Tuesday, June 15, 2010 at 06:52 AM
Welcome to Trade-Up Tuesday, everyone’s favorite day here on A Better Bag of Groceries. Every Tuesday, I blog about a Trade-Up I’ve made since learning about NuVal scores and I give away free stuff. Today, I’ve chosen one of my favorite salty snacks and an amazing new hummus that I discovered.
First, Stacy’s Simply Naked Chips. Oh, how I love these chips. I have to admit, on most workdays, I indulge in a handful of these after I walk through the door. I think because I typically eat a pretty low-carb lunch, I am craving something that carb-y and salty as I get started on dinner and homework. I featured Stacy’s Simply Naked Chips as a Cart Confession some time back. I mean, they get the same score as Lay’s Potato Chips, so they are not really a Trade Up. But I do love them, and hey, they score better than pretzels, which hover in the 9 – 13 range.
But the real reason that I included the Stacy’s chips in today’s giveaway is because they go so nicely with this Wild Garden Hummus Dip that I discovered at Price Chopper. You might remember that I visited Price Chopper for their Healthy U Open House back in March. I love going out to our Retailer Partners, walking the aisles and checking out all the NuVal scores. I always find something new. This Wild Garden Hummus Dip gets a great score of 51! That is right up there with the refrigerated hummus dips:
Cedar’s Red Pepper scores a 61
Tribe Red Pepper scores a 51
Sabra Red Pepper Hummus only scores a 26. Boo! Too bad. I do love their hummus.
You know what I love most about today’s Giveaway? It is shelf-stable. No refrigeration required. Headed out for a picnic? You can bring both of these and not even worry about having a cooler. Invited to a party after the beach? This is a snack you can bring along and not fret about keeping cool. Headed to the pool with the kids? Throw this in your swim bag. Easy-peasy.
Today’s Giveaway
One lucky commenter will win today’s giveaway. Just leave a comment below telling me one of your favorite summer snacks. Leave a second comment with the NuVal score and you will be entered twice. You can find some scores at NuVal.com, on TradingUpDowntownor (of course) by shopping at one of our Retailer Partners if you are lucky enough to live near one of them. Right now, we have scores on shelf at Price Chopper, Hy-Vee, Meijer, United Texas and at 26 Kroger stores in Lexington, KY. More to come really soon, by the way.
I will choose one winner at random at 7 am EDT on Wednesday. Good Luck!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Trade-Up Tuesday
Tags: hummus, Stacy's Chips, Trade-Up Tuesdays
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 07:01 AM
Welcome to Trade Up Tuesday! Every Tuesday I blog about a trade up I’ve made and I give away some of my favorite products to one lucky Commenter. Today, in the spirit of easy summer cooking, I’m giving away the fixings for an easy pasta dinner.
Pasta and pasta sauce are definitely two categories that I’ve made Trade Ups in. Before I learned about NuVal, I was most likely to buy whatever pasta was on sale. I now know that the scores for most of those plain pastas hover around a 61. That’s not a bad score, but once I started working for NuVal, I learned that there are several pastas with much, much better scores. Like these three:
Barilla Plus Thin Spaghetti: 91
Dreamfields Linguini: 87
Hodgson Mill Spaghetti: 91
After trying them out, I was amazed that I did not have to give up taste for better nutrition. My kids love them too, so I feel great on those nights when all we have time for is boiling up a quick pot of spaghetti.
Likewise, before I started working for NuVal, my Go To sauce was Classico. While there are some varieties of Classico that have fantastic scores, the highest scoring selections (like Spicy Red Pepper, Score: 68) are a little too spicy for my kids’ taste. And the Classico brand that my kids do like (Tomato & Basil), only scores a 43. My Go To Sauce these days is Pastene The Chateau Marinara Sauce with a NuVal score of 66. Everyone in the family loves it, so it’s worth the $4.99 price tag at our local Stop & Shop.
Today’s GiveAway
One lucky commenter will win The Chateau pasta sauce and the 3 boxes of pasta that you see in the picture above. Just leave a comment below answering the following question:
What food or product are you willing to pay more for because it has better nutrition?
