What was the spark? Welllll, it was a spark for Green Giant Frozen Vegetables! I will never, ever in my life turn down free vegetables. Seriously, I'm a vegetable addict. I love them. I can only think of two vegetables I really can't get a liking for and those I keep thinking I just need to cook differently (eggplant and Brussels sprouts to those who are curious). So, to say I was excited at the prospect of getting free vegetables I was mega excited!
The kit that came in the mail was even better than I thought it would be. I received five coupons for free vegetables, a Health and Fitness Journal, a gym bag and a water infuser bottle (you put the fruit or whatever in the middle holder thingie, screw it into the lid and then place it down in your water. And voila! Flavored water). My favorite water so far to make is cucumber water, the health and fitness journal comes complete with food journal pages, which is great for my weight loss goals and the gym bag has become a craft bag (for the time being until my kids give me time to do this thing called work out). So, yeah, this was one of those Sparks that was awesome because I have used literally everything that came in the kit and use them often.
I've been on a mission the last four months or so to lose 30 pounds. Yeah, I know that's a lot of weight to lose, but my goal is to get back to my early college "fighting weight"...the weight I was at when I felt really GOOD about my weight and felt really healthy. I've been taking it slow and implementing changes to my diet slowly but surely. The big ones I implemented right away was eating more vegetables, cutting fried foods (like french fries) out of my diet and cutting out as much sugar as I could. As it stands today I've lost 14 pounds toward my 30 pound goal. I'm feeling a lot better than I was when I started, have gone down a pants size (back solidly into a size four :) and am feeling like I'm on track to where I want to be in the end. And the best part about taking it slow, at least to me, is that once the weight comes off? I'm planning on it STAYING off.
Vegetables are a big love of mine so when I got the coupons to try out the new Green Giant blends, I jumped at the chance. The one I was the most excited about was the Healthy Weight blend as it contained edamame. I LOVE that stuff and often eat an entire thing of the frozen edamame that you can steam in the microwave for a snack *ahem*. So, anyway I got excited and bought two of the Healthy Weight blend.
We have now tried all the blends that we got and my opinion on them? Well, honestly, I can see where the new Green Giant vegetable blends would be tempting to pick up and a lot of them are tasty (I've tried the other blends since I received the coupons from Green Giant as my husband has been out of town a lot and the boxes are a perfect size for a meal for one...at least in my portion size). However, I wanted to warn people that while the blends have some cool veggie combos in them, the portions are tiny and don't really equate to MY version of a "heaping bowl of vegetables" (as they say on their site). Like one box was enough for a small side dish helping of veggies for my husband and I and filled up about 1/2 of a standard cereal bowl. At 2.50 a box up here in Alaska...that could get spendy for a medium to large family.
Now, don't get me wrong as I'm not trying to dissuade you from buying these blends as some of them are actually pretty darn good, they steam in your microwave in minutes and are nice and convenient to have on hand for a quick side dish with dinner. The Healthy Weight blend was pretty good for veggies that were ready to eat in a couple of minutes in the microwave and I liked how the veggies all came together in the blend and worked well with the sauce. Out of all of them my favorite of the ones I bought had to be the Garden Vegetable Medley (I don't think this is one of the new specialty blends, but I just got a good combo of things when I was at the store I figured we'd eat). The potatoes in that blend were awesome tasting. My least favorite was the Healthy Vision blend. I was so wanting carrots that night and was thrilled by the amount of carrots in the blend, but my taste buds just didn't jive on the combo of carrots with rosemary. I just plain didn't like it, although the zucchini and the green beans in the blend tasted good.
Green Giant would like to help you with your weight loss goals as well if one of the roads you take to losing weight includes eating more vegetables in your diet. You can check out more about their products and get some cool resources for losing weight on the Green Giant Make a Difference Website.
Will I be buying more of the Green Giant Vegetable blends in the future as I continue to work hard at losing weight and eating more vegetables in my diet? Well I already picked up another box of the Healthy Weight Blend vegetables to eat for lunch the other day, have tried the other blends available and have two boxes of the Garden Vegetable Medley in my freezer right now (husband's request), so I would say that "yes" would be a good answer there.
Disclosure: The information and prize pack have been provided by General Mills and Green Giant® through MyBlogSpark. The opinions of said products, however, are 100% mine.
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