As the weather warms up and we get thirstier and thirstier, we plan how to hydrate on-the-go.

That’s why we’re delighted that Lipton has launched its Tea & Honey To Go packets. This new line of iced tea mixes contains natural honey, real tea leaves and real fruit flavors.

Wherever you can find a glass of water—or fill your water bottle—you can have a refreshing glass of iced tea for just 5 calories per eight ounces. The packets themselves weigh nothing and can be carried in a pocket. So today’s tip is: Consider the convenience of to-go packets to make instant drinks from water.

These Lipton Tea & Honey iced green tea drink mixes include:

 
The mixes also come in pitcher-size packets.

Pour the packet contents into water to turn it to flavorful iced tea. Image courtesy Lipton.  

And the except for sucralose, the mixes are all natural.* The ingredients include honey granules,† citric acid, green tea powder, maltodextrin,‡ natural flavor and color.

The products are hitting stores now nationwide. You can get a free samples when you like Lipton on Facebook, while supplies last.

*Although sucralose is made from sugar, the sugar molecule is chemically modified, which classifies it as an artificial sweetener.

†Honey granules are pure honey, dried and cut, with no additives, into pinhead-size pieces. You can buy them online.

‡Maltodextrin is a starch filler made from natural corn, rice or potato starch. It is a white powder used as a thickener or a filler without altering flavor. It’s in artificial sweetener packets, for example, because the very few grains of aspartame or sucralose required as a sweetener wouldn’t fill a packet.

You can blend your own smoothie or pour it
ready-to-drink from a bottle of flavored
kefir. Photo courtesy RevivalSoy.com.  

Many people think that kefir is the same as drinkable yogurt. That’s close, but not exact. Kefir is even healthier than yogurt. In fact, kefir is often called a “super yogurt,” since it is up to 36 times more probiotic than yogurt.

While the recipes are similar, kefie has even more live and active cultures (naturally occurring bacteria and yeasts) and is loaded with vitamins and minerals. It contains easily digestible, complete proteins, and is recommended for those with digestive issues, including colitis, Crohn’s disease, IBS and lactose intolerance.

The once-exotic drink is now available in supermarkets nationwide. It’s available in luscious fruit flavors in addition to plain.

The addition of fruit creates what we think of as a kefir smoothie (to differentiate it from a conventional yogurt smoothie). It’s just as delicious and better for you. And it’s more drinkable—less thick—than smoothies made with non-drinkable yogurt.

Our favorite flavored kefir, from Green Valley Organics, is made with lactose-free milk that is Certified Humane® plus a probiotic-rich combination of 10 live and active cultures. A blend of strawberry, pomegranate and açaí, It has less added sugar than many flavored kefirs. Also available in plain, the kefir is kosher-certified, organic and gluten free.

It is so delicious, an eight-ounce serving (150 calories, 20 from fat) satisfies our craving for ice cream or frozen yogurt, which has more than twice the calories and typically, none of the healthy components.

Another brand, Lifeway Kefir, makes Blueberry, Cherry, Peach, Pomegranate/Açaí, Raspberry and Strawberry kefir flavors, in addition to plain.

With the increased consumer interest in gluten-free products, we find ourselves tasting more of them. Our rule of thumb with any special-diet product is: It’s got to be so good that anyone would enjoy it, and not notice that it’s meant for people on a restricted diet.

Last week our Top Pick was My Dad’s gluten-free cookies. Now we have two new items to add to our gluten-free roster: delicious pizzas.

Frozen Gluten-Free Pizzas From Bold Organics

The Bold Organics pizza line is not just gluten-free: It’s milk-free (no lactose, casein or whey), egg-free, peanut- and treenut-free.

It not only tastes like conventional pizza; it’s better than many of the other frozen choices in the supermarket, even the ones made with traditional wheat and dairy.

All of the flavor, none of the gluten (or other
allergens). Photo courtesy Bold Organics.  

