Just in time for Thanksgiving, Quorn foods, which creates a line of meatless products, has come out with a new Turk’y Burger that has 50 percent less fat than a traditional turkey burger.

Rather than using soy, wheat gluten or textured vegetable protein like many vegetarian products, Quorn relies on a mycoprotein-based ingredient that contains less fat, fewer calories and more fiber than meat. In addition, it contains nine essential amino acids making it a powerful source of protein for vegetarians or for those who are trying to reduce their intake of meat.

DietsInReview.com was one of the first to try the new Turk’y Burger, thanks to a preview package Quorn sent us last week. Each Turk’y Burger contains 90 calories, four grams of fat, ten grams of protein and two grams of fiber.

As a flexitarian myself, and a big Quorn fan, I thoroughly enjoyed the new Quorn Turk’y Burger. It tasted similar to their Naked Chik’n Cutlet but it had more flavor. Since I haven’t eaten a turkey burger in over ten years, I can’t in good conscience compare Quorn’s Turk’y Burger to its meat-based counterpart, but I can offer these tips: If you bake or grill your Quorn burger, splash it with a bit of olive oil or a few sprays of non-stick cooking spray (on both sides). Its low fat content makes it more prone to drying out. Also, a quick schmear of ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard or any combination of your favorite sandwich condiment goes a long way to enhance the burger experience of this meatless chow.

Look for Quorn’s Turk’y Burger in the freezer case of the natural food selection of grocery stores nationwide.

While Quorn provided Heather Ashare with sample product, this review is her own opinion and was not influenced or sponsored in any way.

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Food Find: Quorn’s New Vegetarian Turk’y Burgers

But how did it taste?

Offered in lemon, berry, orange and grape, there is a flavor for everyone. I was especially impressed with the berry. It was crisp and refreshing, not overly cloying or sweet. Often, I need to add additional water to many flavored waters, especially Propel and Crystal Light, but the Bot Water was not overwhelming. The grape flavor was especially enjoyed by my children, who remarked that it tasted very similar to Kool-Aid, but it was much better for them.

Sold at Whole Foods, Wegmans, and available online at various retailers for a bit more than $1 per bottle, this beverage is a healthier choice than soda and more flavorful than plain water.

While Bot Water provided Carmen with sample product, this review is her own opinion and was not influenced or sponsored in any way.

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We Love BOT Water

DietsInReview.com had the opportunity to speak with Ali just moments after her victory, in which she continually said to us “Believe It, Be It.” It’s a personal mantra Ali used to drive herself during the competition, and today, it’s the title of her first book.

Believe It, Be It: How Being the Biggest Loser Won Me Back My Life releases today, and shares her very personal story of going from an all-time low point in her life before Biggest Loser, to feeling on top and regaining the life she so desired.

In the book we’re reminded of Ali’s personal journey, and one that is completely relatable. She was overweight, unhappy, stressed and ashamed. When Biggest Loser came along, she embarked on a transformation that won her a title and her life back. Ali shares a rarely seen look at her true story, as well as a look behind the scenes at the Biggest Loser ranch where she made it happen.

Ali also shares with readers the healthy eating habits and workout plan that have helped her keep off more than 100 pounds from her original weight.

It’s a motivating story that will move anyone to make the changes in their lives to be happier and healthier. You just have to believe it, to be it!

To learn more about Vincent’s book, here is DietInReview.com’s complete review of Believe It, Be It.

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Believe It, Be It by Biggest Loser’s Ali Vincent Releases Today

Although, when did food become age appropriate? That’s exactly what author Nancy Tringali Piho is asking and arguing in her newly released book My Two-Year-Old Eats Octopus: Raising Children who Love to Eat Everything.

I positively loved this book, and as an expectant mom, thought it should become a must-read for every expecting parent. The book introduced ideas that I hadn’t yet thought of, made me think about issues that I hadn’t paid too much attention to, and even justified some of the expectations I have for feeding my child-to-be.

Piho spent her career working in PR and marketing for the food industry, so she’s well-versed in what it is “they” are selling to us, and trying to convince us that our children need. The book is really a quick and enjoyable read that includes anecdotal quotes from chefs, parents and celebrities about the task of feeding their children, including Piho who boasts about how her two young sons have an appreciation for food rarely seen in children. More important, My Two-Year-Old Eats Octopus breaks down the task of introducing our children to the world of solid foods in a way that will cause them to be excellent eaters as a child and grow to have an appreciation for food throughout life.

