Things I tried in January

Yep, that’s right, I’m bringing back the whole “Things I tried” posts for that quick round up of all the lovely stuff I try out each month that maybe doesn’t quite run to a whole blog post all of it’s own!

It’s mostly food, lets be honest, but not always.

This month though, it’s all food. The year started off with everyone suddenly mysteriously keen to promote their new healthy foods. I can’t imagine why.

So here’s a few of my recommendations from January!

Hi-Pro High Protein Peanut Butter

Just so we’re clear, I love Peanut Butter, to the point where I will eat it by the spoonful as I walk past the kitchen cupboards.This peanut butter, however, claims to be about 25% higher in protein than regular peanut butters. There were lots of recipes to try with it, but I used it as I would my normal peanut butter, adding it to smoothies and eating it by the spoonful. It tasted like peanut butter!
This peanut butter contains peanut flour, peanut oil, palm oil and sucralose. Normally I buy kilo tubs of sugar and salt free stuff, that is basically just squished peanuts. There was about 1g more protein in a 25g serving of the Hi-Pro, but I prefer my regular squished peanuts. I know that the sugar and salt free stuff isn’t to everyones taste, so if you normally buy regular peanut butters of the Sun Pat variety of the supermarket shelves, this is a much better alternative with a few grams more of protein, and no sugar.

It’s available in Sainsburys and currently on offer at £2 a jar apparently!

NOTE: I contacted Hi-Pro and the peanut butters only contain sustainably sourced certified palm oil.

Bioglan Raw Bites

I have a few flavours of these, but the only ones I have tried so far are the Ginger and Spirulina. They were nice, in a healthy way! If you’re a sweet lover these won’t hit the spot, but I thought they were delicious. They’re basically fruit, seeds and some added “super foods”, they’re gluten free and make a tasty afternoon snack. It’s the sort of thing I keep in my Roller Derby kit bag as emergency snacks!

Upbeat Chocolate Orange Flavour

This is officially my new favourite ready mixed protein shake. I just wish I could get it in more places because I have to stock up when I go to the “big” Tesco and the best before dates on their supply are often short.

This tastes like chocolate orange milkshake, but low in fat and high in protein. Yum.

Herbalife CR7 Drive

In all honesty Herbalife is a company that I associate with meal replacement shakes being sold by people who don’t really know what they’re talking about.

Having spent a fair portion of my life trying and failing to lose weight using meal replacements (and feeling pretty miserable and deprived) I am really pretty opposed to them without very good reason.

Turns out, however, that Herbalife have a whole other range of products to support athletic performance, most of which look pretty good. I’ve only tried the CR7 Drive, which is an electrolyte and carbohydrate powder that you mix with water. It’s endorsed by Christiano Ronaldo and the website contains lots of pictures of him, and some cheesy lines about “fueling the drive in all of us”, but what it actually is, is a pleasant tasting sports drink that will help get me through 3 hours of Roller Derby practice, it also comes in handy sachets so you can keep it in your kit bag.

They also do a zero calories sports drink for shorter practices that I’m keen to give a go.

Have you tried anything new in January?