TRADER JOES

Vanilla Almond Clusters cereal...I am OBSESSED! I call them crack clusters.

And I eat their salads every day.

Just stocked up for the office there today! My favorite to have on hand is the Annie Chun Udon Noodle Bowls. Yes, packaged food, yes carbs. But the sodium is not outrageous (460 mg per bowl), and they are 240 calories for the whole thing, almost no fat, still have 4g fiber, and they cost something like $2! I have them for lunch all the time, at least a couple days a week. I have a snack too if I want, but I honestly find them surprisingly filling, I think it's all the volume of broth. And I don't usually end up starved in the afternoon.

Other favorites:
I love the "bubbly water", their sparkling mineral water. The carbonation makes you really feel full, no calories, and just a hair of sodium. I often get the Fage 0% plain greek yogurt and add some honey and a handful of one of their granola cereals, awesome snack. If you like Indian food the Paneer Tikka Masala is very aromatic and tasty; stats are pretty typical of a packaged food (i.e. pretty mediocre) but it's a small-ish lunch in one whole day. I've recently taken to their baked lentil chips with sea salt and pepper plus a couple of good spoonfuls of double roasted salsa. You get a lot of chips per serving at low calories, the sodium is not horrible (220 mg). They have a good selection of tea and coffee. The fruit is okay, I always buy bags of tiny apples, and sometimes tomatoes and such. Fresh basil is the deal of the century compared to the grocery store. Hooray for the wines, reasonably priced and not half bad, I could do a whole post on a couple of my favorites. Milk, sour cream, butter, margarine, yogurt, etc seems about the same prices as our grocery store and a better selection actually. And there are great options for dark chocolate in various configurations for small treats here and there!

Word of warning - the place is NOT health food! Read the labels, you'd be amazed at many of the food products, especially anything in packages. They might sound healthy by the names, but pick them up and read - not very good stats. I realized in re-reading this post that I actually might get an awful lot of packaged foods overall. I try to be pretty smart about what packaged foods I choose. (I've lost 20 lbs in the last 3 months and am at a happy weight of 106 right now, so TJ's hasn't been too bad too me overall.)

never been to a Trader Joe's. Not one here!
everything sounds delish tho!

WAY too much that I love there - here are a few I can think of right now.

Fresh Pineapple - I do the cutting and have never had a bad one.
Rosemary Chicken with Wild Rice (refrigerated fresh) -- I don't do much frozen
Dorot frozen chopped garlic cloves - I steam or roast veggies with it
Baby fingerling potatos (yellow bag)
Mint Mouthfulls (frozen TREAT)
Blueberry Vanilla Chevre cheese
Multigrain crackers
Chocolately Cat Cookies :-)
Empire Kosher Turkey Breast - raw - you cook it
Low Salt sliced turkey (lunchmeat)
Lite White sliced cheddar
ANY of their butters (not dairy- look near jams and jellies) Pumpkin, Fig, Mango - whatever they have in
$4.99 Lambrusco - lightly sparkling white wine from Italy - YUM
Spinach, Kale and Yogurt dip
Carmelized Onion Dip
Hummus - any of them!
Frozen organic brown rice - ready in a snap!

OK - will stop now

This content has been removed.

Bump for when they finally open our Houston stores!

I always buy the little trays of garlic cubes, cilantro or basil. Looks like a mini ice cube tray with 20 individually frozen crushed cloves of garlic or a tsp of fresh basil. Keep in the freezer and pop out a cube when you need one.

bumping (dang, I have GOT to get to a TJ's soon !)

Cookie butter and seaweed!

^^^^this^^ and they have some awesome rice mixes like their brown rice red raddish seed medley.. yummy!!

frozen sliced leeks!
black bean/cheese taquitos
gluten free "rye" bread
black licorice Scottie dogs
sea salt caramels and chocolate almonds

Also their
Wasabi Peas
Low Sodi Garden Patch (for when I'm lazy ) Juice
South African Pepper Grind
Saffron
Hemp Powder
:flowerforyou: ...& FLOWERS of course!

We don't have a TJ's in Alabama; so sad. But when we are near one, Atlanta, Indianapolis, we always stock up on $3 buck chuck or TJ cabernet and their strawberry preserves. The checkout people must think we are nuts with that order. I love their iced gingersnaps that come out at Christmas. Must plan a trip to Atlanta, doesn't everyone drive 3 hours to the grocery store? lol

My latest discovery is the Falafel chips!! YUMMY! I heart their s'mores things, too (chocolate-covered). That place is so great!

I'm just starting to shop there more but we love their hummus! They also have these mini mint chocolate ice cream sandwiches that are delicious. The serving size is 2 for 120 calories but one is just enough for me.

Sliced, toasted almonds. I like to use them in salads. I have not found these anywhere else.