La Chiva Snacks

Do you find yourself feeling guilty for all of the mindless snacking that you do? I know that here at The Amazing Blog we graze at our desks far too often. Hence, we’re on a neverending mission to find healthier alternatives to our usual choices. Enter La Chiva.

La Chiva was created by Ruth Willis who was born in Colombia and always missed her native fresh fruit and vegetables. Inspired by the flavours of her Colombia, she decided to create a healthy snack with light and crispy pieces of freeze-dried Colombian fruit. That’s it. No other ingredients are used to make La Chiva, where we breathed a sigh of relief, after reading this on the packaging. There’s no need to feel guilty about eating these either as each pack is gluten-free, virtually fat-free, vegan, no added sugars and best of all less than 40 calories! By freeze-drying the fruit at its ripest, La Chiva is able to deliver all the deliciousness of Colombian fruit with nothing added or taken away.

The brand’s name comes from the La Chiva buses, which is the only way to travel in the Colombian countryside. Since the brand is dependent on these buses to take their workers to the farms and their fresh fruit to market, they decided to name the brand after them. We tried all three varieties of La Chiva snacks – Strawberry, Pineapple and Mango. Our favourite was the Pineapple flavour, which was a winner of the Great Taste Awards in 2017. While you can eat these alone, the other possibilities are endless, we added them to cereal and also sprinkled them on top of Greek yogurt. Each pack can count as one of the five daily servings of fruit. Plus, their vibrant packaging brings a little ray of sunshine into our UK grey and rainy days.

Want to taste the goodness of Colombian grown fruit for yourself? The La Chiva Freeze Dried snacks can be purchased here. A box of 12 bags retails for £9.00 (7g bags for the strawberry and 10g bags for pineapple and mango) while an individual bag retails for £0.89.

Popcorn Shed

At The Amazing Blog we always have a small selection of snacks at our desks to feast on. We try to be good by consuming only low fat and healthy snacks. Today we want to tell you about our new discovery Popcorn Shed that left our taste buds tingling!

Popcorn Shed was founded by cousins Laura Jane and Sam Feller in 2016, and like every great brand it has a story, Jane’s and Sam’s story starts in a shed! Their popcorn is a home-grown, family-owned business where they’ve created a unique set of flavours, that not usually found in rival popcorn brands. These are gourmet popcorn range that are natural, gluten-free and suitable for vegetarians. Their popcorn is made using an artisan cooking process using a fresh caramel batch in every process, before being scattered in either melted chocolate, nuts or dried fruit all adding a new texture to the popcorn. What piqued our interest is that each of their packets of popcorn have an average of fewer than 140 calories per pack. Don’t worry the popcorn is easily chewable and you won’t have to worry about kernel or sticky caramel getting stuck in your teeth! We’re also fans of the vibrant packaging which make them unmissable.

The first of the seven flavours we tried was the Pop ‘n’ Choc. These are evenly coated with Belgian milk chocolate in a smooth cocoa-caramel base. They are not too sweet and the chocolate is in the right quantity to be enjoyed without being overpowering. Next is Salted Caramel which was our favourite. Coated with sea-salt caramel and Belgium milk chocolate, it has a fabulous crunch and a slight hint of salt, making it very moreish. We then move on to Butterly Nuts, all peanut butter with a blend of salt, caramel and nuts, this hit the spot! The peanut butter is creamy and the nuts offer an irresistible crunch. The Pecan Pie popcorns are partly coated in caramel and real golden pecan nut pieces. They have a smooth nutty, buttery and sugary taste and a sensational crunch that leaves you wanting more.

Probably the most unusual flavour of the collection is the caramel and cheese in Sweet Cheesus. These popcorns are partly coated in caramel and cheddar cheese offering the bursts of sweet and salty together,  this is one for the fans of less sugary snacks.  Then we have the Berry-licious where fruit tart meets dark chocolate – freeze-dried raspberries in the rich chocolate make it almost a dessert in itself. Lastly, Say Cheese! The Cheddar Cheese popcorn flavour is coated with cheese that leaves a tangy tingle on the tongue, melting perfectly to release a creamy milk and cheesy flavour which all cheese fans will adore.

A Popcorn Shed box of 80g is £3.50 and a 16 pack of 24g is £19.98 here. Why not grab a new popcorn flavour and awaken your taste buds.

Løwlander Winter IPA Beer

At the risk of igniting your fire, The AmazingBlog  is going to mention the ‘C’ word - no, not that one, but with a certain type of pie and pudding now gracing the supermarket aisles, we feel we can mention ‘Christmas’ without too many crossed expletives being hurled into the atmosphere. Too soon? Ok, what if we mention the aftermath of that certain season which will be with us before we know it? Still too much? Ok, let’s expand this to a more general point of what happens to our Christmas Trees once they have decorated our homes so splendidly? Recycling is of course the go-to choice, but what if we were to tell you that you can now actually be drinking your redundant branches in a new beer brought to you by Løwlander, in their delicious new Winter IPA ? Løwlander are quite literally bottling unwanted trees and turning them into an amazing white nectar, affording us the opportunity to enjoy the magic of a certain season all year round!

