

The chosen layout and color/font scheme reinforces this friendly, unintimidating approach: the main font is the kind seen more frequently in a pamphlet than in a full-length book, always clear and easy to read. As an editor myself, I have to say that I wish there were fewer typos, since typos plus colloquial style can lower credibility in some eyes, but none of the typos are actually misleading and without an editor's eye, they may not be distracting.

Besides, this book won't only be interesting and useful to neophytes and busy business-women who have no idea about nutrition.

In More Detail
The coverage of health-and nutrition-related topics is quite impressive, and is more than initially meets the eye, given the cheeky-cheerful tone. Kotsopoulos explains the functions of hormones, neurotransmitters and digestive enzymes in detail, and covers topics as diverse as coping with stress (both through food and through other means), skin care and food combining. She gives specific recommendations for foods and supplements for specific requirements, with reinforcing sidebars of tips (like soaking legumes, eating vitamin C with iron) and notes from scientific studies. Even for an unrepentant nutrition geek like myself, there were details and specifics that were of interest. Her coverage is also very up-to-date and includes discussion of top 'new' superfoods like medicinal mushrooms and sacha inchi seeds, and supplements like relora (a magnolia extract that gently supports adrenal function: I've been taking it myself for about a year and it has definitely helped).

Food Orientation
Although this is a Vega book, it is not a vegan book per se. Seafood such as oysters, clams and halibut, as well as the super sea veggies, feature as recommended sources of certain nutrients. On the other hand, all the recipes are, or can be, vegan (one has optional feta cheese). There is a strong emphasis on plant-based nutrition but I'm guessing that the 'vegetarian/vegan' discussion is outside the scope of the book: perhaps Kotsopoulos doesn't want to alienate 'newbies' with that topic. She does talk about the downsides of eating a lot of meat and dairy in various places. It seems like she focuses on the positive, on what things are good to emphasize in the diet, and lets the rest of the message come through tacitly.

That said, I would like to know her thoughts on the whole animal products topic. She mentions 'bad saturated fats' at one point, but later extols the virtues of coconut oil. As many of us know, this is not an inconsistent position, but I would have liked some explanation of why coconut oil is so much better than beef tallow, for example!

Similarly, she seems to err in favor of low-glycemic eating, and talks about the problems with over-consumption of sugar. But in the recipe section, she has a delicious sounding 'mash' recipe involving parsnips and cauliflower (I would have made it to review here, but parsnips have been unavailable where I live for a few weeks!)--this would be a great place to explain why she uses those vegetables instead of the more traditional potatoes. And although she mentions caffeine consumption as implicated in poor sleep, in the recipe section she recommends a cacao-based smoothie as a good evening drink--not for me, that's for sure, delicious though the recipe is!

I don't think it's a bad thing that I'm left 'wanting more' in certain areas. For a short, very easy-reading book, Must Have Been Something I Ate contains a surprisingly large amount of information presented in a way that may, additionally, appeal to people who are not ordinarily 'into nutrition.'

What About the Recipes?
The twenty-five recipes include smoothies, salads, appetizers, soups, a couple of noodle (kelp and zucchini) dishes, a stuffed/baked peppers recipe and several desserts, some baked, some raw or semi-raw. All the recipes are simple and beautiful, and attractively photographed. Some contain several components that could be made separately or together. As I mentioned above, they're all basically vegan--optional feta cheese on one of the salads.

Some of the recipes use pre-made products: often Vega products. Sometimes they're used in innovative ways, like a dash of protein powder enlivening a salad dressing. A crostini recipe also starts with whole-grain bread, and maca-sure and vega-vibracy bars are crumbled for dessert crusts. For me, this is a downside: I always prefer to make things from scratch. Since part of the message of the book is to move away from processed foods, there is also a slight dissonance there. On the other hand, Kotsopoulos does note that companies producing healthful packaged foods are on the rise, and she's providing a service by showcasing these. There are plenty of recipes that are 'make from scratch,' and if part of her target audience is used to the 'open a box and heat up' style of cooking, these 'short-cut' recipes may be a boon.

I tried out a couple of her recipes. I made the chocolate mousse, based on pumpkin and sweetened with maple syrup.

For once in my life, I actually followed the recipe exactly--I went out and bought maple syrup for the first time in years!

She says simply to stir all together with a fork: I used the handheld blender...

...and concluded that a fork might actually have been better!

I served this to Phil, his daughter and her fiance.

