Holland & Barrett Muesli With Benefits - spiced apple & seeds mix [@NLi10]

 I like apples and the idea of a less intensely sugary breakfast but with flavours and texture too really appeals - so when Holland & Barrett popped this on the special offer table I figured I'd give it a go.

They have to know that "with benefits" has other meanings in English, but here they are suggesting that it's good for you and tasty too.

And it suggests that there are clusters?

The mix also doesn't have raisins or sultanas so that's a win

Looks more flakey than clustery - but lets give it a go

Oh - a cluster - top left!  Maybe they all sank and the final bowl will just be 100% clusters.

The apple smell is instant, and the crunch is a lot chewier than I'd hoped for but this works very well.  I don't think it's a rushed weekday breakfast cereal, and I'd not need to blend this with other things.

Not too sweet, not too spicy, not so healthy that you immediately hunt for the cornflakes either.  Probably a bit expensive if you eat stacked portions like I will, but otherwise a definite option for the days where you need a few more vitamins and energy and have time to chew before leaving the house.

Graze - Salt & Vinegar Crunch -but in shops! [@NLi10]

 Happy New Year Health Kick!  Food subscriptions are the new best way to lose money by buying things you don't end up eating (after the TV subscriptions you forget you have). So if you can now buy the healthy bits, but with the weekly shop then surely thats better!

I mean with a bag this big you'd have to exercise portion control - you can't just chug the little weekly box!

It says 'packed with veg' which is confusing as it's talking about the beans, but disrespecting the potatoes in other snacks.  Surely it's all about cooking methods and nutrition (and portion control).

Looks good though.  The little round ones are things youd want to eat - and the flat ones will hold the flavour - and the other bits just make you full.  That's great to see - and the salt & vinegar flavour is nicely British and lovely and fun.  These are a little dry if you eat them like normal snacks though - they feel like the the stuff on the bar in the 80s that make you make you buy more beer.

Guess I'll have to have a little drink alongside!

yfood - This Is Food - Meal In A Bottle (not Prime) by @NLi10

Ah January - the media induced diet month. The media induced alcohol reduction month. Why not combine both by drinking your dinner instead! It’s not like you can drink Prime yet as it’s continually being targeted by scalpers still.

The boffins at yfood have come up with a wonderful meal alternative drink, that is essentially a turbo shake with all the bits in you need for a day.

Although - do I want food that has been engineered?

At least it’s in Germany so you know that it won’t break down as often - and look at all those bullet points!

I didn’t even know there were 26 vitamins and minerals - and now I’ve drunk them all! Lactose free is actually a nice bonus, most of these are just milkshakes - and no added sugar means that you won’t be over consuming. 

It also has percentages.

Lots of percentages.  Most of them seem to be targeting a quarter of your day worth of the things in question. This is great as it’s less likely you’ll hit problems if you drank both of these in one day.

As far as the drink itself goes, it’s not too lumpy and has a great flavour. I don’t think I had a favourite of the two which goes to show it’s a decent vanilla as usually the red ones are clearly the best. And - more importantly I’d say I snacked less than on a normal lunch ration - although as usual I craved some chewy carbs (biscuits on standby).

For a fairly new brand that I’ve only seen around a few times it really does hold it’s own - and while I don’t see myself buying this daily it’s a nice back-up for when it’s too rainy (or busy) to pop out for lunch. Well worth a try as part of a new year, new year plan - if not just for the insta selfies with the cool bottles.

Slim Noodles - Hoisin & Garlic - New Years Diet! (@nli10)

Happy New Year! As part of the post-celebrations a lot of people decide to make healthier choices in the new year.

We picked up these Slim Noodles as part of a meal kit - mainly because they were in the sale.

Holland and Barrett have a lot of things like this that I would happily put in the ‘woo’ section but they are often quite tasty and filling if prepared properly. It’s genuinely not a good idea to calorie restrict without a good reason or plan ( even the NHS doesn’t fund a lot of these crash diet schemes now as they just don’t work long term).