The book is filled with a candid humor and uses that to draw you in to the more serious conversation the author wants to have with you as the reader. And it really does feel that way, like having a conversation. Piho never attempts to be some all-mighty expert, instead she explains that she’s a mother with food industry experience and a bit of a foodie who has found this disconnect between how we’re feeding our children and teaching them about the quality, importance and benefits of food.

Highlights of My Two-Year-Old Eats Octopus include:

• What Piho calls the Big Three. Piho explains that the American children’s diet contains too much fat, sugar and sodium, what she refers to as the Big Three throughout the book. She discusses how the diet rich in packaged foods influences the growing childhood obesity trend and repeatedly offers ways to avoid and reduce them in your child’s diet, like sticking to fresh foods.

• Make your own baby food. I found this to be one of the most valuable sections of the book. Piho discusses the limited palate American babies have, blamed on the baby food industry for offering only a limited variety of foods. In other countries baby food comes in black beans, lamb, papaya and broccoli, as well as a host of other flavors our babies never experience because they aren’t considered local favorites. She shares a taste-test wherein several flavors from different baby food brands are tried and found to have zero resemblance to the real food, not to mention a lot of sugar and sodium. No wonder our kids hate vegetables! She espouses the many benefits of preparing your own baby food at home, as it gives you better control over the food your baby will eat, will save money, and help your baby’s palate develop.

• No kid foods! That means kids eat what you eat. They learn table manners, how to appreciate the meal that is prepared for them, how to dine out at a restaurant, and much more. Plus, your child will enjoy a broader variety of foods and be far less likely to be a persnickety eater, making both of your lives easier.

Get your copy of My Two-Year-Old Eats Octopus today, released November 1, 2009.

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My Two-Year-Old Eats Octopus Teaches Balanced Eating for Kids

If you aren’t close enough for the fresh meals, the frozen meals are a delicious, nutritious choice. The meal plan is fully customizable, allowing you to swap unwanted meals for more favored choices. And the fact that many of the meals are accompanied by side dishes that fully complete the meal makes the plan more economical than I first thought. If you were to purchase a week of the three-meal-a-day plan, you would need nothing from the grocery store other than any beverage choices you might make. It is definitely more cost effective and much more nutritious that visiting fast food restaurants for your dining options.

The meals ranged from Italian to homestyle American and Indian, and I don’t think you would ever have the opportunity to grow bored. It is nice to be able to go to the freezer and grab a meal for my husband to take for lunch and not worry that he has to supplement it with a hamburger (true story!) because he’s still hungry. The portions are large enough to fill even the most hungry appetite, and every meal was well seasoned and not at all bland. In fact, the portion size is a great reminder of how much food one actually should be eating at a meal – a portion size refresher course, if you will.

My one thought for improvement is the amount of starchy food offered for breakfast – many pancakes, french toast and muffin options, and I’m more of an egg, oatmeal, yogurt and fruit kind of girl. Those foods are offered, so the option to customize is key here. I give Diet to Go two thumbs up. It’s a delicious, convenient, non-stressful way to plan your meals and stay within your selected calorie range.

Try Diet to Go for yourself and Save $20 on your first order!

While Diet to Go provided Carmen with sample product, this review is her own opinion and was not influenced or sponsored in any way.

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Diet to Go Review: The Final Word

The meals arrived packed on dry ice and very cold, and I popped them right into my freezer. The portions seemed to be quite large and I looked forward to being able to sample them. Much of the food was vacuum packed and all of it appeared to be very fresh and appetizing.

The first meal I sampled was turkey Salisbury steak with gravy, mashed potatoes, and whole green beans. I microwaved it and within five minutes I was sitting down to a hot, fresh, perfectly seasoned meal that completely satisfied me. It was filling, and in fact, I didn’t even finish the potatoes. My usual meal choices might involve a Lean Cuisine or other frozen meal, and I’m often left still hungry and scouring the kitchen an hour later. The Diet to Go meal removed that action from my life.

Diet to Go meals: Beef short rib with green bean blend

Other meals of mention include the Tuscan potato boats, which were offered with a low-fat drinkable yogurt, and the blackened turkey loin with carrot chipotle puree. The curried shrimp with basmati rice was especially memorable, with large shrimp in a more than adequate quantity. I’m not a fan of chicken Brunswick stew, but even with a meal I didn’t especially care for, I was impressed with the quantity of high quality meat and the size of the ingredients. No minced meat, no veggie shreds. While some meals contained whole vegetable chunks and large pieces of easily recognizable meat, the veggie portions on others were sparse.