Phil's daughter and her fiance, who are major chocolate-lovers and lovers of traditional comfort foods, both loved it, and were surprised by how much they loved it. Phil thought it was "just ok." There's a pattern here: so often, I make something 'alternative,' everyone loves it and Phil thinks it's "ok." In this case, he doesn't love maple syrup, and I should probably have called it something other than 'chocolate mousse,' because he was expecting 'ditto chocolate mousse!' Aside from that, some very mainstream eaters found it delicious. I was super-impressed by the way that the maple syrup enhanced the chocolate flavor: that's one for me to remember.

I also made her lentil soup.

This time, I confess, I didn't follow it precisely--because I didn't have the exact ingredients! I subbed a couple of veggies. As it stands, it's fairly bland--which is a great starting point, but I'll probably add some more spice to it. This is a great, easy recipe for a big, hearty batch of soup which, as she suggests, can be frozen in batches.

To Win Your Copy
Yes, finally--the Giveaway! I hope that you're intrigued to read the book for yourself. Here's how you can enter the Giveaway:

1) Become a follower of my blog--leave a comment to say that you have, or that you already are.

2) Like Vega on Facebook and leave a comment back here.

3) Follow me on Twitter (@Ela_HG) and leave a comment back here.

4) Follow Vega on Twitter and leave a comment back here.

5) Tweet about this giveaway: please include the link to this post and leave a comment back here.

6) Mention this giveaway on your blog--you can leave five 'entry' comments back here with the link.

Winner will be chosen at random on Tuesday June 7th.

Review Time! Vega Wholefood Vibrancy Bars; Sprouted Buckwheat Caution...and Snowy Angels

Speaking of looking forward and looking back...

Right before we left for England, the folks at Sequel Naturals were kind enough to send me a couple of their Vibrancy Bars to review: 'Green Synergy' and 'Chocolate Decadence.' I shared them with Phil, who has a very different palate (read: much more picky and 'standard dieter,' whereas I'm picky and 'greeneater'). So there's a contrast of views to share there.

Sorry it's taken so long! But here it is at last. One little tiny gripe first: I had a 'banana-peanut butter-spirulina' smoothie for lunch today, similar to the one that blissed me out at Organic Oasis, and per my Naturopath's instructions to eat something I think I 'shouldn't' 25% of the time. I was blissed out the other time I made it - ecstatic - but today, my tummy was so unhappy afterwards: as painful as a full-blown ate-something-I'm-allergic-to thing. Why? Only difference was I used half a banana and a few frozen cherries instead of a whole banana: I've had frozen cherries before recently with no problem and would have guessed that if anything that would have sat better with me. OK - griping over. Our bodies are so mysterious sometimes.

Back to the bars. They are so beautifully packaged: I like how the text is 'portrait' rather than landscape as most bar wrappings are - it looks sophisticated and striking.

Looking at the ingredients, I loved to see that there were so many good sprouted nuts and seeds and so many good essential oils and green powders. And pea protein powder is definitely the protein that works best for me. I wondered why it was necessary to have both dates and agave: since I generally avoid sugar as much as possible, I prefer if just dates are used. I was also interested and a little apprehensive about the sprouted buckwheat that is the first ingredient: I've had terrible stomach pain from buckwheat before, but it may not have been fully sprouted. **But please see my note below for a general concern about sprouted buckwheat** However, I liked that they use a sprouted, non-gluten carbohydrate source as a main ingredient. A lot of raw bars are mostly sugar and fat with a little protein added, the sugar really tweaks my equilibrium, and I've recently been overcoming my carb-phobia and recognizing that for energy bars and for prolonged satiation, it can be a good idea to have a carb in the mix that isn't just a sugar. The 'sorghum puffs' that are the final ingredient are presumably a textural addition.

I happen to think that buckwheat groats are beautiful. I love how you can see them in the matrix of the bar - and how well the bar holds together.

OK - now for the taste test part. I apologize in advance if Phil's comments seem unkind: I'm sharing them partly because they were so funny and partly because they balance my own. If it tastes green, I'm going to love it and Phil is not, and if you're reading my reviews it's worth knowing where my biases lie!

I liked the bar a lot. I love the 'green' taste and actually enjoyed the earthy texture and crunch of the buckwheat. I liked that you could taste the hemp, almonds and dates individually but that it didn't overpower the integral flavor of the bar. To me, it was very, very sweet, but the buckwheat actually toned that down a bit. For me, if they weren't so expensive and perhaps if they had less sugar (cut the agave), they would probably be the best raw bar I've tried for being satiating without tweaking my blood sugar. I was grateful that I garnered no excruciating stomach symptoms from the sprouted buckwheat. However, I'd caution against eating anything with sprouted buckwheat every day, and I'll explain further after looking at the chocolate bar.