I will choose one winner at random at 7 am EDT on Wednesday. Good Luck!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Barilla Plus, Dreamfield's, Trade-Up Tuesday
Tags: Pasta, sauce
Tuesday, June 1, 2010 at 07:02 AM
Welcome to Trade-Up Tuesday! Every Tuesday, here on A Better Bag of Groceries, I tell you about a Trade-Up I’ve made since learning about NuVal and I give away free stuff. Today, I’m giving away some foods that I am relying on these days for energy and stamina: Nature’s Path Cereal and Larabars!
I have to admit – I am freaking out just a bit now that it’s June 1st. My June is going to be busier than ever. I get twitchy just thinking about it. Every area of my life is going into overdrive:
- Work: new retailers coming on board, business trips on the agenda.
- Kids: Can there be any more end-of-the-school-year activities??? School play, concert, dance recital, teacher gifts, pre-school graduation, children singing in church, yada, yada, yada.
- Fitness: Teaching a new boot camp beginning mid-June. Just call me Jillian!
- Home: This is the part that is really making me twitchy. Major changes going on at our home. Yikes!
So, with my agenda overflowing, it was time to stock up on some foods that are easily accessible, low-maintenance and chock full of energy.
First, I decided it was time for a new cereal. I am a total floozie when it comes to cereal. By that, I mean I am all into a cereal for a given period of time. I can’t get enough of one particular brand – every day – yum, yum, yum and then (boom!) I’m over it. So it was with the stale box of Shredded Wheat that I have collecting dust in my cupboard right now. I know it is a Rock Star on the NuVal scale. It gets a 91for crying out loud. But, alas, it is just not doing it for me. So, I found myself in the Healthy section of my grocery store last Friday eyeing the Nature’s Path selections. Hmmmmmmm. Flax, Omega 3. I figured it would get a great NuVal Score.
I brought home a box of the Flax Plus MultiBran, loaded it with Strawberries (100) and Blueberries (100) and topped it with skim milk (91).
As my friend Tina would say, Holy Yum! I am so loving this new cereal. It was just the new something that I needed to face this crazy month I have ahead of me. Quick easy energy. I spent part of Memorial Day checking out the NuVal scores on this cereal. It gets a 38. OK, I was a little disappointed. I mean, it’s still better than the average score for cold cereal (27), but I was expecting it to be higher. Oh, well! It is delicious!
As I said, the month ahead is so daunting that I know it will be critical to have some quick and easy nutrition ready to go when the going gets rough. And that’s were the LaraBars come in. Fooducate, one of my favorite food blogs, had a great post recently about LaraBars. The amazing thing about them is how short the ingredients list is. For example, on this LaraBar Apple Pie, the ingredients are: Dates,
Almonds, Unsweetened Apples, Walnuts, Raisins and Cinnamon. On the Peanut Butter Cookie (my favorite!), they are Dates, Peanuts and Salt. Nice and simple.
The NuVal scores are:
- LaraBar Apple Pie: 57
- LaraBar Peanut Butter Cookie: 29
LaraBars are definitely one of my favorite new discoveries of the past six months. Oh, how I love them!
Today’s GiveAway
One lucky commenter will win a box of Nature’s Path cereal, a Larabar Apple Pie, a Larabar Peanut Butter cookie and a NuVal t-shirt. Wow! Great prize! Just leave a comment below telling me one of the following:
- A food that you rely on for energy and stamina when your life goes into overdrive OR
- A trade-up you’ve made since learning about NuVal
I’ll choose one winner at 7 am Eastern time Wednesday. Good luck to everyone!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Cereal for Grown-Ups, Trade-Up Tuesday
Tags: LaraBars, Natures Path
Tuesday, May 25, 2010 at 06:54 AM
Welcome to Trade-Up Tuesday! Every Tuesday, here on A Better Bag of Groceries, I talk about a Trade-Up I’ve made since learning about NuVal and I give away something for free. Today’s Topic: The Best of the Cereal Category.
I love it when magazines have their “Best of” lists. Every summer, you will find me on the beach with my nose deep into the Best of Boston from Boston magazine or the Best of Rhode Island from Rhode Island Monthly.