One caveat: all of the meals contain directions to microwave, but a few of the meals would have been much tastier had they baked in an oven. The veal cutlet in particular, and the veggie pizza had excellent flavor but the texture of the meal suffered in the microwave. I learned my lesson and the next meal I prepared, the stuffed shells, surpassed my expectations. I’d really recommend taking the time to defrost the meals in the refrigerator, as the site recommends, and then taking the time to bake them. You’ll be glad that you did.

I neglected to mention in my prior review one of the small details that impressed me with Diet to Go meal delivery service. Each meal container was marked with a motivational thought – and more than a few of those motivational thoughts have stayed with me. A little philosophy makes a meal that much more enjoyable.

All in all, this week of frozen prepared meals was just as enjoyable as the fresh prepared, and I’d highly recommend the purchase of them. It’s nice to know that your meal is both tasty and healthy, and convenient to boot.

Try Diet to Go for yourself and Save $20 on your first order!

While Diet to Go provided Carmen with sample product, this review is her own opinion and was not influenced or sponsored in any way.

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Diet to Go Review: Frozen Meal Delivery Service

Making healthy behaviors knee-jerk reactions takes time, dedication and practice. And that is just what the people over at Habitwise are helping you do: Supporting you to make better decisions today for a healthier tomorrow.

Habitwise is a line of easy-to-wear products that make healthy a habit. What first began as a simple weight loss tool named A-Wrist-A-Trac, which was discovered by a team of clinicians at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, has now grown to a line of products for women, men and kids.

The weight loss Get Loss bracelets are worn every day by women and kids and the Get Loss coins are slipped in a man’s pocket as a daily reminder to eat better, watch portions or keep track of calories.

Habitwise currently has three different products: Get Loss bracelets or coins for men and women, Get Tracking bracelets for kids, and Get Wet bracelets or coins for adults. The latter is to inspire drinking enough water throughout the day. Rumored to be coming are Get Fit and Get Comfort products designed to help you keep moving and reduce stress.

But these aren’t just any bracelets like the lemon-yellow LiveStrong rubber wrist bands. Habitwise bracelets work like this: You receive 30 bracelets in seven different colors. Each color (and number) corresponds to a food group – blue (8) is water, pink (3) is fruits, yellow (2) is oils or fats, green (6) is vegetables and so on.

If you follow the Habitwise program to lose weight, you have two choices: Each time you eat a serving from one group, you move the corresponding colored bracelet to your opposite wrist (or opposite pocket for coins). When you have moved all the bracelets, you have successfully eaten your recommended food groups for the day.

Option Two is that you can use the same bracelets as a way to count calories or points. Each bracelet corresponds to 50 calories making all 30 bracelets a 1,500-calorie diet; or if you want to cut back to 1, 200 calories, then you only wear 24 bracelets. You’ll also need to use a reliable calorie counting source for this option as you calculate portion sizes and calories. For instance, if you eat an apple, which contains about 100 calories, you’ll move two bracelets from one wrist to the other; Nosh on an English muffin with one tablespoon of peanut butter (approximately 200 calories) and move four bracelets over to the opposite wrist.

When all of your bracelets are moved to the opposite wrist, you have used up your daily allowance of calories.

Plus, Habitwise bracelets are fun to wear and the array of colors compliment any outfit. If you are someone who needs minute-to-minute reminders about living healthier, the Habitwise products might just make your health dream a genuine achievement.

Learn more in our Habitwise review.

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Habitwise: Jewelry that Makes Healthy Living a Habit

My Diet to Go meals were delivered packed in a bag, as the meals are delivered fresh. Everything was packed tightly together and all of it was very cold. Unpacking the bag I noticed that the meals were much bigger than I’d anticipated, and everything looked absolutely fresh and delicious. I couldn’t wait to get started!

I was sent a variety of different meal choices, mostly lunches and dinners, but I was also sent two breakfast choices. Every meal that I ate exceed my expectations. I’ve gotten into the habit of purchasing a Lean Cuisine or a similar frozen meal for lunch, and these prepared meals blew those away. Typical frozen meals are often not enough to satisfy my appetite, and I often add a piece of fruit, a side of vegetables or a salad to keep me full longer than an hour. That was absolutely not necessary with the Diet to Go meals.

For example, let’s talk turkey. Specifically the turkey dinner, which contained two very thick slices of white meat turkey, a small amount of mashed potatoes, gravy over both, and not quite 1/2 cup of green beans. It was perfectly seasoned and so full of flavor that I had to double check that it was a “diet” food.

Other meals eaten this week included Tuscan potato boats with a yogurt smoothie, turkey Swiss sandwich with terra chips, curried shrimp with basmati rice, whole grain French toast with mango cranberry syrup, whole grain pancakes and sausage links, egg and broccoli pie with apple juice, Michigan turkey salad with a dakota roll (what seemed to me to be a whole grain, palm sized nugget of goodness).

