Review: Kit's Organic

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I love Luna Bars! They're made by women, for women and they're both vegan and (as of fairly recently) gluten-free, so they fit into many different healthy diets! They're as delicious as dessert, but as healthy as a busy millennial's snack ought to be. 

But this post isn't about Luna bars!

Kit's Organic is another line of delicious snack bars from Clif Bar, the healthy snack company that makes Luna Bars!

Like Luna Bars, Kit's Organic bars are vegan and dairy-free. But for those with soy sensitivities, or who just like to avoid much soy, Kit's Organic are the perfect choice. They're soy-free! 

The fruit and nut bars are made of just a few simple ingredients, combined in really delicious ways, and are, as you could probably have guessed from the name of the line, certified organic!

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Review: Luna Bars

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Spring is a fun time full of renewal. We clean our houses and our closets, coax our gardens back to life, and try out new outdoor adventures, to celebrate the beautiful weather!

Some of our favorite companies, like Luna Bar also like to refresh things every now and then. Along with our long-time favorites, there are new Luna Bar varieties to enjoy!



It' always fun to try something new!

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Recipe: Avogolemono Soup

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Greek food is one of the most popular cuisines and for good reason. There are so many great flavors in Greek food!

I shared a spanakopita recipe a while ago (if you haven't tried it yet, do it!) and today we're continuing our Mediterranean culinary adventures with a delicious, simple to follow avogolemono soup recipe!



The tart flavor of lemon works wonderfully with the creamy (from eggs) soup base for a fun spin on chicken soup! It's warming, flavorful, features simple ingredients, and makes a great starter or side to a full Greek meal.

Alternately, you can add a little more chicken to the soup and pair it with warm, freshly-baked pita bread for a light meal. Read on for the recipe!

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Fit for Spring: A Go2Go Review!

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Sometimes healthy habits can get lost in the hectic of work, the cozy cold of the winter, or the boredom of routine. Luckily, all it takes to return to healthy habits (and feeling our best!) is making the decision to do so! There are, of course, some things that can make that transition back to healthy living easier. Go2Go helps!

Go2Go is delivered daily in the evening (6pm for me) before, so that your food is fresh and ready for you, no matter how early you have to leave for work!

They're delivered in a cute, recyclable cardboard box, like an over-sized take-out container with a handy carrying handle. This is extra convenient for work days, because you can just leave your meals in the carton and carry them along to store in your work fridge that way!

Each day comes with a healthy lunch, dinner, snack, and fresh juice.

There are several plans that you can choose between. Whether you're a vegetarian, an athlete, or even ordering for a kid, Go2Go can be there for you!

That takes most of the work of food prep out of your day, but also leaves with the flexibility to choose what you want to eat for your third meal. It's a win-win! You are, of course, encouraged to choose healthy, natural foods for your third meal and to stay hydrated.

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Five of My Favorite Kitchen Hacks

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It's the first Tuesday into Lent and several of the people I know who celebrate Lent (Catholic and not - some just like the practice in gratitude and simplified living) are giving up eating out for the holiday, or even just eating dinner out on weeknights.

All joking aside, it doesn't have to be difficult to eat at home more.

Read on for five of my favorite kitchen hacks to help make eating in easier, quicker, and all-in-all more convenient!

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Weeknight Convenience with Marley Spoon!

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Those of you who follow me on Instagram know that I love to bake and cook.

My Irresistible Irish Soda Bread

If you follow me, you also know that I recently left my flexible, but also all over the place, schedule as a freelance writer and print model behind to join the 9-5(ish) world as a children's entertainment writer. I love my job!

But that doesn't mean that adjusting to the new, structured schedule didn't require a little work. While I no longer have to be up at 5am on shoot or writing until 2am to meet a deadline, I also don't have time to pop out in the afternoon for a grocery run or precook part of an elaborate dinner when the mood strikes me.

But home cooked dinners are not only fun to make, they're also generally more nutritious than eating out and that's important to stay healthy and happy!

