Two Moms in the Raw Review

Two Moms in the Raw is a "family-owned gluten free, raw food manufacturer located in Boulder County Colorado and founded in 2006 by Shari and Marsha (daughter and mom team)." They use only organic, non-GMO, gluten free, kosher and vegan ingredients in their handmade granola bars, nut bars, sea crackers, truffles and cereals. 

I am excited to share my reviews of the following Two Moms in the Raw products:

Cereal: 9 of 10. This cereal is hearty, crunchy, wholesome, and slightly sweet. It doesn't have as strong of a flavor as I expected with all the great ingredients, but I still enjoyed it by itself and with yogurt. 

Almond Butter Cacao Truffles: 10 of 10. I enjoyed these more than other regular truffles I've tried. The almond butter was a great flavor encased by a wonderful cacao covering. 

Goldenberry Granola: 9.5 of 10. This granola bar is slightly sweet, crunchy and chewy, and full of delicious seeds held together by agave. It is a great snack!

Cranberry Nut Bar: 10 of 10. This bar is full of my favorite nuts (almonds, pecans, walnuts), sweet cranberries, and a great combination of spices. I enjoyed it!

Raw food is truly satisfying in a way that processed food is not. The flavors are stronger and more authentic. I really enjoyed this review and hope you all look into trying some of Two Moms in the Raw's products. They are available at Whole Foods and other retailers around the country.

Hail Merry Review

Greetings all! I hope your weekend is off to a great start! Last week was the first week of my last semester of graduate school. I really can't believe it. It seems like just yesterday I was beginning my grad program. Let's just hope I'm all ready for the real world by May.

I've got a great review for you all today courtesy of Hail Merry. The lovely folks from Hail Merry sent me a few complimentary samples to review for you (pictured below). Hail Merry is a raw, vegan, gluten-free snack food company with delicious products. Read more on their online brochure. They have a beautiful website you should check out too.

Blonde Macaroons: 10 of 10! These were so tasty with a strong coconut flavor. They were soft, chewy, and melted in my mouth without being crumbly. I loved their slight sweetness.

Orange Cranberry Grawnola: 9 of 10. This raw granola was hearty, rich, crunchy and chewy (interesting combo, I know). It was slightly sweet and cinnamonny. The dried fruit was a nice touch, as were the seeds/nuts.

Vanilla Maple Almonds: 10 of 10! Wow - such sweet almonds and soo flavorful! They had a smooth texture and made for a very satisfying treat!

I must say these snacks really were delicious. If you have not tried raw, vegan, or gluten-free foods, then you should. You won't sacrifice flavor - I can promise you that.

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Becoming Raw: Book Publishing Company Review

Today I am happy to provide you with another book review courtesy of Book Publishing Company.  I also want to remind you that Book Publishing Company is running a special campaign this April called, "Live Delicious - Eat Vegan." They'll be giving away a free vegan cookbook this month, and you can enter here!

I was recently sent a complimentary review copy of Becoming Raw: The Essential Guide to Raw Vegan Diets. 

This is a substantial book with 352 pages of information about raw vegan diets.  I appreciated all of the scientific evidence and data included that demonstrated both the potential risks and benefits of raw diets.  The advice in this book is essential if you want to ensure that your raw diet is providing you with all of the nutrients you need.  I would definitely recommend this book if you are interested in beginning a raw diet or simply incorporating more raw foods in your current diet of choice.  This book concludes with a section of over 45 recipes, and I was excited to see that very comprehensive nutritional analysis are given for each recipe! 

I'm going to share one of the recipes with you here: Tutti-Frutti Ice Cream!  There are only 2 ingredients for this great dessert: 2-3 frozen ripe bananas and 2 cups of other frozen fruit.  This recipe can be made with a juicer, food processor, or blender.  I used my handy-dandy food processor and included a little milk in order to create a slightly creamier ice cream.

While I have made banana soft serve before, this was even better.  The frozen blueberries added great flavor, making this a truly fun and tasty dessert.  You can top this treat with a few nuts for an added flourish and some crunch too!

Have a great day!  And for all of my fellow students, keep in mind that summer is *almost* here!  I know these next few weeks are going to be very busy for me, but the promise of summer is helping me sustain a positive outlook :-).

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Raw Crunch Bar Review!

I've seen quite a bit about the Raw diet lately and thought it'd be nice to try some raw products for myself and see what this craze is all about. The wonderful Kathy Feldman was generous enough to send me the following package to sample and review:

I sat down and read Kathy's book The Raw Crunch Diet right away to see what her particular stance was on a raw diet. Her book was a nice, quick, and fairly easy read with good information backed up by her twelve years of experience in the fields of corrective and high performance exercise health and nutrition. She really does know her stuff! You can learn more about her, this diet, and her products all at http://www.kathyfeldman.com/index.html I encourage you to check it out! I truly enjoyed her book and could see how much she cared about this diet. There were also many positive remarks on her website and in the book commenting on other peoples' good experiences with the diet. I think I might have to try it too! It's not too extreme and it allows for a balanced diet in addition to treats here and there. I'll have to wait until the summer or later though when my life isn't quite so hectic and I'm no longer reliant on dorm food each and every day :-). The exercise video also looks great! Unfortunately, my mom has my stability ball and I haven't been able to try it out yet. When I do I'll let you know how it is from personal experience :-).

And now for reviews on the bars themselves! I was a little hesitant, but not too much since the ingredient lists for the bars looked great. The first bar I tried was Chocolate. I give it an 8.5 out of 10. The hardest part was opening the wrapper - these bars are sealed tightly! They're VERY fresh though with a nice aroma and a great crunch. I loved the pieces of chocolate and the hint of raw honey - the perfect amount of sweetness. I also loved all the nuts and seeds. My only complaint would be the overwhelming abundance of sesame seeds. I guess I'm not a huge fan of their flavor, and it was a tad bit overpowering in these bars. Still, overall I really enjoyed them, and they were all quite filling for only 150 calories. And full of healthy fats too! Here are some pics from the box itself first:

The above picture shows the flavors and some info. on the bars (you can click on the picture to blow it up!). The picture below shows a little letter from Kathy and Ross.

And here are the nutrition facts, which are basically the same for each bar since the base is the same for all the bars. All bars are 150 calories, and the ingredients are basically the same too except for the advertised flavor (ie. the cranberry bar has cranberries instead of chocolate).




I give the Blueberries bar an 8 out of 10 too. Blueberries are one of my favorite fruits, and this bar had a nice smattering of little bits of blueberry that had a relatively strong flavor.



I give the Goji Berries bar an 8 out of 10. This was my first time trying goji berries and they were great - kind of like a sweet wine flavor and quite strong!

I give the Cranberry flavor a 7.5 out of 10. This one gets a little lower score because I would've liked just a bit stronger cranberry flavor.

Overall, I liked the chocolate best. Chocolate really seemed to go with the nuts and seeds well, and I actually started to have a mini dark chocolate bar to eat with the other flavored raw crunch bars. Nuts just seem to need chocolate to accompany them ;-).

Anyway, after this experience, I'll definitely be on the lookout for more raw products and recipes since I think they can be quite delicious and healthy.

And a question for you all: Are you watching the Olympics?

Personally, I'm not since I'm pretty overwhelmed with school work. I do see some of the highlights on my MSN homepage though :-).

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