That said - it certainly is a good idea to increase the amount of nutrients per calorie that you consume - and these are quite smart. The noodles aren’t really noodles, and have an odd bean-like texture. And the extra veggies that go in with the sauce and Quorn mean that instead of a bachelor chow noodle pot you make a nice little meal for two.

 

The sauce had a decent flavour and the veggies had crunch - and it was easy to prepare.

Just chuck the things in the pan!

You have to rince the noodles but that’s easy enough

The veggies and sauce are all pre packaged but I added some more frozen veg with the Quorn

If you want to claim my free cookbook then go ahead! I’m not sure why it’s called eat water…

The konjac noodles are the star, even if I didn’t bother with the kits again I’d certainly want more of these noodles

And here’s the back of the box, sorry the photos went up in the wrong order but I think it worked out.

Jacob Hooy CBD Oil Food Supplement (Holland & Barrett) @NLi10

A friend shared a well researched and thought out blog post about CBD oil and it's been continually linked to the health conditions that I have so I decided to hunt some down.  It was easier than I expected as Holland & Barrett stock it in the UK, but they are usually out of stock so I had to order it from them online (and picked up in store to save money).

It comes in a tiny little dropper bottle.

The instructions on when to use it and what to use it for are deliberately vague.  There are lots of discussions about what it is supposed to do - but even Holland & Barrett aren't willing to pass that on - instead they direct you to the CBD UK Facebook group where you hear success and failure stories.  And a lot of discussion about the foul taste.

The specific brand they sell is Jacob Hooy, which is apparently an old and well established brand from the Netherlands.  That said - this is manufactured from hemp not cannabis so isn't illegal in the UK to buy and use.  It doens't contain anywhere near enough of the THC chemicals that cause the highs, but apparently does contain enough of the CDB compounds that may cause lowered anxiety, reduced inflammation and reduction in pain.

The evil looking dropper is used to put a drop under the tongue at specified intervals.  I've chosen to go with the wisdom of the group and start off low and slow - one drop twice a day for the first week.

And the taste?  It's basically like Sunny Delight made with grass cuttings.  If you eat things like Kale and other strong green things then you'll probably already be a bit used to it.  It should be noted that I've been very intentionally keeping it away from my taste-buds so maybe i'm missing out on the pure evil.

Like our other health investigations I'll link all these articles together and track my progress with this new fad oil and see if it helps my Rheumatoid Arthritis and changes my sleep patterns at all!

Presto! by @PennJillette the non diet book about weight loss, food and health (@NLi10)

Presto! 

The phrase itself is well understood by anyone who has seen a magician either live or on TV. It's the word that simply suggests that the magic is over, and the effect is done.  Like magic, this one simple phrase doesn't really convey the baffling amount of work that's gone on behind the scenes.

I guess this is part 4 of the series of these odd health review articles - starting with Fuhrman, finishing with Fuhrman, Exploring Cronise and now, after a year, getting my hands on the Penn Jillette book.

In short, if you are an overweight guy with a fun sense of humour then get this book and apply as much of it's wisdom as you can.  It could save your life.  If you know someone fitting that description then it's a pretty good recommendation or present because you aren't buying a diet book, you are buying some stories - which happen to also coincide with the time Penn saved his life by eating better.

You don't really have to read all my short reviews to appreciate what we have here, but it's worth me taking a second to summarise.  I've never been overweight - ever - but since birth have always been a little underweight.  I always thought I ate healthily (except maybe at uni) but rarely made it over 10 stone.  I'm also 6' 4" so that's a lot of frame for not much weight.  I discovered I had a chronic respiratory condition that predominantly effects obese people and had a look around for diet improvements.  Then I found out Penn lost 100lb and figured that he'd be using cutting edge science with a hint of crazy and that I too could use this to help me.  I discovered a second chronic illness (got to catch em all - right?) which is chronicled in this huge article, and moped about for a few months on painkillers.

