This Mama Cooks! On a Diet

The "Smart People Drink Milk" contest

Recently I posted a product review of Horizon Organic's new DHA Omega-3 milk. Docosahexaenoic Acid, or DHA, is a type of Omega-3 fatty acid that has been studied for its role in heart, brain and eye health.

As part of Brain Awareness Week/Month I'm giving away 3 Horizon Organic coupons good for any ONE FREE Horizon's product up to $4.99 (excluding gallon milk and 16 oz. butter) in value.

To Enter:

1. Leave your name, email address, and blog address (if you have one) in the comments below.
2. You must be willing to send me your full name and address so I can mail you the coupon. I will not share your personal info with the public. However, if you do have a blog, I will link back to it when I announce the winners.
3. You have until midnight MT on March 27, 2008 to enter.
4. This contest is limited to the continental U.S.
5. I'm also offering having this contest at My Readable Feast. Feel free to enter there as well. One entry on each of my blogs is allowed.
6. The coupon cannot be used in CO, MA, MO or ND, so don't enter if you live in those states.
7. I will announce the winners on March 28, 2008 and mail out the coupons via USPS by the following week.

Horizon DHA Omega-3 milk: a review

Way back when before I read The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, milk was just, well, milk. I didn't care if it was organic, hormone free, or shipped in from California. It just had to be cheap and no fat.

Then we went to Switzerland last May, and we drank real milk. Even the Weight Watcher's no fat milk tasted better than our usual brand. Somehow it was creamier, richer and didn't taste like water with stuff it in.

Click here to read more...

General Mills Breakfast BREAKS

I received a couple of boxes of Breakfast BREAKS from ESE Foods (East Side Entrees) to review. Breakfast BREAKS are "breakfast kits" for on-the-go families. The convenient single-serve box contains a bowl of prepackaged General Mills cereal - either Cheerios, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Honey Nut Cheerios, or and Lucky Charms, a 100% fruit juice box from Minute Maid, a Fruit & Grain snack bar, and a packet containing a spoon, napkin and a wet wipe. It's sort of like the kid breakfast version of the boxed snacks you buy on the airplane.

Breakfast BREAKS are sold for around $2.49 and you can go to their website to see if you can find it in your area. Note: If your child wants milk on his or her cereal, you have to provide it. My daughter ate it dry and my son had the cereal with milk. Both kids thought the breakfasts were pretty cool.

Breakfast BREAKS were developed by East Side Entrees to get the millions of children across America who are eligible for a free or reduced-price breakfast through the national School Breakfast Program eating breakfast. (You can learn more about the marketing and origins of  Breakfast BREAKS by reading the press release about teen pop group, the Jonas Brothers, and Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, signing up as spokespeople for Breakfast BREAKS.)

My Review
Bottom line? I'm not impressed. Breakfast BREAKS has none of the positive nutritional and packaging qualities I saw in Yoplait Kids. Yes, you can recycle the cardboard and possibly the juice box, but the cereal bowl is #5 plastic.

Nutritionally, the bar contains high fructose corn syrup and the juice is made from concentrate. The whole meal is around 340-350 calories, with only 2 grams fiber and 44-45 grams of sugar - yeech! Well, it's better than eating potato chips and Pixy Stix for breakfast, I guess.

Price wise as long as you buy in normal bulk quantities at the grocery store, you should be able to get more nutritional bang for your buck by creating your own breakfast kit with such items as a Froose juice box, some Yoplait Kids yogurt, fresh fruit, organic cereal bars, or reusable containers of organic trail mix or healthy cereal.

However, I can see the advantage to using Breakfast BREAKS in a daycare or school setting. They have a decent shelf life, and can be stored without refrigeration. Again, all you need to do is add milk. Still, for home use, they're a waste of money and full of things you don't want your kids to eat. This Mama says, "Don't bother."

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Yoplait Kids - getting better for you all the time

I never buy children's yogurt because I hate all the crap they put in it to make it attractive to kids. There is no reason why yogurt needs to full of sugar or artificial dyes for kids to find it palatable.

So when Mom Central sent me samples of Yoplait® Kids peach and strawberry-banana yogurt and mixed berry yogurt drink, I was prepared for something about as wholesome as a trip to the donut store.

New and Improved Indeed

I was pleasantly surprised. First Yoplait Kids has 25% less sugar than the leading kid's yogurt. That's 26 grams of sugar per 8 oz. vs. the usual 35 grams of sugar per 8 oz. I was also pleased to see that they use sugar instead of corn syrup. Yoplait Kids is low fat and has vitamins A and D, live and active cultures, and Omega-3 DHA added to help brain development. Not perfect but better than your average kids' or generic store brand yogurt.

They also use beet juice concentrate and annatto extract to color the yogurts. If your child is sensitive to artificial dyes, this may be a product for you to try. Also, the texture is smooth, with no chunks that could potentially choke young children learning to eat solids.

