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January 10, 2012Adventures in Costco Welcome back and Happy New Year!I’m not sure if this can be considered “normal” or not, but grocery shopping relaxes me (when I go without the kids). Most people wouldn’t think that a Sunday visit to Costco can be ‘relaxing’ but for me, this past Sunday, that’s exactly what it was…relaxing and surprising. Costco has cleaned up their act, well, almost. The fast food station still needs ALOT of work.Fast foodI have fond memories of going to Costco with my parents when I was younger. It was a Sunday event. We would go and have a hot dog for lunch (yikes). Then we would walk the aisles and enjoy the variety of free samples. I remember playing a game with my sister. We would race through the aisles to see who could collect the most samples. It was like an all you can eat buffet…bite size.Aisle surfing and food sampling was a bit different this time around. The first isle I walked down was sampling…wait for it…HEMP SEEDS! Yup, hemp seeds at Costco. I know…I was shocked too. Way to go hemp seeds. The HUGE bag of hemp seeds was about $15. The bag will last me a long time.Here is a Hemp Seed tip: Store in an air tight bag in the fridge. Throw them into your shake, on your salad, mix them into baking, add them to your trail mix or sprinkle them onto your morning cereal. They are a great vegetarian source of protein.Hemp SeedsAs a nutritionist who deals with hundreds of clients on a regular basis one of the top excuses I hear all the time is “I have no time”. I know this isn’t true because there always seems to be “time” for other things like TV, social events, manicures, sports watching, reading, and playing on Facebook etc. Well, I was very happy to see so many healthy products at Costco that makes that excuse obsolete.Here is?a picture of already prepared and cut chicken breast. What’s the excuse now…”I don’t have time to cut open the package and put it into a container?” Costco also sells prewashed lettuce, prewashed celery, mushrooms, cucumber, stir-fry mix and whole bunch of cut up fruit.Prepared ChickenHere is another tip:Take some of the stir-fry mix as your salad base, throw in a handful of the already prepared chicken, add some mushrooms, take 2 stalks celery on the side and measure out 1 tsp of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic as salad dressing. Maybe that took 5 minutes tops?Nitrate Free TurkeyHere is a picture of Nitrate Free oven roasted turkey breast. You can have this instead of the chicken in the salad or a couple slices as a snack with a fruit. What about an old fashioned sandwich? What ever happened to people bringing sandwiches to work for lunch with some cut up veggies on the side? Ziploc makes sandwich baggies for a reason. Don’t be afraid of the bread! What are you eating instead? Ask yourself what is the better choice? A homemade sandwich or Subway?Bread Tips: Look for bread that has between 80-100 calories per slice or not more then 15-20g of carb per slice with at least 2-3g of fibre per slice. Weight Watchers or Stonemill breads are amazing.WOW! Weight Loss has all of our clients having Greek Yoghurt at some point throughout the day. Many of our clients like making parfaits with them. A little yoghurt, fruit, granola, cinnamon=dessert. It seems that over the past couple of months there has been a Greek Yoghurt phenomenon. Well guess what….Costco sells fat free Greek yoghurt AND it’s cheap!Greek YoghurtThe last thing I will say about my adventure at Costco was how impressed I was with the fish section. On every package of fish it listed whether the fish was farmed or wild. I really appreciated that because I always get very annoyed when I ask the butcher at the regular grocery store and they are never really sure or the label is wrong (which happens all the time). Maybe the Costco labels are wrong too but they looked official because they had a registration number of the farm Wild Fish Farmed Salmon?I haven’t made the fish yet. That went into the freezer for future meals. I have enough food for the week thanks to my adventures in Costco.Here is a small list of what I made from the groceries I bought:1. Turkey burgers2. Stir fry chicken to add to salad or stir-fry3. Egg muffins with sautéed mushrooms, zucchini and onion4. Hard boiled eggs (those were really hard to make 5. 25 baggies of walnuts for quick and easy snacks6. Apples and pears…slaved all day on those7. Hummus and celery8. Protein shakes with hemp seeds9. Almond butter cookies from the WOW! Weight Loss recipe book10. SaladI spent 2 hours cooking…made all my food for the week including lunches, dinners and snacks. Everything is in baggies or containers. I don’t have time either but I seem to be able to eat healthy. I have 2 small children, work full time blah blah blah…it’s important to me so I make sure it gets done.What do you buy when you go to Costco??? ................
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