Last night I went to a media event for local bloggers to get a tour of my Superstore by dietician Anne Marie Armstrong to help us make healthier food choices. It was exciting to get to meet Heather from Mmm is for Mommy and so fantastic to be introduced to Lynette from My Wee View.
The Tour
As you know I am product testing items for President’s Choice Blue Menu livelifewell product line. Since March is nutrition month, the timing could not be more perfect. It is still seriously cold here so Reg accompanied me and was kind enough to be my sherpa and carry my stuff around the entire night.
I was thrilled to get to discuss seafood on the tour, one of my favourite food groups. I was relieved to be able to ask a question that has been haunting me for a while. Yes, fish is full of the healthy omegas but what happens when you cook fish? Does it destroy the healthy fat?
Apparently, if you avoid deep frying, the fish does keep most of its omegas which is fantastic news for me! I had a doctor who said to only eat sushi if you want the omegas but it turns out I can have cooked fish and still get a lot of that healing oil. Woot!
So how many grams of fat do you need in a day? For women it is 50 and for men it is 70 and you want them to come from good oil as much as possible. I often get mine from making my own salad dressings and we eat a lot of different kinds of nuts too. Which has worked, we both have a lot of the good oil in our system but I will be making more fish now too.
You need 1.1-1.6 grams of omega 3 oil per day and you get 0.3-0.45 grams in a serving of fish.
The controversial portion of the tour was the discussion about deli meats. Most are crazy high in sodium. I personally wanted to know what deli meat is, exactly? Compressed meat, which is what I figured but still find hard to wrap my head around. The visual of how they must make that disturbs me. Yup, sticking with real chicken breast sandwiches in our household.
Not only that, we found out that baloney begins as a liquid that is congealed into being solid. Yeah, I never liked that stuff! Ugh!
In the bakery section we learned how not to be fooled into buying breads that sound healthy but could be better for us. We should look for “whole grains” which is bread that contains all three layers/parts of the grain. I also found out that unbleached or enriched flour is just white flour!!!
Anne Marie reminded us that all meat fat is considered “bad fat” so you should make smart choices like removing chicken skin which will bring the 20 grams of fat in the meal down to 1. Of course there are good things in red meat that our bodies need so just make sure to choose lean cutes of meat.
She also pointed out to us (literally) to read the percentages on labels. You might think when you look at the fat content of a sausage (here it is 26 grams) is not too bad but that sausage contains 40% of the fat content you should get in a day. In one sausage. Yikes!
The Food
After the enlightening tour we went upstairs to the cooking school to have some treats and talk food! There was a veggie platter with some tzatziki with Greek yogurt mixed in to make it thicker.
The gingered carrot soup was light and beautiful, we all adored that and I will make it and share it here on my blog. So good!
I am totally rethinking salads now. I am going to make this very light warm spinach and apple salad again very soon! Not to worry, I will share the recipe too.
Reg fell in love the PC Blue Menu Korean Chicken Breast Chunks. They were a little sweet for me, kind of like a teriyaki, but they were good. I would buy these, I would just add hot sauce to them. These will make a fast and easy dinner which rocks.
The big hit of the evening was definitely the Power Fruit Breakfast Crumble made with Organics Power Fruit Blend. Those big cherries were phenomenal! At first I thought I would have no reason to buy this because Reg can’t have raw cherries in a smoothie but when we tasted this, I knew I would be baking it again. To make this exact recipe, it was perfect. And I will share that here too!
You can totally tell it was a great evening with foodies and bloggers. The cameras came out immediately!
I am not the best people photographer but I did get this shot of Lynette from myweeview.com live tweeting about the event at the back of the photo.
Here you can see Anne Marie in the back of the cooking school class room.
Sadly, I did not manage to get a photo of Heather from Mmm is for Mommy or Margaret who helped organize the event, darn it!
Of course I did take one of Reg though who has no issues being photographed, LOL.
We could have sat there talking food and drinking my favourite Decaf Dulce de Leche coffee all night. Turns out we had a goodie bag to take home with us that had frozen food in it so off we went back to our cars and home with our treats!
I rarely leave the house during the cold half of the year but this was absolutely worth it. I never get bored learning about food and I have to give President’s Choice kudos for really making an effort to make boxed food that is as healthy for you as boxed food can be. I must admit, I am wary of all things packaged but I know that with my health, making all my food from scratch is impossible.
