Save Money Online – Healthy Deals
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Here are a few healthy deals I found to share with you this weekend:
~ Tropical Traditions is offering a buy one get one free deal on their Expeller Pressed Coconut Oil. This is their flavorless coconut oil, which gives you all the nutritional benefits of coconut oil without a coconuty flavor. It’s great for frying foods. Who knew, fried foods can be healthy! :)
~ What have you learned about coconut sugar? It’s new to me, but it appears to be a pretty healthy sugar option. You can get six pounds of Madhava Organic Coconut Sugar at Amazon for $15.99 with subscribe and save.
~ It looks like Enjoy Life Soy Free Chocolate Chips are available again at Amazon. They never tend to keep their supply long, so act fast if you want some! These are my chocolate chips of choice, to have on hand when I don’t feel like making homemade chocolate chips.
~ Mountain Rose Herbs has a huge supply of organic spices and herbs for a great price. Plus, be sure to check out their monthly specials. The variety of great items they offer is amazing to me!
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LOVE TROPICAL TRADITIONS! Thanks to YOU I placed my first large order with them this week, still waiting for it to get here!
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Hey– I love coconut sugar! It’s not quite as strongly-sweet as other sugars, and it doesn’t have the deep, heavy-duty flavor that sucanat/rapadura has. Plus, it has a lower glycemic index than the other sugars– it’s great stuff!
The other thing about it is that it’s pretty expensive. This is a good deal. At $2.66 a pound, I’m going to grab some for sure. The lowest price I’ve seen, either in big bags or small, has never been less than $3.89-ish. Thanks for the tip!
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Melisa Reply:
January 14th, 2012 at 12:19 pm
I’m sure I would love coconut sugar if I tried it. But I heard via Tropical Traditions that we shouldn’t jump on board
with consuming it because it is not sustainable. :-(
Blessings!
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For those who care I wanted to warn you that the coconut sugar talked about here is boiled so no enzymes and not as nutritous as a raw coconut sugar will be…
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Laura you are so good to share the “deals” :) Also, vitacost has started carrying the Enjoy Life chocolate chips. At $4.03 a pkg, that’s 42 cents more, without having to buy a “case.” I always recieve FREE shipping when placing an order w/them. Right now you only need to spend $49 to get your order shipped for free.
Has anyone else heard anything about coconut sugar processing being unsustainable?? I read this once and wish I could remember where. I’m not fond of that idea. I love my sucanat from Azure. I buy it in bulk and it lasts forever!! Plus I save lots of $$$$$$$ LOL
I too love Tropical Traditions. I only order w/free shipping tho, because it adds up quick on the bulky, heavy coconut oil :) I’m a deal lover too!!
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Shannen Mahoney Reply:
January 14th, 2012 at 10:46 am
I recieved free shipping…I wouldn’t have placed such an order without it…2 gallons of cocnut oil among other things. The shipping weight was over 25lbs!
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Shannen Mahoney Reply:
January 14th, 2012 at 10:47 am
coconut!
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Lanna Reply:
January 15th, 2012 at 2:33 am
How did you ladies get free shipping? I couldn’t find a free shipping code, and almost spending more in shipping than the product just doesn’t do it for me. :(
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Shannen Mahoney Reply:
January 15th, 2012 at 5:41 am
I did a search online …typed in coupon codes for tropical traditions..and a free shipping code came up and I recieved a book on coconut oil for free!
Theresa,
I found this article on the Tropical Traditions website about how coconut sugar is unsustainable. Hope this helps! Here is the link:
http://www.tropicaltraditions.com/coconut_palm_sugar.htm
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Jennifer Reply:
January 14th, 2012 at 6:35 pm
I read the same article a while back, did some research and decided that coconut sugar was not for me.
It is not a sustainable resource and creates a lot of problems not only for the coconut industry, but also
for the ecosystems that they share with so many animals.
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KT Reply:
January 15th, 2012 at 1:26 pm
I read this article too and did further research. I contacted the company I mentioned in a separate post, Coconut Secret, that is very forthright about their operations on their website. They were super fast with a reply and clarification. I’ve copied it here for you. Read and decide for yourself. As for me, it’s clear that Tropical Traditions is skewing things to attempt to protect their interests in producing coconut oil, their largest money maker. I personally don’t like that in a company and would not make Tropical Traditions my first choice in a coconut oil vendor. That being said, it appears there is plenty of sustainability in the coconut sugar market, at least what Coconut Secret produces. So if sustainability is your only barrier to trying coconut sugar, it appears to be broken! Have a go and enjoy sweet healthy!
