Our Health Nut and Registered Dietitian, Molly Morgan, answers our customers’ most pressing health and nutrition questions and recommends her favorite products!

If you’d like Molly to answer one of your questions in a future blog post, please email your question to health@nuts.com. If we feature your question in The Nutty Scoop, we will also send you a pound of your favorite Nuts.com product.

Healthy Holiday Parties

‘Tis the season for parties and holidays! Try these tips for party planning to keep your guests happy and your waistline in check.

During party season:

While the schedule gets busier, schedule time in for exercise all throughout the holiday season. This will help ensure that you breeze into 2013 without unwanted holiday pounds.

Before the party:

• Stick with your usual eating routine the day of a party. Skipping meals can set you up for overeating once you get there. You may want to grab a snack before you go to the party, such as an apple and almond butter or a handful of your favorite trail mix.
• Ask the host of the party what you can bring to the party. Bring a snack or appetizer that’s one of your healthy favorites: trail mix, fruit kebabs, hummus and vegetables, or a custom tray of nuts and dried fruit.
• If you’re the host of the party, balance out the food options with plenty of fruits and vegetables. Consider a make-your-own-trail-mix bar (assorted fruit and nuts with mini bags or boxes for your guests), roasted vegetable platters, bruschetta and veggie chips.

 At the party:

• Chat with your friends and family and minimize your time by the food table!
• Think about what you drink! Calories from sodas, punches, and alcohol beverages can pile up in a hurry. Plus, they do not fill you up.
• Share leftovers. Ask guests in advance to bring containers, or purchase some yourself to send leftovers home with your guests. This will limit the number of extra calories left in your refrigerator after the big party.

The bottom line is: A splurge or two at holiday parties won’t undo days, weeks, or months of healthy eating habits. Get right back to your eating and exercise routine and enjoy the holiday season!

Hosting the big Thanksgiving Day meal can feel like a major juggling act — not only do you have to shop, prepare and cook, you also have to consider any allergies or dietary restrictions your guests might have. You might be at a loss as to what to cook for your vegetarian niece who doesn’t eat turkey or your gluten-intolerant friend who can’t partake in the pumpkin pie, but these delicious recipes will take the guesswork and stress out of preparing a feast everyone can enjoy!

Vegetarian Thanksgiving Recipes

Butternut Squash Risotto

Vegetarians don’t have to be content with a small plate of salad and mashed potatoes for a meal. This recipe for rich, cheesy risotto uses hearty butternut squash, fresh baby spinach, toasted pine nuts, sage leaves and grated nutmeg will satisfy vegetarians and carnivores alike.

Cheesy Pasta Casserole with Mushrooms

This grown-up version of mac and cheese will have the vegetarians in your group going up for seconds. The dish blends pasta, dried porcini mushrooms, shitake mushrooms, white button mushrooms, fontina cheese and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese for pure melty goodness.

Gluten-Free Thanksgiving Recipes

Wild Rice & Brown Rice Stuffing

Guests with a gluten allergy can’t eat bread stuffing, but a rice-based stuffing is a filling and tasty alternative. This recipe combines wild rice, brown rice, toasted pecans, dried cranberries, apples and a hint of sage for an inventive side dish that might just upstage the main course.

Apple Crisp

Too often, gluten-free guests have to pass on dessert because flour is a main ingredient in many sweets. This gluten-free apple crisp will be the perfect grand finale (and another thing to be thankful for!) to your Thanksgiving meal. It tops fresh apples coated in maple syrup with brown rice flour, quinoa flakes, cinnamon and ginger for a sweet and tart crunchy flavor.

What vegetarian or gluten-free recipes have you tried for Thanksgiving?

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Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and it’s time to stock your pantry with fresh ingredients for the big meal! We’ve collected a few recipes that are not only delicious, but nutritious, too!

