Healthy Aldi finds!

Yesterday I shopped in Aldi for the very first time...before you think I am some sort of supermarket snob, I can assure you I am not. I love getting a bargain and we used to shop at Lidl quite a lot. I do find that you cannot get everything you need at these shops though and they don't always have the branded products that we buy. Now we have baby Rafe shopping is a bit of a mission anyway without having to make two trips to different supermarkets. I also find the whole checkout experience at these shops a little stressful too, they seem to want you to pack at break neck speed (which I used to be very efficient at) but these days trying to cope with a baby and pack my shopping in about five seconds isn't too easy! 
Richard also works for one of the larger supermarkets so we get discount which sometimes works out cheaper anyway.

We didn't have a massive food shop to do yesterday though and I have heard good things about Aldi's own brand nappies so we thought we would investigate. It's definitely a lot cheaper, especially the fruit and vegetables and we picked up some Mamia nappies (which I am hoping will actually contain Rafe's all too frequent poop explosions so I don't have to bin anymore vests!). What I was not expecting, and was very pleasantly surprised about was the great range of really healthy, wholesome food options at really good prices. Aldi seems to be more forward thinking than even a lot of the larger supermarkets when it comes to healthy options which was really great to see. 
Healthy food tends to be a lot more expensive than the less healthy options particuarly things like snack bars. But Aldi has a range of raw fruit and nut bars from The Foodie Market that are very good value for money and nutritional.
 
I purchased two different varieties, the Macadamia and coconut Paleo bar and the Cashew crush raw bar. I was really intrigued to try these because I am always on the hunt for quick, convenient snacks. The bars are made of all natural, raw, cold pressed ingredients. They are completely gluten and dairy free, suitable for vegetarians and have no added sugar or preservatives. They cost £1.99 for a pack of five bars. The cashew crush are 35g bars and the Paleo bars weigh 45g. So how did they fair in the all important taste test;

I am firstly going to talk about my favourite of the two varieties that we bought. The Macadamia and Coconut bars contain just five ingredients; dates, cashew nuts, coconut, macadamia nuts and almond oil so all super healthy. Taste wise I think they are lovely, they have natural sweetness from the dates and they taste good enough to be classed as a treat in my opinion. I love anything containing coconut and the coconut flavour and texture comes through really well in these bars. If you have ever tried any of the 'Nakd' bars then the consistency of these is very similar. They aren't particuarly low in calories at 211kcal per bar but they are both healthy and high fibre and any sugars are naturally occuring and not refined. I would definitely buy these again.

We also bought the 'Cashew crush' bars. These are made of a two ingredients cashew nuts and dates. These have 158kcal per 35g bar. Taste wise they are very very similar to the Nakd bar 'Cashew cookie' but at around 39p per bar they are much, much better value with Nakd bars costing around 75p per bar when bought individually.The cashew flavour is the most prominant taste. These again are very naturally sweet, I personally prefer the macadamia and coconut ones because I love the taste of the coconut. Something which I found slightly off putting when trying these was that on my first bite I chomped down on a very hard little lump of, I'm assuming, date stone. It does say on the box that 'although every effort has been made to remove shell, some small fragments may remain' so that is something to watch out for. It was too small to pose any choking hazard...but was a little painful! I personally wouldn't buy this flavour again but if you like the taste of the Nakd cashew cookie or just cashew nuts you will probably love these.

I think overall these are great value for money and brilliant healthy, high fibre snacks that do not contain any refined sugars. They will also work well for kids lunchbox snacks and I definitely will be giving these to Rafe when he's a bit older and has teeth as a much healthier alternative to anything that contains refined sugar and preservatives. 

Jx
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