Amy’s Holiday Cookie Collections
Amy’s Cookies of Brooklyn, New York makes fabulous cookies and during the holiday season, this star cookie maker creates exquisitely hand decorated cookies in a variety of shapes and sizes: sleighs, snowflakes, ornaments, gingerbread, winter caps, mittens, sweaters, and more. The cookies are wrapped, on a bed of brightly colored raffia in a beautiful box (or two) tied with a grosgrain ribbon. The six themed holiday cookie collections range from $45-$68 plus shipping and can be ordered on-line at www.amyscookies.com.
Peanut Butter by CB’s Nuts
Twenty-five miles northwest of Seattle, Washington is a small town called Kingston, home of CB’s Nuts, a family owned business that makes the best homemade peanut butter and it’s only $6 a jar. What makes CB’s so great? Fresh peanuts are slow roasted in small batches in old-fashioned (1920’s era refurbished) roasters and then ground to a smooth consistency in a refurbished grinder that has an 18-inch girding wheel before being jarred in-house. Silky smooth with little or no separation, CB’s Peanut Butter has no additives, sweeteners, preservatives, or artificial anything. There is just one ingredient: U.S. grown peanuts. Read more 
Those Dang Chips!
Dang Chips are toasted coconut chips with a strong, sweet aroma, a very satisfying crunch, and a sweet, slightly salty taste that will make you say “Dang, that’s good.” Made of three ingredients: coconut, sugar, and salt, Dang Chips are made in Thailand where Vincent Kitirattragarn’s mother, Dang (hence, the product name) grew up. Read more
How ’bout a Date?
Several years ago while living in Switzerland, a friend gave my family a tray of dried fruits – figs, dates, and apricots – from the Middle-East where he often traveled. The jumbo sized dates formed my idea of what a date should be: sweet, moist, creamy and delicious. Unfortunately, the standard date available at grocery stores (and even Whole Foods) does not live up to the dates from lands far away, which led me to look for for a high quality date in the US. My search led me to a Indio, California which is about 23 miles southeast of Palm Springs, where Shields Date Garden is a major draw for locals and tourists alike. Read more
Manitoba Harvest Hemp Hearts
When most people think of hemp, they think of marijuana and although the association is understandable, there is a big difference between hulled hemp seeds (which are also called hemp hearts) and marijuana. They both come from the cannabis plant but hulled hemp seeds or hemp hearts have .001% (one thousandth) of THC (the mind altering agent) whereas marijuana has 3-22%, with an average of 9%. So although hemp has gotten a bad rap from its distant recreational drugee cousin, hemp in reality is a very nutritious seed that provides a complete protein and is easily digestible. Read more
The Charmed Bar
Deb and Jen, the two “Charmed Girls” – one, a former kindergarten teacher and the other a sales professional in suburban Washington, DC – put their heads and hearts together to create the ultimate snack bar, the Charmed Bar: a salty-sweet mélange of wholesome natural ingredients made without gluten, grains, dairy, soy, refined sugars and absolutely no artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives. Read more
Healthier Halloween Options
For Halloween, it’s all about the candy and that means Trick or Treaters will have bags of sweets that will haunt every parent for about a month. Most candy has sugar or high fructose corn syrup and often artificial colors, flavors sweeteners, and preservatives. Although sugar is hard to avoid, there are alternative candy choices that are certified organic and flavored with 100% natural flavorings from fruits, vegetables and roots. Sound to good to be true? It’s not. YumEarth Organics makes a variety of treats with all these attributes and more – free of dairy, peanuts, gluten, tree nuts, and soy – and they taste scrumptious, the way candy is supposed to taste.
Engine 2 Plant-Strong Products
There is beauty in simplicity.
School has started, life is busy, and the big question of the day is how to make healthy meals or snacks when time is limited. Rip Esselstyn, author of The Engine 2 Diet and My Beef With Meat combined forces with Whole Foods to create a healthy line of plant-based food products – cereals, milks, burgers, grain medley, tortillas, crackers, and hummus – which means they are made from whole grains, beans, nuts, seeds, fruits, vegetables, herbs, and spices. In other words, there are no animals products, no added oils, minimal added sugar, if at all, less than 25% total calories from fat per serving, and a 1:1 ration of milligrams of sodium to calories per serving. Best of all, the products taste delicious, which is just what you would expect of foods made with wholesome, natural ingredients. Read more
22 Days Nutrition: Energy and Protein Bars
Just when I think I’ve tried every energy bar on the market, a new one comes along that makes me think my nutritional needs and taste buds have been neglected. 22 Days Nutrition Bars are the brainchild of exercise physiologist Marco Borges, a vegan and committed athlete who truly understands the relationship between food and performance. Borges decided to formulate great tasting nutrient-packed vegan products to nourish the body when he couldn’t find them on the market. Two of the products – Energy Bars and Protein Bars – are just that: highly nutritious and incredibly delicious.
Matt’s Munchies
Ever wonder why fruit roll-ups/leathers can’t be made with fruit and natural ingredients? Chef Roberts did and decided to create healthy, organic, gluten-free, vegan certified, and kosher fruit leathers without artificial additives, colors, and preservatives. How you ask? By using organic great tasting fresh fruit to make flavorful squares of pure dehydrated mango, banana, and apricot puree. Read more
Paddock Post 