Now, here's what Phil said: "When I was a kid and we had sheep on the farm, we had these alfalfa cubes that we fed them, that we'd dip in molasses as a mineral supplement for them. So, as a little boy, of course I tried them too. And they tasted pretty much exactly like this!" Phil is a textures guy and loves crunch, so I was a little surprised when he said that he didn't like the texture. He clarified (with my ingredient-explication) that he felt that the buckwheat groats tamped down in his teeth rather than providing crunch. That, I can understand. It's very hard to maintain a crunchy texture in a sprouted seed when it's included in a bar with all other kinds of softeners. Phil said he definitely preferred the Amazing Grass bars we sampled a little while ago.

On to the chocolate bar!

This has the same basic ingredients, but doesn't have the green foods and has some more added sugar with the added chocolate. As you can see, the chocolate is added into the general mix of the bar, as opposed to being a coating or internal chunks. That isn't usually my favorite way to enjoy chocolate, and it wasn't this time. I liked the bar perfectly well, but think I would have liked it even more if it had had green foods and chocolate! And maybe some cacao nibs whole in there, or something like that. Otherwise, this was fairly similar to the green bar (although some would say the absence of greens is an important difference). For me, it worked less well because of the adrenal-tweak factor of the cacao.

As for Phil, he first said 'it tastes less like fodder than the other one,' and then added that the effect of the chocolate just mixed in with everything else was to seem like it was lower-quality chocolate in there: enough to give you a jolt, he thought. He said it tasted like it was 'very good for you and very expensive!' He still didn't love the buckwheat texture, but he did prefer this bar to the Green Vibrancy.

Bear in mind, Phil and I are both loons. I think this makes us great reviewers, actually, because we're so imaginative and open to trying things. But neither one of us has tastebuds exactly in the middle of the ballpark.

**In all conscience, I have to talk a bit about buckwheat sprouts. Buckwheat sprouts and greens contain a compound called fagopyrin that can accumulate in your tissues when eaten on a regular basis and can cause a photosensitive rash. A few years ago, when I still lived in CA, I was living with another raw-foodist. He loved sprouted buckwheat and loved to make buckwheat hummus, but before we lived together he only ate it rarely because he didn't get around to making the sprouts. Along comes Miss Well-meaning sproutathonic, and now he can have his buckwheat hummus every day if he wants to! I didn't eat it because I don't tend to do well with starches and the other main ingredient was bell pepper, which makes me sick. Well, after a week or so of this, he came out in blotches all over his body and wasn't so pleased about it, as well as mystified. I racked my brains and remembered that I had read something years before about buckwheat lettuce causing photosensitive rashes. I asked him if the rash was worse in sunlight and he found that it was.

So, I quit sprouting buckwheat, he quit eating it and his skin cleared right up. I felt badly that my helping him out had led to such unpleasant symptoms but also thought that it was good to know and be aware that you can have too much sprouted buckwheat. I should add that he really was having a lot of it every day: many times more than is contained in one of those Vibrancy Bars, and was possibly more sensitive than most as well. But having experienced this reaction, albeit vicariously, I feel that I need to share the story.

Snow 'angels' on the beach today - Phil

..and me, all bundled up! And yes, that is the sun!

Much love.

Amazing Grass Energy Bar Review, Loosening Boundaries, Testing Tolerance and Always Reading the Labels!

I was sent four flavors of Amazing Grass' 'organic green superfood' bars to try, as well as four flavors of their 'amazing meal.' The latter will be reviewed tomorrow or the day after, but today I'll talk about the bars.

First, a couple comments about both of these products. The way I see it, Amazing Grass' basic product is the green superfood powder, which has a wonderful mix of greens, antioxidants, fiber and superfoods. The bar and the meal are both vehicles for this basic product. Now, as I've repeatedly said before, it usually works best for me to create my own such 'vehicles,' since commercial products usually contain too much sugar and have other issues too.

However, I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to sample these, as because of that boundary and belief I have, I probably wouldn't have tried them otherwise. There's a boundary issue that's been going on for some time: I still have yeast issues. But the ND has been telling me that since we can't deal with those until the mercury chelation is done, I shouldn't be too uptight about avoiding every last bit of sugar. In particular, he wants me to eat my daily apple, berries are ok, etc. My preference is still to avoid sugar mostly, to control the yeast symptoms as much as possible, but Phil has been encouraging me to try some higher-glycemic foods to see if it'll help with my blood sugar. 

Here come these samples to review, and since the bars have dates and agave as their first and second ingredients, you'd be right to think that I'd never have gone near them if I didn't have this review to do! So, we got to try out Phil's sensible experiment suggestion. 

