Monday, March 25, 2013

Photography Sessions in SWVA

Photos courtesy of http://jessicaslilmoments.blogspot.com/
It's getting to be the time for graduations, weddings, and family portraits! If you're in the Bristol, VA or Southwestern Virginia area, I encourage you to check this out! Jessica is currently offering custom on-location photo sessions near her location in Southwest VA. What's even better? Some of her sessions are FREE, she does usually include a CD for you to print an unlimited amount of pictures from. Like her photography page at http://facebook.com/jessicaslilmoments to keep up with her photography session offers! She also has a blog here: http://jessicaslilmoments.blogspot.com/ (you just click on the links running across the top to see the specific pages she has).

Monday, March 11, 2013

Kroger Good For You CARBmaster & Greek Yogurts Review

As with most families, our household is trying to eat better on a budget.  It gets pretty difficult to eat healthy without spending a ton of money, but the hardest part is getting the kids on board with new and healthier alternatives.  That's where Kroger brands have always come in for us.  I recently tried the new CARBmaster line, as well as their Greek Yogurt line of products.  Yogurt is such a great alternative to ice cream and other frozen treats.  Yogurt has so many health benefits for kids and adults and can be frozen to make creamy treats on a hot summer day!



Our family drinks a ton of milk, but sometimes the amount of sugars you find in milk are unnecessary in your diet.  Kroger has a new line of dairy products called CARBmaster.  I tried the milk and the key lime yogurt.  I have to admit, I was extremely skeptical about the milk.  Milk is one of those things that I don't like alternatives of and think that most brands end up tasting like cardboard when they get rid of the sugar or fats.  I was really surprised and pleased the first time I tried the milk.  I used it first in cereal (mostly because I was scared to just drink it straight) and honestly couldn't tell the difference in taste from my regular skim milk.  Next, I used it in a recipe to see if the texture and content would hold up to baking.  Again, it did remarkably well and there was no creepy aftertaste.  It was only then that I could finally trust it enough to drink straight up.  I could hardly tell the difference from skim milk.  The only thing I could even place as different is that it had a slightly less sweet taste, but the difference is so minimal that I would have never known about it had I not known what I was drinking.  One word of caution though....it does have a higher cholesterol content than skim milk, so if you're having cholesterol issues, you may need to talk with your doctor before switching.

My daughter tried the CARBmaster key lime yogurt and said it tasted pretty much like the other major brands, but with a slightly less sweet taste.  I don't think she prefers the CARBmaster yogurt, but she said she'd definitely eat it with no problems if that's what we had in the house.

My husband tried the Greek mixed berry yogurt and the Greek Light blueberry yogurt and really liked them both.  They were very thick and creamy and tasted great as a spread on fruit too.  I definitely like that the Kroger brand Greek Light yogurts taste as good as the national brands, but with a much lower cost.