The Packaging

I wasn't entirely thrilled with Yoplait Kids' tie-in with characters from Nick Jr. TV programming as carton character bombardment is always annoying. Still, I was happy that I could toss the cardboard container and the #2 plastic cups and bottles into the recycling bin. Our fancy organic yogurt cups are #5 plastic, which our recycling company won't take.

I also like the serving size of the containers - 3.5 oz. for the yogurt drink and 4 oz. for the yogurt cups. This is perfect for my daughter who has trouble finishing a 6 or 8 oz. cup of yogurt.

The Taste, Suggestions and a Coupon

Of course, with all the sugar, Yoplait Kids yogurt is yummy. The kids went through the yogurt and drinks in a couple of days. I'd like to see Yoplait further reduce the sugar and add chunks of fruit for the older kids. Maybe they should have a whole milk baby version, a low fat toddler version, and then a chunky version with larger serving sizes for older children.

I will definitely be buying Yoplait Kids in the future, mostly to get my kids to stop eating their father's expensive organic yogurt. It'll be nice to pack the drinks in my son's lunch and perfect to take to the park or camping. If Yoplait Kids sounds like something you'd be interested in trying, click here to get a coupon for a free package.

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Froose fruit juice: yummy and oh so good for you

I was recently sent a sample of a healthy new alternative to fruit juice for kids called Froose. My sample pack included four juice boxes of each flavor - Perfect Pear, Cheerful Cherry, and Playful Peach - packaged in kid-friendly juice box containers. (You can order your own sample by clicking here. To get free shipping type in SAMPLE at check out.) You get 12 boxes for $9.

Now while that may seem pricey even with the free shipping, don't think of it as "only fruit juice." One box of Froose contains only 80 calories and 3 grams of fiber. It's sweetened with organic brown rice syrup, which is considered a complex carbohydrate. It's also loaded with complex carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. (Froose is also wheat and gluten free and kosher.)

Bottom line - your child isn't filling up on a bunch of empty calories but is getting some nutritional value out of a yummy fruit drink. If that isn't worth paying a little extra (75 cents per juice box) I don't know what is.

Created by a Mom

Froose is the brainchild of Denise Devine, a mom of three, who was working for a major food company. She was frustrated by the lack of healthy choices for her kids and set out to develop a nutritious smoothie-like alternative to juice that incorporated whole grains, complex carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and fiber.

After several years of research, in collaboration with The International Food Network at Cornell, Denise now holds 19 process and composition patents that ultimately enabled her and her team to create a drink that suspends whole foods in liquid form - Froose!

My Review

Since the 12 boxes of juice disappeared in two days, I know my kids loved them. Luckily, I was able to have a few sips of all the varieties of Froose before the samples disappeared. The flavor was good, especially the peach, and the drink had a slight texture like fresh squeezed juice.

I'd love to see this in larger versions, too, since juice box packaging is so darn wasteful. Since they're shipped, maybe the larger rectangular cartons that soy milk comes in would be a good choice to keep weight down and avoid breakage. I understand their reasoning on the 4 oz. container, but I think this is a product that the whole family would enjoy - and benefit from. I just don't see the adults in the family drinking out of juice boxes, and it would be nice to pour the juice into sippy cups, too.

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Divvies - egg, milk, nut and peanut free treats that are made to share

I often blog about the challenges of having a daughter who is allergic to eggs, nuts, peanuts (a legume) and soy both here at This Mama Cooks! and on my children's book blog, My Readable Feast. It's probably why Divvies Bakery in South Salem, New York contacted me about reviewing some of their products.

Divvies cookies, popcorns, and cupcakes are made in the company’s own dedicated facility. Divvies candies, frosting, and sprinkles are certified by their manufacturers to be peanut-, tree nut-, milk-, and egg-free. Divvies conducts routine testing to minimize the risk of any cross-contamination in their certified allergen-free ingredients.

My daughter Lucie isn't that allergic to eggs and won't go into anaphylactic shock if she comes into contact with peanuts. (Instead she breaks out into hives, throws up and gets a fever - scary enough!) Lucie can eat snacks that are made in food plants or at the local supermarket. We've also discovered that she can get away with having products with a teeny bit of egg. (If the label says "contains less than 2%" of eggs she can have them.)

Still, so many people get deathly ill if they smell or touch a nut or have a trace amount of milk or eggs. Benjamin, the son of Divvies founder, Lori Sandler is one of those kids. That's why she started the company knowing that there's a need for allergen-free products. Great idea, but how do their snacks taste?

Divvies sent me a two small bags of their gourmet popcorn - caramel corn and kettle corn - that we took with us to enjoy at the National Western Stock Show rodeo. They were yummy and two bags were enough for the five of us. The bags are $5 each, which is what we would normally pay at the rodeo. That does seem pricey, especially if you factor in shipping, but a great way to save money would be to get their five gallon popcorn duos or "corn for a crowd" sets that go for $54 (free shipping, too!) If you're a big popcorn fan, you may be interested in signing up for monthly shipping with their Automatic Divvies and save an additional 20%. Again, this may seem expensive, but if you, a friend, or a family member has nut allergies or is a vegan (yes, they're certified vegan and kosher, too!) these are worth every penny.