These bars fall into two pairs - the 'original' and 'berry' flavors, which are uncoated, and the 'chocolate' and 'chocolate-peanut butter' flavors, which have a chocolate coating. They also fall into a threesome and a singleton: the 'chocolate-peanut butter' version is different in a very important way - an illustration of why you should always, always read the label, which I'll get to in due course. They range from 210 calories (berry flavor) to 260 calories (choc-pb flavor) and all but the choc-pb flavor contain five grams of protein. The choc-pb flavor has twelve grams of protein. They all contain mid-30s grams of carbs including four or five grams of fiber, and eight or nine grams of fat.

Now for some comments about the individual bars.

The berry wholefood bar has a lovely texture, and well-nuanced flavor (it's nice that there are more 'savory' seeds like pumpkin and sunflower to cut the sweetness of the dates, agave and berries).  It's a little lower-calorie than the chocolate bar, probably because it doesn't have a coating. The berry flavor is intense and pleasant. I love that the recipe includes green foods, herbs, probiotics and enzymes. This makes the bar work better for me than anything else that high in sugar might. That said, the sugar content is too high and the protein too low for me to consume on a regular basis. It seems like everyone else knows how hard it is to make no-sugar raw energy bars! I keep working on it, but dates and syrups are such wonderful binders and preservers!

Most of the same comments go for the plain whole food bar - it's pretty neutral, without the intense berry flavor. The pumpkin and sunflower seeds dominate a little, which makes it seem less sweet than more nut-based bars.

The Chocolate energy bar: I actually tried this one first, shared it with Phil.  I haven't had dates in so long, so it was extremely sweet to me, but had a lovely gooey texture I haven't quite been able to achieve with 'chia sweet.' 

I liked that I could taste the different nuts and seeds in it, but also enjoyed the 'green' taste, which gave it a certain subtlety. This bar is fairly high in protein but is too high in sugar to be something I could eat regularly. Phil also thought it was very sweet, which surprised me. He liked it a lot but didn't love it.

I was excited to try the 'chocolate-peanut butter' flavor, especially since it has so much more protein. I had already accepted that I was going to eat more sugar than my usual comfort zone and that there was going to be some cacao consumption. But of course, I still read the label - and it turns out that the chocolate-pb bar is made with whey protein! It also contains rice crisps, so it's quite different from the other three. If you look at the photo, it clearly says 'whey protein' in large print - I like that it does that so that even if you're not an avid defensive label-reader, you shouldn't have to get an unpleasant shock.

I was really surprised by this, since so many of the other products are labeled 'vegan.' I know that whey protein is an excellent protein source for many people. It is thought to be one of the best sources of Branched-Chain Amino Acids, (in which I know I'm deficient). However, I also know that whey protein does awful things to my system. Aside from binding up my guts, which have been tending to be sluggish anyway, when I experimented with it in the past, it affected my mental and emotional functioning in a very adverse way. Interestingly, since I figured this out and quit all dairy again (it was a short-lived experiment) I have had an intense aversion to all things dairy. I can get Branched-Chain Amino Acids from Pea Protein Powder, which works much better for me. Fortunately, Phil was open to having it - he's not into smoothies or superfood powders at all, but he does like energy bars, and is a snickers fan. I had a tiny nibble just for the sake of the review - was afraid the whey taste would make it repugnant to me but actually it wasn't really detectable. The pb and the rice crisps definitely made it more attractive to a 'standard' palate, and Phil liked it a lot. It came with us on our beach hike on a warm day and got melted, though!

My bottom line on the bars: they're quite similar to 'organic food' bars, which I liked a lot before I had to avoid sugar. They're probably similar quality, although as far as I know, 'organic food bar' doesn't have a corresponding superfood powder sold as is that I could check against. I would love to be able to give these bars to my family as healthier snacks than they might otherwise go for. For myself, I love the idea of incorporating superfood powders into my own bar creations - and have blogged about doing so before - but these bars are too high in sugar for me to eat. The most I've eaten at once is a half a bar, and I found that that wasn't enough to fill me as a snack, but was right on the edge of feeling like too much sugar. I know that not everyone is like this, and both in terms of taste and of quality of ingredients, I would recommend these bars to people who can handle sugar (especially people looking for something better than trans-fat laden candy bars!)

Speaking of 'too much sugar,' how did the experiment go with trying these higher-glycemic foods? Well, sometimes it's hard to interpret,  when you are both the principal investigator and the guinea pig! Here's the current state of play, though: today, I took a day off from sampling the added-sugar items. On Sunday, I felt fantastic - I think I mentioned: the best physical and emotional-feeling day I can remember during a chelation spell. But yesterday I felt terrible. In terms of stomach upset, bound up guts, general yucky-bloated feeling and other chelation-associated malaise, I was in the dumps and even the steam sauna didn't help! On Sunday, I wondered whether more sugar had helped me to feel so good: yesterday, I wondered whether it had helped me to feel so awful. I can't quite believe that one minuscule nibble of the whey-protein-containing bar could have been responsible for binding my guts so badly, but wonder whether eating less flax because of eating these other things was a contributing factor.

