by Anita Muniz | Aug 23, 2016 | Food for thought, Partner, Recipes
They’re Vegan and better than ever!
In 2008 Dandies Marshmallows arrived on the scene. It all started with a Dad who had wanted his son to enjoy Marshmallows around the campfire. The only issue was all Marshmallows contain this ingredient called gelatin – collagen obtained from various animal raw materials. His son being a Vegan could not eat them. This is when Ryan Howard a Food Process Engineer went to work on creating the first vegan marshmallow. Dandies Marshmallows are 100% vegan – made with no gelatin, but that’s just the beginning of this marshmallow make over.
They are Gluten free, Non GMO Project Verified, free of Corn Syrup (HFCS) and of the most common allergens (peanuts, tree nuts, milk, egg, wheat etc.) soy aside. In other words starting with removing gelatin, these marshies are raising the bar one real ingredient at a time.
Check out this ingredients list!
If you’re a kid at heart and you enjoy S’mores around the campfire or simply seeing your kiddos happily snack on them, then you’re going to love this.
Dandies Marshmallows has an in house chef and delicious mouth-watering recipes on their website. Enjoy your first batch of:
Dandies Classic Crispy Treats
Click here for recipe.
Caramel Coffee Pistachio S’mores
Click here for recipe.
Check out Dandies and try their vegan marshmallows you’ll never want to turn back! Also, share them with your friends, vegan or not these little treats are changing the campfire game.
by Anita Muniz | Aug 15, 2016 | Food for thought, Partner
The truth is Marshmallows we enjoyed as kids are not as innocent an indulgence as our parents might have thought. We can always count on a little marshmallow to satisfy a sweet tooth. No guilt right? I mean it’s a marshmallow what’s there to feel guilty about? The answer might surprise you.
If you take the time to read and see what makes up a Marshmallow, you will surely think twice before reaching for the next bag. After enjoying them in hot cocoa, desserts, s’mores and so much more one starts to wonder, “What am I really putting in to my body?” The answer: Some serious empty calories and something that one would dare to call food. As a Nutritionist I give it an F and that’s not for food.
We turned to the Nutrition Facts label and what we learned next was less than appetizing.
You can always count on the ingredients so start there. We first read High Fructose Corn Syrup, Sugar, Dextrose, Modified Corn Startch…
The issue.. the most natural sounding ingredient, or at least the one we could easily understand was ‘sugar’ or technically Dextrose the most naturally occurring form of sugar, yet still just another way of saying more sugar.
Tetrasodium Pyrophosphate, TPPS (Whipping Aid)
- Other than a Food Additive it is used as a Water Softener and Detergent Builder. TPPS has been shown to be toxic to Humans in small amounts. Specifically it is alkaline and irritating. Here’s a tip: if you have stress, skin issues or inflammation probably good to eliminate this from your diet.
Artificial Color, Artificial flavor, Gelatin (animal based ingredient, or the reason our vegan friends have never tried Marshmallows).
Once we discovered all of this, our only hope was to find a healthy marshmallow. Anyone with a sweet tooth and a love of camping would understand our struggle.
Then we found them, Dandies Marshmallows. Dandies made their debut in 2009 at Expo West as the first Vegan Marshmallow! This little vegan marshmallow has come a long way since and Dandies only continues to improve it. Check out their awesome timeline for details and see how Marshmallows became an actual guilt free food alas. Also, check out our next blog, the full Dandies story to come!
by Arielle Rubenstein | Aug 2, 2016 | Food for thought, Partner, Uncategorized
Attention meat lovers: Fortified Nutrition’s Harvest Sticks are about to be your go-to protein snack. Your July Fit Snack box included their Grass-fed Beef with Uncured Bacon and Organic Apple.
These ain’t your momma’s beef “jerky” old–these beef sticks are tasty and good for you, too.