Apricot Cranberry Stuffing

The dried apricots and dried cranberries in this Apricot Cranberry Stuffing add a sweet, tangy twist to a classic dish. Apricots are rich in beta carotene, iron, magnesium, and Vitamin A. Cranberries are full of antioxidants that may help prevent heart disease, cancer, and other diseases.

Brussels Sprouts with Chestnuts and Sage

If you think brussels sprouts can’t taste good, think again! This dish spruces them up with olive oil, rich chestnuts, and aromatic sage. Our fresh chestnuts are the largest type grown, and we fly them in from Italy. Sage may help soothe arthritis, atherosclerosis, and asthma. In addition, brussels sprouts have a number of health benefits – they’re part of the disease-fighting cruciferous vegetable family and are full of vitamins such as calcium, potassium, vitamin A and vitamin C.

Southern Pecan Pie

Southern Pecan Pie is a decadent Thanksgiving treat! Our Raw Georgia Pecan halves are perfect for baking into a sweet, buttery holiday pie. Pecans not only taste amazing, but the plant sterols they contain help battle heart disease by lowering blood cholesterol levels.

Fill your Thanksgiving table with healthful, tasty dishes, full of our fresh ingredients!

Our Health Nut and Registered Dietitian, Molly Morgan, answers our customers’ most pressing health and nutrition questions and recommends her favorite products!

If you’d like Molly to answer one of your questions in a future blog post, please email your question to health@nuts.com. If we feature your question in The Nutty Scoop, we will also send you a pound of your favorite Nuts.com product.

As a mom of two young boys, I can say that the excitement around Halloween is mounting and the candy is coming! Here are some healthier, yet fun, treats to try for your Halloween celebrations this year.

Make Your Own Snack Mixes

Snack mixes make amazing healthy Halloween treats! Place a mix of items and mini bags our for guests to make their own personalized mixes to take home with them. Check out the following ideas:

Fall Themed Mix

• Fall chocolate pretzels 
• Orange Jordan almonds 
• Golden raisins 
• Vanilla light and crunchy granola 
• Yogurt raisins

Apple Pie Mix

• Yogurt raisins
• Infused Dried Apple Wedges
• Graham Cracker Cookie Gems

Sweet and Salty Mix

• Candy Corn 
• Pumpkin Spice Malt Balls
• Pretzel Flats
• Butter Braided Pretzels

Pumpkin Patch

• Spicy Pumpkin Seeds
• Sprouted Pumpkin Seeds
• Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Fall Coffee Treats

And for the adults, set up a fall-themed coffee bar!

• Apple Pie Coffee
• Pumpkin Pie Coffee
• Bailey’s Irish Cream Coffee
• Coffee and Cream Espresso Beans

We don’t want any tricks, but we sure can’t turn down those treats! Halloween is coming up in a few weeks, and now is the time to put together scary costumes, carve jack-o-lanterns and stock the house with a variety of Halloween candy to satisfy the sweet tooth of trick-or-treaters (and maybe a few snackers in the house…).

Whether you prefer traditional wrapped candy or party-ready snacks, our selection of Halloween treats will make your taste buds happy.

Halloween Candy for Trick-or-Treaters

These little morsels are individually wrapped and ready to hand out when your doorbell rings. Browse our large selection, or try a few of our favorites:

Hershey’s Nuggets Assortment

The chocolate lovers in the crowd will go wild for this mix of four types of Hershey’s Nuggets chocolate bars: Milk Chocolate, Extra Creamy Milk Chocolate with Toffee & Almonds, Milk Chocolate with Almonds and Special Dark Chocolate with Almonds.

Caramels

Sweet, soft and chewy, these traditional caramels are a crowd-pleaser.

Dum-Dum Pops

Dum-Dum lollipops have been a Halloween candy favorite for generations. The company started with seven flavors back in 1924, and now there are 34 flavors, ranging from sour apple and strawberry to root beer and buttered popcorn. The assortment of 16 available flavors rotates every year.

Organic Butterscotch Drops

Yummy Earth’s Organic Hopscotch Butterscotch drops are made with organic ingredients and have that classic butterscotch flavor that makes it hard to eat just one.

