Healthy treats to help you make positive changes

Christmas is a time of giving, in particular oodles of sugary treats, chemical laden beers and crunchy fried goods.  If you totted up how much you ate and the rubbish ingredients that it included you would  be shocked and horrified.  It’s now famously known that Cola drinks contain 16 teaspoons of sugar but we don’t think as much about the other things – most of the chocolate we eat has sugar as the no1 ingredient and the beers we drink are mass produced using chemicals and are often harsh on the stomach causing the classic “beer belly”

Making changes for the better in small places is a great way to start living more cleanly and swapping your poor choices for something fresh, healthy and tasty is easy! Check out our recommendations below.

Celia Organic Lager, Gluten Free Beer from Czech Republic

We loved this light, refreshing lager which is also gluten free and naturally carbonated.  CELIA is brewed for over 2 months in the walls of a 14th century castle using traditional batch brewing techniques, ingredients are sustainably sourced and it’s fermented for 14 days to create the natural carbonation that avoids that bloated feeling.

9Bar Snack bars

9Bar started out making carob coated seed bars back in the day.  They were very pure, only pumpkin/hemp/sunflower seeds, honey and carob were used so it was the ultimate in healthy treat .  However you certainly got bored if you were having one every day to get your sweet fix – so recently they’ve introduced a number of goodies to the range which we have had the pleasure of reviewing! The Super Seeds Hazelnut Cocoa Kick (brown wrapper) is extremely yummy – even they describe it as having a “nutty chomp”  This one contains hemp, pumpkin, sunflower & sesame, 9% hazelnuts and cocoa.  Although it has sugar in it, which is a bit of a disappointment it is balanced out with golden syrup giving them a distinct flapjacky taste.  There’s a chocolatey type coating on the bar too which adds a nice texture change.

The Cashew & Cocoa Breakfast Boost Bar contains a few more “manufactured” ingredients such as puffed rice, soya protein crispies and gluten free oats to fill you up a bit more.  Those who are purists may not enjoy these as much but they are a great alternative to sugary breakfast cereals as they contain mostly rice & agave syrup.

There are loads more to try in the ranges- The Breakfast Bars offer Apricot & Strawberry, Almond & Raspberry, Peanut & Raisin and Cashew & Cocoa and the plain 9Bars come in Flax, Chia Berry, Peanut, Fruity, Nutty, Coconut and Raspberry varieties.  LOADS to choose from now.  You can buy mixed cases of each variety or choose your favourite and stock up on a whole case.

Ombar Chocolate

We were delighted to sample this gorgeous raw cacao range of chocolate made in GB from Ecuadorian cacao.  There’s a lovely range of “super food” themed bars – Blueberry & Acai for example which is sharp, rich and intense or the fruitier Goji Berry variety.  There’s also coconut cream varieties which are a replacement for milk in Strawberry and Coconut. Yum!!!  Check out the range to buy online