Tuesday, September 20, 2011 at 09:04 AM
Welcome to Trade Up Tuesday! It’s everyone’s favorite day here at A Better Bag of Groceries because I blog about a trade up I’ve made since learning about NuVal scores and I give away something for free. Today, I’m writing about hot cereal because it has been very chilly in New England for the past four days or so. Even the little man on our weather station has been bundling up. My kids thought it was hilarious to see him in his winter coat, since he was just in his bathing suit a few days ago! It was easy to talk everyone into oatmeal for breakfast this morning!
Before I went to work for NuVal, I ate so differently. Yes, I ate nutritiously, but I tended to buy the same things over and over again and I didn’t really venture into unknown brands too often. Now, when I see really high scores for different products, I want to try them. My cupboard looks completely different than it did three years ago!
Oatmeal is one of those categories where I am always trying new things. There are sooooooo many different varieties. You do have to be careful though. Those with added sugars and sodium do not score as high as those without.
Check out the great scores on these Bob’s Red Mill products:
Bob’s Red Mill Steel Cut Oats: NuVal score of 58
Bob’s Red Mill 5 Grain Plus Flaxseed Rolled Whole Grain Hot Ceral: NuVal score of 93
Bob’s Red Mill 10 Grain 100% Whole Grain Hot Cereal: NuVal score of 91
Bob’s Red Mill High Fiber Oat Bran Hot Cereal: NuVal score of 99
Yum, all these Bob’s Red Mill hot cereals look so awesome – and nutritious! I want to try them all! It’s going to be hard for me to pack these up and ship them off to the lucky winner. I want to keep them for myself!
Today’s Giveaway
One lucky commenter will win all 4 packages of Bob’s Red Mill Hot Cereal. All you need to do is leave a comment below telling me your favorite hot cereal and mixin’s. Bonus – you can enter twice if you know the NuVal score of an item. For example, if you like to mix in raisins, and you know the NuVal score, enter a second time and tell me. You can find sample scores by searching this blog. Or by going to the NuVal website. I’ll select one winner at random on Wednesday September 21st at 8 am Eastern so don’t delay. Good Luck!
By the Way…
Do you all remember how much I love Lunch Box Notes? They are the best.
I put these notes into my kids’ lunchboxes often.
My kids love them! Just wanted to let you know that they are having a 48 hour 48% off sale! Check it out at www.sayplease.com. I just stocked up on some new notes myself. Enter coupon code LBL48.
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Hot Cereal, Oatmeal, Trade-Up Tuesday
Tags: Bob's Red Mill
Thursday, September 8, 2011 at 07:20 AM
A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of visiting Lowes Foods Stores in beautiful North Carolina on the day that they officially launched NuVal in their 106 stores.
While I was there, I checked out all the marketing materials, scores and advertising plans with Project Lead Bob Hays (I call him Captain NuVal). After saying good-bye to the good captain, I drove back to the airport. I found that I had a little time before my flight, so I hit one more store. It’s always fun to shop the aisles to see what new products I might bring back to my family.
I found one! This OatFit oatmeal looked very enticing.
I bought the cinnamon roll, NuVal score of 37, for my husband.
And the Raw, Pure & Simple, NuVal score of 41, for me.
Now, the average NuVal score for hot cereal is a 44, so you might be thinking that these scores are kind of low. I mean, really. Was this product worth it? I had to stuff it into my rollaboard, subject it to airport screening, you know the drill. Well, you have to remember that the average of 44 includes non-instant hot cereals too. And this is an instant oatmeal. The scores for instant oatmeal products tend to run a little bit lower than the kind you cook on the stove. So, this was an average-scoring product with a very cool convenience package.
Read on to see!
My thought was that this would be a great product for us to keep in our desk drawers at work. But for the sake of the blog, we road tested it on an incredibly busy morning at our house. The first day of school. It doesn’t get any busier than that!
My son has moved on to the Upper Elementary school, so we now have two trips to the bus stops an hour apart. And we begin an hour earlier than last year. It’s like being on Daylight Savings Time every day.
Let’s hope that rain on your first day of school is a sign of good luck!
In between it all, on our rainy first day of school, my husband and I road-tested this OatFit oatmeal.
We tried the Cinnamon Roll Variety that I bought for my husband to keep at work.
It’s very simple. You pour it, fill it, and cook it.
Pour the oatmeal into a bowl.
Fill the package with water.
Really! You put the water right into the package. The paper package serves as your measuring cup.
How cool is that?
You pop it into the microwave for 90 seconds and voila, you have yourself a bowl of oatmeal – with a pretty good NuVal score.
Later on, at the NuVal office, I made a bowl of the Raw Pure & Simple Oatmeal. I added some walnuts (NuVal score of 82) and raisins (NuVal score of 87) to boost the nutrition.
The Verdict
Would we buy this to keep at our offices for when our tummies start to rumble mid-morning? Absolutely! The oatmeal was creamy and delicious. The packaging is really fun and convenient. And the price was great ($1.50 for 5 pouches), so just thirty cents per serving. I haven’t seen OatFit in grocery stores near me, so I will definitely stock up on my next trip to Lowes Foods.
Question of the Day
What foods do you keep in your desk drawer (or bag) at work?