I'd tried to keep the knowledge I'd learnt from Fuhrman et al in mind and managed to put on a stone - in fact I'm now the heaviest I've ever been at just over 11st.  I'm officially no longer underweight - but am I healthy.

The Presto! book details Penn's crazy journey from Sick Penn to Well Penn, and the friends he made and shrank along the way.  It's told in his usual style, with great anecdotes and just enough facts to hang the evidence on along the way.  I'd not recommend it to my easily shocked relatives (they will have to stick to the Fuhrman books), but I have recommended it to my large gamer buddies.  Essentially it's about understanding health and exploring the relationship that we as society have with food.

Like the scene in recent Indy film Captain Fantastic where the children raised in the woods are all confused by the fact that seemingly everyone is overweight I find myself on the opposite end of the spectrum.  Not only is it a difficult task to stop my body just shedding weight, but it's also hard for me to gain weight through exercise due to my arthritis.

Penn has a short note which covers this.

If you think about this from an overweight perspective it's a cautionary tale, but from my perspective this is sound advice.  As long as I'm eating my fatty foods off the Fuhrman list - nuts and avocados are a joy - then if I can manage pain free exercise I'll continue to gain weight.

This is what lunch looks like now:

Or this, when they don't have the veg:

While I'm not going to go full potato fast like Penn (I really, really don't want to lose any body fat without turning it into useful muscle) I am trying to get back to the core principles of the book of dumping the S.O.S. of salt, oil and sugar.  The science seems to suggest that for overweight people the abundance of these three things mean that the body is always storing energy for that metabolic winter that never comes.  For me, never giving my body food that doesn't carry it's weight in terms of nutrition has had some bonuses.

Firstly - after a year - I came off the pain killers.  It wasn't great at first, but your body naturally readjusts.  I've been swimming for the first time without just painfully sinking today, and while I took some Ibuprofen afterwards just to make sure I can write today and work tomorrow it's a fraction of what I'd have taken previously just to get out of bed.  Like Penn, I'm not saying this is all diet related, but it coincided with going back on the Fuhrman style plan. And I'm still on two tablets a day, but that's not 10 tablets a day, and none of them are painkillers.  

Before reading Penn's book I'd not truly grasped the "rare and appropriate" part of the Cronise diet (whose book by the way is still in production).  I'd assumed that my rare and appropriate was a single thing every two weeks and realising that this wasn't possible when writing two reviews a week had kind of abandoned it heavily.  In the book Penn details Romanesque feats of eating where every meal on a single day was off plan (usually due to a special occasion) and how it wasn't even something that caused his weight to soar.  Turns out eating healthily in general and having a one day feast didn't really do that much to your body, unlike having a little bit of bad food every day which it turns out is killing a lot of people.

I'm going to continue to explore the fringes of this way of eating, while slotting in the reviews, but I do think that maybe having one day a fortnight that I eat all the snacks and write them up would be possible and maybe even make me write more quality reviews.

Eitherway, this book is a good read - I bought it a month ago, read it in a weekend and have been digesting and evangelising it ever since.  While I don't think I'll go into the exercise books and routines on here I'll probably start taking that side a bit more seriously and see where it takes me and update you all when Ray Cronise's book Our Broken Plate is finally released.

Penn's journey is a fascinating and at some times unbelievable one.  Having listened to a lot of the podcasts that happened after Penn came out as a CroNut I knew the story arc, but I'd really not appreciated the emotional details and just how many similarities there were between how bad we were feeling.  My family now own TWO Withings Smart Scales and most of us have some kind of activity tracker to keep an eye on our vital statistics (for us it's more O2 levels than steps!).  It's given my own healthy eating a much needed kick, and I've even started a little secret peer group chat with some friends (some under and some over) heading towards that mythical BMI of 22 that has eluded us all for so long.