I hope this doesn't sound like needless obsessing: it's really a complicated equation and it feels good to be gathering some data. 

Sweetness from the garden -

- raspberries, peas, cilantro, mint, parsley, arugula - and a poor cauliflower that got nibbled all over by slugs! We harvested hundreds of slugs the last few days and are hoping to get the population down. I'll probably kraut that cauliflower, since it's so much bitterer than all the others we've had, probably as a defense against predacious slugs! I made the herbs into pesto - parsley-arugula and cilatro-mint. Delicious!

Amazing Grass Product Reviews #1; Are You a Pessimistic Label Reader?

Are you a pessimistic label reader? I know I am - I read every label pretty much in the expectation that sooner or later, I'm going to run into something that rules the item out for me. Too much sugar, some gluten or dairy, soy, rice - almost everything has something like that. This is why, when I first came across Amazing Grass Green Superfood, I thought it was too good to be true!

Not only is it full of good quality powdered greens: it also contains antioxidants, probiotics, enzymes and  fiber! And it is sugar free, and uses stevia (several other sugar-free mixes use alternatives that I really wouldn't prefer!) The type that grabbed me was the chocolate flavor: as I mentioned the other day, mixing chocolate with tons of greens and superfoods is the best strategy. I was a little hesitant about the small amount of oat fiber in the fiber complex, but gave it a try anyway (gluten is a protein, and is unlikely to be present in the fiber). And the product is certified gluten free (which gave me more courage around the oat ingredient) and vegan, and seems to be raw too. So, this pessimistic label reader found something to try after all!


It is a little pricey, but I love it so much that I get it anyway. It featured in my no-sugar raw birthday pie, and I often add a little to my morning smoothie (except when I'm completely avoiding cacao). Sometimes mid-afternoon, I have a tablespoon of it with a little nut milk or herbal tea - it's remarkably filling and satisfying for the low calorie count. I really enjoy the complexity of the green-ness and how it balances the chocolate flavor.


So when the folks at Amazing Grass sent me a package of samples to review, I knew I had a delightful opportunity. I think it's going to take several posts to cover all the products they sent - what generosity!

There are energy bars, superfood powders of several different kinds, and meal replacement powders. I couldn't possibly have tasted them all in one go, let alone given a fair reflection of how they felt after consumption, so I'm going to do several review posts over the next few days once I have tried them. Since the green superfood powder is where it all started for me, and since I've already reviewed the 'chocolate infusion' green superfood powder above, I'll start with those powders.


I started out by trying the wheatgrass powder. It's labeled as gluten free and vegan: this is reassuring to me, since I'm very much allergic to wheat and have often been nervous about trying wheatgrass products even though I understand that gluten is a protein formed within the grain, not the grass.

This powder was a rich, dark green - much darker than my wheatgrass powder from Wilderness Family (I don't know if this is a good thing but I enjoyed the color). A little taste of the powder 'straight' showed it to be sweet and full-bodied in flavor.


I mixed it up with my little balloon whisk (works best if you put the water in the glass first).

I really enjoyed the taste and that calm-buzz feeling of having just had something very green. I have to say, this is a big serving of wheatgrass! In retrospect, I should have had it on an empty stomach: I had it as part of my mid-afternoon snack, after I'd had half of one of the energy bars (to be reviewed soon) and one of my own no-sugar cookies, and my tummy felt a little insulted by doing things in that order. Wheatgrass is so detoxifying... I think that in future, I would take this on an empty stomach, and maybe only take half the serving at once, until I got used to it.

Well, wheatgrass is the very basic, but the next most basic is their unflavored Green Superfood powder. 

I've talked before about how I generally prefer to add my own flavorings/protein powders/superfoods to something basic, rather than using someone else's formulation, but I love the mix of ingredients in this green superfood. I wanted to try the unflavored version to see how it is without the cacao (to see whether potentially I could get this kind and add my own cacao at times when I'm actually able to tolerate a bit of it). This would be a great addition to a smoothie, I thought - but this afternoon, I tried it straight up, mixed only with water. This was part of a mid-afternoon snack, but I ate my no-sugar cookie when we were hiking on the beach and drank this when we got home, a little later.

Whisked it up with my balloon whisk just like the wheatgrass - and whoops! Had drunk half of it before remembering to take a picture! Yes, it was really good. I love the addition of peppermint to the formulation. I love the slight grittiness of the texture - it disperses very well in the liquid but has enough of a texture to remind you to really 'chew your juice' - to savor every mouthful. To me, this is an important feature when you're taking in green products: mindful consumption, whole body at attention.

