Light & Free Kefir Milk Drink Review

Light & Free by Danone have a great range of lower calorie flavoured yogurts. Now they’ve brought out their own range of kefir.

Like their yogurts, Light & Free is promoting their kefir on the fact that it has 0% fat and no added sugar. This brings the calories right down.

At the time of writing there are three varieties: Plain, Pomegranate & Blueberry and Cucumber & Lime. I didn’t fancy the idea of the cucumber & lime so I purchased a bottle of Plain and Pomegrante & Blueberry. These have just 93 calories for the whole 265ml bottle.

Oppo Ice Cream Sticks Review

This summer saw a glut of new lower calorie ice creams all vying for space in the supermarket freezers. And here’s another one from Oppo. This time it’s in the form of ice creams on sticks with a chocolate coating, Magnum style.

There are two varieties: Madagascan Vanilla & Roasted Almond which has 120 calories per ice cream and the Salted Caramel with just 110 calories. I purchased a box of both.

Deliciously Ella Nut Butter Balls Review

As a follower of Deliciously Ella on Instagram, it’s impossible not to view the daily stories relating to her nut butter balls. I’ve held off buying them for a long time, but finally succumbed while waiting at a checkout in my local health food store.

I purchased a box of the Apple, Cinnamon & Almond nut butter balls and a pack of Raspberry & Cashew nut butter balls at a cost of £1.99 per box, virtually £1 per single ball.

Kombucha Drink by Pro Fusion Review

Improving digestion is a big concern for many people with a healthy gut being linked to a healthy body and mind. One way of promoting gut health is by regularly topping up good bacteria with fermented food and drink.

There aren’t that many to choose from when it comes to drinks. One way is to drink Kefir which is fermented from milk, and another is to drink kombucha which is fermented from tea.

Kombucha can be drunk as a super healthy alternative to fizzy soft drinks because it’s naturally low in calories, naturally fizzy and can help increase levels of good bacteria. I purchased a bottle of Kombucha made by Pro Fusion Organic Living which has just 18 calories per 100ml.

Missfits Protein Wonderballs Review

I picked up a couple of packs of Missfits protein balls in Sainsbury's a few weeks ago. I wasn’t actually looking for protein balls, but these caught my eye because they were mini protein balls, rather than larger ones.

I purchased a pack of Cacao at 138 calories per pack and a pack of Coconut with 117 calories per bag..

Mochi Ice Cream Little Moons Vanilla Review

To be honest, I’d never heard of Mochi ice cream until my daughter kept talking about them, then demanding I buy ingredients to make them!

But a much easier way of sampling a mochi ice cream is to buy them and Little Moons sell a wide variety of flavours. Each box contains 6 mochi ice creams with calories per mochi ranging from 64 up to around 84 calories.

Sainsbury's Apple & Cinnamon Rice Cakes Review

I discovered these rice cakes by accident while looking for breadsticks for my daughter. I used to buy apple rice cakes made by Mrs Crimble. But for some reason they stopped producing them. I wondered whether these would be similar.

Sainsbury’s Apple & Cinnamon Rice Cakes are described as ‘Apple and Cinnamon flavour cake with wholegrain brown rice, white rice, oat flakes and millet’. They’re gluten free and bags contains 4 packs of 2 rice cakes. Each rice cake has just 35 calories.

Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate 30% less Sugar Review

After reading some negative reactions towards the new Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate 30% less sugar version, I was intrigued to see how true the reviews were.

Cadbury Dairy Milk was always my absolute favourite chocolate bar but now I only buy dark chocolate (for the 'health' benefits). However, I really wanted to see how the reduced sugar version compared with the original as well as the differences in calories.

Halo Top Peanut Butter Ice Cream Sticks Review

We love Halo Top ice cream in my house, with various members of the family always accusing each other of finishing off the tub.

Now Halo Top have a new addition to their lower calorie ice cream range with the arrival of Halo Top Ice Cream Sticks.

Each box contains 3 ice creams on a wooden stick and there are four flavours - each have 100 calories or less per ice cream.

Rude Health Chilled Oat Unsweetened Review

After enjoying my first experience of Oat milk courtesy of Oatly’s Skinny, I felt confident enough to try another brand as long as the calories weren’t too high. After checking all the nutrition labels, it seems that Rude Health’s Organic Chilled Oat Drink has the lowest calories – just 35 calories per 100g.

Rude Health’s Oat Drink is a dairy free, organic and gluten free dairy alternative with no added artificial ingredients. It’s available as chilled or long life.

Kinder Ice Cream Sticks Review

I purchased these new Kinder Ice Cream sticks purely on impulse. They were definitely not on my shopping list, mainly because they are new and I’ve never seen them before.

Without investigating the nutrition, I had a quick check of the calorie content as shown on the front of the box – only 62 calories each.

