Review: The Simply Bar Cinnamon Pecan

Due to my digestive problems one thing I have trouble getting enough of in my diet is protein. I have trouble digesting meat, dairy doesn't mesh well with me and eggs get boring after a while. There aren't many options for gluten free and dairy free protein bars since most companies tend to rely on whey and milk protein isolate. While searching for protein bars one night I came across The Simply Bar, as it states on their website Simply Bars are "gluten-free, all natural, vegan, kosher, low in fat and sugar, and under 12 ingredients (including non-GMO soy)." What really interested me the most was the story of how The Simply Bar company was created, Cathy Richards (Founder & CEO) has Crohn's disease and had trouble finding a snack that didn't upset her stomach so she decided to create her own and the rest is history! As great as it sounds I was hesitant in ordering since they're so expensive and aren't sold in many stores in the US so I couldn't just pick one up from my local grocery store to try. Eventually I gave in and ordered a box (contains 15 bars) from Amazon.com for $29.95.

When it was finally delivered I quickly opened the box to try it. When I first opened the wrapper the first thing that came to mind was that it looked really similar to a rice crispy treat. It has a slight smell of cinnamon but nothing overpowering. After taking a bite and chewing I noticed that the bar quickly dissolved and turned grainy, it turned me off at first but after a few more bites I barely noticed it. Overall the bar has a nice slightly sweet/cinnamon taste with a few pieces of pecans and satisfied my hunger. Each bar has 16 grams of protein and only 4 grams of sugar! The ingredients are also decent for a protein bar and I would definitely recommend trying this out. However if you're used to the sugary protein bars you will probably find this to have more of a bland taste. There are also other flavors of Simply Bars which include cocoa coffee, cocoa raspberry, caramel peanut, lemon coconut and peanut butter chocolate.

 

Quick Review: Bare Fruit Apple Chips

While at Homegoods my dad picked up this bag of Bare Fruit Apple Chips thinking it would be a great snack for me to try. Reading the bag I was impressed that they are organic, the apples are from the US and there's only one ingredient...apples! As it says on the bag, it cost $2.29+ tax.

These apples chips are crunchy, sweet/sour and are very addicting! There isn't much more to say since everyone knows how apples taste like but I highly recommend buying these :)

Review: Glutenfreeda Instant Oatmeal

Breakfast. Either you eat it or you don't. I was never much of a breakfast person growing up, I would try to sleep in as much as I could before dragging myself out of bed for school. My parents would always nag at me to eat breakfast but I could never stomach eating food so early in the morning. Now that I've been dealing with chronic digestive problems I schedule small meals throughout the day to keep my stomach happy, it took time to get used to it but I love breakfast now! One of my favorites is a bowl of oatmeal, now that spring/summer is approaching I'll probably be moving onto overnight oats instead :) Typically I use Trader Joe's gluten free rolled oats, almond milk and whatever fruit I have on hand with cinnamon and honey. While looking through Vitacost.com I browsed through their gluten free foods and noticed that they have a really good selection of foods I've never seen in my local grocery stores and the prices are a lot cheaper too. One of the foods I ordered was Glutenfreeda Instant Oatmeal Variety Pack, for $4.39 it has 6 packs (2 of each) of apple cinnamon w/flax, maple raisin w/flax and banana maple w/flax.

Glutenfreeda Instant Oatmeal is wheat/gluten free, contains no GMO's, free of hydrogenated oils, high in fiber and is all natural. According to their website all of their products are produced in a 100% dedicated gluten free facility to prevent any cross contamination.

The nutritional facts and ingredients are great and I wouldn't feel guilty eating this whenever I felt like making a super quick breakfast. I love that they don't add any unnecessary or disguised ingredients, have you ever looked at the ingredients from Quaker Instant Oatmeal Fruit Variety Pack (not gluten free, I know)? Hydrogenated oils, food dyes, artificial flavors and there really aren't any peaches, strawberries and blueberries in their oatmeal! The peaches and strawberries are really dehydrated apples with artificial flavorings/colors and the blueberries are dried digs with sugar and juice. Why would anyone need all of that in their bowl of oatmeal?
Anyways moving onto the review, Glutenfreeda Instant Oatmeal is great! I used water as suggested by the directions but if you wanted to have a more creamy texture I would suggest using milk or any milk substitute. Unlike most instant oatmeal the texture was not pasty, instead it had more of a hearty texture to it. The apple cinnamon flavor tasted the most bland out of the three but I didn't mind since I don't like my oatmeal sugary and I love that it has a lot of dried apple pieces in it. The maple raisin was my second favorite, it had the perfect amount of sweetness to it. Lastly the banana maple ended up being my favorite, I didn't notice in the ingredients that it listed freeze dried banana so I was pleasantly surprised to see all of the banana pieces when I emptied out the package into my bowl.

The amount of sweetness is similar to the maple raisin and I love that it didn't have a sickeningly sweet artificial banana taste to it like many banana flavored foods do. Overall I would highly recommend buying Glutenfreeda Instant Oatmeal to have on hand for those busy mornings or for whenever you feel like eating a bowl of oatmeal :) Besides the variety pack, Glutenfreeda also sells each of the flavors separately and other flavors which include natural flavored, strawberries and brown sugar w/flax and cranberry cinnamon w/flax.

Review: Mary's Gone Crackers Original

As my first review for this blog I have chosen Mary's Gone Crackers in Original flavor. I love crackers, back in my gluten days I always had to buy some type of cracker while grocery shopping. Saltines, Ritz, Triscuits, Wheat Thins, you name it I loved it. Just pair it off with some peanut butter or cheese and you have a great snack. However most recently I've noticed wheat products weren't helping my digestive problems very much and even though I don't have Celiac Disease or gluten intolerance (have been tested) I decided to leave all my gluten filled foods behind including my beloved crackers. While at Costco the Mary's Gone Crackers box caught my eye, first the name of it which made me laugh and second the big words Gluten Free written on the box and I just had to check them out.

I don't remember how much it was but I believe it was $8.99 and seemed like a great deal for a good sized box. Inside there are two separate bags which is great to keep them fresh.

Mary's Gone Crackers are organic, gluten free (duh), vegan, whole grain, non-GMO, kosher, made in the USA and are manufactured in a dedicated gluten free, dairy free, nut free facility. All the ingredients are what I would consider to be real food and can all be pronounced so no beaver anal gland juice in these ;)

When I first opened the box they smelled amazing and I love how I could see all the seeds in the crackers when I took them out. I had really high expectations for these and after eating a handful disappointment set in, don't get me wrong they're not bad but I've definitely had better. Tamari is listed in the ingredients but it tasted really bland to me and left a weird burnt taste in my mouth after eating a couple. Overall, I love the texture and ingredients but it's too bland for my taste and even though I wouldn't mind eating these again it wouldn't be something I would buy again.