Fortified Nutrition created their Artisan meat snacks with the idea that we need more grab-and-go organic, whole food snacks. Each Harvest Stick has a list of easy to read ingredients, and are hand crafted in small batches for the best flavor. This company aims to Bridge the Nutritional Gap, where diet meets lifestyle and nutrition meets flavor.
Perfect for after a solid workout or for keeping you tied over till dinner, these sticks are also 100% grass-fed beef, have no added nitrates, and are a great source of Omega-3’s – 5x more than the competition. Even better, the beef is from free roaming, pasture raised cattle. Oh, and it’s also gluten/GMO/ hormone/dairy/soy free.
Talk about a snack you can feel great about!
Craving more? Check out their
website.
by Arielle Rubenstein | Jul 19, 2016 | Partner, Uncategorized
This delicious all natural, gluten free, high performance energy bar is the true breakfast bar of champions! This bar has it all. When we learned it was developed by elite athletes we had expected nothing less than perfection and Arrow Bar delivered. Now here is an energy bar you can count on packed with nutrients from ingredients you will recognize and the perfect taste!
Chocolate chips and oatmeal are a match made in heaven. Trust us, add a few chips to your next bowl of oats and it’ll be hard to go back to plain.
Hence our excitement at finding Chocolate Chip ArrowBars – an all natural energy bar made with chocolate chips and oatmeal! These delicious, gluten free bars provide clean energy to fuel whatever sport you play–without an annoying sugar crash.
Even more awesome is the fact that each of the nine ingredients is recognizable, so no weird chemical flavors or additives!
ArrowBars are totally perfect for a pre or post workout energy boost. If you check out their Instagram @arrowbar you’ll see all of the pros who love having these bars on hand. We know we do! This summer we have had some amazing Fit Snack adventures from camping to hiking to mountain biking and we have enjoyed every last bite.
Arrow Bar saved the day, while we were trail running Mesa Trail in Boulder, Co
“Life is a sport, are you playing?”
by Anita Muniz | Jun 1, 2016 | Uncategorized
In the spirit of summer we found the best fresh dried fruit around at Burkart Organics. For 50 years and across 3 generations the Burkart family has been at the forefront of the sustainable food movement. Their story starts with Grandma Burkart who in the 1920’s and 1930’s grew up on a farm that used sustainable/organic practices. They were one of the first in their county to become Certified Organic in 1979. The Burkart family farms span close to 100 acres in the beautiful San Joaquin Valley of Centeral California. Every aspect of their process is what makes their fruit the best quality.
Burkart Organics hand packages their fruit, it is then cut by hand, tended to by hand and finally picked up and bagged by hand. NO machines, everything is done the old fashioned way. It doesn’t stop there they leave out any and all preservatives, sulfur, sugars, or concentrates and only include all natural sun-dried sweetness in every bag.
Sweetened by the sun, tended to by hand and sealed with love.
Sulfur dioxide or sulfite is a preservative used in most dried fruits and its known to worsen asthma and pose other serious health risks. You can tell an organic dried fruit from a dried fruit with preservatives because the color is unnatural.
All Natural Freshly Dried Bags of Fruit:
- Peach (White and Yellow)
- Nectarine (White and Yellow)
- Persimmon Chips
- Apricot
- Jujube (AKA Chinese Date)
- Mixed Bag A (Persimmon Chip, White Nectarine, Apricot, Flame Raisin, Jujube)
- Mixed Bag B (Persimmon Chip, White Nectarine, Yellow Peach, Apricot, Jujube)
In case you are not familiar with the Jujube. Here’s a quick Jujube 101.
The jujube is a super fruit used in Chinese medicine AKA the Chinese Date. It is said to purify the blood, spleen, liver, good for digestion, headaches, and blood circulation. Jujube is a fruit that is mildly sweet, and also used in soup, rice, and tea recipes. – learn more about the rest of these super fruits at BurkartOrganics.com.
After packaging the best dried fruit ever, they didn’t stop there.
When your next sugar craving strikes, grab a bag of Burkart Organics Dried Fruit, for a super healthy, sweet treat!
