We’re always looking for new, healthy treats to satisfy our sweet tooth, and Fiber One has delivered once again with their 90 calorie brownie bars. The health-minded company sent us a sample of their newest 90 calorie bar flavor – chocolate chip cookie – and we gave it a thorough investigation to see if it was up to our healthy standards.

For the most part these bars really are pretty good for you. Upon reading the nutrition label, we noticed that each bar contained just 90 calories, 3 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 18 grams of carbohydrates, 5 grams of dietary fiber, 8 grams of sugar, and 1 gram of protein. Considering that this is a pre-packaged cookie, the statistics aren’t bad.
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Biggest Loser contestants have always donned a gadget on their arms, tracking their every move through more than eight hours of exercise each day. This season, the device was seemingly gone. Trust that it’s still there, it’s just discreetly hiding underneath their T-shirts.

The SlimCoach is tiny enough to fit in the palm of your hand, and when clipped under your shirt to a pocket or waist band can barely be noticed. It’s practically weightless, in fact, that smartphone you lug everywhere weighs more.

The SlimCoach offers minimal data from the device, but when synced with your computer and an online dashboard you’ll get a lot of valuable information about your calorie burn and consumption and your progress toward a weight loss goal. On the face of the device is a circle that lights up red at the start of your day. As you progress through the day, whether walking or running, it shows your calorie burn by lighting up green. The goal is to get a solid green circle, which means you’ve met your goal for the day.

I spent some time wearing the SlimCoach and quickly felt I was in a competition with myself. I was going out of my way to move just to make sure that circle turned green. For instance, I stood to fold the laundry instead of sitting, and I was more inclined to hop/run down the stairs. I wasn’t obsessive, but I definitely checked in periodically. With a click to the center of the circle I could see my progress. Barely at half green by noon? Not good enough! I had to keep moving.
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Is there anything better than sweet tea on a hot summer day? We think not. And in anticipation of warmer weather just around the corner, this week we love Honest Tea’s Not Too Sweet Tea.

Honest Tea is a bottled tea company based in Maryland that specializes in organic, lower calorie, lower sugar bottled beverages. Some of their most popular products include Honest Kids organic thirst quenchers and their line of ready-to-drink bottled teas.

We not only love that Honest Tea produces quality teas with fair trade, organic ingredients. But that they’re also forging new paths as one of the most socially and environmentally responsible companies in their industry.

Honest Tea’s Not Too Sweet Tea is a lower sugar version of an old favorite brewed with organic black tea leaves and sweetened with just a touch of organic cane sugar and organic stevia. Each 16.9 oz. bottle contains 25 grams of sugar and 100 calories.

And how does it taste? Refreshing, delicious and not too sweet, just as they claim. I split open a couple bottles with my husband and a few friends and everyone agreed that if they were to opt for a sweet tea, this would be the one they’d choose.
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BOLD Organics made a skeptic a believer, so now we love BOLD Organics Gluten-Free and Dairy-Free Pizzas.

The tag line for these pizzas reads, “Pizza lovers can finally enjoy a delicious and healthy frozen pizza.” Three major red flags stood in my way to believing this. Gluten-free, dairy-free, and healthy rarely equal good taste. As a lactose intolerant, gluten sensitive eater, I’ve gotten excited one too many times over these claims when it comes to a new product. Typically my experience with these restricted foods has been very unpleasant. I’ve often felt I was eating wallpaper paste and cardboard.

However, when the chance to try these pizzas came my way, I thought I’d give them a shot, hoping that maybe someone could prove me wrong.

I read the back story about the company before I sampled. Aaron Greenwald is the founder of BOLD Organics. He has struggled to find decent health food, especially gluten-free and dairy-free foods. My ears were perked. Then I learned that Greenwald brought Chef Eric Brenner on board to perfect his recipes. Together the two created a frozen pizza with claims unlike any other- healthy, organic ingredients, and great tasting alternatives to insure all pizzas are gluten-free and dairy-free.

The pizzas come in four flavors: Vegan cheese pizza, veggie lovers pizza, meat lovers pizza, and deluxe pizza. All four flavors have been made with ingredients that are very high quality for any pizza, especially a frozen pizza. Greewald and Brenner claim they searched the country for the best flavors and the highest health benefits. Their pizzas include items such as organic roasted red peppers, organic roasted yellow onions, and shiitake mushrooms. For non-vegan consumers, they chose the leanest and nitrate-free meats available on the market.

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There’s a new candy popping up next to grocery check-out stands and it comes from Skinny Cow. Just because a brand markets itself as “healthier” doesn’t always mean that it is. So before you shrug off a Twix fix for a seemingly “better” candy bar, we wanted to look below the wrapper and get the real skinny.

A one-ounce portion of traditional Turtle candies sold at the check-out weighs in with 510 calories! Yikes! That’s more than we’d recommend for an entire meal. The Skinny Cow Dreamy Clusters have far less with 120 calories for that same portion.

Our dietitian, Mary Hartley, RD, took a look at the Skinny Cow Dreamy Clusters and was glad to see a noticeable difference in the two candies. “It’s like the regular version is four or five times worse. But, Skinny Cow managed to keep the fiber. Go figure.” Both candies have three grams of fiber, not something you’d usually find on junk food ingredient labels. (Compare that to a similar candy, Snickers, which has only .5 grams of fiber for a one-ounce serving.)
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