Winner to last weeks Figure it Out

Winning comment was:

Here are your random numbers:

2

Timestamp: 2009-11-11 12:09:23 UTC

Lisa – an e-mail should have gone out to you!

And the product was………..Organic Ranch Dressing! My favorite. Except I’ve recently been convicted to cut it out of my diet due to the soybean oil in it, so I’m curently looking for a homemade  version should any of you have a great recipe!

Figure It Out Friday #4

If you noticed, I didn’t post one of these last week.

I forgot.

Really, I’m sorry. I am.

But on to this week!

List of ingredients for a “healthy” Organic product:

• Organic soybean oil
• water
• organic white distilled vinegar
• organic cane sugar
• organic egg yolk
• salt
• organic buttermilk
• lactic acid
• organic lemon juice from concentrate (water, organic lemon juice concentrate)
• organic dried garlic
• organic dried onion
• organic spices
• inactive dry yeast
• natural flavor (soy)
• organic cornstarch
• xanthan gum
• sodium citrate

And of course what you really want to know……what the winning comment receives! How about a copy of “Real Food for Mother and Baby” by Nina Planck!!! (Who by the way came to our #realfood twitter party last night) This is a fabulous book geared towards eating real food during the preconception, pregnancy, and nursing stages, as well as baby’s first foods. It’s easy to read, easy to understand, and has so much valuable information in it!

How to enter: Leave a comment with your guess on what the product is

For extra entries (leave me a separate comment for each one):

• If you were at the #realfood twitter party last night – leave a comment and get an extra entry
• Twitter this giveaway!
• Share this post using the social media buttons at the bottom of the post
• Subscribe to this blog in a reader

Rules:

• Must have a U.S. address
• Leave your e-mail address – if you don’t you can’t win
• You also must leave your comment by midnight on Monday the 9th

and the winner is….

Here are your random numbers:

13

Timestamp: 2009-10-20 22:36:27 UTC

Abby!!

Congrats, and thanks everyone for playing along!

*Oh- and it was Banana But Muffins!!! A lot of you got it right! Great Job!

Figure It Out Friday: week 3

As I was walking through the grocery store yesterday, something crossed my mind. The food industry has really deep pockets. And really expensive lawyers. Even though they could probably care less about little ‘ol me and my blog, they aren’t someone I need poking around. Sooooo……..we’re gonna change things up just a bit. No more brand names. And I’m even going back and deleting brand names from the previous posts. Let’s just not go there. You can still guess by flavor, product type, etc. let’s just leave the big names alone.

Now, are you ready to get excited about this weeks giveaway?! Mountain Rose Herbs is sponsoring this weeks Figure It Out Friday and they are giving away a $20.00 gift certificate to the winner!! And if you’ve never ordered from them, you don’t know what you’re missing. It’s the only place in the last year that I’ve ordered my herbs and spices from this past year. They have great prices and I find that all the products I’ve bought from them have been fresher and of higher quality than what I would find in grocery stores. Here’s a little ditty about them:

Since 1987, Mountain Rose Herbs, based in Eugene, Oregon, has been known for its uncompromising commitment to organic agriculture, sustainable business practices, and steadfast focus on the pure aesthetics and freshness of botanical products. Their wide range of product offerings includes bulk herbs and spices, aromatherapy and essential oils, tea and tea supplies, and natural health and body care. Every aspect of product creation is carried out in accordance to strict quality control and organic handling procedures by employees who care. From their fragrant and beyond-fresh organic herbs and spices, to soothing essential oils and delicious herbal teas, the quality and integrity of Mountain Rose Herbs is unparalleled—with smiles guaranteed. To learn more about Mountain Rose Herbs please visit www.mountainroseherbs.com.

Now for this weeks ingredients:

• Enriched Flour Bleached (wheat flour, niacin, iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid)
• Sugar
• Walnut Pieces
• Corn Syrup
• Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and/or Cottonseed Oil
• Dried Banana Flakes
• Modified Corn Starch
• Leavening (baking soda, sodium aluminum phosphate)
• Salt
• Corn Starch
• Toasted Wheat Germ
• Propylene Glycol Monoesters of Fatty Acids
• Mono and Dygycerides
• Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate
• Artificial Color
• Xanthan Gum
• Cellulose Gum
• Natural and Artificial Flavor
• Nonfat Milk
• Freshness Preserved by BHT
  

Mmmmm, hungry anyone? This again is a national brand product so it should be available in most stores.

To enter: Leave one comment with your guess at what the product is.

For additional entries (leave a separate comment for each) you can:

• Subscribe to my RSS feed
• Tweet or blog about this post
• Post a link in your Facebook status

*and this week I’m hiding the comments!!

Week 2 winners

I knoooow. It’s Thursday already. And I promised I’d have the winner announced on Tuesday. I actually don’t have an excuse either, no reason it shouldn’t have been done.

Let’s just say, I promise I’ll do better next week. Like you know…Wednesday or something!

On to who won the Denali Tote!

First off, many of you were right in the thinking that it was Edy’s Slow Churned Mint Chocolate Chip – No Sugar Added! So fabulous job!! Doesn’t sound so yummy though after actually reading the ingredients!! And the winner is……..

Here are your random numbers:

2

Timestamp: 2009-10-15 18:03:36 UTC

Yay for Tarra! An e-mail will be sent your way!

