Review + Giveaway: GoMacro's Thrive Bars

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MacroBars are delicious and GoMacro, the company behind them, has recently released a new line of Thrive bars! 

Thrive bars are made up of a superfood ancient grain blend, are vegan, and provide plant-based protein, essential fatty acids, and prebiotic fiber.

I tried six delicious flavors - chocolate, nuts & sea salt, blueberry lavender, chocolate peanut butter chip, ginger lemon, almond apricot, and caramel coconut.

How delicious do those flavors sound? Especially chocolate, nuts & sea salt, peanut butter chocolate chip (noticing a trend?), and caramel coconut.

Thrive Bars are all USDA-certified organic, non-gmo, kosher, certified gluten-free, soy-free, and 100% vegan. There's nothing in them that you don't want in you! 

And unlike some bars, where it feels like you either have to suck it up and pay shipping fees or you have to go on an epic journey to hunt them down, Thrive Bars are available in stores at Whole Foods as of this month, October 2016. Yay!

I can definitely stand behind their front of package pitch 'Ingredients: Grown Not Made.' Works for me!

Especially because they're chewy, the right amount of sweet, and flavorful.

They're filling, hearty, chewy, and have a nice crunch from the ancient grains. I liked all the flavors, but was surprised to find that I liked the fruit flavors, like Ginger Lemon (above) a lot more than I expected! They're not boring or flat at all, likely due to the spices that they mix in.

But don't take my word for it - try them yourselves! The team at GoMacro is giving away one box of assorted Thrive bars (MSRP $26.28) to one lucky Living, Learning, Eating reader. 

Just enter below by midnight on 11/05. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

If you don't want to wait, get 30% off of your order of Thrive bars using the promo code Thrive30.

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How to Stay Fit on The Go

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I'm currently split between Boston and NYC for work.

There are a lot of tricky logistics that come with living between two cities - choosing which one is home with a full time apartment (Boston for me), finding a part-time apartment in the other city, managing travel and doing cost-benefit analyses for different modes of transportation, etc.

Another thing that gets trickier when you're not consistently living in one place is being healthy! You can't stock up on vitamin-packed produce when you're only going to be somewhere for two days. Getting two gym memberships generally doesn't feel worth it, especially when all the time lost in commute cuts into the time you'd usually have to work out.

But being healthy feels good and has countless benefits for wellness, productivity, happiness, etc. Here is how I stay fit with my on-the-go lifestyle!

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Review: Irresistible Me Diamond Styling Iron

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I'm a pretty low-maintenance girl when it comes to my hair. Spending hours styling my hair sounds like pure misery and falls somewhere on my list of things to try some day just below electrocuting myself. 

It just isn't going to happen.

That said, hair is a pretty focal feature. It frames the face and can make you look so different depending on how you style it, so now and then I like to mix things up a little. Since I normally wear my hair natural (curly) that means straightening it sometimes!

Of course, I don't want to damage my hair unnecessarily or spend three hours trying to straighten it only to have it frizz back into a poof the moment I put down the straightening iron. Professionals always make my hair look great, so I decided to try Irresistible Me's Diamond Professional Styling Iron.

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Recipe: Eggplant Parmesan

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Do you know what's an easy, flavorful weeknight dinner that's a crowd-pleaser and a family-pleaser? 

Eggplant parmesan with angel hair pasta!

Some like a little extra spaghetti sauce with their pasta, so make a little extra and save it to serve on the side. Other than that, it's straightforward and simple and makes great leftovers! Read on for the recipe.

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Review: Healthy Chef Creations Vegetarian Meal Delivery

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Healthy gourmet meals, made for you, and delivered fresh - never frozen - nationwide? To this busy girl, that sounded pretty great. 

I love cooking and baking and spending quality time with my kitchen, but sometimes life gets crazy and having a few days, or a week, where the food just magically shows up ready to eat can be a godsend. Enter Healthy Chef Creations!

Healthy Chef Creations' menu is spa-inspired and delivered weekly all across the US in individually packaged meals, snacks, and desserts that are fresh and never frozen. 

              

As long as you transfer them to your fridge immediately, they'll last for a week. It's healthy, it's fresh, and the dishes are even tempting to non-healthnuts.

They offer meal delivery programs and a la carte meals suitable for omnivores, vegetarians, vegans, and/or people on gluten-free diets. You can customize your meals accordingly! And it's always natural and organic.

