Review: The Naked Edge Veggie Go's

Brand:  The Naked Edge

Flavor:  Veggie Go’s (variety)

Where to get it: here @ Abe's Market

                If *I* mixed carrots, apple & ginger together with nothing else, I’m fairly certain that the end result wouldn’t even be edible. Somehow the lovely folks at The Naked Edge take bare bones, natural ingredients, and turn them into one of the best snacks I have found in my quest for weight loss cuisine. These are a lot like Fruit Leather (we’ll talk about those in a future review), but they only have 15-20 calories per snack. Mind = blown.

               

Tastes like:  Fruit leather on a diet (but that mythical diet where you’re never hungry)

Taste rating:  10/10

Qualities:  Gluten-free, Non GMO, Kosher, Made in the USA, All natural, Organic, Vegetarian, Vegan

What’s in it:

Review: Yum A Roos Caribbean Crop

Brand:  Yum-A-Roos

Flavor:  Carribean Crop

Where to get it: here @ Abe's Market

                Have you ever gone to a baby shower and played that game where you taste the different baby foods and then try to guess what flavor they are? If you have, then you know how horrible most baby food is. While these snacks aren’t for actual babies (because they have no teeth, I presume), I think they are intended for toddlers who are past the choking-risk age. Don’t quote me on this stuff, since I don’t know anything about children. I am making these assumptions because these little snacks are very healthy, but they taste so bad. The peas are the worst part (and you thought it would be the banana, didn’t you?) and I was looking all over for something to eat just to get the taste out of my mouth after one mouthful of these guys. Simple, organic ingredients…get them for your kids if they will eat them, but skip them for yourself.

               

Tastes like:  How do I get this out of my mouth?

Taste rating:  1/10

Qualities:  Organic, Made in the USA, Vegan, Gluten-free, Non GMO

What’s in it:

Review: Dixie Carb Counters Skinni Spaghetti

Brand:  Dixie Carb Counters

Flavor:  Skinni Spaghetti

Where to get it: here @ Netrition.com

                I have been a MUCH happier dieter since I discovered that there was such a thing as “protein noodles”. I’m working my way through all the different kinds I’ve found to nail down a favorite, but any way to eat something that actually tastes like traditional spaghetti without all those nasty carbs is okay with this girl. Dixie Carb Counters Skinni Spaghetti is made from soybeans, and I didn’t like it as much as I did the Explore Asia noodles made from mung beans. If you get too big of a mouthful, you can really taste the bean flavor with these noodles. It’s not a deal-breaker, but I definitely recommend using a lot of pasta sauce and chunky ingredients to help cover up the fact that it’s not wheat-based pasta you’re shoveling down.

               

Tastes like:  Bland-ish noodle-shaped beans (smother these in sauce & veggies)

Taste rating:  6/10

What’s in it:

Review: Tealish Dessert Teas

Brand:  Tealish

Flavor:  Toasty Almond & Dulce de Leche

Where to get it: here @ Tealish

                Oolong, now that’s my jam. Black tea is my other jam. Herbal tea…is not really my jam. That being said, I was pleasantly surprised that I liked the Tealish (herbal) Toasty Almond as much as I did. Hit it with just a little bit of milk (pick a milk, any milk), put on your favorite pair of slipper socks, and sit your tired butt down. The Dulce de Leche variety is an oolong, and I loved it as much as I expected I would. Subtly sweet, but not syrupy, I wish someone could make cupcake frosting this light and subtle. They have an expansive line of other dessert flavors, as well as non-dessert teas, and a simply delightful website.

               

Tastes like:  A light caramel whipped cream cloud

Taste rating:  8/10

What’s in it:

Toasty Almond:  INGREDIENTS: Apple pieces, almond slivers, cinnamon pieces, flavoring, beetroot pieces.

Dulce de Leche:  INGREDIENTS: Oolong teas, caramel pieces (sugar, milk), flavoring, marigold petals.

Day 2 of the juice fast!

Day 2, made it with no solid food intake AND no hypoglycemic episodes! Glory! I felt a lot better too, no headache and not as sleepy in the afternoon. I found myself abstractly hungry, I missed the actual process of eating food. Well, no one said it would be easy, did they? I also skipped the first juice because the thought of having to choke down more Morning Glory made me want to quit on the spot.

Day 2 intake:

Morning Glory - NOPE

Spicy Pome-Nade - (8/10, 100 calories) Tasted a lot like pink lemonade, seemed to have less of a kick than the Spicy Lemonade

Sweet Spin

Chia Berry

Not So Chunky - (4/10, 210 calories) I had high hopes for this, but it tasted more like unripe bananas mixed with peanut butter. It was pretty bitter and it kind of broke my heart.

Xtreme Greens

Nutritional breakdown:

Total Calories:  750

Carbs:  153g

Fat:  16g

Protein:  18g

Juice Cleanse, Day 1 Recap

Well, I made it. Not a morsel of solid food on day 1. Egg whites and a "moderate" amount of raw or steamed veggies are allowed, but I really wanted to make it at least 1 day on the juice alone.

