{"id":1785,"date":"2009-03-02T09:41:31","date_gmt":"2009-03-02T14:41:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/?p=1785"},"modified":"2009-03-02T11:32:28","modified_gmt":"2009-03-02T16:32:28","slug":"where-healthy-eating-and-free-stuff-intersect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2009\/03\/02\/where-healthy-eating-and-free-stuff-intersect\/","title":{"rendered":"Where healthy eating and free stuff intersect!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In general, I like the President&#8217;s Choice line of products and I&#8217;ve blogged about them before.  That&#8217;s why I didn&#8217;t hesitate to say, &#8220;Yes please!&#8221; when a nice PR fellow contacted me recently and offered to send me an assortment of new Blue Menu products from the latest <a href=\"http:\/\/www.presidentschoice.ca\/foodandrecipes\/heir\/heir09.aspx\">Healthy Eating Insider&#8217;s Report<\/a> for review.  (I had to laugh that night at dinner when I realized what a Blue Menu product junkie I am &#8212; every single product from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.presidentschoice.ca\/FoodAndRecipes\/GreatFood\/ProductDetails.aspx\/id\/19868\/name\/PCBlueMenuSpaghettiwithOmega3\/catid\/240\/type\/2\">spaghetti <\/a>to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.presidentschoice.ca\/FoodAndRecipes\/GreatFood\/ProductDetails.aspx\/id\/18500\/name\/PCBlueMenuPrimaveraTomatoandVegetablePastaSauce\/catid\/272\/type\/2\">sauce <\/a>to the bread to the <a href=\"http:\/\/http:\/\/www.presidentschoice.ca\/FoodAndRecipes\/GreatFood\/ProductDetails.aspx\/id\/6319\/name\/PC100ParmesanGratedCheeseLight\/catid\/184\/type\/2\">shredded cheese <\/a>to the dressing on the salad and the croutons were either President&#8217;s Choice or Blue Menu!)  <\/p>\n<p>The package arrived last Friday, and we&#8217;ve been working our way through the products.  Here&#8217;s a list of what they sent me, and in parentheses afterward what we thought of it:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.presidentschoice.ca\/FoodAndRecipes\/GreatFood\/ProductDetails.aspx\/id\/19871\/name\/PCBlueMenuOnTrackCerealPlusProtein\/catid\/224\/type\/2\/language\/english\">On Track Plus Protein Cereal <\/a>(only Lucas has tried it, and seemed to enjoy it!  I like the idea of a protein-laden cereal and hope the big-boys like it too.)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.presidentschoice.ca\/FoodAndRecipes\/GreatFood\/ProductDetails.aspx\/id\/19887\/name\/PCBlueMenu100CaloriesGingerLemoncookies\/catid\/227\/type\/2\/language\/english\">100 Calories\/Pack Cookies <\/a>(A nice light tasty sweet treat.)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.presidentschoice.ca\/FoodAndRecipes\/GreatFood\/ProductDetails.aspx\/id\/17050\/name\/PCBlueMenuDressingFatFreeHoneyDijon\/catid\/178\/type\/2\">Honey Dijon Salad Dressing <\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.presidentschoice.ca\/FoodAndRecipes\/GreatFood\/ProductDetails.aspx\/id\/19902\/name\/PCFruitfrapp%C3%A9PomegranateBlueberry\/catid\/180\/type\/2\/language\/english\">Fruit Frappe <\/a><\/li>\n<li>Fair Trade African Med. Roast Coffee *<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.presidentschoice.ca\/FoodAndRecipes\/GreatFood\/ProductDetails.aspx\/id\/19610\/name\/PCFairTradeTeaOrangePekoe\/catid\/177\/type\/2\">Fair Trade Orange Pekoe Tea <\/a>*<\/li>\n<li>Sodium Free Seltzer Lime <\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.presidentschoice.ca\/FoodAndRecipes\/GreatFood\/ProductDetails.aspx\/id\/19874\/name\/PCBlueMenuSoupr%c3%aameBlackBean\/catid\/223\/type\/2\">Soupreme Black Bean Soup <\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.presidentschoice.ca\/FoodAndRecipes\/GreatFood\/ProductDetails.aspx\/id\/19880\/name\/PCBlueMenuSoybeans\/catid\/276\/type\/2\">Soybeans <\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.presidentschoice.ca\/FoodAndRecipes\/GreatFood\/ProductDetails.aspx\/id\/19848\/name\/PCOrganics100RealFruitSnackBananaMango\/catid\/416\/type\/2\">PC\u00c2\u00ae Organics Toddlers 100% Real Fruit Snack <\/a>(Lucas gobbled them up, although I&#8217;m not sure I&#8217;d pay $3 or so for them.)