Healthy Chef Creations: The Food

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Review: Halo Top Creamery Ice Cream

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Once upon a time, there was a girl who loved ice cream. 

Her very favorite ice cream of all time was Edy's Loaded Cookies & Cream Ice Cream. Her freezer was never without a tub and her wonderful mother always made sure to have some in the freezer when she came home for break from boarding school (because her mother was/is wonderful).

Then, one sad sad SAD day, Edy's discontinued their Loaded Ice Cream line. The girl experienced her first heartbreak and was inconsolable. 

But slowly, oh so slowly, she learned to love again. This time, she fell for Edy's Slow Churned Yogurt Praline Crunch. There were many delicious afternoon snacks, a toppling birthday ice cream cake she insisted on making out of her love, and infinite apples dipped into ice cream. Until...

...Edy's discontinued her love. AGAIN. The girl's faith in the ice cream industry was shattered. Alas! She was not meant to be allowed to keep a love. 

And then she met Halo Top Creamery during a leisurely stroll through a Whole Food's freezer aisle. 

Halo Top Chocolate Mocha Chip:

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October Degustabox Unboxing

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Did you see my September Degustabox Unboxing?

It's a new month - how is it already October 2016?? - and with a new month comes a new Degustabox! To refresh, Degustabox is a monthly subscription service that delivers a big box full of full-sized foodie finds (10-15 of them!) to subscribers every month.

I love getting mail, trying new things, and good food. It's perfect!

I love that every box comes with a greeting sheet telling me a bit more about all the products in the box on one side and offering up some relevant recipes on the other side. 

There are typically also some coupons in the mix, to help you save money if you like any of the products so much that you want to buy more. Yay for coupons! My mom instilled a great appreciation for coupons in me - sometimes we'd get an entire grocery cart full of food for like $7 and it always felt so amusingly satisfying.

Anyway, on to the actual food! We'll start with the food that accompanied the two recipes included in this box:

Barilla is my go-to brand for pasta (check out my mac & cheese recipe) and as a carb-loving vegetarian, I was thrilled to see that I could get 17g of protein and a good dose of ALA Omega-3 fatty acids from eating my pasta, with their new high-protein multigrain pasta.

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Giveaway: Honey Ridge Farms Honey Cremes Trio

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I love honey!

It's great in my German honey cookies now that it's the baking-all-the-time season again:

It's great just on bread:

It's great on oats or acai bowls or ice cream or eaten out of the jar with a spoon or... any and every way!

I also LOVE autumn. So what better combination than pairing the two?

The lovely folks at Honey Ridge Farms are letting me give away a trio of their honey cremes to one lucky reader! Enter below through 10/16. Good luck!

The Honey Creme Giveaway:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Review: Honey Ridge Farms Honey Cremes

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I love honey! It's probably my favorite sweetener and it's all natural to boot.

Did you know that honey has antibacterial properties? That's why it's great to have in hot tea (preferably hot peppermint tea) when you're sick. That, and it coats your throat and makes it feel better. I, fortunately, haven't gotten my first cold of the season yet *knock on wood* but my poor co-workers are dropping like flies. They need tea with honey!

I also love honey in my oatmeal, honey on my granola, honey drizzled over acai bowls, bananas and apples dipped in honey, and peanut butter honey sandwiches (also honey cookies). 

When I eat honey on bread, my favorite way to eat it is crystallized! You can either put liquid honey in a jar, let it sit in direct sunlight for a week or two, and wait for it to harden into sweet and delicious crystals. Or you can get Honey Ridge Farms honey cremes!

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Recipe Roundup: The Best of Autumn

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In what feels like just a week, summer magically transformed into autumn!

The leaves, dressed in autumnal yellows and oranges and red, lie on the ground. Tote bags of apples are at the entrance of every supermarket (um YUM). I need a sweater in the mornings and evenings! And sometimes I don't wear a sweater and just rock the pretty fall dresses and pretend I'm not cold.

Fall marks the beginning of baking season, too! Aka my favorite. So, without further ado, here are my favorite fall recipes, from a girl who loves all things apple, pumpkin, pumpkin spice, and nutty. Enjoy!

Cherry Pecan Bread

It's moist, it's perfect for banana bread lovers, and it's something different and delicious!

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