Smart Balance Eliminates Great Product

After my husband's heart attack two years ago, he decided that he wanted to work really hard at changing his diet. We make a lot of our food from scratch anyway, so we looked for ways to adapt recipes to make them more healthy.

One of the products that really helped with this goal was Smart Balance Vegetable Shortening, which we used for baking. It was more expensive than Crisco, at $3.29 for a 3 pound can, but we felt that it was worth it. With 110 calories per T, 12g total fat, 0mg cholesterol, 0mg sodium, and 350mg Omega-3, it helped make any baked item much more compatible with his daily diet goals.

So when the cans I had in the pantry were gone, I went looking for more in September of this year. There was none to be found. I sent an email to the company, and they did have the courtesy to answer me. But the news was not good. They have discontinued making the shortening. Instead they suggested that we try Earth Balance Shortening (sold in 15 oz blocks of 4 1/2c sticks), which they also make but only sell at natural foods stores. I have no ability to buy this product locally, and I wasn't able to find its price.

Nutrition values for the Earth Balance Shortening (not pictured) are for 1 tablespoon, calories 130, total fat 14g, cholesterol 0mg, sodium 0mg. It is not fortified with Omega-3. This product is suitable for vegan diets (although we are not vegans or even vegetarian).

However, we have tried some recipes with the Smart Balance 50/50 Butter Blend, and it has worked well. Nutritionally it's a mixed bag comparison. The calories in one tablespoon are 100, total fat 11g, cholesterol 15mg, sodium 100mg, and 352mg Omega-3. For people watching sodium and cholesterol these values are pretty bad.

This is one of my pet peeves at the worst! Just when I find a product that works REALLY well for me, it is dropped.

SeeEarth Balance Foods
SeeSmart Balance Foods

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Nature's Crunch Harvest Blend

This is not a paid promotion. I have a very unofficial list of my best product discoveries each year. Of course with foods, this can be very subjective, but I'll tell you why I like this so much, and you can decide if you want to try it.

This great cereal was discovered when I was forced to shop for groceries at an unfamiliar store on my recent hike. The store was a Save-A-Lot, and I was actually looking for granola. They didn't have any, and so I "settled" for this box of Nature's Crunch Harvest Blend cereal. This 16 oz. box cost $2.29. It is a store brand of the Save-A-Lot Foods Company.

It has "honey-frosted corn and wheat flakes with rolled oats and granola clusters." It is a little bit sweeter than I usually like for cereals, but I planned to eat it with yogurt, so it turned out to have a good level of sweetness. I especially liked the way the taste blended with vanilla yogurt. On plain yogurt I did add some almonds and dried cranberries.

Three-fourths cup of this cereal, dry, has 120 calories, 10 of which come from fat. There is no trans fat, and total fat is 1.5 grams. The worst nutritional value is the sodium at 170mg.



This is certainly not as organic as granola would have been. But I was very surprised at how good the product is. I've had flaked store brand cereals that really are flat and tasteless. This one is good enough that I'll probably go out of my way to buy more.

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