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.presidentschoice.ca\/FoodAndRecipes\/GreatFood\/ProductDetails.aspx\/id\/19892\/name\/PCBlueMenuBarleywithMushroomsSideDish\/catid\/240\/type\/2\">Barley with Mushrooms Side Dishes <\/a>(Nice idea, but a tad salty.)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.presidentschoice.ca\/FoodAndRecipes\/GreatFood\/ProductDetails.aspx\/id\/19972\/name\/PCBlueMenuOmegaOil\/catid\/226\/type\/2\">Omega Oil <\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.presidentschoice.ca\/FoodAndRecipes\/GreatFood\/ProductDetails.aspx\/id\/17968\/name\/PCOrganicsEuropeanDarkChocolate\/catid\/193\/type\/2\">PC\u00c2\u00ae Organics European Extra Dark Chocolate <\/a>(I&#8217;m not a huge dark chocolate fan, but I like a little nibble of this with a cup of coffee.  Lovely antioxident-laden treat!)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>(Items without a link I couldn&#8217;t find on their website.  Note to PC:  I liked your products a lot more before I started looking for them on your site.  Improve your search engine!)<\/p>\n<p>I was perplexed but pleased when not one but two crates showed up, and was about to blame it on a serendipitous shipping mistake when I remembered that when the nice PR fellow offered me the sampling of products, I had asked if I could have a second set for a bloggy giveaway.  Yay, free groceries to share!  <\/p>\n<p>Except, the package is one of those recyclable grocery bags just full of heavy, bulky stuff and I&#8217;m way too cheap to pay to ship it out to you.  I pondered this one all weekend, and here&#8217;s the best solution I could think of:  if you want to enter this contest, leave a comment and tell me &#8212; hmmm, let&#8217;s see, something that makes you happy.  Anything that makes you smile will do it.  I&#8217;ll make a random draw at 5 pm on Tuesday, March 2.  <em>(<strong>Edit<\/strong>:  Tuesday is March 3.  Oops!) <\/em> If you win and you live in the Ottawa neighbourhood, I&#8217;ll drop off the groceries to you.  If you are not within delivery range, I&#8217;ll send you a $15 President&#8217;s Choice gift certificate.  Is that a reasonable compromise?<\/p>\n<p><em>* We haven&#8217;t tried the Fair Trade coffee or tea yet, but I have to say &#8220;Bravo&#8221; to President&#8217;s Choice for this whole line of products.  As you know, I&#8217;m working on ethical eating, and happily pay an extra 10 cents a pound for their Fair Trade bananas.  Works out to less than a buck difference a week (yes, we eat a LOT of bananas) and I&#8217;m happy to pay the price.  Next up, can we please have products that are Fair Trade AND organic?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In general, I like the President&#8217;s Choice line of products and I&#8217;ve blogged about them before. That&#8217;s why I didn&#8217;t hesitate to say, &#8220;Yes please!&#8221; when a nice PR fellow contacted me recently and offered to send me an assortment of new Blue Menu products from the latest Healthy Eating Insider&#8217;s Report for review. (I &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2009\/03\/02\/where-healthy-eating-and-free-stuff-intersect\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Where healthy eating and free stuff intersect!&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-product-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1785"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1792,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1785\/revisions\/1792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}