These are individual pies, approximately eight inches in diameter. The number of servings is listed as two—for two five-year-olds, perhaps, but you’ll know that when you see the size of the box. Just count on one pizza per adult.

 
These tasty pizzas are available in four different flavors:

 
Bold Organics pizzas retail from $6.99 to $10.29. They’re being rolled out at retail locations around the country this month, with representation in Whole Foods and increased presence overall expected later this year. See the company website to view a store locator.

The line is certified by Organic Certifiers, the Non GMO Project and the Celiac Sprue Association.

Millions of Jews will celebrate a week of Passover beginning Friday, April 6th. The holiday commemorates the biblical story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt, after God inflicted the ten plagues upon the Egyptians.

As the story goes, the Jews had to leave Egypt immediately. They gathered up possessions and livestock but could not wait for the bread dough to rise, resulting in matzo, an unleavened flatbread. Thus, during the week of Passover, no leavened bread is eaten; only matzo (also spelled matzoh, matza and other variations).

So what if you want to celebrate Passover with matzo, but have gluten sensitivities?

Two brands are at the ready:

Gluten-free matzo. Photo by Elvira Kalviste | THE NIBBLE.

 
Seder Idea

The Passover seder, the ritual feast celebrated on the first two nights of the holiday, is accompanied from beginning to end by a reading of the Haggadah (“telling”).

This year, participants at our seder are coming as witnesses of the Exodus. Each of us will provide a few minutes of insight into the desires, hopes, frustrations, fears and domestic lives of our characters. Participating will be will be Moses, Pharaoh, a nameless Jewish slave and an Egyptian, along with Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, a first century scholar who appears giving commentary in the Hagadah.

We are going as a baker, faced with feeding the exodus masses without the time to leaven the bread. The result: matzo.

Can’t have gluten? Or, like a growing number of Americans, are you choosing to avoid it?

You can still enjoy bakery-style cookies, thanks to My Dad’s gluten-free cookie line.

A broad selection of tasty cookies awaits—cookies so well crafted that most people will never know they’re gluten-free. We couldn’t tell when we first tasted the cookies!

Read the full review, and treat yourself or a gluten-free loved one to some lovely nibbles.

Find more of our favorite gluten-free products.

How many different types of cookies are there?
See our Cookie Glossary.

Delicious and gluten-free! Photo by Elvira Kalviste | THE NIBBLE.  

This recipe converts America’s favorite cookie, the chocolate chip cookie, into a gluten-free version.

More and more Americans are discovering they have a sensitivity to gluten, a protein in wheat and other popular grains such as barley and rye. A more serious manifestation is celiac disease.

Some of the best brands of gluten-free cookies we’ve tried are the result of a family member seeking to make the tastiest treats for a relative with gluten sensitivity. If you have a loved one who needs to avoid gluten, bake a batch of these as a gift.

There are more than 20 gluten-free or low-gluten alternatives to wheat flour, from familiar ingredients such as cornmeal and potato flour to amaranth and teff flours. They’re more expensive than wheat flour, which is why gluten-free baked goods, pasta, etc. are costlier than conventional products.

The substitutes vary widely in their flavor and texture contribution. People working on gluten-free recipes do a lot of experimenting to find the ingredients and proportions they like best.

TRIVIA: “Gluten” is the Latin word for glue. The protein acts as a binder to give elasticity to dough and a chewy texture to the final product.

Find more of our favorite gluten-free products.

Three of the five flavors of GH Cretors
elegant popcorn. Photo courtesy
GH Cretors.  

Flash back to Super Bowl Sunday: We consumed five bags of GH Cretors popcorn, one of each flavor. The empty bags were flattened and brought to the office, where they were added to the “to be written up” box.

Alas, due to an avalanche of other flattened bags and boxes that week, we’ve just uncovered the Cretors bags, but the happy memory lingers. As does our desire to order more.

GH Cretors helped to launch popcorn as a favorite snack of the modern age. In 1885,* Charles Cretors invented the steam-powered popcorn machine (see the photo below).