Løwlander we’ve featured before see here and we’re always impressed with their stylish branding and delicious offerings.  The spruce beer is actually not a new concept, but perhaps in our more enlightened times, the sustainability of such a beverage is ever more poignant. The process appears to be quite a simple one - taking the neglected needles off their branches, brewing them up with those stalwarts of the drinks menu, juniper berries and literally turning waste into something extraordinary - a light beer who’s citrus and hoppy aroma naturally recalls evergreen forests, and much more besides. Aligning the perfect botanical normally saved for the gin label, with the pine needles delivers all kinds of interesting characteristics, and at 5% alcohol, we have a libation to suit all palates.

Being around £2.70 for a 330ml bottle, the cost is also something to celebrate, and at the moment only available from online suppliers, of which there are many – give Beer Wulf  or 31 Dover a try, or indeed Løwlander themselves. If you enjoy an evening at The Botanist or Harvey Nichols in London, why not search out a festive tankard, as it sits proudly on their drinks menu. Scrooge would be proud, and he may have enjoyed the prospect of ‘Christmas Past’ a little more had a bottle of Løwlander’s finest been included!

Bee Approved - Vegan Honey

Veganista is a new company that we at The Amazing Blog  have discovered on our continual quest to search out healthy and nutritious options. And they have an absolute belter to tempt us with … especially if we have opted for the vegan route to our nutrition, in the form of  Bee Approved  their alternative to honey.

Being an animal product, honey of course is not suitable for the vegan diet, and therefore Veganista have come up with Bee Approved Honey as the go-to alternative for those people who wish to avoid animal products where possible. Now our first question - probably like yours - is: how? Step forward the often overlooked brown rice to take a bow, for it is this humble larder staple which when cooked and with its starch broken down, gives us brown rice syrup with easily digestible sugars. Not only is this particular nectar mushy, sticky and thoroughly delicious, but when you consider the vast range of uses that honey gives us, then the field opens up completely for Bee Approved Vegan Honey’s versatility, since it can be used in as many and varied ways itself. It can be used raw, cooked, as a garnish or indeed as the main ingredient in a plethora of dishes from desserts to cocktails, and much in between.

With the Certified Vegan Trademark  behind it, each pot of goodness is authenticated by an acutely experienced team of professionals ensuring the high standards as set down in 1944 by The Vegan Society are continually met adhering to the strict code of total exclusion of any animal products, either in manufacture or final product. All BeeApproved foods are also Certified Organic and Gluten Free.

The primary supplier of Bee Approved Honey is Veganista’s own online shop here, for 150g, we won’t be breaking the bank at the competitive price of £3.49. Larger jars are also available in 250g and 500g sizes as well as the incredibly travel friendly 10g tube for just 50p! So, these jars of golden goodness tick all the boxes - not least of all giving all those hardworking bees a thoroughly well-earned day off the perpetual round of honey production!

Shelton's Coffee - Coffee Hearts

For us a day without coffee is a day wasted! At The Amazing Blog ever time poor, we were thrilled to receive the rather special Shelton’s instant Coffee and their Coffee Hearts have since become a bit of a life saver here at the office. We don’t know about you, but sometimes during the week we’re just too busy, to even dive into the local café to pick up a quick caffeine shot.

Shelton’s Coffee is a family owned business based in UK, where they have focused their expertise in Colombian coffee for the past 40 years. Founded by Ximena Shelton (hence the name of the brand) whose Colombian background has helped in the brand’s mission to source 100% single origin Arabica Colombian coffee. This coffee is very high-quality, all sustainably grown, ethically farmed and artisan roasted. Direct from the crop to the cup, they use two different types of roasting one is the dark roast a perfect match for an espresso because of its creamy body; and the other is medium roast which is smoother and silkier. Like us, Ximena has a hectic lifestyle too. this is why she developed Shelton’s Coffee Hearts. With Coffee Hearts, they’re so easy that all you have to do is pop one heart into a cup with hot water and let it dissolve; they are convenient, practical, and easy, revolutionising the art of instant coffee.

While the Mocha Coffee Hearts are the most popular variety out of the 6 available, we kept flitting between the Classic Colombian giving us a taste of smooth, medium roasted coffee with fruity notes, and the Cappuccino Hearts which provided us with the intensity of an espresso combined with the taste of a creamy milk foam. Far too difficult for us to choose a favourite!  All hearts come in boxes containing 10 servings individually wrapped to retain freshness and each of them is only 5 calories. We loved Shelton’s Coffee because unlike most instant coffees, they took away the bitter after-taste, maintaining the true fresh coffee flavour. They are allergen free, and don’t contain any added sugars potentiating the natural ingredients.

Shelton’s Coffee Hearts was highlighted by Mintel UK for ‘The best convenience innovation in the coffee market’ and was selected to co-exhibit with the Department of International Trade at IFE2019 as well as being shortlisted for the 2019 CHS Awards. If you are unsure about what flavour to try, why not purchase the Assorted Coffee Hearts which contain one of each of the coffee varieties, then you can decide which one you like the best. Purchase your Shelton’s Coffee Hearts box here at only £5.00, not only are they delicious but uber time-saving too, we like that!