2008 October 10

I am also obsessed with free samples! You should see me at Whole Foods, I tend to go a bit crazy with all of their free samples. They are always the best at having plenty of food around to nibble on. Let’s face it, I am a foodie who wants to try anything and everything, so when someone offers me a tiny sample it’s always hard to pass up. I know in the back of my head a bunch of tiny samples add up to a bunch of unnecessary calories, but in the front of my head I am thinking yummy free food. J

Well now that I have gone completely off track with my free sample obsession, I have to say the nice people at Kardea must have secretly known about my tiny obsession because they were kind enough to send me some samples of their Karnea Nutrition Bars.

Before I saw Heather & Mark at Hangry Pants test their samples of the bar on their blog, I had never heard of Karnea before. They essentially gave the bars good reviews, so I was more then happy to sample and review them myself.

The bars come in 4 flavors:

Banana Nut
Cranberry Almond
Lemon Ginger
Chai Spice

Today I decided to try the Chai Spice flavor.

I was a little scared of the Chai Spice bar simply because I’m not the biggest fan of Chai flavored things, but it just happened to be the one I through in my purse this morning.

Once out of the package it strangely resembled a Larabar (only the ingredient list is about 4x longer!). I took my first bite crossing my fingers it would be ok and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. The flavor was not to strong and the ‘spice’ was toned down. I also liked the texture, the bar is partly made up of brown rice krispies that give it a nice crunch when you are expecting nothing but chewy. Overall I liked it.

One flavor down, three more to try. (well actually 2, I can’t eat the banana one so I’m going to have my sister do a guest review)

For lunch today I just sort of pieced together what I had in my fridge (which isn’t much at the moment).

I ended up with a nice Veggi Wrap

Flat Out Wrap
Spinach
Okra
Broccoli
Shredded Summer Squash
Tomato
Gorgonzola Cheese
Mango Poppyseed Dressing

I microwaved the veggies first to get them nice and warm, I then rolled it up in the wrap and grilled it panini style on the George Forman. All of the flavors actually mixed well and microwaving the veggies first made sure the wrap was nice and warm all the way through.

On the side I had a small serving of almonds and a Pumpkin Bar covered in Peanut Butter.

That was a GREAT lunch! I’m still nto sure what the plans are for dinner. I may be going out to eat (grrr…) or I might make something real quick before Halloween Horror Nights. I guess it all depends on what time I have to be there. Either way its going to be a llooonngg night so I will report back tomorrow on my little adventure. Have a Great Friday everyone!

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This morning Abbie woke me up 15 minutes before my alarm clock went off… evil dog. It’s one thing waking up on your own before the alarm clock goes off, but to be forced out of a nice slumber when you don’t have to be is just plain wrong. I did reluctantly get up and let her out; she just made me start my day 15 minutes earlier. Grrr…

This morning I tried a new loop I discovered thanks to MapMyRun.com. Since I usually only run in the early mornings around my neighborhood, I haven’t really had time to explore different routes. I usually just run to one neighborhood I know about and then turn around and come back to my apartment. Pretty Boring. This new route is actually a loop where I make a giant circle around a couple of neighborhoods. I like the idea of a circle much better then just running out and then back. It was a nice easy run this morning, just enough to wake me up and getting me moving.

Morning Stats:

Distance: 5.05 Miles

Time: 58 min 13 secs (including 5 minute cool down walk)

I’m running low on fruit (where did all my groceries go this week?) so this morning I decided to have an Egg-Waffle Sandwich instead of my normal cereal.

I sandwiched a 1/3 cup of microwaved egg whites and a tablespoon of low sugar strawberry preserves between two Kashi Strawberry Waffles.

On the side I had ½ cup of applesauce.

I like the strawberry waffles. It complimented the strawberry preserves perfectly. I also love the combo of the sweet and savory with the salty egg and the sweet waffle. When I was younger I used to always order the breakfast combo platters at restaurants that came with pancakes, eggs, hashbrowns, and sausage. When the plate would come I would just throw it all on top of each other, throw some syrup on top and eat all of the flavors at once. Those were always the best breakfasts. I even scared a date one time in high school when I ordered the Mama’s Plate at Cracker Barrel and proceeded to throw it all together. I guess it never really occurred to me before then that my eating habits might scare some people away. Oh well. J

It’s Friday everyone! Only 8 more hours until the weekend! Start celebrating!!

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