It tastes satisfyingly 'green' without any bitterness. I felt a clear, calm energy after consuming it, fairly satisfied without being too full to eat a few raspberries from our garden! (There are still two more flavors of green superfood powder I have to try: I'll update this post when I've tried them.)

OK - Update #1 - Lemon-Lime Energy Drink Green Superfood. With mate and green tea. Sugar free, stevia sweetened, but 85mg caffeine in the serving - I'm supposed to avoid caffeine. A point I'll probably make a couple of times during these reviews: aside from the superfood powders, there are ingredients in some of these samples that I ordinarily have to avoid (caffeine, sugars, rice). I am exercising caution and sampling them anyway, so that I can give a good reflection of each product. However, products, like the bars and meal replacements, that contain extra sugar, will inevitably taste very sweet to me. I also have a high tolerance for gritty textures (because, as I mentioned above, I generally think they enhance your appreciation). So please bear in mind that my reviews are inevitably going to be somewhat subjective and idiosyncratic.

I love green tea but it's hell on my adrenals at the moment, and whilst I like the taste of mate, I really don't do well with it. I know that this is not the standard story, so please understand the idiosyncrasies of this tester! I tried this mid-morning, and just used half the package with a small amount of water. Straight up, the powder has a pleasantly 'green,' citrus-enhanced taste. Mixed with water, I found that it didn't disperse quite as well as the 'original' green superfood powder. The mate flavor was intense to me, as were the citrus notes - a good combination, I think. I was surprised that it didn't seem to mix as well, considering that I only had half the amount of powder - but it could have been that I didn't whisk it as well! Just this small amount definitely put me on the 'adrenal edge,' like drinking green tea or eating a lot of cacao, but I suspect that for a person without adrenal problems this would be a great, and great-tasting energy boost!

Just one more flavor of superfood powder to try - berry - and then this post will be complete!

And for my final update: Green superfood drink powder - berry flavor. Again, I simply mixed this with water. I'm sure it would be great in nut milk or smoothies too. I noticed that they say 'natural flavors' in the ingredients, without divulging what these ingredients that produce the berry flavor are. In addition to the acai that all the flavors have, this one also has goji berries in the antioxidant blend. 

Just like the 'natural' and 'chocolate' flavors, I liked both the taste and the texture of this - I enjoyed how well it dispersed and yet how it retains enough of a texture to remind you that 'this juice is food.'

Another thing I noticed was that only the chocolate flavored superfood powder contains oat fiber in the fiber blend. The rest of them contain just flax and apple pectin. For me personally, this is yet another signal that I should get the 'original' flavor and add my own cacao when I'm actually better able to tolerate it (or use the flavor essence!), since the cacao flavor alone has that one ingredient that is questionable for my system. I do think that this is a wonderful superfood powder.

Speaking of our garden, we're still harvesting herbs, beets, lettuce, chicory, cauliflower, broccoli, those weird carrots, kale, chard, peas, raspberries. We've been making delicious mint tea with fresh leaves from the garden. I froze some raspberries today and am going to make raspberry jam for Phil this evening. I've been eating massaged chard/kale salads lunch and dinner the last couple days. 

And we're taking advantage of the fall tides to fertilize our gardens in preparation for over-wintering and for next year! Phil loves any excuse to do some more strenuous, heavy work, so our beach hikes have been featuring the truck and a pitchfork, he loads up with kelp (sometimes has me drive alongside the tideline very slowly as he loads) and has been putting it on the garden beds back home!

It was a beautiful day here again! Happy Sunday...

Beached Whale, Wilderness Family Naturals, No-Sugar Superfood Cookies

I hope everyone's having a great Saturday! It was sheeting down rain yesterday and forecast likewise for today, but in the event it seems our guests have brought up the good weather from Oregon, which makes their plans to camp outside our cabin look much pleasanter than I'd feared.

Are you conscious of all the technology you use? Do you have ambivalence about how it eases your life, not wanting to be overly 'dependent?' I was very pleased with the new vacuum cleaner we just bought, for about $70, and the ease of getting the space cleaned up, including all the corners! How funny, some months ago here I mentioned that I was ready for a decent vacuum and a vita-mix - now both in the same week.

Major sight of the day was the decomposing beached whale down on the beach. It is a smallish gray whale that probably died out at sea and was washed in this last series of big tides. It's been there several days now and is in full breakdown mode - read stinky. You can see Phil in background for scale.

Someone has tied it off so it doesn't wash back out to sea: we suspect one of the local organizations who preserve things for museums. 