“In response to your question about the article on Tropical Tradition’s website ~ we’ve known about it for quite a while, and were quite shocked when we first read it, since we believe it to be untrue and very skewed in Tropical Tradition’s favor. Please understand that their primary product is coconut oil, so much so, that they are the suppliers for several brands of coconut oil that you see on store shelves here in the U.S.
Over in the Philippines where Tropical Traditions, as well as our manufacturing facilities are based, there are SOooo MANY coconut trees, that not even a fraction of them are being utilized for commercial purposes. In addition, it is common practice there, to utilize a tree for BOTH purposes (tapping for sap as well as allowing part of the tree to continue to produce mature coconuts.) For a more detailed explanation, I invite you to read a link on our website that addresses this very topic. http://coconutsecret.com/sap%20vs.oil%20production.html
Please rest assured that as a company, it is of great focus for us to honor and preserve nature’s precious gifts. We are gigantic supporters of sustainability, so much so, that I personally live in a house that is completely off-grid, 100% solar powered. I am very grateful that you reached out and gave us the opportunity to share our viewpoint. I sure hope this is helpful!
Many Blessings, Leslie
Leslie’s Organics/Coconut Secret
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We have switched from sucanat to coconut sugar exclusively for the last year. All coconut sugars are not created equal as some comments above suggest compromises in quality or health due to processing.
After my research, I have chosen to only purchase Coconut Secret Coconut Crystals, it’s raw, organic and enzymatically alive. It’s also the only coconut sugar company who has research to prove their low glycemic claim. Other coconut sugars (or just “palm sugars” that try to rub off of coconut sugar’s claims of goodness but are NOT the same)cannot verify their low gycemic status, and sometimes have disclaimers on their packaging suggesting it might not be ideal for diabetics. Not so with Coconut Secret brand. It was originally created for a diabetic in their family and is diabetic safe. This is a link to the manufacturer’s website for just the coconut crystals product. I highly suggest reading the whole site for an education in coconut! http://www.coconutsecret.com/crystals2.html
As with all good healthy food, there seems to be a cost factor. Coconut Secret brand is very expensive and I like to bake a lot! The best price I’ve found is via Azure Standard, 27.5 pound bag for $170, just over $6 a pound. It was on sale last spring for $150, about $5.50 a pound. It’s about $9 a pound in small canisters in health food stores. Two bags lasts my family of 4 a whole year and I bake almost daily. To make it stretch further I take any recipe for baking and typically cut the sugar called for in half. I generally don’t like to use more than 1/2 cup of coconut crystals per recipe, a recipe being 12 muffins, a batch of cookies, a loaf of quick bread, etc. It is true that coconut crystals are not as sweet as sucanat or any other cane sugar, so I add 1-3 dropper fulls of plain liquid stevia to the recipe liquids and that amps the sweetness enough to not miss what sucanat used to provide. It’s a formula that allows us to have sweet things and reduce the impact to our health, something we find essential in our family and worth the cost of Coconut Secret brand. We live VERY simply in order to attempt to afford healthier foods. Lexie’s Kitchen and The Spunky Coconut are both food blogs about gluten free living that served as my inspiration to research coconut sugars. While we are not gluten free, we are much healthier from scratch eaters!
Coconut Secret also makes other healthy coconut products. I haven’t explored the coconut flour too much since we have an egg allergy in our home and coconut flour recipes call for too many eggs to compensate for with my baking alternatives. I have tried the coconut aminos (like Bragg’s aminos which we love for homemade salad dressings) but didn’t like the coconut version. It does not taste like coconut at all but is more of a soy sauce alternative but we just did not care for the taste. I do, however, like the coconut vinegar (again purchased from Azure Standard, cheaper than our health food store). We use that a lot with Bragg’s in salad dressings and in any other recipe calling for vinegar.
I am a coconut sugar convert and am healthier for it!
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I love coconut oil too! thanks for the info!!
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Wow…I didn’t know the chocolate chips were such a hot commodity. After Christmas our store had them marked down to $2.19 a bag trying to clear them out. If I had known, I would have bought more than one bag. I haven’t tried them before, but I will for sure, now!
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Bahhhhh!!!! I just ordered expeller-pressed coconut oil from another company recommended to me yesterday and of course I paid shipping. And I’ve already been notified it shipped. Dangnabbit!
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