Displaying items by tag: glutenfree

Product review by EvG team member Kelly O’Brien:

You are all in for a treat today! Are your taste buds ready to be stimulated? When I was asked to do a product review of Bhakti Chai my first thought was ‘What in the world is Bhakti Chai’?! I headed over to the website to learn more about the product and discovered a plethora of super inspirational information on this special tea. And after receiving samples, I have been drinking the Unsweetened Bhakti Chai with fresh pressed ginger & fiery spices each morning this week!

Review by EvG team member Amanda Shea:

I love soup all year round, and during the chilly seasons nothing compares to a warm bowl of it! Soup is lovely when full of nutrients, however the average processed soup is high in sodium and has a long shelf life due to all the preservatives it contains - I stay away from canned soup for that reason. Two Guys in Vermont’s sodium count ranges from 6%-12%, a quarter of comparable canned soups. It’s a great value at $6 dollars for each jar: it contains two servings, which amounts to $3 for each serving. It may cost more than canned soup but you are buying soup that contains real ingredients, with no preservatives. 

If you drink green juice on a daily basis or have been wanting to incorporate it into your lifestyle, The Daily Good by Aloha may be the perfect addition to your health regiment. It’s especially wonderful for busy people who don't have a lot of time to spend in the kitchen or shop for ingredients. Appropriately dubbed "green juice in your pocket", The Daily Good is full of amazing organic superfoods such as spirulina for detoxification, wild berries for emotional health, oyster mushrooms for energy and Hawaiian ginger for digestion.  The individual packaging makes it easy to slip it into your purse, pocket or leave at your desk for a mid-day superfood, energy boost!

With all my dietary preferences, it can be challenging to find crunchy snacks that really satisfy. Potato chips are tasty yet have no nutritonal value and are full of oil. I'm sensitive to gluten and corn, so chips made from those ingredients are out of the question. Bean chips are a great alternative, but they often upset my stomach. Kale chips have been the answer for years, however I crave variety. That's why I was absolutely thrilled when I discovered Wonderfully Raw's Snip Chips and Brussel Bytes - in addition to being raw, they're:

Guest post from EvG team member Kylie:

It’s no secret that I have a major sweet tooth. When I decided to become vegan I really missed a lot of those classic candy bars I would indulge in occasionally, especially Reese’s Peanut Butter cups. There was something about those overly sugary little cups of joy that had me craving them every few months or so. It’s probably a good thing they aren’t vegan because let’s be honest here, they really aren’t good for (or your waistline). Enter Buddha Cups - Raw Organic Dark Chocolate Almond Butter Cups. Lovingly made in Brooklyn, NY these chocolates are dairy free, gluten free, soy free, vegan, fair trade and free of refined sugar. Sounds pretty awesome right?!

The word "diet" has a bad connotation these days: it conjures up themes of deprivation, malnutrition and low success rates. Many diets are started because of social pressure from friends, family and the media, and when that's the driving force there's a higher chance of failing since there's less emphasis on a healthy structure. I experienced this first hand as a teenager - I thought I was chubby so I tried all sorts of fad diets and none of them worked long term. It wasn't until I educated myself on nutrition and payed attention to the signs my body was telling me about food sensitivities that I got to a healthy weight and stayed there.

It's almost officially summer time and you know what that means - veggie burgers on the grill, yahoo! Sure, you probably eat plant-based patties year round like me, but there's something about the way they taste on a warm summer day... And I'm sure I'm not alone in having tried my fair share of vegan burgers over the years - sadly it's hard to find one that really satisfies. I've had dry burgers, burgers that fall apart, burgers that lack flavor... you know what I'm talkin' about! And to make things a bit more challenging, when I started avoiding gluten, soy and corn my options were pretty pathedic. That is, until I discovered Hilary's Eat Well, a company that makes delicious, convenient and low-allergen burgers that are gluten-free, dairy-free, corn-free, egg-free, soy-free, yeast-free, and nut-free! The woman-owned biz offers 3 pattie flavors and new bites that are great for kids.

Guest post by Kylie Bennett

Lifelong vegan Makini Howell left the bustling streets of New York City in 2005 to open up Plum Bistro in Seattle, WA. Her vision for Plum was to have a place where vegans and omnivores could come together in one community and leave feeling completely satisfied. Out of this restaurant came the cookbook Plum, full of inventive vegan dishes that are bursting flavor and fun to make.

Not only is it Celiac Awareness Month but it's also Food Allergy Awareness Week! Does that mean that celiac's is more important to all the other food allergies? Hmmm... Anyways, to celebrate I want to introduce to a new company making wonderful gluten-free baking mixes: Zema's Madhouse Foods. The founder took her health, fitness and ADHD perspective to combine ancient whole grains with superseeds chia, hemp and flaxmeal into delicious creations. Each mix is kosher, Non-GMO Project Verified, and free of refined sugar and the top 8 allergens. And yet there's so much inside - in fact, for most recipes all you need to add in is wet ingredients like milk and egg alternatives of choice. Fill your kitchen with Cinnamon-Oatmeal Apple Muffins, Multigrain Pancake & Waffles, Cocoa Teff Pancake & Waffles and Rosemary-Millet Focaccia & Pizza Crust - Zema's sent me the latter two to try and here's what I thought:

What a great way to use up all those lingering candy canes - would be a lovely treat for New Years Eve! I found an organic, corn syrup-free variety at Whole Foods and they were perfect for this! The recipe results in a sweet, decadent, salty and crunchy dessert that will delight children and adults alike.

It's free of gluten and soy, and it can be relatively low in sugar if you use a ultra dark chocolate, a raw chocolate and/or one sweetened with stevia or xylitol. It can also be low in salt if you use salt-free tortilla chips and even low in oil and nut-free if you leave out the coconut oil.