Now let’s take a look at some of the ingredients:

• skim milk- studies show eating two or more low-fat dairy products a day as part of a woman’s diet increases her chance of infertility by 85 percent. source.
• cream- most likely from cows that never see the light of day and feed on a grain diet. Unhealthy cows=unhealthy cream.
  
• chocolaty chips (lactitol*, coconut oil, cocoa processed with alkali, bitter chocolate, cocoa, soybean oil, soy lecithin, natural flavor, sucralose (Splenda® Brand)) – ugh -more soy! and fake sugars!
  
• maltitol syrup* – a sugar alcohol used as a sugar substitute (to get around the whole “no sugar added”!) Chemically, maltitol is also known as 4-O-a-glucopyranosyl-D-sorbitol. Yummy – it has a chemical name.
• maltodextrin - a food additive that is as rapidly absorbed as glucose.
• polydextrose*
• glycerin
• milk minerals concentrate - Umm…….?
• cellulose gum
• natural flavor
• mono and diglycerides
• salt
• Yellow #5 - Also known as tartrazine or E102. Tartrazine appears to cause the most allergic and intolerance reactions of all the azo dyes, particularly among asthmatics and those with an aspirin intolerance.^[3] Symptoms from tartrazine sensitivity can occur by either ingestion or cutaneous exposure to a substance containing tartrazine. source.
• sorbitol*
• guar gum
• sucralose (Splenda® Brand)- artificial sweetener, bleh
• Blue #1 - Also known as Brilliant Blue FCF or E133. It is a synthetic dye derived from coal tar. It can be combined with tartrazine (yellow, E102) to produce various shades of green. Brilliant Blue FCF has previously been banned in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland among others but has been certified as a safe food additive in the EU and is today unbanned in most of the countries. It has the capacity for inducing an allergic reaction in individuals with pre-existing moderate asthma^. In the United States production exceeds 1 million pounds annually, and daily consumption is around 16 mg per person. It is one of the colorants that the Hyperactive Children’s Support Group and the Feingold Association recommends to be eliminated from the diet of children. Although after extensive testing, the National Institutes of Health concluded that color additives do not cause hyperactivity. Hmmm……(source)

• carrageenan
• citric acid
• vitamin A palmitate
• acesulfame potassium – another artificial sweetener

Figure It Out Friday: week 2

Last week was a lot of fun reading all of your guesses! A few got it right on, and most of you were really close!! Not that I didn’t think you all weren’t smart or anything…..

So this week our sponsor is Neela Bags! I did a review for them awhile back and still love and use my market bags every most weeks I go grocery shopping and get complimented each time. For this giveaway, they’ll be offering up one of their Pink Denali Totes!

• skim milk
• cream
• chocolaty chips (lactitol*, coconut oil, cocoa processed with alkali, bitter chocolate, cocoa, soybean oil, soy lecithin, natural flavor, sucralose (Splenda® Brand))
• maltitol syrup*
• maltodextrin
• polydextrose*
• glycerin
• milk minerals concentrate
• cellulose gum
• natural flavor,
• mono and diglycerides
• salt
• Yellow #5
• sorbitol*
• guar gum
• sucralose (Splenda® Brand)
• Blue #1
• carrageenan
• citric acid
• vitamin A palmitate
• acesulfame potassium

Figure it out Friday: wk 1

Today I’m bringing you all a brand weekly feature that I’m a gonna call “Figure It Out Friday”. Each week I’ll be posting a list of ingredients and you all will have the opportunity to guess what product it is.

What’s in it for you, you ask? Well, I’ve teamed up with a few different authors/companies at this point that have decided to sponsor a week with a prize for the winner!!!

This week is sponsored by Alan Watson, author of “Cereal Killer (The Unintended Consequences of the Low Fat Diet)”. He’ll be giving away not one, but two copies of his book!! And I’ve had the pleasure of reading it myself when he sent me a copy to check out just a little while ago.

It’s a book that’s easy to read and I dug in right away after just reading the back cover. It reads:

End of summer 2008. A record number of American children are being diagnosed with asthma, obesity, diabetes, and bipolar disorder. Along with surging food and medical costs, Americans must come to grips with declining life expectancy – now 37th in the world….

Included are chapters on what’s wrong with the kids of class 2018, the real facts about what cholesterol does to your body, the problems with a low fat diet, and yes – what’s wrong with boxed cereals. I’d recommend this book to anyone. From those who already have health problems to those who just want to feed their family as healthfully as possible!

So, without further ado, here’s the list of ingredients from this weeks product. (fyi, all the products are processed foods, most will be national brands so I know that everyone has seen these in the stores)

• enriched flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine, mononitrate,{vitamin B1} riboflavin {vitamin B2} folic acid)
• soybean oil
• sugar
• partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil
• salt
• leavening (baking soda and/or calcium phosphate)
• high fructose corn syrup
• soy lecithin (emulsifier)
• natural flavor
• cornstarch

Now – I’ll be drawing the winner like this: If someone hits it right on the nose (as in exact name brand and item) they win hands down or a winner is chosen via random.org with the folks that got it exactly right. If no one gets it exactly right, I’ll pool everyone who gets the general item right and pick via random.org. Simple enough, right?

To enter: Leave a post with your guess what product goes with those ingredients!

For more entries (after your first comment with your guess) you can leave a separate comment to let me know if you’ve:

• tweeted about this
• stumbled this post
• signed up to the rss feeds

Also -this one is open to US addresses only. You also have until Tuesday, October 6 at 6am to get your vote in!!