I have to call special attention to the Turkey Salad. So often, prepared turkey or chicken salad is merely pulverized meat, but this was comprised of chunks of meat, mixed with fruits and diced celery. It was outstanding and extremely tasty. In fact, I found myself scoping out the other meals, to see if this was repeated. Alas, it was not.

I found the entire week of food to be outstanding in quality, taste and convenience. Many times, meals were accompanied by a piece of fresh fruit, a prepared yogurt smoothie, a roll, coleslaw, applesauce, or terra veggie chips. This truly led me to believe that if I were purchasing a week of food to be delivered to my house there would really be no need to visit the grocery – literally everything is contained in one inclusive package.

With five weeks of meals offered, there is no thought that you’d get bored. In addition, if there is a meal that you don’t care for, you can substitute from an extensive list, in order to truly customize the meal plan to fit your life. If you don’t think that you’d eat an entire week worth of food, you can customize the plan by only purchasing a smaller Midweek plan with fewer meals. The average customer, according to Diet to Go, spends $85 a week. Meal plans range in price from $32/week for the dinner-only three-day plan to $124.99 for the 1200 calorie seven-day plan.

I think the meals offered by Diet to Go are a delicious, nutritious and convenient option, and one I think would fit into a healthy living plan.

Check back with me next week as I review the mail order option of meals. If they are anything like the fresh option, I think I’ll be pretty happy – and full!

Try Diet to Go for yourself and Save $20 on your first order!

While Diet to Go provided Carmen with sample product, this review is her own opinion and was not influenced or sponsored in any way.

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Diet to Go Review: Meal Delivery Service Makes Healthy Eating Easy

Next Best Thing to Being There

We can’t all be at The Biggest Loser Ranch. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have the same transformations. Just look at Jerry Hayes from Season 7, the at-home winner barely had any time on the ranch and he still lost hundreds! Cheryl Forberg explains the Biggest Loser eating plan in a nutshell, how to determine your calorie needs to lose weight, and the best ways of cooking food to keep nutrients high and calories low.

Simple, Sensible, and Smart Changes

Life is hard. Being healthy shouldn’t have to be. Cheryl takes the struggle out of it by explaining the role of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats in the body. She explains the best food sources of these nutrients and then goes on to provide simple tips for getting more of “the good stuff.”

For example, swap white rice for lentils to get 10 grams of protein in a half-cup. What’s more, she even gives a killer recipe! Who needs drive-through windows and meal delivery plans when you can have culinary creations from Cheryl, and even a few recipes from former cast members? Try the huevos rancheros and quinoa with spinach and cheese. mmmMMMmmm

Like Having Five Books in One

From estimating portion sizes to understanding nutrition labels to using a hunger scale to curb emotional eating, Cheryl provides exactly what you need to initiate a weight loss trend and continue watching those numbers fall without any gimmicks or empty promises. I literally could replace my top-five nutrition books with this one and be happy. It has everything you need and nothing you don’t.

But perhaps what I like best are the inspirational and honest stories from the former contestants. They’ve been there. They’ve changed. So can you.

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Biggest Loser Simple Swaps Book Review

The “Craz-E Burger,” which was created by Food Network star and Southern cook Paula Deen, is a bacon-cheeseburger sandwiched between a buttered Krispy Kreme donut. Yes folks, two of the most saturated fat-friendly foods the American diet has created have joined together in a ceremonious union of heart attack meets muffin top.

The queen of Southern cooking, known for her very generous use of butter, first pioneered the burger on her food show. The heart-stopping creation was picked up by the restaurants and sandwich dives all over the country; including the Big E agriculture fair this past summer in Massachusetts, where more than 1,000 sold to curious and risk-taking fair-goers.

While the version of the donut burger that is making headlines is made with bacon, beef, cheese and of course donuts, the original gut-busting burger that Ms. Deen whipped up on her show called for the addition of a few fried eggs atop the heap of cardiac-arresting ingredients.

The nutrition facts that follow are only for those who have never eaten the donut burger. And since ignorance is bliss, for those of you who have chowed down on this monstrosity, we ask that you stop reading right now.

Calories: 1,500

Fat grams: 45-70 (will vary depending upon ingredients and inclusion of fried eggs)

Percentage of calories from fat: 50-65 percent

Estimated calories per bite: 100

Here is a clip from Good Morning America as the co-hosts braved a bite of the Donut Burger.

And here’s Paula preparing the concoction herself:

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The 1,500 Calorie Donut Burger