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Thrive Bars by GoMacro | Review & Giveaway

October 5, 2016 by Zucchini Runner in Giveaway, Review | 11 Comments

First, I want to give a special thanks to Mr. Zucchini Runner for taking over my blog duties last week, and sharing his recipe for baked french fries! We truly are a team, and he definitely is my favorite person on the planet. (Sorry family.) Now, onto this ancient seeds superfood nut bar… that’s USDA organic, non-gmo, vegan, gluten-free and AMAZING. These are some of the key words I look for when shopping for any packaged food, and I’m super impressed these Thrive bars have them all in one tiny little snack-a-licious package. Some of you may remember the GoMacro bar review I did back in June of 2015, and may wonder how these differ. Well, I’m glad you asked!

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These smaller bars are the perfect snack to grab and go, and not ruin your upcoming meal. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely still love the peanut butter chocolate chip GoMacro bar, but I do call it my “healthy candy bar”. Weighing in at 290 calories and 11g of protein, it’s basically a meal replacement bar. The Thrive bars are smaller and about 100 calories less and contain half the amount of protein. This made it very easy for me to grab one as a snack, to tide me over until the next meal.

Thrive bars come in six flavors so you are sure to find one flavor you love. For me, it was hands down caramel coconut. But you might be a fan of ginger lemon, almond apricot, chocolate peanut butter chip, blueberry lavender or chocolate, nuts and sea salt!

Just like the larger MacroBars, all the ingredients listed are recognizable as FOOD, as a bonus in the Thrive bars they are also visible with each bite! If my iPhone was better at getting a macro photograph, I would have posted it — but since it’s not this little card insert will have to do. 😀

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For the label readers out there, here is a sample ingredient list for the ginger lemon bar:
Organic Cashews, Organic Brown Rice Syrup, Organic Ancient Seed Blend (Organic Sprouted Flax, Organic Puffed Quinoa, Organic Hemp Hearts), Organic Crystallized Ginger (Organic Ginger, Organic Cane Sugar), Organic Pumpkin Seeds, Organic Apple Fiber, Organic Dried Brown Rice Syrup, Organic Lemon Juice Powder, Organic Sunflower Oil, Organic Natural Lemon Flavor

Once again, GoMacro has produced a yummy, healthy PACKAGED snack; which is not easy to do in my opinion.

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These three flavors were my least favorite…

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These three were my favorite, with caramel coconut as the clear winner!

Below you can what I mean about the poor macro shot… one day I will get a DSLR… one day. For now, the trusty iPhone will have to do… since you can CLEARLY see the pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, puffed quinoa and cashews.

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If you want to purchase Thrive for your next big adventure, or just the upcoming work week, GoMacro will give you 30% off! Just use code Thrive30 at checkout, on any Thrive product at GoMacro’s online store. If you are a rebel and just want to pay full price, Thrive bars are also available for purchase at your local Whole Foods Market.

GIVEAWAY DETAILS

It’s been a while since I’ve done a review and giveaway on the blog, so I’m pretty stoked one of my lucky readers/followers will have the opportunity to win a box of 12 assorted bars! Just follow the entry requirements below, and you will be entered to win.

  1. Follow GoMacro on at least ONE of the following social media channels:
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/gomacro/
    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gomacro
    Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/gomacro/
    Instagram: https://instagram.com/gomacro/
  2. Follow Zucchini Runner on Instagram.
  3. Comment on this blog post with the flavor you MOST want to try!
  4. BONUS: Comment on the Instagram post related to this giveaway, by tagging two of your friends. This will get you an additional “name in the drawing hat” so to speak. 🙂

The winner will be chosen and announced this Friday, October 7th, so don’t hesitate, enter ASAP!

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More about GoMacro

GoMacro is a family-run natural food company with roots in organic farming and they are dedicated to making the best tasting food with the highest quality ingredients. Everything they make is 100% vegan, USDA certified organic, certified non-GMO, Gluten-Free, and made from mostly raw ingredients! They truly believe that everything put in our bodies should have a beneficial impact.

Rainbow “Rice”

March 10, 2014 by Zucchini Runner in Main Dish, Side Dish | 2 Comments

Do you ever have those days where you stare into the fridge, hoping it will tell you what to make for dinner? Well, that is kinda how this recipe became reality. We’ve been trying to expand our food horizons and while cauliflower used to hate me, we’ve now come to a mutual understanding. By the time this dish was hitting our taste buds, we were both pleasantly surprised by the delicious and light flavor! I’m excited to keep experimenting with different cauliflower rice flavors! It’s so nice having a new versatile veggie to work with.

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What you’ll need:
1-2 tbsp coconut oil
4 large green onions, diced OR 1/2 a brown onion, diced
3 cloves garlic

1 head of cauliflower, reduced to rice size bits in a food processor
3 small carrots, diced
1/8-1/4 head purple cabbage, diced
4 kale leaves (no stems), diced (you can also add or use fresh spinach, chopped)
1 large bok choy leaf, diced (optional, just add the flavors you like! load it with veggies and color, get creative!)
1/4 c. water

2 tsp Parsley
1/2 tsp Oregano
1/2 tsp Basil
1/4 tsp Rosemary
1/4 tsp Sage
1/8 tsp Thyme
Pink Himalayan Salt – a few dashes

Heat a very large skillet with the coconut oil on medium to low heat for about 1-2 minutes. Add the onions and stir, cooking for about 3-5 minutes or until they start to become translucent. Add the garlic and stir. Now you can add all the veggies that have already been chopped and are ready to go. Mix well to combine. Add half the water, and cover with a lid (if you can) and steam for about 5 minutes. Make sure you don’t brown or burn the veggies, you just want them cooked with a little crunch. While the veggies are cooking, you can prepare your spices in a small dish.

Remove the lid and stir again. Sprinkle all the spices on top, add the remaining water and stir well to combine. If necessary, you can add a little more water for steaming, but don’t add too much to make it soggy. Replace with lid and cook for another 5-7 minutes until veggies are desired tenderness.

This was a great side dish, or in our case, we used it as a light dinner which was later supplemented with some heavier foods. (Sometimes this is necessary with evening workouts or sports!) The most important part of this recipe is to just enjoy and add the flavors you like best – have fun with different veggies and spices!

The below slide show is the second batch of this same recipe that I made. Follow the instructions above regarding the onion; both times I forgot to add the onion first! Also, I think I used way more cabbage on the second batch and I food processed it versus chopping it up, which made the cauliflower purple; not as pretty as the first batch!

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