As the weather gets warmer, my household becomes All Cereal for breakfast. We put away the oatmeal and while there is an occasional toasted item first thing in the morning, it is more likely to see four bowls and a glass bottle of our favorite milk at the breakfast table.
People ask me about NuVal scores for cereal often and so today, I am giving away the most notable high-scoring items in the Children’s Cereal category and the Adult Cereal category (that sounds a little risque, doesn’t it?)
If you have kids, there is almost nothing better than a box of Cheerios. Cheerios score a 34 on the NuVal scale. There is a Cinnamon Toast Crunch with 75% reduced sugar that scores a 40, however, I’ve yet to find it here in New England. My kids are big Rice Chex fans. I think my husband feels good knowing that he is giving them cereal that does not have a cartoon character on the front of the box, but Rice Chex pale in comparison to Cheerios. They only score a 24. In fact a LOT of kids cereals score in the 20-24 range. My advice? Try to keep the favorite finger food of most toddlers on your table for as long as you can. The score is better than the rest.
Now, when it comes to adults, the Rock Star Cereal that we at NuVal often mention is Post Shredded Wheat. It was a standout early on when we began scoring the cereal category. It gets an amazing 91! There are other cereals that score a 91 as well, including Barbara’s Shredded Wheat, Arrowhead Mills Organic Amaranth Flakes, Price Chopper Puffed Wheat, Meijer Shredded Wheat, and Bear Naked Fit Triple Berry Crunch. The cool thing about NuVal, is that when grocery stores put the scores on their shelves, you can easily see when a store brand gets the same or better score than the National Brand – and it’s usually cheaper.
So, these days, we do have both Cheerios and Shredded Wheat on the morning menu, usually topped with banana (91) , blueberries (100), or strawberries (100). Sometimes, I even top with nectarine (93). Yum!
Today’s Giveaway
One lucky commenter will win a box of Shredded Wheat and a box of Cheerios. Sorry, I can’t send the skim milk through the mail! Just leave a comment below telling me your favorite cereal. (No worries if it’s not nutritious!) I’ll choose one commenter at 7 am EDT on Wednesday so check back to see if you are the lucky recipient! Good Luck!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Cereal for Grown-Ups, Cereal for Kids, Trade-Up Tuesday
Tags: cereal
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 06:51 AM
Hello! Welcome to Trade-Up Tuesday, a great day here on A Better Bag of Groceries because I tell you about a Trade Up I’ve made since learning about NuVal and I give away something nutritious and delicious.
For me, one of the coolest things about writing A Better Bag of Groceries is meeting people and hearing about the changes they’ve made since reading my blog. This happened just recently when I attended a sorority reunion of sorts. It was actually a retirement party for Mecky, our housemother who spent 21 years at Alpha Chi Omega, Gamma Sigma Chapter at the University of Rhode Island.
Mecky and Me
At the party, it was amazing to catch up with my sorority sisters, especially my dear friend Joan, who said, “Oh My God! I am now popping corn the old-fashioned way because of you!” Truly, there is no better compliment.
Joan (the Old Fashioned Corn Popper) with MaryEllen and Scarlett
Joan is just one friend of mine who is on the Retro Popcorn Revolution after finding out that Orville Redenbacher’s Original popcorn scores a 91 on the NuVal scale. All of the microwave brands pale in comparison, ranging from 1 – 28. Ouch! Yes, many a mom has approached me or left me Facebook messages to say that they have banned microwave popcorn from their households now.
That is what NuVal is all about. It’s about giving consumers the information they need to make an educated decision about the nutritional value of their food. Period. To me, it is so rewarding to see that the information that I am able to give my readers makes a difference in their lives. We all just want to choose the most nutritious foods for our families and for ourselves and I’m glad that I am able to help people do that.
Today’s Giveaway
One lucky winner will get a jar of Orville Redenbacher’s Original popcorn to pop at home. I’ve also thrown in a NuVal t-shirt. To enter, just leave a comment below telling me about a Trade Up or a change you’ve made since learning about NuVal scores. I’ll choose one winner at random tomorrow (Wednesday) morning at 7 am Eastern Time. Good Luck!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Popcorn, Trade-Up Tuesday
Tags: Popcorn
