Lunch
Dear Graffiti’s Bistro,
Thank you for providing me with an above average lunch of leftovers today.
Sincerely,
Heather
PS I swear it wasn’t me who stole all of your saltshakers
What is it about a night in the fridge that makes the abrasive salty flavor go away?! Or maybe my taste buds are still in hibernation from last night.
I really can’t complain about this awesome hunk of salmon. 😉
I really wish restaurant chefs understood that veggies taste fantastic on their own- they don’t need butter & salt! So sad that some people only taste vegetables at restaurants- they have no idea what they’re really missing!
With a tiny little pile of garlic mashed potatoes. Mmmm.
Nutrition Myths
While I was eating lunch, I was also pouring over the pages of the latest Cooking Light issue. Sometimes their view on “healthy”, “light”, and “nutrition” throw me for a loop. Then I realize their basis for comparison is likely different from my own. Normally gourmet food isn’t associated with being healthy, so in regards to that, Cooking Light is light. Anyway, all I’m saying is that sometimes I take what’s in the magazine with a grain of salt. (Haha. Sorry, I had to.)
Keeping that in mind, I was intrigued with some of the Nutrition Myths they discussed in this issue. While I’m not 100% in agreement with everything they had to say, I found one really interesting:
“Myth: You should always remove chicken skin before eating.”
My first thought? Really?! Yes you should!! But then the explanation:
“A 12 oz bone-in, skin-on chicken breast half contains just 2.5 grams of saturated fat and 50 calories more than it’s similarly portioned skinless counterpart.”
Ok, that’s really not so bad. And 12 ounces is a pretty good size piece of chicken. But still, saturated fat and calories add up. Not totally persuaded yet.
Then the most interesting (to me) piece of information: 55% of the fat in chicken skin is monounsaturated (that’s one of the good ones!).
I had no idea.
By no means am I recommending you start eating your chicken with skin, but I just found it really interesting. I was under the assumption that the skin had no redeeming qualities (except perhaps to retain moisture when cooking). I never really thought about the type of fat in the skin. (You will still not find me eating chicken skin- that really doesn’t appeal to me for other reasons- but that’s a topic for another day, another time.)
I love learning new things I didn’t know I needed to learn!
Learn any interesting nutrition facts recently?
*Disclaimer: I really truly did not steal anybody’s saltshakers. Just in case you weren’t sure. But I do think they should throw a few of them in the garbage 😉
Lunch, Review
I finally got up the nerve to choke down the rest of my dinner from Graffiti’s Bistro. Surprisingly, a few days in the fridge calmed the overwhelming saltiness down quite a bit.
I still decided to chase it down with a Kashi oatmeal cookie. 🙂
Amazing Grass Review
Amazing Grass kindly sent me some product samples to review, so I’m gonna do just that. So you’ve probably seen this stuff all over the blog world. You’ve probably heard how awesome and amazing it is. I think that’s nut-so.
Let’s talk about the powders first. There’s a couple different kinds:
– Amazing Meal– Original, Chocolate, Pomegranate Mango
– SuperFood– Green, Berry, Chocolate, & Kidz
The SuperFood is basically a super duper greens powder that gets you 7 servings of veggies in one swoop. The Amazing Meal is a more robust relative of the SuperFood powder- it’s the greens powder, protein, enzymes, and probiotics.
When you open the packet you’re greeted by the lovely aroma of….dirt.
Mixed straight into a drink per directions, it transforms into….well, liquid dirt.
I really have no desire to drink dirt. I’m sure it’s super healthy and all, but I’m not interested in choking back dirt when I could just eat some tasty veggies instead.
That being said, I really really like using the powders as mix-ins. Using the whole packet is a bit much for me, but I’ve found if I use a little less, I”m perfectly satisfied.
You’ve seen me use the Amazing Meal powder in my oatmeal. I’ve been using original, but I bet the chocolate would taste pretty good in there too. (Not so sure about the Pomegranate Mango in oats.)
I also like it as an add in to green monsters and other smoothies.
My favorite combo has probably been the Chocolate Amazing Meal with oatmeal, banana, and almond milk. SO GOOD.
Even though I’d already decided I didn’t like the drinks mixed plain, I’m a fair and thorough reviewer, so I tried one of the other powders plain with water.
I was delightfully surprised. Honestly, it tasted like healthy chocolate milk. This one I could definitely drink all by itself. This one was the Kidz SuperFood Chocolate.
Now let’s move on to the GreenSuperFood bars. These are fairly calorie dense for a bar, but they’re packed with good stuff. However, they’re not for me.
They’re not bad, but they’re not great. I can easily see someone else loving these, they just weren’t my style. The chocolate coating was a little plastic-y. I’m a little biased though, I don’t really like chocolate. They kind of tasted non-descript. I’d say of all the ones I tried, I like the Chocolate Peanut Butter the best.
So bottom line, would I keep buying these? I may have insulted them by comparing them to dirt, but I would buy the powders again if they didn’t cost an arm & a leg. I wouldn’t by the bars- there’s other options that I’d rather have. I don’t need my greens in bar form, but that’s just me. Bring on the green powder 🙂
Have you tried Amazing Grass? Or other “greens” powder? What do you think?!
