Pop Culture Probiotics

A big thank you goes out to Jack from PopCulture Probiotics for sending me some of their awesome bars for my review!

These bars come in two flavors: Chocolate Chip Granola and Yogurt Fruit & Nut.

For those of you out of the loop, probiotics are a great way to help improve digestive health and boost your immune system.  They help your body maintain a balance of between the beneficial and the harmful bacteria found in your digestive tract.

Pop Culture Probiotics uses the Ganeden30BC product, which is all natural, and conveniently requires no refrigeration,  as their effective probiotic supply in each bar.  These bars actually contain 10X more Live Cultures than yogurt! 

The Yogurt Fruit & Nut bars contain just 90 calories and 4g of protein and uses cranberries, flax seeds, and almonds to creat a tasty and wholesome ingredients list.  It’s like trail mix in a bar! 

Chocolate Chip Granola Bar

Both bars were very good!  The Yogurt Fruit & Nut bar boasted puffed brown rice crisps as its base while the Chocolate Chip used granola for its.  I prefered the chewiness of the granola over the crunch of the crisp, but they were both sweetly satisfying. 

I actually popped the chocolate one in the microwave to melt the chips a tad before I ate it and I highly reccomend this method!  It was melt-in-your-mouth, good.  The Chocolate Chip Granola had just 110 calories and 6g of protein! 

Because they don’t need to be refrigerated the way most probiotics do, they are convenient for on-the-go fueling snacks.  Thanks again, Jack!  They were a hit!

Strawberry-Banana & Raspberry Chobani!

Thanks to Shari, my pal from Chobani, I got to try out the two brand new flavors of their protein packed yogurt!  As if they couldn’t get any better, Chobani greek yogurt has created a NonFat Raspberry flavor and a LowFat Strawberry Banana flavor to add to the Chobani family!

Joyous!

 When I saw that they had arrived I had a hard time not ripping them open and devouring them on the spot.  I carefully set them in my refrigerator for a time when mindless eating wasn’t in the picture.  It was seriously like Christmas

I really wanted to wait until I could try Evan’s idea and get my hands on some Q. Bel to create a dark chocolate raspberry treat, but I wasn’t that patient:

Evan=foodie genius.

I did, however stash the Raspberry in the freezer, which made an AWESOME ice cream! 

It’s got the same great stats as the original NonFat Chobanis.

This flavor was my favorite of the two.  It reminded me of summer with the fresh taste of ripe, sweet raspberries combined with the thick, creamy yogurt.  It’s officially in my top two Chobani flavors.  I’m still up in the air whether it beats out Pineapple or not

Don’t get me wrong, the Strawberry Banana flavor was excellent too!  (I have yet to come across a Chobani flavor I didn’t like), but I was hoping for a stronger banana taste in this one.

The creaminess factor was still there, and the flavor was good!  I’m just a banana nut, so a bolder taste of the banana than strawberry would’ve been preferred.  They are a dynamic duo, that strawberry & banana!

Here are the stats:

Maybe Chobani should create a Banana flavor in itself!  I think it’d be a total winner!;)

 

Thanks again, Shari for hooking me up!

Winter Jam 2010 & Visit to Bekah.

 

Today’s Verse

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

— Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (NIV)

Thoughts on Today’s Verse…

So many times Satan seduces us into a flat, 2 dimensional Christianity – going to church and doing good deeds. But God calls us to a three dimensional faith. He wants us to love him with all of our being in all of our actions and with all of our might.

 

 

 

Hola amigos!

  I can only hope that you all had as great of a weekend as I did.  Well Saturday, at least.  Friday night was spent at our girls’ basketball game.  Kind of uneventful, but they did win!  Can you believe it’s officially February!?  Before I know it, it’ll be time for March Madness!

 

Anyway, I knew Saturday morning at 10AM, we had to be at our church for family pictures for the church directory, so I wanted to get a head start on my workout.  I woke up around 7AM, grabbed a Deep Chocolate Vitatop [unpictured, but you know what they look like ] and got to work on the stationary bike.  The good news is, I kept myself entertained for 2 hours watching Big Daddy & Facebooking.

This movie is such a classic.  I could watch it 100 times and it never gets old…

Anyway, I showered and prettied up for the pictures.  I had also prepared a bag of clothes {mainly Underarmour}to take with me to the church so I could get my run in afterward.  I packed a Jonagold for after pictures (pre-run), too!  I ended up only running about 4 1/2 miles, because I knew I wanted to be back in time to shower and go to lunch with the family.  Yes, I had 2 showers in by 11:30 AM   Squeaaaaky clean.

We hit up Subway for some sandwiches, where I got a 6-inch turkey breast sub on wheat bread, sans cheese with lettuce, tomato, cucumbers, onion, sweet peppers, banana peppers, green peppers, and oregano.  It was STUFFED with veggies and SO yummy.

This really hit the spot

Then I had some plain Oikos for dessert.

Greek yogurt = protein powerhouse.

We had plans with Jan (the Jonagold bearer!) to go to the Winter Jam 2010 where we’d get to see lots of awesome Christian bands like Third Day, Tenth Avenue North, Sidewalk Prophets, Fireflight, and Newsboys.  It was being held at the Bryce Jordan Center at Penn State and she was going to  meet us at the house.  She and I are like this:

She EVEN brought me MORE apples!  I love her.  I really do.

The trip really wasn’t bad.  We got there around 3PM and visited with Bek for about an hour or so and then we decided we better grab a bite to eat before we go into the concert. 

Winter Jam 2010

Doors opened at 5PM and since it was first come first serve ($10 at the door, can’t beat that!) we wanted to make sure we got in!  Not to mention, the pre-concert started around 5:30-6PM.

Bek & Jan suggested this AWESOME local place called “The Deli”.  The interior was really cute and they had two seperate rooms.  A darker one placed close to the bar and a room with lots of natural lighting where the entire ceiling was basically windows.

Our room was a little more cozy and intimate

Sister & Bek

decor

View from our table.

They had LOTS that looked good to me on the menu:

Menu page.

I decided on the Lite Turkey Burger with a side salad & steamed broccoli.

My salad: greens, mushrooms, onion, carrots, & raspberry vinaigrette.

My salad came about the same time that my family’s appetizer came:

Loaded potato skins.

 By the time they were finished and my salad was gone, our meals were out! 

Turkey burger on a multi-grain toasted bun with lettuce, tomato, onion, lite sour cream, & steamed broccoli.

This was SOOOOOOO good!  I was so happy with my selection.  I loved that there were so many tasty options!  I knew I was craving a burger though, so this was perfect.  Very flavorful!

Sisters & Kenzie

After dinner, we stopped at Starbucks on the way back to the car incase we were going to have to wait outside in a line.  We wanted to make sure we had some nice hot beverages to keep us insulated!:)

My Starbucks = Large coffee + Sugar Free Vanilla & Caramel Syrup

We headed into the concert and found our seats.  The bands were AMMMMAAAZING.  We had an absolutely fabulous night.  I’ll have to upload the concert pics and try to get the video uploaded of one of the bands for you to check out later tonight!