Since they were on offer I popped them into the trolley as a dessert choice for the family who like something sweet after dinner (and who doesn’t like Kinder eggs)!

M&S Plant Kitchen Alternative to Dairy Milks

Marks and Spencer have replaced their ‘Made without’ alternative to dairy milks and brought in a new range called Plant Kitchen. The plant kitchen range also include ready meals which are all suitable for vegetarians, vegans and those eating a plant-based diet.

They are all enriched with iodine, vitamin D2, vitamin B12 and have as much calcium as dairy milk.

Choices available are: Almond Drink – sweetened or unsweetened, Cashew Drink, Oat Drink, Soya Drink – sweetened or unsweetened and Coconut drink.

Earn £5,000 if you eat beige food - be quick!

Do you want to be paid just to eat your usual diet?

A multivitamin subscription brand is offering three members of the public, who admittedly eat only ‘beige’ food, the opportunity to put their vitamins to the test, by taking their vitamins for a month whilst they continue to eat a poor diet. 

The site is offering the ‘vitamin testers’ £5,000 each to eat their typical ‘beige’ diet, which must consist of mostly foods like white bread, chips, eggs, pasta and rice, for 30 days whilst also taking its one-a-day multivitamin. 

Alpro Caffe Coffee & Hazelnut Drink Review

As a coffee lover, I adore iced coffee and it's so refreshing on a hot day. It's easy enough to make at home, but after spotting this iced coffee by Alpro, I couldn't resist purchasing a carton of their Caffe Coffee and Hazelnut drink.

It sounds delicious. A creamy blend of coffee with hazelnut. Ice cold and creamy, Alpro Caffe with hazelnut has been expertly blended to give you the delicious break you deserve.

It has just 31 calories per 100ml, the whole 1 litre carton has just 310 calories. It’s low in sugar too.

Heck Chicken Sausage Chipolatas Review

Since I’ve been cooking a lot more meat free meals, sausages aren’t something I think about buying. But after spotting these sausages from Heck at end of a chiller cabinet in Sainsbury’s last week, I thought they looked like an interesting alternative to regular pork sausages as they’re made with chicken.

They’re gluten free and best of all, two sausages come in at under 100 calories!

Little Jude’s Milk Lollies Review

If you like Mini Milk ice lollies, you might be interested in a new ice lolly from the makers of Jude’s ice cream.

Like Mini Milks, Little Jude’s are available in 3 flavours: shocolate, strawberry and vanilla. They have no refined sugar and typically have 30% less sugar than similar ice lollies. And a big plus – each lolly has only 30 or 31 calories!

Kefir - The Collective Dairy Drinks Review

Until a few years ago I hadn’t even heard of the word kefir, but now it’s one of the staples in my fridge which I drink every day. Its popularity must be catching on because there are lots of new brands of kefir arriving on the supermarket shelves and well known yogurt makers are also producing kefir.

One brand which has been doing well and has a few different flavours, is made by The Collective Dairy. As well as three flavours of drinking kefir, they also have 2 kefir yogurts.

The flavours of drinking kefir are: Mango ‘n’ Turmeric, Coconut ‘n’ honey and berries ‘n’ hibiscus plus a natural variety. They’re all low in calories ranging between 47 – 57 calories per 100ml and are available in 220ml or 500ml sizes.

Waitrose Vegetarian Red Pepper Grills review

I was whizzing around Waitrose looking for special offers when I spotted these Frozen vegetarians red pepper grills on a 2 for £3 deal. I hadn’t seen these before and they looked like something my family might enjoy.

They’re described as ‘succulent & smoky – red peppers and sweetcorn seasoned with smoked paprika’.

There are four grills per box and each grill has 163 calories.

Ben & Jerry’s Salted Caramel Brownie Ice Cream

Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is amazingly delicious, but not something you want to eat on a regular basis if you’re watching your weight.

Luckily for those of us who love ice cream, there are lots of new style ice creams on the market with a much reduced calorie content. Mostly this is because they’ve replaced sugar with a sweetener such as stevia.

But Ben & Jerry’s Light Ice Cream version hasn’t done this. Instead they’ve reduced the fat content to reduce the calories, stating it has 50% less fat than similar ice creams.

Dairy Free Biomel Probiotic Drinks review

I’ve written about the health benefits of kefir in previous posts, but what about if you’re vegan or dairy free? Kefir contains a fantastic source of healthy bacterial cultures, but of course, it’s made from milk so not suitable for those with a dairy allergy, or who are vegan.

Fortunately there are dairy free culture drinks with all the benefits of dairy kefir. One of these is produced by the company Biomel. They have a range of probiotic drinks made from coconut milk, and more recently almond milk.

They’re available in 510ml bottles and little ‘shot’ bottles, 125ml, with an average of just 50 calories per bottle.