Dilli & Wolf Super Snacks: Roasters [By @SpectreUK]

I’m always on the lookout for alternative snacks to crisps and nuts. These Sea Salt & Cider Vinegar Roasted Fava Beans seemed to fit the bill. Based in Norwich, Dilly & Wolf use Hodmedod’s British-grown pulses. I haven’t had fava beans for ages, and always remember Hannibal Lector’s quote from Silence of the Lambs with regards to eating someone’s liver with fava beans washed down with a nice Chianti. At work I don’t have a bottle of wine with my lunch (funnily enough) or the chance to have a liquid lunch of a couple of beers to wash down these fava beans with my corned beef sandwich, but I do have a nice mug of tea! There was an intense smell of salt, cider vinegar and roasted fava beans on opening the plastic tub. The fava beans had a decent crunch with an explosion of cider vinegar to start with followed by a lashing of sea salt into the aftertaste. This was a tasty alternative snack that begged for beer or more likely a nice dry cider. If I wasn’t so greedy and these weren’t so moreish, I’d have resealed the tub and washed the rest down with some cider that night. However….!

Information on the tub;
80g with a recommended 25g serving having 98 calories, with 3.1g of fat, 0.5g of sugar, and 0.4g of salt. Ingredients included; Fava beans (broad beans) (86%), rapeseed oil, cider vinegar powder (7%), and sea salt.

By Spectre

Holland And Barrett - Holiday Supplies! (by @Nli10) @holland_barrett @HBFreeFrom

Recently we went on holiday to Bluestone Park in Wales and took a bag of goodies from Holland & Barrett Birmingham to help us along the way.  Here is how we got on.

First up we ate the Hummus Chips.  We've had similar to these before but not this brand.  The bags were big...

but 45g only gets you so far.

And that's OK - two people sharing this was a nice light snack.  If you'd eaten them solo it'd be a decent sized bag.  They really were not that salty (and I never add salt) but they were really nice and the texture was fantastic.

The lentil version had a lot more flavour going on, and a much firmer snap to it.  I think I'd prefer the first bag, but as my partner preferred the second I'm certainly going to have to go back and get more of the whole range.  These are realistically much better for me to eat than your typical fried crisps for so many reasons - less fat, gluten free, almost certainly less processed than my usual French Fries & Squares.

And I also have to go back for these.

All three of us have waxed lyrical about how good chocolate covered pretzels are - and usually they are an import snack.  Here they are just on the shelf - in multiple flavours and waiting to be devoured.  It took will power to make these reach a 2nd sitting. I had to check the ingredients for addictive substances.

They look a little rough, but the mixture of things going on here is spot on. I could eat more now.  I have to have all the flavours next time.  I may require a loyalty card (or an intervention). 

These however - a little flat.  They are perfectly serviceable if you are vegan and want something to drop in cakes or hot chocolate, but these are not for snacking on. Bag should have been a give away - oh well.

We haven't eaten the chocolate raisins yet - so I'll tag those on to the other exciting purchase we got at the same time next week!

Aldi Deli Salads - Chicken & Mango, Chargrilled Chicken [by @NLi10]

Instead of making up my own lunch bowls using Tesco ready cut salads and nuts, while in Aldi I picked up a few ready made ones to check out.

It is a round bowl - I slid the package open just so you can see the variety.  There is lots going on in here.  As you can see there is a little tub of goo too. In this case it's a tangy mango sauce to go with the spicy chicken. The salad was all great, fresh and crispy. A bit of a cheaper selection than the Waitrose salad with your more typical peppers and lettuce, but very welcome at lunch time. The dissapointment in this one was the chicken, it just wasn't that exciting.  The spice wasn't that noticeable, and it lacked flavour. Overall though, with the sauce it worked well enough to have again.

Here we have the second version with tomatoes instead of peppers, and a little more variety in the greens. The star here is the thick balsamic dressing sauce, which sticks to everything and really brings it to life.

Even though this one had been in my fridge a day longer somehow the chicken in the sauce was much tastier. I usually pick the cucumber out of things, but I used the sauce to make even that edible. A lovely lunch and my favourite of the two - and at about half the price of the Waitrose salad I'd certainly eat either of these again. They were less impressively filling than that one though,