Halloween Treats for Parties

Fall Yogurt Pretzels

These pretzels are delicious and festive — they are dipped in white yogurt and drizzled with orange and brown fall colors.

Halloween Gummy Worms

Creepy, crawly and yummy! These multicolored gummy worms are hits with little kids and big kids alike.

Pumpkin Spice Malted Milk Balls

Combine a traditional malted milk ball with pumpkin pie filling and you have this tasty pumpkin spice malted milk ball.

Candy Corn

Nothing says Halloween like a handful of orange, yellow and white candy corn. Put out a bowl at your Halloween bash and watch it disappear!

What is your favorite kind of Halloween candy?

The month of October is full of fun events! Last week, we highlighted six special occasions to celebrate by snacking. Each occasion we mentioned, such as Vegetarian Awareness Month and Celiac Awareness Month, focused on a special type of healthy eating. As we all know, balance is important, and October also happens to be a time to indulge your sweet and salty snack cravings! Here are four more occasions to celebrate by snacking:

 1. National Dessert Month

Each of us has our favorite type of dessert. Some of us love to finish off a good meal with a few squares of pure chocolate. Others like feeling like a kid again by eating the marshmallow bits you find in cereals or savoring the nostalgia of old-time candy. Maybe you even prefer to keep it simple and freshen up with a few melt-in-your-mouth dessert mints!

2. National Cookie Month

Crispy, chewy, or crunchy cookies are a satisfying treat! Try our Peanut Butter Creme or classic Chocolate Creme Cookies, or start getting your tastebuds ready for winter with Holiday Shortbread Cookies. You can even buy crushed cookies for ice cream toppings or milkshake mix-ins, and bake your own cookies with our cookie mixes!

3. National Caramel Month

What can we say about caramel besides YUM? You can enjoy this sweet, sticky, buttery treat in so many ways. Go the classic route with wrapped caramels or caramel creams. Those who are crazy for salted caramel will want to try Salted Caramel Nut Fudge and Milk and Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramels. You really can’t go wrong!

4. National Popcorn Month

Hooray, it’s October! Not only does this month lead up to Halloween, but it’s also a time to celebrate a variety of food holidays and health-related causes. We’ve put together a few suggestions for commemorating each special occasion!

1. Eat Better, Eat Healthier Month: Healthy snacks can taste good…truly! Chia Chips are deliciously crunchy and contain chia and flax, which are full of Omega 3 fatty acids that are associated with heart health, cancer prevention, and a number of other benefits. Our Heart Healthy Sampler is full of snacks that contribute to heart health, including walnuts and dried cranberries!

2. National Breast Cancer Awareness Month: You’ll notice the nation thinking pink this month, as people proudly wear ribbons to support breast cancer research. Spices like turmeric and saffron are associated with breast cancer prevention, as are flax seeds. Research has shown that the Vitamin E in dried peaches and the lycopene in sun dried tomatoes can contribute to cancer prevention, as well.

3. Vegetarian Awareness Month: We give a special shout-out to our vegetarian customers this month! Our Vegetarian Sampler Pack is full of goodies like Veggie Chips and protein-packed Organic Quinoa.

4. Celiac Awareness Month: We have so many gluten-free customers that we created a section on our website dedicated to gluten-free products. If you love baked goods, check out our gluten-free baking mixes and enjoy bread, cakes, cookies, and muffins! We also have a wide selection of gluten-free flours,

5. Children’s Health Month: Feed your kids snacks that both of you will love! Our Extreme Trail Mix is full of dried fruit and nuts, mixed with M&Ms to please the palate. Our fruit leather comes in tasty strips and rolls. And if you’re looking for treats to add to lunch boxes, see our sample sizes!

6. Liver Awareness Month: For good liver health, you have a number of snacks to choose from. Goji berries are not only considered an anti-aging antioxidant, but also may help protect the liver. Dried papaya helps regulate the endocrine system, which helps rebuild liver cells. The blue-green algae spirulina may help your liver balance your blood fat levels and decrease harmful cholesterol.