Luckily, there's a middle ground between the time-effective but less nutritious option of eating out and the healthy but time-consuming process of grocery shopping, recipe finding, prepping, and cooking your own dinner. It's called Marley Spoon!

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Healthy Habits with Farmivore

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I love smoothies! They're delicious, packed with healthy fruits (and potentially veggies), convenient if you need a snack or light meal on the go, great at any time of the day, easy to digest, and a perfect way to cool off on a hot day or hydrate on a day where you've been less diligent with water consumption than ideal. 

I love adding spinach to a fruity, banana-based smoothie for a delicious, easy way to get in my daily greens!

Smoothies can also be a component of one of my favorite new 'trendy' foods:

Smoothie bowls! I love them, especially acai and pitaya bowls. I had my first bowl in Hawaii and while the ones I make at home (see above) are nowhere near as amazing as those were, they're still delicious! I'm working on it.

One of the biggest challenges I face in smoothie making is the same as I do in cooking and baking in general. As a single girl, it can be hard to buy produce in amounts that you'll use before they go off if you want a lot of variety. I don't like wasting food, so I'm more likely to sacrifice variety in order to buy just what I can use, than to buy a big range of fruits and veggies at once so that i can experiment with smoothie flavors. 

Fortunately, I don't have to decide anymore! I recently discovered Farmivore, a delivery service that provides you with fresh smoothie ingredients straight to your front door in portions that are practical!

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What Is In My Bag? Girl on the Go Edition!

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Some stereotypes are rooted in truth. The widely spread perception that it's impossible to go into a Target and only buy one thing is definitely one of those, at least for me!

Target always seems to have everything I need, not to mention a whole host of things that I didn't realize I needed it until I saw them posed alluringly on the perfectly organized shelves of my favorite one-stop shop...

But let's focus on the things that we actually need today, shall we? I always think 'what's in my bag' posts are a lot of fun, because there's so much variation in what different women choose to keep in their handbags. A handbag's contents can say a lot about a person's day-to-day life!

Since many of the essentials in my bag are available at Target, here is what is in my bag during this summer of travel and adventure (I'm in Germany at the moment, after having spent a wonderful June in Boston)!

First, an explanation - if you're a long-time reader, you know that I am not a big fan of purple. The bag itself isn't mine, but one that I borrowed from my mom! I only packed one bag to take with me for the summer when I left NYC and I was getting quite bored of it by the time I joined my mom in Germany. She was nice enough to let me use hers to mix things up a bit!

That also explains the glasses - those are also a leftover of hers. But the rest is intentional! In no particular order, here's the breakdown:

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Work-Week Convenience with a Discount!

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Who else can't believe that it's already the second week of May? Summer is just around the bend!

While the approach of summer can mean anything from travel, to more time outdoors, to just soaking up the sun on your way to work, the time before summer often can get a little hectic. With so many people going on vacations during the summer months, a lot of work is front-loaded and that makes May a little crazy!

Luckily, a crazy busy schedule doesn't mean that you can't enjoy balanced, nutritious meals that taste great. Diet to Go delivers a week of frozen meals at a time and can work with all sorts of styles of eating, from vegetarian to low fat to low carb. 

Diet to Go Armenian Lentil Stew

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*New* Detour Smart Bar Flavor Review - Chocolate Peanut Butter

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(Wo)man can't live on Christmas cookies and candy canes alone! There's no need to try, it would be an existence filled with stomachaches and lagging energy.

Luckily, there's no need! Though most fruits and vegetables are (sadly) no longer in season, there are still frozen options and (though this is less environmentally friendly) fresh produce that's flown in from warmer parts of the globe.

There are also lots of yummy snack foods to keep on hand to fuel holiday gift shopping, holiday party throwing (and party hopping!), and general seasonal shenanigans.

Can there pretty please be unreasonable amounts of blizzards in NYC and (this one's really unlikely) Greensboro, NC this December? Just pack in all the precipitation of the year in frozen form and in this month and I'll be pleased.

