This Mama Cooks! Reviews

Buying wine online with Sokolin

Not everyone is lucky enough to live near a decent liquor store with a large variety of wines. Most of us our stuck with little neighborhood stores that carry a limited selection of the big commercial wine brands. Or worse, intimidated by snooty and pricey wine shops in our areas.

One way around this is to shop online for wine, especially for those rarer varieties you may read about in wine or food magazines. If you live near Yaphank, New York, one online wine shop you should visit is Sokolin.com.

Sokolin’s customer service

Sokolin has been around since 1934. Their mission is to bring you the world’s most sought-after wines from impossible-to-find back vintage treasures to exciting new releases at the lowest prices on the market.

Sokolin is also a big believer in customer service. They have wine concierge services through every phase of wine collecting or can simply help you find the right bottle for a special occasion, including over the phone or online chat consultations with a wine specialist. For wine collectors, they offer storage services or help you sell your wine collection. They also sell Bordeaux futures if you are interested in investing in wine.

You can order all your wine online and then pick it up at the Sokolin Yaphank facility or have your order shipped to their liquid asset storage facility in Bridgehampton, New York.

Not in New York? Their website also features educational information like Staff Tasting Notes where you can read the latest from Sokolin’s wine experts as they swirl, sniff and sip at industry events, private tastings and dining with family and friends.

Get a $2 off coupon for Attune Probiotic Chocolate Bars!

Attune Chocolate Probiotic Bars was my sponsor at the EVO Conference last week. (They were also my sponsor at Fitbloggin.) I got great response from everyone who tried the bars. Then again, who doesn’t like delicious, gluten free chocolate that’s good for you?

It’s guilt free chocolate at it’s best – and only 90-100 calories per bar!

Get a $2 off Attune bars coupon

I still have some $2 off coupons on a seven-count box of Attune Probiotic Chocolate or Granola Bars. If you want a coupon, just leave a comment below and make sure you include your email in the appropriate box or in your comments. I will then email you to get your full name and mailing address so I can mail out your coupon.

This offer is good until the coupons are all gone and only for US residents. (I’m not sure that the coupons are good in other countries anyway.)

To learn more about the benefits of Attune Chocolate Probiotic bars, check out:

• the Attune website
• the Attune Food Twitter page
• the Attune Facebook page

________________

Disclosure: I received a paid sponsorship from Attune to attend Fitbloggin and EVO on their behalf.

New Harvest Omega-3 EPA supplements: all the goodness without the fish oil

Earlier this month I attended the New Harvest™ blogger event in Philadelphia, where I learned an incredible amount about the benefits of Omega-3 and why we need a more sustainable way to produce Omega-3 supplements.

How is Omega-3 fish oil sourced?

Have you ever wondered how many fish go into making Omega-3 fish oil?

25-50 kilograms of of wild-caught fish =
1 kilogram of fish oil

 

And only 15-25% of that fish oil has Omega-3s in it. Considering how much our oceans are overfished, this is not very sustainable!

So what about vegetarian alternatives? Well, flaxseed, broccoli and nuts are all incomplete sources of Omega-3s. They only contain ALA, which converts very poorly into EPA, the “good stuff” in Omega-3s for heart health. (Fatty fish contain EPA, ALA and DHA. DHA is good for the brain and nervous system and EPA is good for heart health and possibly promotes positive mood. Most fish oils contain only EPA and DHA.)

Even if you don’t care about overfishing, many people experience unpleasant “fishy burps” when taking a fish oil supplement. There are also concerns about ocean-sourced contaminants in fish oil like mercury, lead and BPAs. Plus, some fish oil is high in cholesterol. In fact, New Harvest’s trail of their Omega-3 product showed that DHA in fish oil may increase cholesterol by 14%. (This was a finding in their six-week, randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled study of 110 healthy men and women, ages 21-70 years old.)

Of course, eating the right foods like salmon, mackerel, herring, lake trout, sardines, albacore tuna and anchovies can help get Omega-3 into your diet. However, only 1 of out 10 Americans eat fatty fish two or more a week as recommended by the American Heart Association (AHA). The AHA believes that, “Omega-3 fatty acids benefit the heart of healthy people, and those at high risk of, or who have, cardiovascular disease.”

So how much fatty fish would you need to eat a week? About 7 ounces or 1000 mg of Omega-3 worth. That’s a lot of sardines!

New Harvest: a new and better alternative to fish oil supplements

So what’s a person to do if they’re vegetarian, want to stop overfishing, hate to eat fish, or just want a better alternative to fish oil? Well, you can run down to your nearest GNC store and grab a bottle of New Harvest. (Before going, print out this $2 off New Harvest coupon.)

