who doesn't love a free cookie?

image via weheartit.com

i know i love free anything...especially cookies! i'm semi-ashamed to admit this but i still take advantage of the free harris teeter cookies for kids when i shop there. on a less embarassing and more adult note, however, kashi (one of my favorite food brands!) is giving away free samples of their new oatmeal dark chocolate cookies online. click here to go to their website and sign up for a very exciting cookie-gram in your mailbox. if you're a nerd like me and actually like reading food labels, you can even play the uber cute "steal the cookie" game and learn all about kashi's healthy, all natural ingredients.

if you're too busy to play the game or don't feel like reading the labels - here's the dish: the kashi company, a branch of kellogg, started in 1984 and has been striving to make healthy foods taste delicious ever since. while i'm not psycho about eating healthy (i have far too many doritos and fugde brownie binges to fall into the "health nut" category), i have been raised to eat a well-balanced diet with lots of protein and whole grains. the older i get, the more i realize the things i eat directly correlate to how i feel so i have become very conscious of the decisions i make while shopping at the supermarket. even a small change toward fresher, more natural foods makes a difference and i absolutely love kashi for that reason! their products are so yum and i feel great about eating them. everything kashi manufactures has no hydrogenated oils, no tras-fats and is all natural, and most are sweetened with honey instead of sugar. the cookie discussed above only has 130 tiny calories - goodbye lame 100 calorie packs, hell-ooo kashi cookies!

for an entertaining read on food and how it affects your body, try the book skinny bitch, by rory freedman and kim barnouin. while the ideas presented are a little extreme (i'm not ready to go totally organic or give up eating chicken and turkey burgers), and the writing a little choppy and crass, it's still really interesting to read how food affects your system. enjoy and happy eating!