And actually, although the smell is off-putting, there is something really - well - wholesome, maybe - holistic, a little magical - about seeing this enormous life being given back to other lives. We are all food for something. Here are its baleen sockets (plates washed out or taken) - isn't that awesome, how they brushed krill from the ocean for decades?

I got my order from Wilderness Family Naturals today - very quick time, I only placed it a few days ago. Their customer service is excellent and their products are high-integrity. I got to know them as a coconut products company - and I'll post a review later of a coconut product of theirs I particularly appreciate - but it turns out that they have lots of herbs and superfoods - at very good prices too! Amongst others,  I restocked on maca, and also got fo-ti, which is a wonderful superherb that happens to taste great, rhodiola root powder, which is an adrenal tonic, just what I need, and some wheatgrass juice powder to try, see how I do with it. I like the foil pouches too, for maintaining freshness. Thanks to technology, I have more superfood powders to put in my barks, smoothies, etc, now!

So, I made some no-sugar cookies to try some of them out. I made a cup of chia-sweet (strong chai-spicy herbal tea with enough chia added to make a thick gel,) and a teaspoon of pure white stevia. 

I melted approx 1/4 c virgin coconut oil, and added about a tablespoon of orange zest (I was making an orange cake for everyone else). Then, before adding the chia sweet, I mixed the superfood powders into the coconut oil: 2 tablespoons of maca (goes great with orange flavor) 1 tb reishi powder, 1 tb fo-ti powder, 1 tb rhodiola powder, 1/2 tb wheatgrass powder. 

Then, I mixed in the chia-sweet,

and added a recipe's worth of nut-milk pulp (so the pulp from a half cup of mixed hazelnuts and brazil nuts), and coconut flour (1/3 cup?) until it all started to hold together. Finally, had to have my flax - added maybe 1/4 cup golden flax meal. (And yes, that goofy football in the background is our thriftstore crockpot with the clam chowder I fixed for everyone else's dinner.)

I then formed it into cookies and put it under the fan to dehydrate (with my dehydrating setup shown yesterday). 

It's great to eat just as it is, like cookie dough or conventional raw treats made with dried fruit. I'm just drying it a bit so that it will keep and pack well. To me, it's delicious and very complex. But it's definitely 'strong' tasting: the folks I live with run heavily to sweet and salt and don't appreciate 'herbal' flavors. If I wanted to proselytize with these (which I don't, really), I'd have to tone them down a lot. And that's a whole other discussion!

Product Review and Protein Powders Comparison; Own Potions versus Recipes

Friday already! Has this week flown by for everyone or is it just me? Solstice brought some sun on Monday and Tuesday, but now rain is impending. Nice timing, since we got all our raised beds mulched by yesterday evening.

I have a product review to share today. I'm going to add my voice of response to Sequel Naturals' new 'Shake and Go' protein powder, thanks to my winning a 10oz package of it in Averie's giveaway a couple weeks ago. Many thanks again to Averie for that and much else.

We have an eccentric relationship with our mail service here, for reasons that are inscrutable to me (except that the dichotomy of using a PO Box but also having a street address is potentially confusing), and I ended up receiving my 'Shake and Go' via the town Library! This isn't as totally tangential as it sounds, since Phil's daughter works there, so I'm grateful to her as well for sending it in my direction.

I had the perfect opportunity to try it, because I got it last Friday night, when we arrived home late from Anchorage and I was to work all day at the bookstore the following day. I brought it with me, and shook it with some nut milk and hot tea as part of lunch.

Considering that this protein powder includes hemp protein, which tends to be grainy, and pea and rice proteins, which tend to be chalky, the texture is amazingly good. As with all 'shake to mix' protein powders, it's important to have some liquid in your shaker (or mason jar!) before adding the powder, or else it'll all just gum up on the bottom. But this powder incorporates well. I found that a combination of vigorous shaking and then stirring out any remaining lumps yielded good results. So the texture's good on two counts: not lumpy, and not chalky/gritty either. I was impressed by that.

This protein powder is sweetened with 'organic coconut palm nectar:' a new-to-the-market low-glycemic sweetener that's just starting to achieve prominence. It is produced by tapping the coconut tree for sap from the flowers (so that the sap is harvested rather than allowing the flowers to mature into coconuts) and then dehydrating/concentrating the sap. As a coconut lover, I'm glad to have read that tapping the trees is not harmful to them and that as an agricultural practice, it is equally sustainable to growing for the nuts. I'm glad to read it but not entirely convinced, having worked with coconuts so much, and feel that I should research it some more. 

