You can get in the game buy buying a franchise of Virginia-based Elevation Burger, which serves organic, grass-fed, free-range beef with fries cooked in hearth-healthy olive oil…in LEED-certified green buildings. Or, at the other end of the spectrum, you could own your local franchise of the Heart Attack Grill, the “Taste Worth Dying For.” We’d opt for the former.

-Read our review of SerendipiTea artisan tea blends.

-Read SerendipiTea’s tea and food pairings.

Ayala’s infuses organic garden herbs, blended with spices and citrus peel, into purified water—with dazzling results. Innovative in flavor profile, it is the first nationally available, organically certified, flavored water. If you like unsweetened fruit-flavored waters, herb and spice flavors open up an exciting new perspective. If you don’t like fruit flavors, herbs are far more sophisticated.

Flavors include Cinnamon Orange Peel, Clove Cardamom Cinnamon, Ginger Lemon Peel, Jasmine Vanilla, Lavender Mint Lemongrass Thyme and Lemongrass Mint Vanilla. While the names are a mouthful, the mouthful is calorie-free, sodium-free, healthy, hydrating and wonderfully fragrant and flavorful.

There’s a store locator on the company website, and major retailers have embraced herbal water, proving our original naysayers wrong. You can also buy Ayala’s online with free ground shipping. And, to sweeten the deal, for a limited time there’s $5 off on your order if you sign up for the company newsletter. That makes a case of 12 bottles just $19. How can you resist? Read the full review.

So Delicious Coconut Milk Mini Sandwiches are available nationally in Whole Foods Markets and select other retailers. The suggested retail price is $4.99 for a box of eight 2.3-ounce sandwiches. For more information, visit TurtleMountain.com.

A dip or dressing with half the calories tastes just as good—maybe even better! Top photo courtesy Vermont Creamery. Bottom photo courtesy Betty Crocker.

With those New Year’s resolutions that include “lose weight,” substituting mustard for mayonnaise wherever possible is an easy switch. French’s claims that, simply by substituting mustard for mayonnaise on your sandwiches three times a week, you could lose a minimum of four pounds per year.

To that, we’d add: Try Dijon mustard instead of sugar-laden ketchup as a dip for fries and on burgers. Mustard has no fat, no carbohydrates, is gluten-free and has as few as 5 calories per teaspoon (honey mustard has more). Ketchup has about the same calories (15 per tablespoon), but it’s mostly sugar, and thus 4-5g of carbs, compared to 0g for the mustard.

Mustard is an extremely versatile ingredient. Dijon is often used to add flavor to vinaigrettes, soups, sauces, as well as dips. You can vary the flavors with horseradish mustard, walnut mustard, spicy mustard.

The mustard at your specialty food store should be a gourmet paradise; a better supermarket also has a lot of choice.

Here’s a tasty cucumber dip recipe from French’s. At 45 calories per 2-tablespoon serving, it beats mayo-based dips that start at 100 calories for a single tablespoon.
 

RECIPE: COOL & CREAMY CUCUMBER DIP & DRESSING

Prep time is 15 minutes.
 
Ingredients For 1-1/3 Cups

1. COMBINE all ingredients in a blender or food processor. Cover; process until well blended. Transfer to covered container; chill in the refrigerator.

2. SERVE with salad greens or crudités.
 
Nutritional amount per 2 tablespoon serving: 45 calories, 4g fat, 2g saturated fat, 1g protein,
2g carbohydrates, 0g dietary fiber, 2g net carbs, 8mg cholesterol, 61mg sodium.
 
*Honey mustard is higher in calories. If you want honey mustard flavor without them, sweeten regular Dijon mustard with your noncaloric sweetener of choice. It’s that easy!