Crsipy Green

I am not sure when exactly it happened, but I turned into a snacker. In many ways, this is not a bad thing. What it means mostly is that I don't tend to sit down and eat all at once. For breakfast, as example, I will start my day with a banana. Then, a little later in the morning I will prepare myself some oatmeal. Then, I'll have some other fruit a little later in the day. I started packing my lunch so that I could 'save' something from it for the middle of the afternoon. Then, the exception to my day tends to be dinner. I generally will eat my dinner all in one sitting and only very occasionally have a snack in the evening.

When it comes to snacks, I am generally try to keep them healthy - a piece of fruit, a cup of yogurt (or pudding :-0!), some carrot sticks, etc. But sometimes, I find myself craving something crunchy. Yes, you could argue that carrots and apples are both crunchy, but they don't meet that crunchy snack craving that I have. Perhaps they are too 'wet'.

So, a while back, when I came across Crispy Green, I thought this is a snack that I must try. Crispy Green are 100% freeze-dried fruit. Now, when I think of freeze-dried, the first thing that comes to mind is that astronaut ice cream we used to get on field trips to the science museum. The first that I tried was the Crispy Mangoes. The first thing that I noticed on the package is that indeed, the only ingredient is Mangoes. The Crispy Mangoes have just 40 calories in a bag. The sweet and crispy bites of fruit were both sweet and crispy, offering just the right combination of sweet and crunchy to perfectly fit my snack craving.

I soon came to find that there is a whole variety of Crispy Green products. In the crispy fruit product, they offer five tasty fruits - Crispy Apples, Crispy Bananas, Crispy Asian Pears, Crispy Pineapples and Crispy Mangoes. In addition, they also have a line that they is called FruitziO, which is also freeze dried fruit, but with a bit of cane sugar added for a light, sweet and crunchy taste. The FruitziO line offers - FruitziO Apples and Strawberries, FruitziO Apricots, FruitziO Kiwi, FruitziO Peaches and FruitziO Strawberries.

At first, I wondered about the addition of cane sugar, but realized after tasting that it didn't make the product 'sweet' but mostly balanced the tartness of the fruits. The bags, which are resealable, only have 100 calories in them. So, it still makes for a yummy snack without much guilt. In fact, they are labeled as containing 2.5 servings, which based on the bag I took to work seems about right. I found myself enjoying the strawberries a handful at a time. The slightly sweet, crunchy snack was just what I needed mid-afternoon to get me through the rest of the day.

My kids have been very excited to try all of the different flavors and have share many bags. My son's favorite: Crispy Apples. My daughter's favorite: Crispy Bananas. My son says that he likes them because they taste exactly like an apple. My daughter says because they taste like the fruit that she is having. As a mom, having them excited about fruit is a good thing (not that they don't request fresh fruit too, but bags of freeze dried fruit are more portable).

You can find a store near you that carries Crispy Green, by using their product locator. Interestingly, the store that I bought them at, Earth Fare, was not listed. You can purchase online through Crispy Green. They are currently offering free shipping on orders over $75 and if you purchase in bulk, they work out to be less per bag than you would pay at the store.

No compensation was received for this post. I received a variety pack of their products for the purposes of trying and sharing with my family. Images are from the Crispy Green Website. All opinions expressed are my own or that of my family.

National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month

Did you know that September is National Childhood Awareness Month? I didn't realize that until Hormel sent me the information for completing my September post. But, shortly after receiving the information from them, I started noticing a lot of information both about Childhood Obesity and MyPlate.

This past weekend, there was even a full page spread on "The Mini Page" within the papers comic section about School Lunch. It shared about the history of School Lunch - surprisingly to me, it was back in the late 1700s and early 1800s that people started to be concerned about childhood nutrition. Of course, at that time, the concern was more around malnourishment than it was around obesity. Through some studies and tracking of heights, weights and learning, they learned that kids who ate a good meal in the middle of the day grew stronger and performed better in school.

They also shared about the Department of Agriculture's new MyPlate model, which replaces the food pyramid. The MyPlate model not only provides information on the type of foods that should be eaten, but also provides perspective on the ratio of food types. One example is that they recommend drinking water in place of sugary drinks and to limit the cookies, cakes, pastries and doughnut. They also recommend filling half of your plate with fruits and vegetables.

I know that for me, one of the things that I always had trouble with was gauging portion size. You can read in this post about I use a digital scale to help me measure the portion that I am consuming. It was really eye-opening when I first started to use it to see what a standard serving was - like a bowl of cereal - I quickly realized that I was eating more than one portion. I still sometimes eat two portions, but now I do it with the awareness of it being two portions. I feel like I have gotten pretty good at being able to look at my plate and have good perspective on what size the portion is. It really is amazing though how, even now that I feel like I know what a portion looks like, with time away from using the digital scale, what I perceive as a normal portion tends to get larger.

Another tool that can help you gauge portions (and perhaps more child friendly) are equivalency charts. There are two available on WebMD - one for your wallet and one for home - you could even post it on your refrigerator door! As an example, 3 oz of cooked chicken is about the size of a deck of cards.

Providing your children with the tools to make good food choices and eat the right portions can give them a foundation for a healthy, lifestyle as they grow older.

No compensation was received for this post. All opinions expressed are mine or those of my family. I am completing this post as a participant in the Hormel Foods Extended Family Blogger program. The links to the charts on WebMD on ones that I found on my own through a web search.