• Choosing the Healthiest Foods for Your Family

    Welcome! I am a mom of a busy 7 year old and an adventurous 5 year old. I also happen to work for a great new company called NuVal. NuVal is a nutritional scoring system that rates foods on a scale of 1-100, based on how nutritious they are. We are implementing NuVal in grocery stores around the country.

    NuVal may not be in your area yet. But I see the scores while they are "hot off the press" and because of that I am able to make better decisions about what to feed my family.

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  • Disclaimer

    I am not a registered dietitian. I am just a mom who happens to work for NuVal. I am also an AFAA-certified Group Exercise Instructor. NuVal is a system designed to lead customers to the most nutritious food choices. It is not a diet or weight-loss plan. Before starting a diet, you should always consult your personal physician. The opinions expressed in this blog are the opinions of the writer and not the opinions of NuVal LLC.

Salad Days Are Here Again!!

Wednesday, March 10, 2010 at 06:47 AM

You have to sing that to the tune of Happy Days Are Here Again.  Here in the Northeast, we are finally enjoying some beautiful spring time weather.  And there’s nothing like some sunshine and mild temperatures to make me start eating salad for lunch again.  It is such a refreshing feeling to have salad cravings!

 I made that one while lunching at home. 

  • Green leaf and romaine lettuce (NuVal score of 100)
  • Cucumbers (NuVal score of 93)
  • Cocktail tomatoes (NuVal score of 96)
  • Grilled asparagus (NuVal score of 100, but the olive oil we used to grill it only gets an 11)
  • Full Circle Garbanzo beans (NuVal score of 82)
  • Boar’s Head sliced cheddar cheese (not yet scored)
  • Newman’s Own light Italian dressing (NuVal score of 3) 

I paired it with 2 Ryvita crackers (NuVal score of 87) and some Cedar’s roasted red pepper hummus (NuVal score of 61).  It was so good, I had to make it in a bring-to-work version.

This time I swapped my Ryvita for some Joseph’s Flax, Oat Bran & Whole Wheat Flour Pita Bread (NuVal score of 65), added a clementine (NuVal score of 94), and finished up with a cup of Mint Medley tea and a few dark chocolate chips.

My office partner, Rachel, is on a salad kick too. 

Between Rachel, Tina, and myself, there’s a lot of noisy crunching going on!

Remember my cool new lunch bag?  Well, the kind people at Built NY sent me one to give away to one lucky ABBG reader!

The bag is called the Gourmet Getaway.  So, today, in honor of the new beautiful Spring weather, I’m having a Gourmet Getaway Giveaway!

I love my lunch bag.  Our Office Manager here at NuVal stopped by my office today and spied it.  She thought is was a purse, not a lunch bag!  She agreed that it is The Bomb! 

The nice people at BuiltNY also sent me a laptop sleeve.  For me – sorry, not to give away.  Isn’t it cool though?

It’s made of neoprene (the wetsuit material) and it is checkpoint friendly so you can get through airport security faster.  And, best of all, it matches my running shoes!

If you love BuiltNY stuff too, you can become a fan on Facebook.  I know that next, I am shopping for one of their camera cases for my poor abused digital camera.

To Enter the Gourmet Getaway Giveaway:

All you need to do is comment below and answer the following question:

  • If you won the Gourmet Getaway, what would you put in it and what is the NuVal score of that item?

For ideas, check out this blog, or our other two NuVal blogs:  Trading Up Downtown or Nutrition Outlook.  You can also find interesting scores on the NuVal site.

But wait, there’s more!

I am also throwing in a limited edition NuVal water bottle! 

You get all this for one low price of leaving a little comment!  You can’t go wrong.  Hurry, the contest closes at 11:59 pm Eastern time tonight!  I can’t wait to hear what you have to say!  Happy Spring!

Winner of the Dreamfields GiveAway

Wow!  It’s a big week for GiveAways!  Congratulations to Commenter #16, Christina.  You’ve won yesterday’s Trade-Up Tuesday GiveAway!

Posted by: Melissa 49 comments

Posted in: Lunch, Salad

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