It needs to be tall enough for me to hide behind, build fortresses in, and sneak attack innocent passerby (read: my poor family and friends) with snowballs. That's all!

Anyway, there are many healthy snack options to fuel all that fun. I recently tried a new one!

Remember when I reviewed Detour Smart bars when they first came on the market? They're Detour's gluten-free, all-natural protein bar option and previously were available in three flavors - apple cinnamon, blueberry, and cranberry flax.

There's a new fourth flavor in time to make your holidays a little healthier (and more delicious) - Chocolate Peanut Butter Smart Bars!

Like the other Detour Smart Bars, they're gluten-free and made with whole grain oatmeal.

They're also wonderfully low in sugar, so they won't add to your eventual chocolate and cookies sugar crash! That's what I call balance.

When you hear how low in sugar they are (only 4 grams, the equivalent of one teaspoon, in a whole bar) you might be skeptical. After all, there's more sugar than that a cup of unsweetened plain yogurt!

There's no reason to be skeptical. The bars are sweetened naturally with stevia, which won't affect your blood sugar levels, but is also a natural plant extract and not a cancer-causing chemical or, like aspartame, known to induce migraines (ick). Stevia is pretty solid!

These bars are solid, too. They're definitely better for handling a peanut butter than a chocolate craving, as that's the main flavor in the bar (I would probably rename them Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip, as I feel that's more accurate, if I were running things).

There are mini chocolate chips throughout the bar, but the base is definitely peanut butter. It's delicious, satisfying, sweet enough (but not cloyingly so), healthy, packed with 11g of vegetarian protein to sustain your energy levels until your next meal, and drizzled with Greek Yogurt icing for (a) prettiness and (b) a more treat-like experience.

I give them a thumbs up! They're definitely worth having on hand while you rush around this month.

What are your favorite on-the-go snacks during the holidays?

What's your favorite holiday treat?

Do you have a gift shopping strategy?

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Community Building with BAND

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I'm a recent graduate, a blogger, a petite model, an actress, an author, a ghostwriter, and a freelance writer - that's a lot of hats to wear! And with each thing I do comes a big group of related people.

So, here's my dirty secret - I suck at names. Like:

Me: "Hi! I'm Danai!"

Her: "Hi I'm Lucy!"

>two more polite sentence exchanges<

Me: Oh darn, what's her name again? Suzy?

Having a way of keeping track of all the people I know, and keeping track of how I know them, can really help avoid some awkward situations. Especially during the very social holiday season!

More than just helping you organize people in your memory, BAND helps you organize groups - whether it's your Greek organization, childhood Girl Scout troop, work friends, roommates, etc. - for information sharing.

Because everyone needs to see that selfie. #duckface

When I first heard of it, I didn't really get why I would want to use the app when I could just facebook message the people. After trying it out, though I realized that there are several benefits to this (free) app for communication.

First, if you post to an active Facebook group your post is likely to disappear in the feed within minutes. With BAND, you're sure that everyone gets your photo or message or poll or whatever it is, not just those who are on when you're on.

Second, you don't have to go through and add each individual everytime you want to send a message to the group, like you do in email, or worry about messages bouncing back. Full inboxes are the bane of my existence. BAND makes that a problem of the past!

Third, it's a one stop organizer for life. You can share group calendars, polls, messages, files, albums, and general thoughts on a BAND board. I like not having to juggle a million apps, so I think consolidating everything you need for group management in one place is great.

I have made a BAND for my blogger community this far (feel free to join me!) but am definitely going to use it for other groups. The convenience it provides is reason enough to download the free app and join the over 35 million users already using BAND to streamline their social networks!

Do you use BAND?

How many primary social networks do you have?

What's your best way to stay organized socially?

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Fall Reset with JuiceRx

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I love fall and winter and all the wonderful things that come with the seasons - the return of layering, the magical appearance of heavenly scented candles all over my home, CHRISTMAS, snow, and a wonderful abundance of apples and kabocha.

Like with most things in life, however, there's a trade off with the shifting seasons. A lot of people find themselves feeling a little out of sorts when the weather shifts for the winter. 

