I think I may need to do a once monthly column on new food products I have reviewed. Lately here I have been getting more and more food product pitches from companies and have been pleasantly surprised to find some really good eats among the offerings. I don’t buy processed foods all that often but a I do buy some for convenience’s sake if they are healthy enough to justify it. Some of my recent discoveries wowed me enough to ensure that I will keep buying.
The first product I have to mention is Melt Buttery Spread. When I first read the email I only skimmed it and thought it was a pitch for a margarine-like butter substitute. We are big pastured butter fans here. REAL butter with all its healthy and delicious fats. I was just about ready to hit the delete button when I noticed the mention of coconut oil. So then I had to go back through and read more carefully and this time I was intrigued. It is a butter substitute, which I really didn’t have a need for, but instead of margarine with its unhealthy soy oils and transfats, this spread has healthy fats via coconut oil. It is organic, has Omega 3 fatty acids, has no GMO ingredients, is gluten free, soy free, trans fat free, and has no preservatives or artificial coloring. So if it has healthy fats like butter does then why use Melt? It has half the calories. While I do love me some butter I think it is all too easy with nourishing, real foods to overdo it on the portion sizes and calories. I think Melt has provided us with a nice way to enjoy even more of the creamy buttery goodness without so many calories. Its a win win.
Ingredients: Organic oil blend (organic virgin coconut oil, organic palm fruit oil, organic canola oil, organic hi-oleic sunflower oil, organic flaxseed oil), water, organic unsalted butter, sea salt, organic butter flavor, non-GMO sunflower lecithin, tocopherols, annatto-turmeric.
We have used Melt for a couple months now and will keep purchasing if we see it in our local stores. We will keep buying butter too but I can see a place in our frig for both. A whole wheat english muffin just tastes divine with Melt on it because you get just a hint of coconut flavor from the coconut oil. Yum!!
The second stand out winner was That’s it Fruit Snack Bars. I decided to accept some of these because I thought they would be good snacks for the kids. And I am sure they are but I wouldn’t know because none of the bars made it to my kids. I ended up tasting the cherry/apple bar and deciding that these were PERFECT for pre-workout and post workout snacking. They are tasty and satisfying but not overly heavy. Love them! It is seriously hard to find good snack bars and protein bars that are healthy I tell ya.
These taste like real fruit roll ups but they are thick like a Lara bar. The only ingredient in them is fruit so you get 2 servings of healthy fruits with each bar and they have high levels of antioxidants and minerals. The 3 flavors are apple/cherry (1 apple, 10 cherries), apple/apricot (1 apple, 3 apricots), and apple/pear (1 apple, 1 pear). My fave is the apple/apricot. I have always been a fan of dried apricots. My second fave is the apple/pear. You can buy them via their online store or on Amazon. I have continued to buy these and probably will for a long time to come.
While we are talking about snack bars it seems a good time to mention Two Degrees Bars. This company makes healthy, all-natural, gluten-free nutrition bars in three delicious flavors. Two of them are fruit/nut combos and one is a nut/chocolate combo. I got one of each flavor from Klout, a member perk. I loved all of the flavors but sadly they have soy lecithin as an ingredient. They did not seem to adversely affect me the way soy protein isolate does but I cannot help that I am totally anti-soy now. I probably wouldn’t buy them again for that reason. They were delicious though.
Lastly I got a couple loaves of Rudi’s Organic bakery bread to try recently. Their breads are organic and gluten free. They were also tasty as well. We don’t eat that much bread here but I think theirs is a pretty good option compared to most of the products in the bread isle at conventional grocery stores.
Have any new products at your natural grocer knocked your socks off lately?
This is a
great article, and a great topic to explore. Thanks for sharing.
Hi, Karen from Arkansas here. I was reading your review of Melt Buttery Spread. It sounds like a tasty product, but I’ve got two concerns I wanted to mention. First of all, one of the ingredients in Canola Oil. Even though it’s organic, which means it can’t be GMO, my understanding of most vegetable oils (except coconut and olive oil) is that (1) vegetable oils are referred to as “rancid” by most real foodies I read about because of the way they are produced and (2) the ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3 is too far off balance to be healthy (LOTS of Omega 6’s, not much Omega 3’s). This is the main reason grass-fed beef, pastured chicken, and grass-fed butter are eaten, because they naturally contain the right ratio of omega fats.
My second concern with this product is the “butter flavor”. I watched a 60 Minutes segment recently which gave a behind-the-scenes look at artifical and natural flavorings. It’s scary. Most of the “natural” flavors that are listed do in fact come from nature, but they don’t have to come from what the flavor is called. For example, in the video they mention that part of what makes up “strawberry flavor” actually comes from the glands on the backside of a beaver. Natural, sure. Something I want to eat? No way! If you want to watch the segment yourself, you can go to Google and search for “natural and artifical flavoring 60 minutes” and it’s on the Huffington Post website.
Thanks for being a blogger and posting about real food! I read your posts every time they come out. :-)
Excellent points Karen. I think butter will always be better but this is a reasonably good alternative for those of us who tend to overdo it on the all buttah!
I absolutely love the fruit bars. My kids love them too. I carry them around in my purse just in case someone get’s hungry. Haven’t tried the two degrees bars yet, should try them. Thanks for the awesome review!