Quest is Here & My First Campaign Invite!

First off, let's give a round of applause to myself - I am officially a "working" BzzAgent!!! I was emailed an invite to the Claritin Kids campaign and will be receiving TWO full size products (chewables, liquid) *for* *free* to try out on the family. This is the beauty of BzzAgent; I am sent free products to try on myself or the family, but all that is asked of me in return is to give my honest opinion on the product (whether I hate it, love it, or any other reaction in between) and pass my opinion on to everyone else to let them know about the product too.

My first Bzz Campaign starts May 6th!

I would like to stress some universal disclaimers before I begin posting about the products in the near future I receive from BzzAgent. Other than the products I am given to try, I am not reimbursed in any way by ANY company. I simply am giving my own, uninfluenced, opinion on the products at hand. This will go for all of the products I receive as free samples from other sources in the near future, too. If I hate it I will scream it from the rooftops haha, just as I will brag about a product if I really like it too. If you ever have any questions or concerns, leave me a comment and I will gladly respond.

If you want to become a BzzAgent like I am, here is my referral link: Hear the Bzzz!

From work today I received a couple of perishable food items: a dozen eggs and some YELLOW zucchinis. YELLOW?... they look like a zucchini in shape, but the color (and frankly, the taste too) are just different from what you are used to with a regular zucchini.

Three yellow zucchinis and a dozen fertile eggs.

So, after cooking the squash and tasting them, I found that they taste different than squash I am used to. They are not BAD, but the flavor wasn't exactly what I was expecting (I thought they'd still taste like a zucchini). Here's a shot from when I cooked them up in a tomato cream sauce:

Taking this with some summer sausage for lunch tomorrow at work.

So...the moment I've been waiting for most of this week: the arrival of my *purchased* Quest Nutrition products. I received my 12 bar variety pack of Quest bars and the *free* sample of the chocolate protein. I am no glutton, so I only tried a couple of things today.

My Quest haul...sampler box and protein.

I had eaten pretty clean today (basically a full zero carb day since all I had was super creamy fresh cheese and meat), so I decided to try the Apple Pie variety with the help of the kiddos. If all four of us ate and kept eating it, then you know something about that bar was good. Some protein bars are very dense; this was not, and I loved the apple flavor. I wish they could somehow make a bar like this but eliminate the extra sugar and carbs (none added, but naturally occurring from the apples). This will definitely be a very occasional treat if I ever order this bar for my home; the kids LOVE it though, especially my youngest.

The taste was phenomenal, and not too dense. Even all of the kids enjoyed.

Since four of us split the bar, I splurged a little bit further and decided to make my "protein mousse" with their chocolate protein sample I was sent. They do use sucralose (also known as Splenda) in both the Apple Pie Bar and the Chocolate protein; this is a negative for someone who like to try to use natural products like myself, but I have never seen any specific negative side effects from sucralose. The protein seems consistent, plenty sweet enough (with no sugar added), and chocolatey.

Chocolate usually isn't my fave, but this wasn't bad.

One thing I noticed as soon as I started mixing in my cream, however, is that the Quest Protein is more dense than the whey proteins I am used to using. I had to use a LOT more cream in my mix, which resulted in a much denser paste than I usually have with my other concoctions.

It was more like a very thick icing or over dense cake batter.

As you can see above, adding Oxylent to this didn't make it as airy as my previous attempts at the same blend, but my goodness this stuff tasted wonderful! I decided that I would use the orange flavor in with the powder, and I was NOT disappointed. If you can believe it, these 2 net grams of carbs in this bowl tasted EXACTLY like a Tootsie Pop - chocolate Tootsie Roll flavor with a citrusy, candy sort of taste from the Oxylent. My oldest child and youngest both tasted it and quite liked it. My son actually kept asking for more bites, but before long it was gone because of me.

Protein in the bowl along with other snack components. 

Will be doing this a lot in the future, so good!

If you can't tell I am a bit of an Oxylent fan. It's absolutely zero calories, a powdered full multi, and tastes great (in a normal situation you'd mix it with water). Natural foods retailers (like my place of employment, actually) are the perfect place to find these products. Maybe you can come up with some creative ideas as to other ways of using it like I have!

Tomorrow's blog already has a list of other things to cover, too. I joined another site similar to BzzAgent today, and I will pass along  my humble opinion on them versus Bzz (very early opinion mind you). I will post a review of another Quest bar tomorrow as well - I'm thinking Strawberry Cheesecake, one of the flavors I am most excited to try! On a side note, before I forget, I did not receive a Mint Chocolate bar in my variety pack unfortunately, but I think I received one of ALL of the natural flavors with no sucralose added, which is good for me.

Keep your eyes open for free samples or other good deals! These bars will be the last spending splurge on myself for a while, so pass along any information you have about freebies so we can all benefit from what companies want us to try for them.