That said, this was my first experience tasting a product made with coconut nectar. And to my taste, the shake is surprisingly sweet, but not in an unpleasant way. And since I'm avoiding sugars so much at the moment, it's likely that things taste sweeter to me anyway.  But compared, for example, to Olympian Labs' pea protein powder, which uses stevia and a little xylitol; or to Life's Basics' plant protein powder, which uses stevia, xylitol and a small amount of fructose, the sweetness in this shake is very pleasant. The two that I just mentioned are slightly sickly-sweet. 

The 'Life's Basics' protein powder also utilizes pea, hemp and rice proteins and also, like Shake and Go, includes green food powders, but its texture is not as good. That said, a 130 calorie serving of it provides 23g protein, whereas the 'Shake and Go' yields 12g of protein for 120 calories. So if increasing protein is really important to you, 'Life's Basics' may be a better value even though it doesn't taste as good. 

I worry about the fructose in 'Life's Basics' also, although not very much, since it's among the last ingredients listed and I suspect there isn't a lot of it. 'Life's Basics' also uses chia as a protein source, which probably impacts the overall texture. However, it only provides 3g of fiber per serving whereas 'Shake and Go' provides 6g. That said, the total carb count for 'Shake and Go' is 12g, which is at the high, high end of anything I'd eat, whereas 'Life's Basics' only has 5g total carbs.

On the 'Shake and Go' packaging, it suggests shaking with just half-to-one cup of water. That's a very small amount of liquid for a shake! I have a hard time imagining being satisfied for long with so little. I tried it with about 12oz (a cup and a half) of nut milk and herbal tea mixed. Even with that amount of liquid, using the two-tablespoon serving size yielded a shake that was satisfyingly rich and thick. Of course, this was probably helped by the fact that there was some nut milk in the liquid part (although my nut milks tend to be thin). I'm guessing that the xanthan gum listed in the ingredients is what allows it to be thick and smooth like that. By the way, for those who are allergic to corn: xanthan gum is a corn derivative. It's generally used in very tiny quantities, though. I don't feel good if I eat corn on the cob, but I haven't noticed ill effects from eating something with xanthan gum.

Speaking of allergens, pea, hemp and rice proteins are said to be hypo-allergenic, which is one of the reasons for their popularity. Combining them ensures optimal amino acid profiles. Something that's interesting to me in my body is that rice in general makes me sick, and I've tried a straight rice protein powder that also didn't work for me. But with both 'Shake and Go' and 'Life's Basics,' my tummy seems to have tolerated whatever rice was in there. In both cases, rice is the lowest-quantity protein used (judging by the ingredients label).

Two Bottom Lines:

First bottom line: 'Shake and Go' is delicious and wonderfully textured in a way that would cater to 'mainstream' palates. I'm so impressed that they've managed to smooth out the 'chalky and gritty' of many other hypoallergenic products that are typically only acceptable to people like myself who cannot tolerate the mainstream stuff! That said, it's priced out of my range and I probably wouldn't have gotten to try it had I not won it - so, many thanks again for that: I'm so glad to have tried it. But I think that it's kind of like a 'special treat:' I'll use it when I'm out of town for two weeks next month and probably won't have kitchen access and need to fend for myself. Or when we go camping. So, no regrets that I have it here when I'm off cacao for a couple of weeks: it will get its time in the limelight when I go on my trip!

Second bottom line: for some of us, it's really important to get a lot of high quality protein, and also to vary our sources. Some of us also have to be very budget-conscious And when we're at home, we can make our own delicious-tasting shakes by combining our own goodies. That's why I tend to buy Now Food's pure pea protein powder, with no other ingredients. I can get 2lbs of it for about $15, which is massively cheaper than anything else. 

Yes, it's bland and chalky, because pea protein is the only ingredient! But that means that you can add it to shakes and also to savory concoctions like dressings and soups: it's more versatile if a little more labor-intensive. And yes, it doesn't have any fiber in it - but it has 28g of protein for a 130 cal serving, which is significantly more than many whey or soy protein powders, even! I never use a full serving of it (nor of the 'Life's Basics') - but maybe I should. Even if I don't, though, I'm getting a significant amount of protein. And I always mix it with some flax meal or chia, to add fiber and omega-3's.

Finally, aside from the fact that it's cheaper to get a basic protein powder and add your own omega-seeds, cacao, maca, green powders and whatever else you love than it is to buy a ready-made shake, it's also much more in keeping with my personal temperament. Just like I never follow recipes, I also rarely use premade shakes as the directions mandate! Have you ever thought that a preformulated shake is kind of like a recipe you have to follow? Yes, it has its place, and I'm extremely grateful that there are some that cater to my extensive list of allergies. But I'm even more grateful that my lifestyle allows me to mix my own potions for the most part!

One Final Note: Congratulations on a whole year of blogging to the Twins at the Pure2Raw blog. They're hosting a giveaway in honor of this anniversary - so generous! Take a look...