Blue Diamond Almond Products

There are several almond products that I like and I just noticed that they are all made by the same company: Blue Diamond Growers.

I started with their Roasted Almonds with Sea Salt that come in a plastic “can” that is shaped more like a coffee cup than your typical jar of nuts. So they fit perfectly in your car cup holder. I like to keep them in my car to help me avoid drive-thru windows and other quickie snacks when I am out and about in the car and get hungry. They are so yummy and good for you!

I also really like their Nut-Thins crackers, which I started buying when I was eating gluten free. (Not doing that anymore, thank goodness!) You can eat something like 16 crackers as a serving and they only have about 150 calories and they are really delicious. I had them at a dinner party as an appetizer with cheese and everyone loved them. Even though I’m not eating gluten-free anymore, I still buy them. I like the pecan ones.

And I also like their Almond Milk. You can get it sweetened or unsweetened. Both are really good. The unsweetened has less calories since it doesn’t have the sugar. You can keep the milk on the shelf until you open it, so I like to keep it for when I run out of regular cow’s milk. Then I drink the carton before getting more milk. It’s great in cereal and coffee too!

Learn more about the products here. Enjoy!

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What Is Love?

I’m curious. If you had to describe the feeling of love, how would you describe it?

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The Sweet (Potato) Life

We started adding solids to my 5 month old daughter’s diet a couple of weeks ago. So far, she doesn’t like bananas or carrots, but enjoys rice cereal and oatmeal and loves sweet potatoes. Just like I love sweet potatoes. I mean I really love sweet potatoes. I’ve been known to order a dish at a restaurant simply because it is served with sweet potatoes! They are good baked, mashed, and fried, and good as a soup or even a pie. To me, they are the perfect food because they are delicious no matter how you prepare them, they are naturally sweet, they are a beautiful color, and they are good for you.

For example, they are high in vitamins A and C, which are anti-oxidants that help fight cancer and heart disease, and are also anti-inflammatory. Sweet potatoes are also high in fiber so they are good for your digestive system and help you feel full longer. And because they have no fat (until you add butter to them!) and only natural sugar, they help regulate blood sugar.

As I was reading for information in order to write this blog post, I learned that sweet potatoes are often mislabeled as “yams” here in the U.S. But a true yam is actually very rare here. So if it’s orange and in your regular grocery store, it’s most likely a sweet potato.

Learn more about sweet potatoes here.

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Serve Yourself from the Counter

I’m pressed for time today; it’s nearly 11 pm and this is my first opportunity to blog today. So I’m going to give you a Reader’s Digest condensed post:

When you eat dinner at home, serve yourself from the counter or stove rather than putting the food on the table with you. Studies show that people eat a lot less when the food is not on the table. Maybe it’s simply because you must get up to get seconds or maybe it’s because having to get up makes you conscious of loading up your plate again. Whatever the reason, it works. Plus, if you serve yourself directly from the stovetop, there’s the added benefit of not transferring food from your cooking pots to serving dishes, so there’s also less to clean up afterwards!

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7 Tips for Improving Your Energy Level

Here’s an interesting post at Owning Pink wherein Lissa Rankin describes how she keeps her energy levels high enough to do all the things she does, which include practicing medicine, writing books, teaching courses, blogging, and more! Her “secrets” include finding your passion and following it, surrounding yourself with great people, taking care of your body, being creative, and having “a good romp in the sack”!

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Make Your Own No-Calorie Lemon-Lime Soda

Whenever I eat pizza (yes, I eat pizza sometimes), I always want soda. I don’t know if it’s a memory that makes me crave the two together or something about the foods themselves. But whatever it is, I find it hard to enjoy my pizza without a soda. Thing is – I don’t drink soda very often so I never have it in my house. So tonight when I was eating a frozen pizza (Newman’s Uncured Pepperoni; I didn’t feel like cooking), I was out of luck on something satisfactory to drink. Until I thought: I can make my own.

Here’s my “recipe”; I hesitate to call it a recipe because like most things I make, I just add a little of this and a dash of that without measuring. You’ll have to mix it all up to your taste.

Ingredients:
– Seltzer
– Lemon & lime juice (fresh squeezed would be great, but I used Nellie’s & Joe’s Key West Lemon Juice and Key West Lime Juice)

Swirl it all together with ice and enjoy!

I admit it’s not sweet, but I like the tartness so that’s okay with me. If you want it sweet, then add stevia (a few calories) or agave nectar (a few more calories).

Try it and let me know what you think!

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Pretend You Are Someone Else to Solve Your Problems

I’ve always said that it’s hard to think and feel at the same time. In other words, when you are really sad or angry, it’s difficult to have a discussion about it because you are so overwhelmed with emotion. A recent study seems to suggest that I may be right.

At An Associate’s Mind, blogger Keith Lee describes a study wherein participants were better able to solve a complex problem by imagining they were someone else. In the study, those who did the best problem-solving imagined that the problem was far away and belonged to someone else.

I like this idea. I’ve known I think more clearly about how to solve a problem when not mired down in it. This provides a quick tool: imagine it is someone else’s problem and try to help that person solve it. Genius!

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