• Choosing the Healthiest Foods for Your Family

    Welcome! I am a mom of a busy 8 year old and an adventurous 6 year old. I also happen to work for a great 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.

  • Sign up for email updates here!

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

  • Contact Me

    I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to email me.

    You can also follow me on Twitter @MelisaNutrition and my RSS feed.

  • 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.

My Green Monster

Monday, March 21, 2011 at 07:16 AM

So, I bought this Almond Breeze milk a while back, with every intention of making a Green Monster Smoothie.  Every intention.  And then it just sat in my cupboard.  And sat some more.

And finally, I don’t know what it was – maybe the arrival of Spring, maybe a need for some extra energy – something gave me the extra push I needed to finally try to make a Green Monster Smoothie.

What is a Green Monster Smoothie?  Well, I first heard about it from my friend Kalli who lives out on the West Coast.  She blogged about it here on A Better Bag of Groceries last year.  Basically, the Green Monster Movement  was started by Angela, the blogger who writes Oh She Glows.  A Green Monster Smoothie is really any concoction of spinach or kale, milk (almond or soy), fruit, seeds, powders, etc.  There are many, many recipes on the Green Monster website, or you can make your own – which is what I did.

I made my own.  It was so much fun!  I took a little bit of what I learned from Kalli and a little bit of what I’ve learned from Catherine Katz  about making smoothies and this is what I came up with:

Ingredients

 

Let’s go through these ingredients one at a time.

I used 1 cup of Almond Breeze Original Unsweetened Non-Dairy Beverage (NuVal Score of 90).

I used 1/2 cup of Chobani non-fat plain Greek yogurt (NuVal score of 94)

 

I used 1/4 cup non-fat dry milk (NuVal score of 91 for Nestle Carnation Instant Non-Fat dry milk fortified with Vitamins A&D).  Funny, I was talking to my sister about my ingredients for this Smoothie and she asked, “Why the non-fat dry milk?”  “Well,” I told her, “it’s a Catherine Katz trick.  She uses fat-free powdered milk to sweeten her smoothies without adding more sugar.  Catherine says that the lactose in the milk is a natural sugar that does the trick without adding all those empty calories and it adds calcium to boost!” 

 

I also added 1/2 cup frozen blueberries (NuVal score of 100)

 a 1/2 cup frozen strawberries (NuVal score of 100)

1 cup baby spinach

1 Tablespoon of Flax Seeds (NuVal score of 91 for Arrowhead Mills All Natural Flax Seeds)

And 3 ice cubes

The Verdict

Yum!  I ate, I mean drank, this for lunch!  It was so satisfying.  It really filled me up with lots of high-scoring foods.  I never got that 3 pm hunger that I usually get.  I think I will be bringing my Stickblender to work with me and mixing up one of these in the NuVal lunchroom!  Highly recommended!!

Oh and by the way – you don’t taste the spinach, at all!

Question of the Day

What would you put in your Green Monster Smoothie?

Posted by: Melissa 16 comments

Posted in: Green Monster, smoothies

Tags: ,

Fit Friends at Forty – Meet Kalli!

Thursday, April 1, 2010 at 07:14 AM

Happy April Fool’s Day!  I briefly thought about doing a prank blog post, where I give out wrong scores (like, guess what everybody, Fruit Loops now score 100!) but I thought it would give Rob, our media director at NuVal, a heart attack.  So, instead, I opted to introduce you to one of my Fit at Forty Friends.  As you may recall from an earlier post, I am turning the big 4-0 this year.  To mentally prepare myself for the Big Day, I decided not to focus on celebrities born in 1970, but rather real people who I know are handling this big milestone with grace and an attitude towards healthy living.

I met Kalli through my new friend Tina Haupert.  Kalli turned 40 on March 12th of this year and as part of her 40th year celebration, she began her blog Fit and Forty Something.  Kalli teaches math and science to 7th-graders in her small beach town in Southern California.  She and her husband Bill are avid cyclists.  Kalli also enjoys running, doing yoga, and walking her Black Labrador, Pepsi.

I asked Kalli some questions about turning 40.

Me:  What is your strategy for keeping fit at forty?

Kalli:  Execise consistently and easily.  What I mean by that is you should find something you enjoy doing so it does not feel like a chore.  Also, find friends who like to do the same things and work out with them.  And, fit in working out in your daily life though walking to work, walking to do errands and walking the dog. Enjoy good food but in moderation, never have second helpings and enjoy a glass of wine :)

Me:  How did you feel on your 40th birthday?

Kalli:  Good on the actual day but I was nervous counting down the last days of my 39th year. 

Me:  Ugh, me too!

Kalli:  Forty signaled an end to some things for me and a new beginning as well.  I started my blog, for that exact reason.  I started it on January 1st which was 2 1/2 months before my 40th but I needed something to help me transition to that age.  It really helped!  I was ready on March 12th to accept and embrace my age.

Me:  Is anything different now that you are technically “in your 40s”?

Kalli:  I realize, “this is it,”  you must live your best life NOW.  There are no do-overs. 

Me:  What do you think of NuVal?  Have you found anything surprising in the scores? 

Kalli:  Yes!  I have been reading other NuVal blogs as well as yours and I am learning so much about “healthy”  food.  I think NuVal really opens up your eyes to what is nutrient dense and good for you.  No misconceptions there!

So, without further ado, I bring you Kalli!

I tend to consider myself fairly healthy but wonder occasionally if my “healthy” food is really so healthy.

That is why when Melissa from A Better Bag of Groceries emailed me to do a guest post on her blog I was ecstatic!

Melissa works for NuVal.  You may have heard of NuVal from another “famous” blogger-Tina from Carrots and Cake.

I learned that NuVal scores your food based on its “healthfulness.”

I decided to test out my famous Green Monster Shake which I adapted from Angela at Green Monster Movement.

Here is what typically goes into my shake:

Baby Spinach

1 1/2 Cups Almond Milk-organic, regular flavor

1 Scoop Vega Chocolate  Whole Food Optimizer

1 Banana

1/2 cup frozen Mixed Berries

1 tsp Flax Seed

I wonder how this shake will rate :-)

Melissa here again!  Kalli’s Green Monster Shake incorporates ingredients with very high NuVal scores.  While we have not yet scored the Vega Chocolate Whole Food Optimizer or flax seeds yet, check out these scores:

  • Baby Spinach gets a 100
  • The Almond Milk scores a 90 if you choose Blue Diamond Growers Smooth & Creamy Unsweetened Organic Non-Dairy Beverage made from Real Almonds
  • Bananas get a 91
  • The Mixed Berries get a 100 if you choose Dole Wildly Nutritious Signature Blend Mixed Berries.

So, Happy Birthday Kalli and thanks for the Guest Post.  Now I need to go make a Green Monster!

Posted by: Melissa 7 comments

Posted in: Fit Friends at Forty

Tags: