Foodie Penpals - August Reveal!

This was my second month participating in Foodie Penpals. The first month was a warm-up and now I'm into the swing of things the second month. I'm loving this program. I cannot say enough good things about it. I have a blast picking out items for others as well as receiving unique local products I've never seen before. It's fabulous! Strangely enough, a former high school classmate is participating as well. She happened to look at the penpal list and saw my name on it. This world keeps getting smaller everyday, doesn't it?

This month, I was paired up with Lauren of Everyday Lauren. She is a really cool girl from Wisconsin. We exchanged a few emails at the beginning of the month to discuss preferences and such. Go check out her blog and send her some love! She sent me a pretty amazing package. I received it the day of our little road trip to follow the USA Pro Cycling Challenge for a few days here in Colorado. Perfect timing. I was able to bring some of the snacks with us to enjoy on the drive.

Here was my loot:

• Crunch Dried Fruits
• Dark Chocolate Enjoy Life bar
• Reallygoods fruit and nut thing
• Larabars
• Absolutely Gluten-Free Flatbread (crackers)

I had never heard of the crackers. They were quite tasty and held us off for dinner on our drive from Vail to Fort Collins (via Boulder where we stopped for dinner). Love them. I realize they aren't 100% Paleo since they do have potato starch, but I'm not too concerned about a little bit of potato in my diet.

I also wanted to mention that I sent my food package to Bri over at Bri Cooley's Strange Truth. Go check out her page to see what I sent her! She doesn't have anything posted yet, but hopefully she will soon! 

To sign up or learn more about Foodie Penpals, go to The Lean Green Bean's page. Enjoy! 

Won't you be my Foodie Penpal?

Foodie Penpals is one of the best concepts ever created. Ok, so I appreciate indoor plumbing, electricity, computers and airplanes quite a bit. But for a huge foodie like me, I totally LOVED this whole process. Check out The Lean Green Bean for more information and to sign up for next month. Hurry, if you want to participate in August.

Today (the last day of the month) is reveal day. My foodie penpal was Ashley over at Cardio, Cats and Cooking. Ashley is a pretty cool girl! We found that we have quite a bit in common. We exchanged emails to discuss timing (since both of us were going out of town during the month) and my food preferences. Since I eat Paleo at least 80% of the time (100% when training for an Ironman or 70.3), I let her know what I generally eat and what I stay away from. She used her creativity to put together an incredible box of goodies. Plus, she included handwritten notes all over the various items.

Here's a rundown of what I received:

• Naked Mango-Peach Coconut Water 
  
• 5 packets of Yogi Bedtime tea
• Endangered Species Dark Chocolate Bar with Cacao Nibs
• Assorted Justin's Nut Butters (Chocolate Hazelnut and Maple Almond)
• ALT Pumpkin Pie bar (not quite Paleo, but pretty clean ingredients - so I will be enjoying this after a workout sometime)
• Cranberry Almond Kind bar (also not Paleo, but very close)

I already dug into the nut butter. I put a packet of the Maple Almond on my sweet potato the other night. It tasted fantastic. A neat fact about Justin's is that it's made right up the road from me in Boulder, CO. I love supporting local companies. I'll be buying some more of the Justin's nut butters in the future. 

I'm looking forward to trying the rest of the goodies, but am a bit sugared-out at the moment. My 2-week trip to France included many non-Paleo indulgences (ice cream, pain au chocolat, fruit tarts, crepes, etc). I'm eating pretty strict Paleo and cutting down on sugar intake for the time being. 

Even so, I'm already looking forward to next month. Perhaps next month I request savory items (kale chips, nuts, etc). Will you be my penpal?