Here’s a great little tip to help you learn about special sales and deals at your local grocery store. If you’re on Twitter, follow your grocery store for their ‘tweets’ about upcoming sales specials.
Some NuVal favorites:
Trading Up Downtown Giveaway
Giveaway time!
Here’s your chance to win a chocolate-inspired prize, which includes:
- A box of Kashi TLC Oatmeal Dark Chocolate Cookies
- A Chocolate Coconut Chew Larabar
- A bar of Green & Blacks Organic 85% Dark Chocolate
To enter: Leave a comment on this post about your favorite money-saving tip at the grocery store. I will randomly pick a winner tomorrow morning.
Good luck!
Lauren Canepari blogs at Eater Not a Runner. She is a twenty-something on a mission to be healthy and eat well in the process. Along this journey she went from not being able to run a mile to completing her first half-marathon. The only thing she likes more than writing about food is eating it!
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When I was training for my first half marathon this summer and fall, I realized the importance of fueling your body before and after runs. I used to eat whatever I felt like without thinking about how it might affect my performance. When going on a long run, I realized that right when I finished I needed some fuel to replenish and get me going for the rest of the day!
One of my favorite discoveries has been oatmeal. I know it can seem boring, but done the right way it can be a delicious way to refuel. Here is one of my favorite oatmeal combos.
Banana-Pumpkin-Peanut Butter Oats
½ cup Quaker rolled oats
½ cup water
½ cup skim milk
½ large banana
¼ cup canned pumpkin
1 tbsp ground flax seed
1 tbsp unprocessed wheat bran
¼ tsp vanilla extract
Cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg to taste
1 tbsp Teddie all natural peanut butter
Directions: Mix the first 4 ingredients together then cook as directed (on stovetop or in the microwave). Right when the oatmeal is done cooking I stir in the rest of the ingredients except for the peanut butter which I plop right on top! This refills you after a long run with plenty of potassium, carbs, and some good fats and protein.
I can’t wait until Nuval comes to a supermarket near me so I can use the scores on the shelf instead of looking online. It is such a great way to find delicious trade-ups for foods you didn’t even know you were missing!
The other night, I made Real Simple’s Turkey and Bean Chili for dinner and it turned out great! 
I always love eating a warm, hearty bowl of chili in the wintertime, but this recipe was especially delicious. It also made a ton of leftovers, so if you’re looking at it from a money-saving perspective, chili is a very wallet-friendly meal.
In addition to being delicious and fairly inexpensive to make at home, chili is also a mostly nutritious meal. Here’s how this recipe scored on the NuVal scale:
Turkey and Bean Chili
Serves 4
Hands-On Time: 15m
Total Time: 40m
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil, extra virgin (NuVal score: 11)
- 1 onion, chopped (NuVal score: 93)
- 1 green bell pepper, chopped (NuVal score: 94)
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped (NuVal score: 91)
- 1/2 pound Shady Brook Farms ground turkey (NuVal score: 33)
- 2 tablespoon Hunt’s tomato paste (NuVal score: 47)
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon ground chipotle chili pepper or 2 teaspoons chili powder
- 1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes – no salt (NuVal score: 46)
- 2 15-ounce cans Goya kidney beans, rinsed (NuVal score: 64)
- kosher salt and black pepper
- 1/4 cup Breakstone’s reduced-fat sour cream (NuVal score: 29)
- cilantro sprigs, for serving
Directions
- Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onion, bell pepper, and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, 4 to 6 minutes.
- Add the turkey and cook, breaking up with a spoon, until no longer pink, 3 to 5 minutes more. Stir in the tomato paste, cumin, and chili pepper and cook, stirring, for 1 minute.
- Add the tomatoes (with their juices), the beans, ½ cup water, 1¼ teaspoons salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened, 12 to 15 minutes. Serve with the sour cream and cilantro.
Developed by an independent panel of nutrition and medical experts, the 