18 Rabbits! April 21, 2013

Isn’t that the cutest name ever??? That’s what I thought when I went to the website and their graphics are cute too very modern Alice in Wonderland 🙂 So I just had to try their product….oh packaging how you draw me in like a 3 year old child to candy. So I ordered it online and a few days later I received this

Even the box is cute!!!! And I immediately received a delivery confirmation email, nice touch. And this was what was inside….its keeps getting better! my husband (JQ) was probably very confused as to why I was so excited but it was just SO CuTe!!! O.o

So they have granola, granola bars and jr granola bars. I decided I wanted to try the granola. The three flavors they have are:

Veritas Granola-Hazelnut, Walnut, Cacao Nibs, & flaxseed (wheat free)
Gracious Granola-Pecans, Almonds, Maple, Coconut (wheat free)
Felicitas Granola-Chia, Sunflower Seed, Honey, Bing Cherries (wheat & nut free)

Okay so a warning for those that have actual nut or gluten allergies this product was made in a plant that processed wheat, peanuts, and tree nuts….so beware. That would be my first comment on something they could change but since I am none of the three I just dug in 🙂

The only one that blew me over was the Gracious Granola. That had a really nice coconut flavor. I shared some with a few different friends at different times and they all really liked it too.

I neither saw nor tasted cacao nibs in the Veritas or cherries in the Felicitas so I was a bit disappointed. Also with these two they were a bit tasteless and left a residue in your mouth. Also the clusters could have been bigger for eating by the handful. One last complaint the walnuts in Veritas where too big (or clusters too small) it was too much of a contrast. But the walnuts did have a nice sweet coating on them which I discovered when I fished them out so that I could go onto the next step of my review process.

18 ways to enjoy

Since I didn’t really enjoy Veritas and Felicitas straight from the bag I decided to try and find a way I would enjoy them and score!!!

I really liked eating Felicitas (pink bag) on a parfait. I spooned unsweetened whole fat yogurt onto a cup and topped it with cooked down peaches and a healthy shake of the granola and it was delicious much better then it would have been with just the cooked peaches. The contrast was perfect and it was nice that it wasn’t too sweet. Did I remember to take a picture? No. Did I remember to devour it…yes.

I decided to use Veritas to make granola bars. Like I said I had to fish out the walnuts, they were too big to use with the recipe especially since I wanted JQ to try it and he doesn’t like large chunks of nuts. I decided to try to make a chocolate chip granola bar since I thought the Veritas would have chocolate undertones since it supposedly has cacao nibs in it.

No bake (18 rabbit) Chocolate Chip Granola Bar

1/2 stick butter/coconut oil
1/2 cup brown sugar/honey/agave
3/4 cup almond meal
1/4 cup flax seed
2 1/2 cup granola (18 rabbit)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup chocolate chips

Melt butter/coconut oil. If using brown sugar add at this point and cook until sugar crystals are dissolved. If not using sugar as soon as the butter is melted remove from heat and stir in honey or agave. Next stir in almond meal, flax seed, granola, and cinnamon into oil/sweetener mixture off the heat. Then stir in chocolate chips. Press evenly into an 8×8 sprayed baking dish. Chill in refrigerator. After a few hours cut up into 9 squares. Enjoy!

I used brown sugar this time in the recipe since I ran out of honey (and money to buy more) it didn’t stick together as well as I liked so the bars had to be cut bigger to keep it from crumbling apart. Also it was a bit sweeter than I liked (JQ liked it fine) so I have to figure out how to get it to stick together better but with less sweetener….any tips?

*FYI I did get this product for free but the review is based on how it actually tasted in my mouth not on the lack of impact on my pocket*

LaraBar Review Part III- Uber and Jocalat April 17, 2013

 

Everyone needs a quick healthy snack that they can keep on hand when on the go and I’ve been seeing and hearing about LaraBars everywhere and wanted to give them a try. The company was nice enough to send me a few to review. I wanted to review one of each of their 4 types of bars

 

LaraBar-carrot cake
Alt- lemon pound cake
Jocalat-chocolate mint
Uber- apple turnover

 

I picked flavors I knew my husband would like because I will eat almost anything, even if it’s kind of gross, if it’s healthy. So he is a better candidate to review than I am 🙂 and I really like to see what healthy things I can get him to eat.