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: New Food Challenge, Oatmeal
Tags: New Food Challenge
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 08:10 AM
I have a confession to make. I am an Oatmeal Hoarder. That’s right. Any day now the crew from A&E’s Real Life Series “Hoarders”is going to show up on my doorstep and force me to clean out my kitchen cabinet. It all started when I discovered all the amazing NuVal scores that hot oat cereals get. I just kept tossing different brands into my shopping cart like a squirrel storing nuts for winter. And before I knew it, my cupboard overfloweth. Some of my favorite hot oat cereals taking up valuable cabinet space include:
Hodgson Mill Oat Bran Hot Cereal: NuVal score of 58
Bob’s Red Mill Steel Cut Oats: NuVal score of 58
Quaker Old Fashioned Oats: NuVal score of 57
Quaker Steel Cut Oats 100% Whole Grain: NuVal score of 60
And then there is the the Grand Daddy of them all – the one that not only takes up the most space in my cabinet, but it also scores the highest among the hot oat cereals in my personal kitchen cabinet – John McCann’s Steel Cut Irish Oatmeal Hot Cereal. It gets a NuVal score of 91.
Let’s just say that this can has been collecting a little bit of dust. Why? Cooking time. John McCann’s require at least 20 minutes of cooking time. Many steel cut oatmeals require 30 minutes! Who has that kind of time in the morning? Yes, we go through a lot of the Hodgson Mill Oat Bran with its quick 5-minute cooking time and my daughter likes the Quaker, so we make that a lot too. Quick, quick.
My friend Robin, who writes the Miss Conduct column for The Boston Globe Magazine, told me a long time ago (probably before a layer of dust had formed on top of this can) that she made her steel cut oats in her slow cooker – overnight! So that when she gets up in the morning, they are all ready and waiting for her. Well, with my husband threatening to call Hoarders, I had to try the Slow Cooker method.
Now, of course, I had just made Pepper Steak in the slow cooker over the weekend so despite the fact that it had been washed, it still had a peppery-steaky aroma. I gave my slow cooker another really good wash. And then I added 4 cups of water and 1 cup of oats. and set the slow cooker somewhere between 1 and 2. I have an old slow-cooker with a setting that goes from 1 to 5.
Interestingly, I had a restless night’s sleep that night. It must have been the oats! I went down to the kitchen after midnight to get a drink of water and I found that the oats were really bubbling, so I set the slow cooker as low as it would go. I am glad I did, because the results were perfect!
These oats are so creamy – you will swear that someone put cream in them! You will wonder why you ever ate any other kind of oats. You will ask yourself why you waited so long to make overnight oats. It is soooooo easy. Water + oats + plug in slow cooker and put it on low. That’s it. And you will wake up to a wonderful smell and breakfast waiting. What a treat on a cold winter’s morning! And soon, I will have more space in my kitchen cupboard!
Question of the Day
Which part of your house/apartment do you most need to clean out?
Yesterday’s Winner
Speaking of oatmeal, yesterday’s giveaway was a tough one! The correct answers were:
Bob’s Red Mill Scottish Oatmeal: NuVal score of 55
Bob’s Red Mill 100% Whole Grain Steel Cut Oats: NuVal score of 58
Bob’s Red Mill 7 Grain Hot Cereal: NuVal score of 91
And the winner of the giveaway is commenter #22, Kristy from the blog, Casual Dish. Please send me an email at abetterbagofgroceries.com with your mailing address so that I can mail your (heavy) prize out to you! Thanks to everyone who entered!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Oatmeal, Slow Cooker Recipes
Tags: Oatmeal, Overnight Oats, Quaker Oats
Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at 06:54 AM
Welcome to Trade-Up Tuesday, my weekly feature here on A Better Bag of Grocerieswhere I tell you about a Trade Up I’ve made since learning about NuVal. I also ask you to share your Trade-Up stories and I give away free stuff. What a deal!
Let’s face it, for many people, grocery shopping is a mindless chore. It’s all about replenishment – putting the same products in your cart week after week. Yawn……
And for some people – especially moms with small children – grocery shopping is a stress-inducing battle that must be fought. Week after week, you just try to make it from your car, through the store (without a potty break in those restrooms, without a meltdown, without junk-food) in one piece.
For me, working for NuVal, learning about NuVal scores, and blogging about it all has made grocery shopping fun again. Where I used to routinely throw the same old, same ole in my cart each and every week, I’m now branching out to try new things – especially high-scoring new things. It’s like a little adventure. I know, I know – I live such a wild and exciting life!
A year and a half ago, I had never heard of Hodgson Mill, the Illinois-based company that manufactures flour, corn meal, cereal, pasta and baking mixes. But when I started working for NuVal, the name came up again and again. They package some pretty high-scoring stuff. Most recently, I’ve tried two of their hot cereals:
Hodgson Mill Regular Oat Bran Hot Cereal scores a 60.
Hodgson Mill Milled Flaxseed & Soy Multigrain Hot Cereal scores an 82.
Both of these cook up quickly and are just what I need on a cold January morning in New England. My husband has been enjoying these too. Sometimes we add walnuts and raisins. Other times we add a teaspoon of peanut butter. Next, I’m planning to get my daughter, a 4 1/2 year old Quaker Oats fan to try out Hodgson Mill. The Quaker Old Fashioned Oats that she eats score a 57. I know it’s only a 3-point improvement, but really my motivation is in getting my kids to branch out and vary their eating as well.
This week, I also picked up some Hodgson Mill Cornbread and Muffin Mix. Unfortunately, we have not yet scored this one, but we will get to it. I’m curious to see what it scores. The brand that I usually buy, Jiffy, only scores a 3.
Today’s GiveAway
One lucky winner will receive my Hodgson Mill GiveAway – Oat Bran, Multigrain Cereal and Cornbread Muffin Mix. All you need to do is leave a comment and tell me about a brand or a product that you’ve tried (or that you’d like to try) since learning about NuVal scores. For ideas, check out this blog, Tina’s blog at www.tradingupdowntown.com or www.nuval.com. The contest ends at 11:59 pm Eastern time tonight so don’t delay!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: corn meal, Oatmeal, Trade-Up Tuesday
Tags: corn meal, Oatmeal