While a lot of that is due to difficult-to-avoid biological things (like vitamin D deficiency from reduced exposure to high quality direct sunlight) I think part of it could be due to the seasonal dietary shift.

In summer, we're eating a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables day in and day out. In winter, they're less readily available. But our bodies just feel better when they're well nourished and how we feel physically definitely affects our moods! 

Enjoy every beautiful day and feel your best by making a conscious effort to continue to find healthy foods that taste great and make you feel great! I like JuiceRx juices and the yummy raw vegan meals from their new FoodRx venture!

The gingerade is spicy and refreshing, a perfect alternative to ginger ale. Because of the fun lemon twist, it doesn't get boringly sweet after a sip or two, like ginger ale can. It's also great if your stomach feels a little off, because ginger is soothing and helps with nausea. Perfect for flu season!

Pumpkin lovers are also covered. The pumpkin Spice a Milk is a rich, creamy drink that's substantial enough for a meal or a hearty snack and is as decadent as pumpkin pie, but much more energizing. 

The dates make it sweet, the carrots and pumpkin make it pretty, the spices make it festive, and the pumpkin seeds make it filling, rich, and great for your skin and hair! Once the heating comes on in the winter, it can really dry out your skin. Taking extra care to keep your skin beautiful from the inside out is so much more effective and lasting than buying lots of expensive creams and lotions.

People always comment on my skin, but I don't use any sort of washes or potions or scrubs - just a standard daily moisturizer when I remember it. Sure, it's definitely partly genetic. But I also think it probably doesn't hurt that I love healthy foods that are great for my skin! Nuts, guys, go for the nuts.

For the green juice lovers (to the ranks of which I definitely count) there are several great green juices. 

They're all fairly mild and have a great fruit: vegetable ratio for sweetness. Of the three that I tried, the Green Glow was my favorite!

On to the food.

Love chili in the winter? Their raw vegan chili is so delicious that you won't care in the least that it's not hot. It's filled with almonds, making it hearty and satisfying, as well as great spices and veggies! 

I'm generally not a huge sour cream fan, but I actually enjoyed the raw vegan sour cream that came with this dish. 

Unfortunately the packaging could use some adjustments for shipping (as you can see, it spilled a bit during shipping and made a mess), but the sauce itself was great. It's not thick like a dairy sour cream (definitely more of a sauce) but still creamy.

The Angel Hair With Hemp Seed Pasta dish was delicious and one of the best dishes I've ever had with kelp noodles. Yum!

Never forgo dessert! The great think about FoodRx chocolate mousse is that you don't have to worry about saving space for it after your meal. 

It's healthy enough that you can incorporate it into your meal! And you can even have it for breakfast.

In fact, I recommend eating it off breakfast. I used it to make a delicious layered parfait with crunchy edamame, granola, apples, and blueberries. 

Yummy!

From now until November 20, 2014 you can also get 10% off any order with the coupon code LLE10! Head into the holidays feeling healthier than ever with JuiceRx!

Do you notice any mood changes with the seasons?

Have you tried any raw vegan cuisine? What's you're favorite dish?

What's your favorite dessert for breakfast option?

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Green Yums Review: Bringing The Farm To The City

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I've been living in NYC for almost two months now and all-in-all, I love it.

I love big cities and small towns. I love convenience and constant access. I love writing, fashion,   crunchy-granola vegetarian food, and acting. Guess where the most auditions are outside of LA (and the only audition-heavy place with a great public transit system)?

It's not a surprise that I chose NYC for my first post-grad home!

There are just a few things I don't love: mobs when I'm trying to walk around, slow walkers, the high costs of EVERYTHING, aaaaaaand - crappy produce options.

Honestly, if I'm paying $3 for a frickin' apple, I expect it to be crisp, sweet, manna-like perfection. That's not asking too much, is it?

And if I'm paying $5.99 for a bag of spinach (with a whopping two servings in it) I expect it to be crisp and green and, well, not wilted and 90% of the way to decomposed.