It was a fun night and great to get out of the house and meet with other foodies. Thank you Loblaw for inviting me to your nation-wide dietitian day event! More reviews to come…
Want a tour of your store?
Anyone who is interested in doing the tour can get more information or sign up their local store’s pharmacy counter:
March 8th (today) 2-3 PM Joe Howe Superstore, Halifax
March 13th 2-3 PM Windsor Superstore (Hants County)
March 14th 10-11 AM Bridgewater Superstore
March 15th 11 AM – 12 noon Antigonish Superstore
March 20th 2-3 PM Bayers Lake Superstore
March 21st 2-3 PM Portland Street Superstore
March 22nd 2-3 PM Lower Sackville Superstore
Awesome shots! I didn’t get many of our food, I was too busy eating 😛 It was fun, and I am really excited about making all of the recipes… last night really got me back on track with focusing on healthy eating.
Wow, what a fun and educational night, must’ve been cool to have a personal tour and meet fellow bloggers.
The bakery where I buy my bread makes a Chia Loaf, they add whole Chia seeds to the bread. It tastes amazing, it’s very similar to Flax but apparently it delivers an even higher amount/value of those super healthy Omega 3 Fatty Acids. It’s something I’ve been looking into, wanting to add more to my diet and I was happy to find out that Bulk Barn sells Chia Seeds both whole and ground. A great way to add those Fatty Acids to baking or smoothies.
Can’t wait to hear about the new products, especially those Greek Yourut Smoothie Bars…mmmmm.
What a fab night out! I enjoyed reading your post about it — almost like being there myself!
I wonder if they do the tour in Ottawa. Great shots.
Sounds like a fun night. One thing I do have to say about meat and “bad” fat.
First, I don’t agree that any fat in meat is bad at all, but even if I did, half the fat in red meat, like steak, is monounsaturated. The same kind of fat that is in olive oil. Did this dietitian also say that kind of fat in olive oil is “bad”?
Sorry to rant, but it drives me crazy how the fat is bad message is still spread. And it sounds like Anne Marie might need to do a bit more research.
Sorry to bring in any negativity. I just felt I had to say something.
Thank you Heather! Eating was so much fun, I think that’s why I was the last person to finish, I couldn’t stop taking photos. Oh good! Glad you’re inspired to be an even healthier foodie, me too. Making that soup tomorrow night.
Ava, now I totally have to go looking for Chia seeds next time I am at Bulk Barn. I’m still making my way through the big batch of goji berries thank goodness, they were expensive. Always looking to add more good fat to my diet, thank you! Oh and I think we’re having those smoothies bars tonight.
Yay Debra! That is exactly what I was going for! 🙂
Helene, I’ve put the word out, hope to find out soon for you. I am sure they do but will try and get info.
Suzy, when she talked about “bad fat” it was in the meat department and she was mostly referring to red meat but she did mention the bad fat in chicken breast. She was very positive about omegas in general and did not use scare tactics at all. I did go home with an omega-friendly margarine product which has lots of good fat but she does prefer butter because it is more natural so I think you’re good there. That’s always a sign of a good nutritionist, at least IMO. Hope that helps!
Gosh you got a way nicer superstore then the ones we have on Vancouver island.Two both need fixing up but slowly getting better
Berendina, our store just went through a major upgrade, hopefully yours will too. I have noticed the Superstores on this coast have better produce and feel more like a cozy store than the boxed ones out west.
Oh good. The fact that she prefers butter makes me feel so much better. Maybe I just misinterpreted it.
Now I NEED to read your post on Mac and cheese with bacon! Yum
I have not eaten luncheon meat since I was in grade school and refuse to give it to my kids (they eat EVERYTHING. … At age 2-1/2 (twins) … Even sushi … They think ketchup is evil tho, prob because hubby and I hate it.
Completely off topic … Reg is a stone cold fox so thank him for letting you put him in the blog and feel free to do so regularily 🙂
Miss_janet_a
Janet, that comment about Reg tickled my funny bone! I think I will call him that from now on. When I first started blogging, he did not want me to include him and I am so glad he changed his mind too, LOL.
Snow on the roof = lust in the heart