A few of my favorite things

>> Friday, November 27, 2009

Just in time for the holidays, Made from Earth is offering a special discount for A Life Less Sweet readers!  Zip over to my Reviews blog for details or see the button on the sidebar.

The holiday season is upon us!  Life is always busy here, but even more so this time of year.  To that end, I'm going to be taking a little break during the month of December.  Look for some of my favorite recipes and informative posts through the month of December instead.

But first...I want to share just a few of my favorite products - all HFCS and trans fat free, of course!

Tillen Farms Merry Maraschino Cherries - I have been searching and searching for a HFCS-free maraschino cherry, and I finally found them!  Tillen Farms makes a maraschino cherry with all natural ingredients - Cherries, water, sugar, vegetable and fruit concentrate (color), natural flavor.  I love these!  Because they're colored with vegetable and fruit concentrate (another plus) rather than food dye, they aren't as garishly red as regular maraschino cherries.  They are very sweet, of course, but they don't seem as gloppishly, syrupy sweet as regular maraschino cherries to me.  In short, these are a winner here!  And I love that I can once again make my desserts that call for maraschino cherries without compromising my food values! 


My local grocery store carries these cherries, 
but you can also buy them from the Tillen Farms site or Amazon 

Crofters Superfruit Spread - I was lucky enough to win some Crofters Superfruit Spread from Fat Fighter TV a few months ago.  I love these spreads!  They're chunky and packed full of flavor with a very simple ingredient list.  The Superspreads come in four geographical flavors - Asia, Europe, North America, and South America - each with it's own special antioxidant-packed fruit in addition to the Morello cherries and red grape base.  Asia (with raspberries and yumberries) is my favorite by a hair, but I must say that I think that all of the flavors taste very much alike.  The main flavor by far is the Morello cherries and red grape base, and it's a great flavor.  These are spreads, so they're chunky and a bit loose (unlike a jelly, which is firm).  My kids love these spreads on PB&J sandwiches.  I like to eat the spread in a way that really lets the jelly flavor shine through - like on a cracker or a simple piece of toast. 



Amy's Low-Sodium Cream of Tomato Soup - One of my comfort foods has always been tomato soup - Campbells Condensed Tomato Soup, to be exact.  I grudgingly gave up this soup when we went HFCS free.  Recently, we had a string of illnesses hit our house, and I craved my tomato soup comfort food.  Amy's to the rescue!  Amy's Low-Sodium Cream of Tomato Soup was love at first bite.  It's got a nice ingredient list and  a good tomato flavor and consistency.  And while it still has more sodium than I would like, for a canned soup it's sodium content isn't too bad.  You could, of course, make homemade tomato soup, but when you're feeling down and out, it really is nice to just pull a can out of the pantry and heat it up.





Julies Organic Ice Cream Sandwiches - Another pre-packaged luxury that was lost to us when we gave up trans fat.  Seems like almost every ice cream sandwich on the market has either HFCS or partially hydrogenated oil - or both.  These ice cream sandwiches are great!  Nice size, good flavor, nice ingredients.  And, once again, we get to enjoy the occasional treat of an ice cream sandwich!



Ghirardelli chips -  Ghirardelli has two types of chips that have found their way into my pantry.  First, their 60% Cocoa Bittersweet Chocolate Chips.  I love these chips so much that I sneak a few when I need a chocolate fix.  They have a good dark chocolate flavor and no trans fat.  I just wish that Ghirardelli would make these chips in a mini-version!

 

Next, Ghirardelli's white chocolate chips.  It's hard to find white chocolate chips that don't have partially-hydrogenated oils in the ingredient list, so I was thrilled to find Ghirardelli's White Chocolate Chips.  Trans fat free!  Perfect for holiday baking!

 

Happy Holidays to you all!  Enjoy all of your favorite things!






8 comments:

Jon (was) in Michigan November 27, 2009 at 12:40 PM  

Oh yes, I do like the Ghirardelli dark and semi-sweet chips. They are my chocolate of choice for truffles.

Are you certain about the white not having hydrogenated oils? They must have changed that recently. I have an older bag here and the second ingredient is partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.

cathy November 27, 2009 at 2:55 PM  

Jon - interesting! Your comment made me go double check my white chocolate. I bought it last month, and they use palm and palm kernel oils instead of hydrogenated oils in my packages. Those are still junk oils (especially the palm kernel oil), but while they're loaded with saturated fat, they're trans fat free. They must have made the switch away from hydrogenated oils recently. They were the only white chocolate that were trans fat free in my grocery store!

Sagan November 28, 2009 at 12:40 PM  

I had no idea there were maraschino cherries like that! Cool stuff. I've seen that fruit spread in the store before but hadn't taken a good look at the nutritionals. Thanks for this little list!

Mark Salinas November 28, 2009 at 1:12 PM  

Always good healthy info.! Thanks!

TwinToddlersDad November 28, 2009 at 6:17 PM  

Amy's tomato soup looks interesting. Do you know if it contains any sugar? Campbell's tomato soup has 12g sugar per serving. I find it too sweet for my taste!

cathy November 29, 2009 at 11:46 AM  

TwinToddlersDad - Amy's tomato soup has about half the sugar of Campbells. It has 11g of sugar per serving, but the serving size is double that of Campbells.

Kara November 29, 2009 at 12:38 PM  

So happy to see a dye-free maraschino cherry!!!!

Super Healthy Kids November 30, 2009 at 6:16 AM  

I love White chocolate chips! Thanks for the list.

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