What’s not to love about hazelnuts? Hazelnuts (also called filberts) are often used in desserts and coffees because of their rich, distinctive flavor. Plus, they’re high in protein and fiber and low in fat!

When we learned that Frangelico was leading the charge to celebrate National Hazelnut Month for the first time this September, we put together a Heavenly Hazelnut Gift Basket full of our favorite hazelnutty goodies. Here’s what you’ll find in the basket:

• Raw hazelnuts
• Salted roasted hazelnuts
• In-the-shell hazelnuts
• Dark chocolate covered hazelnuts
• Raw Duchilly hazelnuts
• Chocolate butter crunch
• Hazelnut Supreme Coffee

Hazelnuts are chock-full of essential vitamins and minerals, like B vitamins, iron, and phosphorous. They’re also high in healthy polyunsaturated and mononunsaturated fats and contain oleic acid, which can raise levels of good cholesterol and lower levels of bad cholesterol.

There are simply so many ways to enjoy hazelnuts. Substitute hazelnut flour for wheat flour in scones and cookies. Drizzle your salad with hazelnut oil. Sprinkle chopped hazelnuts onto your cereal, yogurt, or ice cream!

Happy National Hazelnut Month, everyone! Join in the fun on Twitter with the hashtag #nationalhazelnutmonth.

Labor Day weekend is coming up soon! How do you plan to celebrate? We see it as the last hurrah of summer, and we love to throw a barbecue every year, complete with some treats that remind us of summers past. Old fashioned candy never goes out of style, and we love to see the younger generations enjoying it just as much as we do!

No selection of old fashioned candy would be complete without salt water taffy. This ultimate summertime treat reminds us of vacations at the seashore. Our delicious salt water taffy is available in an array of colors and flavors, including watermelon, blueberry, chocolate and maple.

Other selections that we just have to include in our old fashioned candy buffet are sweet and tart lemon drops. Gummy bears are always a big hit with guests young and old, and with so many varieties to choose from, you’ll always have some to suit every taste! Soft fruit slices are available in a variety of flavors, including lemon, orange, lime, pomegranate, watermelon and pineapple. Chocolate pretzels and Jordan almonds are two favorite treats that we just can’t forget.

You don’t just have to stick to those treats! Be sure to take a look at our full selection of old fashioned candy to select some of your family’s favorites.

Once you have your selection of old-fashioned candy ready to go, make it even more fun by supplying guests with bags and bowls so they can make their own sweet mixes. You can even provide ice cream or frozen yogurt and convert the old-fashioned candy buffet into a sundae bar. The choice is yours! Sharing some old time sweets is great way to wrap up a day of barbecuing, swimming and fun in the sun.

This week is Shark Week, and we’re ready to celebrate with a heaping handful of our Gummy Blue Sharks! These cute, electric-blue gummy treats are the perfect snack for Shark Week.

Don’t just stop with Gummy Blue Sharks! We have a full collection of gummy fish that really complete just about any under-the-sea adventure. Our multi-colored Gummy Hammerhead Sharks are a fantastic treat for Shark Week. We also love to munch on Gummy Octopus, Gummy Clown Fish, Gummy Starfish and Gummy Lobsters.

Of course, no Shark Week celebration would be complete without a selection of Swedish Fish. We offer favorites such as assorted Swedish Fish and Red Swedish Fish, as well as new treats like Mini Swedish Fish and Sugar-Free Swedish Fish. Swedish Fish Aqua Life, in the assorted colors and shapes of your favorite critters from under the sea, are also a great treat!

We love to use Gummy Blue Sharks and other gummy fish to decorate cakes and cupcakes, make treat bags and fill candy dishes during our Shark Week fun.  Many of our gummy fish choices are certified gluten-free, making them an excellent sweet for those with gluten intolerance. Get your Gummy Blue Sharks and gummy fish today, and celebrate Shark Week in style!