Zeytuna, Gristedes, Jubilee Market, and all the other grocery stores around here seem to disagree, however. High price, low quality - UM what? There has to be a better option.

^The better option

I decided to give a produce delivery service a spin, because:

(a) it's convenient
(b) it's not actually more expensive than getting groceries from the store, given exorbitant city prices
(c) the quality can really only go up, right?



Spoiler: I'm glad that I did. I ordered from Green Yums and would definitely recommend them to all city-dwellers facing similar produce deserts, because they're not only as convenient as can be, but the value is also so much better than shopping for produce at the grocery store.

Delivery is easy. They packed the produce in a cooler box that held them fresh from their delivery at around 10am until I got home from work (and then my weekly five hour on camera acting class) at around 11:30pm. Impressive!



It's a great way to try new things. Like dandelion greens!



I would never have chosen a bunch of these weed-looking greens for myself (they seem like something I would have fed my pet guinea pig, Diddle, back in the day) but I'm glad that I got the chance to!



They made for a really different, but delicious, green smoothie. Just add extra honey/fruit/sugar/agave nectar, because dandelion greens are more bitter than spinach or even kale!



I also got to try this funky looking leaves:



I'm still not sure what they are, but they're great sauteed in walnut oil with a little grated parmesan or vegan parmesan on top.



Limes, cantaloupe, pears, zucchini, corn on the cob, and nectarines rounded out the list of things I don't normally buy. But my staples, apples, bananas, and cucumbers were also represented!



It was a really great haul that had me inspired to get back into the kitchen - quite a feat after how uninspired I'd been feeling later. It's hard to get excited about wilted spinach from Zeytuna!



The value is far superior to city-priced produce. You don't actually pay more, but every piece of produce was totally crisp, high quality, and even organic! Everything tasted great and nourishing and was visually appealing.



It was a much needed change!

Where do you live - in a city, a suburb, a town...?

Where do you buy your produce most often?

Have you tried a produce delivery service?

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Veggie Vibes: Midterm Survival Secret

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I did a vlog review of Veggie Vibes a few weeks ago and just absolutely loved all of their food. It was literally some of the best food that I've ever eaten in my whole life.

Popeye Soup: A really creamy, surprisingly thick raw vegan soup made with spinach, kale, celery, carrots, lemon, chillies, and herbs - also something creamy, because it's super creamy, but I'm not sure what. Coconut?

Because it was wave one of midterm exams at Harvard this week, I decided to treat myself to some of Chef Perkunas's amazing meals - it's a real timesaver, because the dishes are all individually packaged and don't even need to be heated up or anything. It's faster than takeout - not to mention WAY yummier, healthier, raw, vegan, and productive.



Productive seems like a strange word to describe food, but these meals are so energizing - even when I'm exhausted after a late night at Lamont (the 24 hour library in Harvard Yard).



Often when I'm sleep-deprived and eat a filling meal, I just feel even more like falling asleep. These are perfect for when you're busy, because I'm just filled with energy after eating them. They wake me right up!



Like the other meals from them, all of what I ordered this week was perfect - generous portions that filled me up and kept me going without that icky over-full feeling, high quality ingredients that you could taste the freshness in, and just such delightful culinary magic that everything (even beets) tasted amazing!



Every week, Chef Perkunas puts together a new menu of delightful raw vegan dishes that can be delivered locally or shipped nationwide (I'm on the East Coast, so very grateful for that). The meals are all amazing, but the dessert is always the best.



This week was a new one - Glowlicious! It's basically creamy, nutty deliciousness with sweet, sticky, jam-my fruit on top.



AKA perfection.

I also ordered a bag of their kale chips, because they're really delicious and would put Lay's out of business if they had as intense a marketing team as Lay's. Fact.

There's still time to order them for next week (they delivery on Tuesdays and accept orders through Saturday - sometimes Sunday, but that's cutting it close). Don't forget to mention Living, Learning, Eating to get a free extra dish with your order! They ship nationwide!

How do you stay sane when you're busy?

What's your productivity secret?

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