Adventure in Normal Life / Boston / Food / wellness

Cure those commuter cravings with these little choco-nutty bites

Commuting home in the city amidst honking horns, sharply turning bicycles, pedestrians crossing, the T, and overall city noise and crowds can be a stressful situation. Add that to the tiredness at the end of a day of work, summer heat, and you have a formula for irritability and a problem:  what to snack on to get enough fuel decide on a dinner that won’t leave you in a carb-heavy food coma afterwards.

If that all sounds like you, consider the 122/365 days of the year when women (either yourself, or someone you know) doesn’t feel like herself – when 150 symptoms of PMS (or pre-menstrual syndrome) descend and prior measures of self-control become less important than getting a piece of chocolate or something sweet to boost a mood or satisfy a craving.

As a nutrition researcher, I’m the last person to latch onto any form of marketing where someone tells you “take X for Y!” I want to know why, and I want to try it and see if it works for me. Food, like medicine, doesn’t universally have the same effects for everyone. Yes, there is a usual way that both act, that is true – but sometimes your biology + the food/medicine just react differently.

So, having experienced both city stress + PMS, I thought I would give it a go and try these PMS Bites, created by local business owner, Tania Green. This go-getting female developed these snack bites out of experiencing the cravings herself, and aimed to make a healthier, craving-satisfying, alternative to a chocolate bar or sweet.

pmsbites_black_transparent

Tania was on Shark Tank on May 20 of this year (so cool!) and has been featured by the press on Forbes, The Boston Globe, Boston Business Journal, NBC, ABC, Huffington Post, Food and Wine magazine, and several more – I’m very impressed with her drive and persistence in bringing her business idea (and awareness about PMS) to the forefront.

What are PMS Bites??

_MG_8097_HR

  • They’re vegan, gluten-free snack bites that are each 50 calories.
  • They come in 3 flavors:
    • Plain Crazy – lightly dusted in cocoa powder and coconut palm sugar
    • Coco-Nutty – Sprinkled with fluffy coconut
    • All Kinds of Nuts– generously rolled in crunchy pecan clusters

_MG_8167_HR

  • they’re made with date paste, brown rice syrup, almond butter, cocoa powder, salt, siberian ginseng, chamomile, dandelion root, coconut flour, and gluten-free oats.
    • siberian ginseng, chamomile, dandelion root, and date paste are ingredients you may recognize for touted benefits for decreasing bloating and irritability.

Tania sent a variety box of 6 to me to try and give my honest opinions and they arrived just in time for my trip to Washington D.C. I always go on trips with plenty of snacks because buying expensive airport or airplane food doesn’t appeal to me. With a busy weekend of sightseeing and meetings, I knew there would be times when I would be hungry apart from mealtimes, and I wouldn’t be in my comfort zone where I could get whatever I normally wanted to have for a snack.

File_000 (3)

Here’s what I thought:

These bites definitely saved me from running to the small, overpriced hotel market for chips or baked goods. I usually just had one of these bites when I started to get hungry (hangry) and I was good until an actual meal. That is probably just me, because I eat small snacks between meals, so you may want a couple bites :).

With a cup of herbal tea, I gave them a try.

File_000 (6)

I liked the All Kinds of Nuts variety the best – they reminded me of a childhood guilty pleasure that I loved a little too much – Little Debbie brownies with nuts. (Any of you like that too? I haven’t had one in years but I still remember the taste. If you liked those brownies, Panera has a pretty good version 🙂. )

File_000 (4)

The Plain Crazy ones did taste like chocolate truffles. They were less sweet than the candy variety, which I actually like. I’m sensitive to sweet things and they often make me feel heady and sick, so the fact that these were less-sweet (think, dark chocolate) truffles and curbed food cravings makes these a winner in my book.

PMS Bites delivers a monthly subscription box with free shipping (not unlike Stitch Fix-clothes, BirchBox-beauty, or Blue Apron – meals) at a scheduled time. My box came with a promo code, so you can give code “livelife” a try if you’re interested in testing these little bites out!

Check PMS Bites out on their website, on Facebook, or on

Instagram: @PMSBites
Twitter: @PMSBites
#PMSBites

Cheers!

BlueBoots

 

2 thoughts on “Cure those commuter cravings with these little choco-nutty bites

Leave a Reply