Tropical Traditions Coconut Cream Concentrate: Review and Giveaway!

Since I've been so busy with the Indianapolis Monumental Half-Marathon I have quite the backlog of product reviews. Towards the middle of October, Sandra from Tropical Traditions sent me their Coconut Cream Concentrate for me to try and review on my blog. We've since used it in place of traditional coconut milk in recipes and also just used as a spread on bagels. Yummy! It's a very versatile product and since it's actually a food instead of an oil you can really taste the coconut flavor when you use it in recipes!

From the Tropical Traditions Web site:

Coconut Cream Concentrate is certified organic whole coconut meat in concentrated form. It contains no additives (not even water). The dried coconut meat is ground into a very fine powder, giving it a creamy consistency due to its high fat content. Since it is 70% fat, it is a rich source of pure coconut oil. Note: this is a food, not a cooking oil.

The Coconut Cream Concentrate is very tasty and I was impressed by how low in calories it actually is for a tablespoon! A little more about Tropical Tradition's Coconut Cream from their Web site:

Commercial coconut milks and creams are generally sold in cans, or sometimes boxes and tetra packs. The main ingredient in these products is water. If the fat content is 17%, it is called "coconut milk." If the fat content is 24%, it is called "coconut cream." But most of what you are purchasing is water. Coconut Cream Concentrate, on the other hand, has NO water, and is pure coconut...Coconut Cream Concentrate, however, contains NO additives and NO preservatives at all: it is 100% natural coconut made from certified organic Philippine coconuts grown without pesticides or fertilizers. Coconut Cream Concentrate comes packaged in 1 pint or 1 quart glass jars.

The Coconut Cream Concentrate retails for about $10.99 for a 16 ounce jar and $19.50 for a 32 ounce jar. You can purchase it on the Tropical Traditions website or on Amazon. Tropical Traditions is also offering one lucky Let's Get Fit reader a 32 ounce jar of Coconut Cream Concentrate!

To enter:

1. Leave a comment on this post about your favorite Thanksgiving dish.
2. Subscribe to the Tropical Traditions newsletter for a BONUS entry, and leave a comment to let me know you’ve done so.
3. Tweet about the contest for a THIRD entry then leave a comment to tell me you’ve done so (please include @jharbweave so I know you've tweeted)!
4. Link back to this post on your blog for a FOURTH entry, and (you guessed it) comment to tell me.

You may leave as many as 4 comments on this post and each will count as an entry! I'll be drawing the winner on Black Friday (November 27, 2009) at 12PM Eastern time so you have a week to post your comments! Good Luck!



Disclaimer: Tropical Traditions provided me with a free sample of this product to review, and I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose. Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review or sponsor a product giveaway in return for the free product.

Food Should Taste Good Chips and an Indy Tastecasting Event

Last night I had a really great opportunity, I was invited to attend a Tastecasting event at Scotty's Brewhouse. The evening kicked off with a great talk by Scotty's owner, Scott Wise, about the benefits of social media. He touched on how it can mutually benefit bloggers, tweeters and social media savvy people AND the restaurants.

After we heard Scott speak to us we got down to business and sampled some awesome healthy chips from Food Should Taste Good. We got to sample the Multigrain, Sweet Potato, Cinnamon, Jalapeno and Olive flavors. The hubs and I had picked these up at Whole Foods before but I hadn't tasted the Olive, Sweet Potato or Cinnamon flavors. I think the Jalapeno and the Sweet Potato ones were my favorites out of all of them that we tried last night. Be sure to check out the Food Should Taste Good Web site for a $1.00 off coupon.

The Multigrain were at the top, the Sweet Potato ones were the orange colored ones and the Jalapeno were the red chips. The coolest thing about these were that they weren't overwhelmingly the flavor that they were supposed to be and they weren't artificial tasting at all! They just simply tasted "good"! I was really impressed by each flavor and how they each tasted like they said they would. The only ones I wasn't sold on were the Olive flavor - it was more like an olive aftertaste instead of olive flavor.

After the Food Should Taste Good tasting we all had dinner and discussed the future of where Indy Tastecasting is going. Since Scotty's Brewhouse has HUGE portions I had half of a Mofo Buffalo Chicken Wrap (with the extra spicy Mofo sauce - yummy!) and a Left Hand Milk Stout. It was a great event and I look forward to working with the Indy Tastecasting group in the future for other Tastecasting events!

Have you ever heard of Food Should Taste Good chips? What do you think of them?

Thank You!