 

[sorry I forgot to take a picture of the Uber Apple Turnover …just imagine something chunky and sticky :)]

Uber Apple Turnover

*I liked it a little sticky and a little sour but yum yum. The texture of the dried apple was a bit spongy.

*My husband said *grossed out face* don’t like overall taste, sour, sticky, unpleasant texture, bad aftertaste, texture changes from crunchy to chewy

 

 

Jocalat Chocolate Mint

*I could barely swallow my bite, very bitter tastes like dirt

*He said not good but kept eating more, a friend said smells like wine

So overall. We only like the original Larabar. But what they got right they really got right. Yum

 

I received these samples of Larabar from the company for free but the review is just because I found it to be yummy (or not)

Lara Bar Review Part II- ALT Lemon Pound Cake April 1, 2013

Everyone needs a quick healthy snack that they can keep on hand when on the go and I’ve been seeing and hearing about LaraBars everywhere and wanted to give them a try. The company was nice enough to send me a few to review. I wanted to review one of each of their 4 types of bars

LaraBar-carrot cake
Alt- lemon pound cake
Jocalat-chocolate mint
Uber- apple turnover

I picked flavors I knew my husband would like because I will eat almost anything, even if it’s kind of gross, if it’s healthy. So he is a better candidate to review than I am 🙂 and I really like to see what healthy things I can get him to eat.
ULT Lemon Pound Cake

*So like I said I will eat anything healthy even if it’s kinda gross, this fit into the cateogry…so would I buy it? No. WOuld I eat another one if some handed it to me….definately :). I like that it used pea protein instead of whey or soy but I didn’t like that it had brown rice flour in case you were avoiding grains 100%. It was really hard and didn’t taste much like lemon which is a shame since lemon is a pretty easy flavor to convey.

*My husband said it was tasteless and so hard it took him 2 tries to bite through it and hurt his tooth. He said he would not eat this again and would never guess that this was made by the same people that made the carrot cake larabar that he liked.

I definitely will not buy the ALT bar, I would rather avoid a dental bill from a broken tooth, it needs to be softer. Also I would suggest putting a lemon filling layer in the bar to up the lemon flavor.

I will be reviewing the remaining bars in the next few weeks but until then find out more about them for yourself maybe you will find a spot for them in your tummy to 🙂 num num. I received this sample of Larabar from the company for free but the review is just because I found it to be yummy (or not) I’ll let you know what me and my husband thought of the other ones and he can be a pretty harsh critic of food so I’m excited to see what he thinks.

Lara Bar Review- Carrot Cake March 31, 2013

Everyone needs a quick healthy snack that they can keep on hand when on the go and I’ve been seeing and hearing about LaraBars everywhere and wanted to give them a try. The company was nice enough to send me a few to review. I wanted to review one of each of their 4 types of bars

LaraBar-carrot cake
Alt- lemon pound cake
Jocalat-chocolate mint
Uber- apple turnover

I picked flavors I knew my husband would like because I will eat almost anything, even if it’s kind of gross, if it’s healthy. So he is a better candidate to review than I am 🙂 and I really like to see what healthy things I can get him to eat.

Larabar carrotcake:

*I really liked it, it was nice and filling and I really liked and was surprised by the pineapple flavor. I also like how simple the ingredients are no weird ingredients, fillers or preservatives. They survived a good amount of banging around in my bag I carried it with me several days before I was hungry enough to eat it which is definitely a good thing I don’t want to have to be forced to eat my emergency calorie dense snack stash just to keep it from crumbling to a mess in my purse.

*My husband said he would eat it again. That’s pretty good considering that he hates nuts. He said he liked it because it was heavy even though it was small and he liked that it was squishy and gooeyish so it was fun to eat. He would have prefered that the nut chunks were smaller but he liked it…win for larabar getting something healthy into my husbands belly.

You can buy them in bulk from amazon for about $1.25 a piece which isn’t too bad for a healhty on the go snack. From the Larabar website itself you can get a variety pack so you can figure out which flavor you like before you commit to 16 of the same bar.

I will be reviewing the remaining bars in the next few weeks but until then find out more about them for yourself maybe you will find a spot for them in your tummy to 🙂 num num. I received this sample of Larabar from the company for free but the good review is just because I found it to be yummy I’ll let you know what me and my husband thought of the other ones and he can be a pretty harsh critic of food so I’m excited to see what he thinks.