Previously, popcorn was popped in kitchens, over stove flames in large copper kettles. Cretors developed a raised steam popper that popped the kernels at the top of a large glass bin and spilled the fresh popcorn into the bin, where it could be scooped into bags (the system is still used in today’s movie theaters and elsewhere).

*It was an eventful year: Among other noteworthy happenings, the modern gasoline-fueled internal combustion automobile engine was invented, the the Statue of Liberty was delivered to New York Harbor and the Washington Monument was dedicated.

From Fresh-Popped To Store-Bought

Cretors brought the aroma and visuals of popping corn right in front of the consumer, which helped to catapult popcorn into one of the best-selling snacks of all time.

The GH Cretors brand of packaged popcorn is a relatively new one, launched by the fourth and fifth generations of Cretors descendants. While the family had continued to make popcorn at home through the generations, we’re glad that they’ve put their product on the shelf.

We’re big popcorn fans. Popcorn is a whole-grain snack; for this reason, it’s a better snack option, whether you crave sweet or salty (or a combination of the two). Whole grains are important in your diet (details).

The popcorn is crisp and deftly seasoned with just the right touch of caramel or cheese. And there are added benefits with GH Cretors Popcorn:

Photo courtesy Snapple.  

Snapple didn’t invent the “Half ‘n Half,” a refreshing beverage made of half iced tea, half lemonade.

The drink was popularized by golfing great Arnold Palmer.

As the story goes, in the 1960s, after a long day spent designing a golf course in Palm Springs, Palmer asked a bartender for a mixture of lemonade and iced tea.

A woman sitting next to him told the bartender, “I’ll have that Palmer drink”—which quickly became known as an “Arnold Palmer.”

Whether Palmer created it himself or got the idea elsewhere is currently lost to history. And the term “Half ‘n Half” has long been used in the U.K. to describe various combinations of beverages.

So don’t be confused when you see Diet Snapple’s new Half ‘n Half. It’s a diet Arnold Palmer—and it’s delicious.

The entire 16-ounce bottle has just 10 calories,* and it’s worth many times that in terms of refreshment. The sweeteners are sucralose and acesulfame potassium. There’s no “diet” taste: just total deliciousness.

Mix your alcohol of choice into an Arnold Palmer and you get a John Daly—named for a golfer who is not happy that his name is being used. But if you want to put some vodka (or citrus vodka) in your Half ‘n Half, Diet Snapple provides the base for a low-calorie cocktail.

*Per 8-ounce serving: 5 calories, 0 g total fat, 5 mg sodium, 1 total carb, 0 g sugar, 0 g protein.

This got buried under zillions of emails, so we didn’t read it before the Super Bowl. But we find it just as interesting the day after.

The “Big Game” has become much more than a football game: It’s the second biggest day for food consumption in the United States, after Thanksgiving.

So, says Charles Platkin, PhD, MPH, assistant professor at CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College and editor of DietDetective.com, here are the eye-opening exercise equivalents for some favorite football snacks, along with Dr. Platkin’s recommended alternatives. While football season is over, snack time never is.

Are you kidding: 68 minutes playing “catch” to burn off three pigs in blankets? Photo courtesy Pepperidge Farm.

If your Valentine loves chocolate but is on a sugar-restricted diet, the Choclatique artisans have the solution: Their Sweet Deceit 100% Sugar-Free Chocolate in heart shapes are certain to make someone happy.

The assortment includes solids and truffles (chocolate ganache centers). The chocolates are also gluten- and nut-free and al-natural (no preservatives or artificial flavors).

The chocolate and fillings, which are made with maltitol, taste as close as can be to the “real thing.”

Eight pieces are $20.00, 15 pieces are $35.00 and 30 pieces are $65.00

Buy them at Choclatique.com.

Find more of our favorite sugar-free candy.

You won’t find better sugar-free chocolate than this. Photo courtesy Choclatique.