The benefits of New Harvest

• A vegetarian source – made from yeast, a renewable source, not fish
• A favorable oil profile – contains no cholesterol, no PCBs and no mercury, cadmium or lead
• Highly concentrated – 600mg EPA in every 1200mg soft gel
• Natural form – natural triglyceride form, like the natural form found in food
• No unpleasant aftertaste or odor

The ecofriendly lunch: LunchSkins reusable fabric sandwich bag review

I’m crunchy enough to feel guilty every time I throw away a plastic bag. Yet, I’m not frugal enough to wash them out especially when I consider all the water and soap used to get them clean. So, i’ve been looking for an alternative, especially after I read Replace plastic bags with reusable sandwich containers at Mom Central Goes Green.

Recently, the Family Review Network had a review opportunity for LunchSkins, reusable fabric sandwich and snack bags in designs that will appeal to both adults and kids. The bags are available in three sizes – snack, sandwich and sub sizes. 

LunchSkins are made with a thick cotton fabric that is used in European commercial bakeries and restaurants. They are completely dishwasher and washing machine safe. The bags are lead-free, bpa-free and phthalate-free. Prices are $7.85 for a snack bag, $8.95 for a lunch bag, and $10.95 for a sub bag.

LunchSkins sandwich bags

I was sent a sandwich sized bag in the bud logo design in pink for my daughter, Lucie, to have to replace the hard plastic sandwich container that we’d been using for most of the school year. (I dropped it enough times that it broke.)

When I received the bag in the mail, Lucie immediately put her name on the front with a permanent marker. (Idea for LunchSkins – create plain white lunch bags that kids can decorate and customize themselves with permanent marker.) She’s seven and was very good about making sure her sandwich bag wasn’t thrown out after lunch. Most days I’d hand wash the bags in warm, soapy water and dry it on a baby bottle rack. Once a week, I’d put it in the dishwasher for a more thorough washing.

After several weeks of use, the bag is still in great shape. The Velcro closure is holding up well, the fabric isn’t cracking, and the double-sewn seams are holding up well, too.

LunchSkins are better for the environment, practical, budget-friendly, fashionable and safe. I will be buying another bag for Lucie to keep snacks inm two bags for Nathan to use in his lunches, and maybe a few more to have on hand just in case for picnics and car trips.

LunchSkins can be purchased online at Lunchskins.com or at a number of retailers nationwide – check here for locations. You can also purchase them at ReusableBags.com with a flat rate of $4.95. However, they only carry the sandwich bags in limited colors.

_______________

Disclosure: Family Review Network sent me one sandwich bag to review. The opinions are my own.

Weight Watchers frozen treats make me scream for ice cream!

Weight Watchers recently launched four new frozen treat products - two new varieties of frozen novelties and two new flavors of yogurt.

• The Dark Chocolate Raspberry Bar is a delicious combination and dark chocolate and the sweet taste of raspberries with 2 POINTS value per bar.
• The Strawberry Smoothie Bar has real strawberries blended with yogurt in this 1 POINT bar.
• The Apple Pie a la Mode Yogurt tastes like warm apple pie topped with ice cream (another 1 POINT treat).
• And the Blueberry Pie Yogurt lets you indulge in blueberry pie taste with only 1 POINT per serving.

But you know what, I don’t want to try any of these. Not because they’re awful or “fake food,” but because I’m addicted to…

Weight Watchers GIANT Latte Bars

These coffee flavored frozen treats have only 90 calories, 1 gram of fat, 4 grams of fiber, and 1 Weight Watchers POINT. Thank goodness because I have been known to eat two – or three – or even four (!) of these in one sitting.

They’re decadent. They’re creamy. And did I mention that coffee ice cream is one of my favorite desserts from the time I was a little girl and used to get a dish of it every time we ate at Howard Johnson’s? (Did I just date myself? You bet!)

I’ll admit that ingredients-wise, the bars are pretty fake:

Milk Fat and Nonfat Milk, Sugar, Polydextrose, Flavor Base (Water, Sugar, Coffee, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Caramel Color, Potassium Sorbate As Preservative, Sulfites), Cellulose Gel, Mono & Diglycerides, Cellulose Gum, Carrageenan, Maltodextrin, Polysorbate 80, Vitamin A Palmitate.

But honestly, I don’t care. There are times when I throw caution to the wind and indulge in something yummy. At least with Weight Watchers GIANT Latte Bars, I’m not doing too much damage to my waistline.

In fact my craving for Weight Watchers GIANT Latte Bars is so bad that I only buy them when they’re on sale. Since I can plow through a box of six bars in a couple of days, it can get expensive.

Then again they keep me away from the Häagen-Dazs.

_______________________

Disclosure: I was sent some product coupons to try the new Weight Watchers frozen treats. Instead, I used them for the latte bars. Like I said, I’m addicted.