Thank you so much for voting for Let's Get Fit at the Indiana's Top 50 Blogs contest! Voting ended on Tuesday night and the winners were announced yesterday. Let's Get Fit finished as number #36 out of 221 blogs nominated! WOW!

Today my office is having a Hawaiian Thanksgiving and then after work I'm back to the gym for my first workout since the Half-Marathon last Saturday! I'm listening to Christmas music on Pandora and trying to get into to the holiday spirit. It's been rough coming out to frost on my car in the mornings these last few days!

What's your favorite Christmas song?

Deserving Dinners

Something pretty cool that the Indianapolis, IN Whole Foods sent me recently was information on their Deserving Dinners Contest. Since this isn't just specific to our store I figured I'd pass on the information to Let's Get Fit readers. So if you know of any needy families in Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska or Toronto please nominate them to win either Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner!
Whole Foods Market locations across the Midwest are helping make the holidays a little better. Thirty-two stores, from Omaha, Nebraska, to Detroit, Michigan, are holding sweepstakes where people can nominate families to receive a FREE holiday dinner for four people. The sweepstakes will have two rounds of entries to enable people to nominate those deserving to win either a Thanksgiving or Christmas holiday meal. Each store will provide four families with a traditional holiday feast with all the fixings.

The meals will include:

• 10-12 lb Turkey
• Harvest Salad
• Maple-Roasted Autumn Squash Soup
• Country Mashed Potatoes
• Traditional Herb Stuffing
• Green Beans with Roasted Shallots & Fresh Herbs
• Roasted Cinnamon Dusted Butternut Squash
• Fresh Cranberry Sage Compote
• Turkey Gravy
• Traditional Dinner Rolls (one dozen)

How to Enter: Entry forms (including rules and regulations) are available at in-store kiosks at all Midwest Whole Foods Market locations, and at each store’s website at wholefoodsmarket.com. (All entries will be made online; no paper entry forms.)

When:

Thanksgiving Sweepstakes
Entries accepted: Nov. 2-13
Winners announced: Nov. 16-19

Christmas Sweepstakes
Entries accepted: Dec. 1-11
Winners announced: Dec. 14-18

Be sure to nominate a needy family in your community to spread the cheer this holiday season!



Note: I was not paid for this entry, I just think this is a really worthy cause!

Indianapolis Monumental Half-Marathon: What I Learned About Myself

Just joining us for my Indianapolis Monumental Marathon and Half-Marathon Coverage? You can view the expo here; the results here; the first half of the recap here and the second half of the recap here.

This past weekend I completed a HUGE fitness milestone for me, my first half-marathon. I can cross off one of my big fitness goals and I feel truly accomplished.

It's also ironic that Monday, November 9, 2009 is my one year anniversary of getting laid off from the television station. That layoff was the catalyst that sparked this blog and starting my new job in January of 2009 was what officially pushed me to get my life in order. One day I'm sure I'll post about that life changing event, but at this point I can just say that it's fitting that one year later my life has changed so much for the better.

The top things I learned after my first half-marathon:

• It's okay to walk through the water stations. I ended up doing this through most of them and it made it easier to drink without spilling on myself. The one water station that I didn't walk through I ended up spilling on myself and had soggy shoes for a little bit. I wish I had walked through every one of them, maybe I wouldn't be nursing blisters today.
  
• I wish I had run more than 11 miles in training and had done the 11 mile run two weeks out from the race. While I was prepared for the race, I didn't realize how much harder the last 2.1 miles would be without doing that distance before. Now that I've completed 13.1 I know what to expect.
  
• I also realize that I need to do long runs on different elevations. I need to be more cognizant of elevation changes and start working on hillwork. I also need to incorporate more speedwork into my training to break my new goal of 2:35!
  
• Getting a massage was the BEST thing for my recovery. I was sore yesterday but after my massage on Monday I'm feeling really good. I don't have the tightness in my quads and the soreness in my shoulders/back after the massage.
  
• Strength training is my friend, I need to ensure that I'm continuing with the strength training through my next half and beyond. Doing it twice a week is perfect and I should be able to use that time to also work on foam rolling my muscles.
• Wearing comfortable shoes to the expo is a must, I unfortunately wore shoes that tend to give me blisters and those gave me the beginning of my big blister that I felt really attacking me at mile 12.5!
  

I know I've got a lot to work on for my next half-marathon but I'm very proud of my first one and will always look back upon it fondly. Back in January I never thought I could run one mile, let alone 13.1 miles!

What are some of your biggest fitness accomplishments?