Gift Guide: 16 Artisan Snacks for the Healthy Eater

These are our tasty choices for the healthy snacker, and they make great gifts. Snacking is part of life in this busy world. Fortunately you can happily snack without adding tons of undesired calories, preservatives, or other dietary issues into your mouth.

Prepare for Natural Emergencies with the Water Filtration Backpack

We often take civilization and running water for granted, but there are times when you may be short of both. This could be either when taking a trip into the wilderness or an underdeveloped region, or if affected by a natural disaster like an earthquake, fire or hurricane.

Fortunately, a little preparation can go a long way, and a new product such as the HydroLite Packable Filtration Backpack is a perfect tool to keep you hydrated with drinkable fresh water.

Whether it’s tap water in the Andes to a refill on your next trail run, clean drinking water is just a sip away with Matador’s new HydroLite Packable Filtration Backpack. The HydroLite is the first travel pack that filters water as you drink, providing 100,000 liters of clean drinking water over the life of one filter.

Matador has partnered with HydraPak® and Sawyer®, leaders in hydration and filtration technology, to integrate a technical water filter and hydration system into this packable backpack. HydroLite removes 99.99999% of bacteria and protozoa from any water source, but also packs down to the size of a standard 1L bottle for easy transport.

Most important to your health, the Hydrolite removes a wide range of nasty water-borne bugs, including salmonella, cholera, and E.coli, giardia and cryptosporidium.

HydroLite Features

  • · Waterproof Cordura® body with fully taped seams
  • · 2 liter HydraPak® reservoir (BPA and PVC free)
  • · Sawyer® MINI in-line filter
  • · AirSupport™ inflatable back pad for greater stability and comfort
  • · 8 liter waterproof main compartment
  • · Expandable front storage pocket with sealing zippers
  • · Chest pockets for bite valve storage, credit cards, cash, and more
  • · Nifco® gear tethers
  • · Hypalon® rolltop closure
  • · Anti-crease silicone hose
  • · Contoured straps
  • · Compression case for travel

About

Matador is a proudly bootstrapped start-up nestled in the colorful recreational mecca of Boulder, Colorado. With their launch in 2014, they created a brand new market niche–packable adventure gear. Each product is designed in house by a team of passionate adventurers and then thoroughly put to the test in the great outdoors.

www.MatadorUp.com


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Best Tasty Honeys of the Year

The world is full of fantastic, delicious, and innovative honey. That’s why our panel of experts tastes each year some of the best, and ranks and celebrates what they find. These are their top award picks for 2017.

Top Healthy Snacks to Satisfy Your Hunger

The search to find a truly healthy snack is one that is extremely valuable, and fortunately, one that we do every year for the Healthy Snack Awards. See some of our top picks!

BRU takes Bone Broth to Another Level

Bone broth is taking the food world by storm. It’s packed with vitamins and nutrients, and uses sustainable material that normally would be chucked in the garbage: bones.

That makes a bit of sense because we can’t really eat bones — they’re obviously not great to chew or swallow — but once you start to marinate them or use them in a broth you realize that there is a ton of flavor and goodness packed inside of each one.

BRU Broth has been taking it’s own path into the food world, appearing at a number of food expos, as well as getting impressive distribution in retail grocery locations such as Whole Foods, Andronico’s, United Market, Mill Valley Market, Woodlands and Sprouts. They only source organic pastured chicken, grass-fed beef, and fresh vegetables and roots to highlight the umami notes in their long-simmered bone broth.

To find out more about bone broth and BRU, we’ve interviewed Co-founders Soo-Ah Landa and Mary Butler about what it is, what it does, and what’s next.

BRU Broth


 

What exactly is bone broth?

Bone broth is water, bones, apple cider vinegar, vegetables and spices that have been long-simmered for over 24 hours to extract the gelatin and collagens from the joints to create a nutrient dense and mineral rich broth.

Why is it trending into a more popular choice?

The research is showing just how linked the health of our gut is to our immune systems, cognitive functioning, and many neurological conditions. From probiotics to fermented foods to bone broth, people are realizing that we have the ability to improve gut health simply by making conscious real food decisions. GAPS (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) is a condition which establishes this connection between the functions of the digestive system and the brain. Bone broth is an essential component of the GAPS diet. Bone broth also fits into the increasingly popular Paleo diet.

How did you start with this product?

Co-founder Soo-Ah Landa grew up drinking her grandmother’s and mother’s Korean bone broths her entire life. One Bay area morning, Soo-Ah was craving a warm, nutrient dense hot beverage, and realized none existed. She took the bone broth out of her fridge, pureed some fresh greens, and mixed them together to create the first SKU that is one of the most popular flavors on shelf today: Hot Greens.

Co-Founder Mary Butler joined after she discovered the reparative benefits of bone broth following a surgical procedure.

What does the name BRU stand for?

BRU is meant to symbolize the long process involved to make our bone broths. We simmer only 100% USDA organic pastured chicken and grassfed beef bones for over 24 hours to make our broths. We believe that if you are going to cook anything for that long, the ingredients you start with need to be free of pesticides, antibiotics and GMOs.

Are all bone broths using cold pressed ingredients?

No, BRU was the first and is the only bone broth in the market today to combine long-simmered bone broth with fresh pressed vegetables and roots. We use a process called HPP (High Pressure Processing) to cold pressurize our beverages and maintain as fresh a product as possible.

Does that make a difference?

Absolutely. We preserve more of the nutrients and flavors of the fresh pressed vegetables and roots so that when you heat up our bone broth beverages, the flavors are always crisp and clean. It’s why we call it from Farm to Bottle.

What are your most popular flavors?

We currently have 6 SKUs, 4 chicken and 2 beef. Our most popular flavors are Hug in Mug, Hot Greens, Turmeric Ginger and Cayenne Zen.

What’s next for BRU?

We are looking to expand further into our own NorCal region and will be expanding to the Southern California Region in May, and Pacific Northwest region by June. We are also excited about some delicious line extensions to launch this Fall!

 

For more information, visit BRU Broth

Tonnino uses Taste and Sourcing Location App to Refine the World of Gourmet Tuna

Tuna is a great and tasty food, but if you eat it often there are important things to know. For example, does it contain mercury, is it dolphin safe, and is it sustainably harvested?