I did pretty well, hunger-wise, until around 7pm. Then the drive-thru fantasies set in, and fierce. But I fought them off with all kinds of guilty pleasure E! shows that I had on the DVR. I think I peed 50 times throughout the day (not exaggerating), and I drank a lot of tea. Blood sugar-levels were good throughout the day, but dipped a little at night, which I corrected with a 100-calorie chocolate milk. I had a low-grade headache for most of the afternoon, but that could be due to not being able to have my first-thing-in-the-morning Diet Coke. I missed it a lot more than I thought I would, which might be a good thing to consider. Addicted, much?? I slept like poo though.

Here's the day 1 intake rundown:

Morning Glory – (0/10, 120 calories) This tasted like a lettuce/celery/dirt milkshake to me. I had to hold my nose to get it down, and chase each swallow with tea. I am not kidding. I couldn’t taste the fruits in here at all.

Spicy Lemonade – (10/10, 70 calories) A lot like Crystal Light lemonade with a kick. The amount of cayenne was just perfect.

Sweet Spin – (6/10, 160 calories) MUCH better than the first green of the day. Heavy on the banana flavor up front with the spinach in the aftertaste, and I tasted zero dirt.

Chia Berry – (8/10, 130 calories) I really liked this one. Perfect balance of tart & sweet, really a pleasant juice.

Choco-Nana – (8/10, 150 calories) I was really hungry when I drank this, and it quieted my desire for solid food a lot more than I thought it would. The addition of strawberries in this juice give it a less-sweet flavor that’s really nice.

X-Treme Greens – (4/10, 150 calories) I would put this one right in the middle of the other 2 green juices that I had today. It tasted a little perfume-y to me. I didn't love it, but it didn't need a chaser, at least.

Nutritional breakdown:

Total calories:  780

Carbs: 182g

Fat:  14g

Protein:  14g

Review: Yuki No Yado Snow Senbei

Brand:  Yuki No Yado Senbei

Flavor:  Cream Frosted

Where to get it: here @ Yahiro Mart

                “Healthy” is a very subjective word. Sometimes, it just means low-calorie…and that’s the excuse I’m using to review these here on my “healthy snacks blog”.  It’s okay if you disagree with me, I still love you.  I do. I also love these senbei.  I ate a package of these “by accident” because it came in one of my monthly subscription snack boxes.  I swiftly scoured the internet for somewhere that would sell me mass quantities of these magical little Japanese crackers. They really don’t have any nutritional value, AND there is MSG in them to boot (boo!), BUT they really hit the spot during that lull after lunch where I just HAVE to have something that’s quasi-junk food. At only 73 calories for the whole package (2 pieces), I deem these guilt free!

Tastes like:  Salty, crunchy, sweet corn

Taste rating:  10/10

What’s in it:

Review: Kirkland Signature Freeze-Dried Fuji Apple Slices

Brand:  Kirkland Signature

Flavor:  Fuji Apple Slices

Where to get it: here @ Costco.com, or in stores 

                The difference between dried and freeze-dried (aside from the obvious textural difference), is sweetness, in my opinion. Sometimes I don’t want a super sweet snack, but I’m a true Washington girl, and I love that apple flavor. These are a little bit tart, but not Granny Smith levels of tart. They also come in cinnamon, and those are just as delicious. The calories basically don’t even exist…if you put down 3 bags of these in a day, you’d still be kicking fat’s fat ass.

Tastes like:  Dry, crunchy apples (in a good way)

Taste rating:  9/10
Qualities:  Vegan

What’s in it:

Review: The Daily Crave Veggie Sticks

Brand:  The Daily Crave

Flavor:  Veggie Sticks

Where to get it: here @ Soap.com

                Potatoes are a vegetable. Sadly, that's the "veggie" in this veggie sticks. Due to the packaging and the name, I think I was expecting these not to only taste like potatoes. I don’t know what I wanted them to taste like, something unique and different, I suppose. Once I got over the fact that I wasn’t consuming magical carrot-beet-turnip sticks, these were pretty good. Lots of salt, which I find absolutely crucial in some of these healthy snacks – otherwise they end up tasting a lot like Styrofoam. If you’re craving a salty potato snack, these won’t break your diet. If you’re craving something new and different, maybe try Googling a recipe for homemade magical carrot-beet-turnip sticks instead.

Tastes like:  Salted puffy potatoes

Taste rating:  5/10

What’s in it:

Review: Jif Whips Peanut Butter

Brand:  Jif

Flavor:  Whips (original)

Where to get it: here @Walmart.com

                You see that picture at the top of this review? Yes, the not-very-good one, like the ones I start all of my reviews with - just to prove that I had the product in my hot little hands (that’s why I don’t just grab a pretty one off the internet, FYI). The tub is empty. EMPTY. Because it lasted about 3 days before I consumed it all with the passion and fire of 1,000 suns. I could blame my lack of self-control around all things peanut butter on being a woman, or whatever…but does it really matter? THIS STUFF IS DELICIOUS. 1 tub lasts me about 6 large Fuji apples. The package says 18 servings…but I choose to instead think of all that wonderful protein I’m getting while I roll around on the break room floor at lunch time, sucking it off apple slices. And it’s much better (caloric-ly speaking) than standard peanut butter. (Comes in chocolate peanut butter too, if you’re into that sort of thing.)

Tastes like:  All the peanut butter taste you love, with none of the thwackyness

Taste rating:  10/10

Qualities:  Kosher, Vegetarian

What’s in it: