Swanson Vitamins Blog

How Do You Read Food Labels? Watch & Learn

Posted by Ben:

So you think you can read, huh? Well, consider food labels. The first question is do you read them. The second question is do you understand them. Just because you can read the words doesn’t mean you really understand what you’re reading. Don’t be offended, most people don’t have a clue when it comes to extricating the true facts from the back of packaged foods. You may think know, but chances are you don’t.
 

Halloween’s Scariest Dietary Secrets

Posted by Ben:

It’s now the middle of October, so if you haven’t already put out your Halloween decorations, carved your pumpkins and bought your candy, you only have a few more days to get ready before the big night. But aside from the ghastly ghost and ghouls running around and scary stories being told in the dark, do you know the really scary details of this sweet-intensive holiday?

Are You a Breakfast Skipper?

Posted by Ben:

When you roll out of bed (or get dragged/kicked/pushed out of bed), is breakfast the first thing on your mind? Is your stomach growling and your appetite overpowering? Well, it should be. For one, you haven’t fueled your body for 5-9 hours straight, so it should be hungry. And if you’re consuming a regular healthy diet, your body should be in tune with the schedule and expect fuel at relatively the same times each day. Or are you a breakfast skipper (as in "do you skip breakfast" not "are you a captain of breakfast")?

Genetically Modified Food: It's What's For Dinner

Posted by Ben:

A few decades ago, it was entirely natural for a family to gather ‘round the dinner table each night for a home-cooked meal. While people like to romanticize those “simpler times,” many don’t realize just how much has changed. Family sit-down dinners are rare and the TV has all but replaced the dining room table. But more importantly, the food being served up is becoming more and more unnatural thanks to genetically modified foods.

What’s On Your Food?

Posted by Ben:

 

Once in a while, something comes along that can change your perspective almost immediately. It may be a book, a picture, a documentary, a lecture, a work of art…etc. In this case, it’s a website. My friends  over at iHealthTube.com sent me a link earlier this week that changed the way I thought about the food on my dinner plate in a matter of a few clicks of my mouse. Unfortunately my change in attitude was not for the better…

Spice Up Your Kitchen with FREE Organic Spices!

Today's post is just a quick announcement that our friend, the Happy Herbivore, has announced her giveaway...which just so happens to be Swanson Organic Spices! Check out the giveaway post at HappyHerbivore.com and find out how you can get your chance to win some high-quality free spices for your kitchen. While you're there, look around for some great ideas and inspiration about how you can spice up meal time, and expand your culinary taste, with some new vegetarian recipes.

I almost forgot to tell you how affordable these Swanson Organic Spices really are.
Check out our prices compared to what you're probably paying at your grocery store. And finally, if this is your first visit to the Swanson Vitamins Blog, be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed or for email updates. Thanks for visiting!

Kristin from "IowaGirlEats" Shares Her Favorite Spiced Almond Recipe

Hi everyone! My name is Kristin, and I write a blog called Iowa Girl Eats that chronicles my life of eating, running, eating, traveling…and well, eating! I have a passion for healthy, whole nutritious food with one stipulation – it’s got to taste great! If it doesn’t, I’m not going to eat it. When Swanson Vitamins gave me a chance to try their organically grown, whole almonds, I was so excited because not only does Swanson have a similar stance towards food…but these almonds were amazing!

The Contest that Everybody Wins!

I'm excited about the Swanson Health Foods Recipe Contest! This isn't normal behavior for me because I hate contests. Honestly...I abhor them. That's a strong word, I realize; but it's true, and for many reasons. They tend to suck people in and give them an exhilarating sense of false hope, with no real chance of ever winning anything. To me, they're one degree short of deception. And it makes me sad, mad, and sometimes even "had," to know that deceptive tactics run rampant everywhere--in advertising, medicine, politics, religion, education, science, you-name-it. Like they're just a regular--even expected--part of life. No big deal. I didn't want our recipe contest to end up that way. And I'm glad to say, it didn't.

Santa Ate the Goji Berries

I'm really sorry if I'm about to disappoint you. Last month I raved about the energizing properties of raw food and strongly hinted that our December 9th recipe email would feature an unbaked goji berry & coconut cookie of some sort. Only that's not going to happen. Goji berries are out of stock. I could tell you that since goji berries come from the North Pole, global warming has impacted their growing season. Just ask any any polar bear, and he'll tell you how bad conditions are north of the Arctic Circle. Since you already know that goji berries are grown in the Himalayan Mountains, though, you wouldn't believe me, would you? Let's see...I could say that the supply of them is completely exhausted because chocolate chip cookies for Santa's Christmas Eve treat are "out" this year, and cookies with goji berries are "in." Now, that's believable. After all, who needs more energy than an elderly, overweight man climbing in and out of a sleigh billions of times in a single night, while managing eight high-strung flying reindeer? But it's not true. (I think this is the excuse our supplier gave Purchasing, though.)

This scenario takes me back to the winter of 1963, the year I learned there is no Santa Claus. I don't know if parents tell their kids this stuff anymore. All my fellow baby boomer friends believed in jolly old St. Nick at least until the third grade, and I was right in there among them. I couldn't wait for the annual "wish books" from Sears, JC Penney's and Montgomery Wards to arrive at our house sometime in early November. I spent untold hours ogling the toys and thinking about what I should ask Santa for. This particular year, the writer part of me began to emerge, and I couldn't take my eye off a kid's typewriter from Sears that actually worked. The possibilities seemed endless. I started to compose a neighborhood newspaper in my head. Even to this day, I remember my first headline—"BRIDGE COMPLETED OVER ATLANTIC OCEAN." Yeah, my paper was even more sensational than The National Enquirer, and based entirely on wishful thinking. I wanted the family to take our next summer road trip to Germany instead of Sandy Beach in central Minnesota. I told my mom and dad what I'd be asking Santa for when I visited him at Norby's department store, and I could barely wait until Christmas Eve! As the days grew closer to the 24th of December, however, I heard my mom on the phone whispering in a low voice, hoping I wouldn't notice. Little did she know, I heard everything. "This is for my little girl's Christmas present, and I don't want her to be disappointed." Those words were spoken with as firm a tone as my mom could muster, but the quiver in her voice told me that she'd been crying. The typewriter was out of stock, and it wouldn't be delivered until after the New Year. I think the news crushed my mother more than it did me, and I still get misty-eyed recalling her pain. That was the year I learned the harsh reality that Santa doesn't exist.

I tell you this story, which is completely true in case you're wondering, because the only thing I can promise now is not to make elaborate excuses for why we can't do the recipe in December. The goji berries aren't expected until mid-January, but I have no idea what's holding them up. Instead, we've concocted a hot drink with chocolate and turmeric (I know—it sounds crazy!) that will help keep you warm and well this winter. Our graphic artist, Tracey, is the source of the recipe, and she learned about turmeric from a friend who grew up in India. She's been making it ever since, and she assures us that the spicy sweetness surprisingly works! We all thought it was appropriate since I've been on a turmeric kick ever since I heard Dr. Mehmet Oz enthusiastically praise it for helping to curtail age-related memory decline. Speaking of India, he specifically mentioned that the prevalence of Alzheimer's Disease in India is less than a third of what it is in the United States, and research is pointing to the liberal use of turmeric in that country as the reason for the encouraging phenomenon. So drink up! With alcoholic beverages, you only think you're smarter. With this drink, however, you indeed might be. I kid you not!   

Better than Beautiful

You've heard it said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Today I discovered that this philosophy applies as much to cookies as it does to people. Sunday we'll be sending out our monthly email recipe, and the featured food for November is a cookie that we think will be a holiday hit for one powerful reason: it seriously gives you energy! Seriously. Who doesn't need more steam from now through January 1? Stacy, our internet marketing supervisor, found a recipe online; then revised it with a dash of this and a pinch of that, plus a few ingredients from our Swanson whole foods category. He baked a batch of cookies and brought them into work last week. I think I was his first taste tester, and honestly, the initial bite was even better than expected. The cookie tasted spicy-sweet, like cinnamon with a hint of coconut and vanilla. A tropical snickerdoodle, perhaps. I took another bite, while he and I chatted about his trip to New Orleans and Sabrina the Cheetah Girl getting voted off Dancing With the Stars. (How weird was that?!) Suddenly, I sensed a surge of energy within me that had nothing to do with scintillating conversation or morning coffee. This cookie was doing something to me. If I hadn't known better, I would have guessed Stacy got the recipe out of the Alice B. Toklas Cookbook. How did I not know immediately that it was the coconut oil? Every time I eat it, I'm amazed at how coconut oil affects me. I always feel more alive. Salmon does a similar thing to me. With only two bites out of the cookie, I handed it back to Stacy and said that I really didn't need any more. He laughed and remarked, "That bad, huh?" Quite the opposite—it was that good! But I had a strange feeling of contented satiety, not that greedy, "give me the whole bag" sensation that I usually get with sweets. (I did finish the cookie, and even had several more before the day was over.)

Even at its best, however, this cookie is not spectacular in appearance. It looks like a snickerdoodle, too—a thick one, with a few crinkles on top. Nice looking, but not as ornate and decorative as other holiday treats like gingerbread men or frosted sugar cookies. Stacy and I agreed that this cookie was definitely worthy of our recipe email, though. I decided to make a batch this morning, and Tracey, our graphic artist, would photograph the cookies for the email. Much to my shock and disappointment, however, they came out of the oven looking absolutely hideous. They were almost completely flat, as if they contained no leavening whatsoever. While the edges were crisp, the middle was soft and doughy. I felt as if these cookies rivaled Ellie May Clampett's doughnuts or Aunt Bee's pickles for the worst homemade food item of all time. As bad as they looked, they tasted surprisingly good. Just like Stacy's. What happened? Afterall, I used all the ingredients exactly as specified on the recipe. Amid all sorts of laughter, co-workers sampled them today. Matt, our analyst/merchandiser thought they were crackers, while Rachel, our web manager, said they looked like communion wafers. Yep, that about sums it up. To rub salt into my wounded pride, Stacy made a batch this past weekend, too, and they turned out perfect—again. Uh-huh. He's a real life Clara Edwards. Remember how she drove Aunt Bee mad with her blue-ribbon pickles on The Andy Griffith Show? (Stacy's cookies are photographed above.) I'm thinking that my oven is whacked out, and the actual temperature is hotter than what the gauge indicates. As we joked about how awful my cookies looked, we also got to wondering, what difference does it make? They still taste good. And they still gave me that same zingy feeling. How could I expect more than that? That's better than beautiful.

Since they provide so much energy and they contain 150 calories per serving of two cookies, we named them 150 Watt Cookies. Sign up for email if you haven't already done so, and look for this very beautiful recipe in your inbox Sunday. Oh, and get yourself an oven thermometer. If you can have it all, why not?