So what's with this healthy carb / low GI pasta anyway?

I ran across several boxes of Dreamfields Healthy Low Carb Rotini Pasta at my local discount market, so I thought I'd try them out as I was interested in low GI pasta.

According to the Dreamfields website:

Dreamfields Pasta is made with premium durum semolina, yet has only 5 grams of digestible carbs per serving and twice the fiber of regular pasta. Our unique recipe contains no cholesterol, zero grams of trans fat, and is naturally saturated fat and sodium free. It also contains a special fiber called Inulin that has been shown scientifically to promote digestive health and support a healthy immune system, while enhancing calcium absorption for strong bones and teeth.

Dreamfields Pasta is lower in digestible carbohydrates. What that means is that while the total number of carbohydrates is the same as typical pasta, our unique blend of dietary fibers and proteins protects all but about 5 grams of these carbohydrates from being digested. These protected, or "controlled," carbohydrates pass to the colon where they provide the health benefits of dietary fiber.

Intriguing. But how does it taste? Dreamfields Pasta tastes just like regular pasta! In fact, it's pretty darn good just with olive oil and a little parmesean cheese sprinkled on top. The kids couldn't tell the difference and neither could I. We cook gluten free pastas for my mother-in-law, and you definitely know that stuff is different, i.e., yucky and hard to cook. Dreamfields Pasta cooks up just like regular pasta, and stays firm when heated back up.

Raising the bar, the nutrition snack bar that is

Leslie at The Weighting Game has the posted the first part of her series "Raising the bar" on her blog. So far she's reviewed bars by Kashi, Attune, Ecco Bella, LUNA, and SoyJoy. Check it out!

Except for Kashi and LUNA, I've never heard of the rest. Maybe that's because I stick with the bars I like such as Kashi GOLEAN! Roll Bars and Balance Bars (especially the peanut butter ones - yum!).

Lately, I've fallen in dieting love with the the Kashi GOLEAN! bars because they're impervious to the summer heat and don't get smooshed in your purse. It's a little embarassing to lick a melted Balance bar off it's wrapper in public, don't you think?

UPDATE: Raising the Bar, Pt. 2 has been posted.

Do you have a favorite nutrition bar? Or do you think they're gross and a big waste of money?

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Cereal smack down: Kashi cereals vs. Fiber One Raisin Bran

Here were our contenders for the Kashi vs. Fiber One smackdown (from top left, going clockwise):

1. Kashi Go Lean Crunch
2. Fiber One Raisin Bran Clusters
3. Kashi 7 Whole Grain Puffs
4. Kashi Go Lean

Taste
My four-year-daughter Lucie (aka "Boo Girl") and I sat down and sampled three Kashi cereals and General Mills' new Fiber One Raisin Bran Clusters. We did not try the cereals with milk - Lucie likes her cereal dry and crunchy. Fine with me.

Based on taste alone, Lucie liked the Kashi Go Lean Crunch. I preferred the Fiber One Raisin Bran Clusters. Both were yummy, but Fiber One has a maple syrup flavor that won me over. I liked the added raisins, too. Kashi Go Lean was pretty good, but Kashi Puffs are pretty boring. You'll need honey, milk, yogurt and/or fruit to dress it up.

Nutrition
All the cereals have their strengths and weaknesses, and should be evaulated on what's important to you - calories, fiber, natural ingredients, etc. (Click on the cereal name for nutritional details.)

Kashi Go Lean Crunch has 190 calories per cup, the highest count of the group. It has 3 g of fat per serving, 8 g fiber, 36 g of carbs, 13 g of sugar, and 9 g of fiber. The cereal uses evaporated cane juice and brown rice syrup as sweetners.

Fiber One Raisin Bran Clusters has the least wholesome ingredients. It uses sugar, brown sugar and corn syrup as sweetners and has 45 g of carbs and 13 g sugars per cup. It also has 170 calories, 1 g fat, 11 g fiber and 4 g proteins per serving. It is also fortified with vitamins.

Kashi 7 Whole Grain Puffs is the low calorie winner. It has only 70 calories and .5 g of fat per cup. However, it only 1 g of fiber and 2 g of protein. It has no added vitamins/minerals. It has only 15 g of carbs and 0 g of sugars, but you'll add to that dressing it up to give it taste. No weird ingredients, just grains and rice.

Kashi Go Lean has 140 calories per cup. It has 1 g of fat per serving, 10 g fiber, 30 g of carbs, 6 g of sugar, and 10 g of fiber. The cereal uses evaporated cane juice and syrup as sweetners.

Our winner is
Kashi Go Lean had the best compromise between taste, fiber, wholesome ingredients, fat and calories. While Fiber One was tastier and had more vitamins, I don't need the sugar and corn syrup in my diet.

Our runner up is Kashi Go Lean Crunch. It's a great cereal for Lucie to snack on. The extra calories and fat aren't a problem for her - she's trying to gain a few more pounds (and inches) so she can get into a booster seat like her big brother.

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