Hi Everyone! I hope you are having a great Monday! I, of course, am done with student teaching and am pretty much in full holiday mode.

Oh  yes, my mom wanted me to clarify that she made the date balls, butterballs, pignoli cookies and these peanut butter balls. 

It is she, not me, who has the patience to roll millions of cookie balls. The cookies I am making are almost done! 

This morning I woke up & watched the Today Show while enjoying some coffee. The weather is a very big deal on morning news shows. So is not getting fat over the holidays. I also spent some time trying to figure out how the heck you get to substitute teach in New Jersey. If anyone knows, please tell me! 

Then I was notified that I received a package in the mail. Yippee! It was a box full of BumbleBars! Thanks, Bumble Bar. The excitement prompted me to get my booty in gear. So, I hit the treadmill. Today’s run was lovely. I am so glad Yoga Downloads helped me get my running mojo back. 

Today I did 45:10, 5.5 miles and then walked for 15 minutes while watching this strange show. It was a talk show about doctors and all they talked about was losing weight and cellulite. Nice. 

After running, I was too hungry for yoga, so I had breakfast. 

1/2 Original BumbleBar,  Greek Yogurt and a super juicy orange. 

Original Flavor BumbleBar Review

This was a very interesting eating experience. This bar is comprised primarily of sesame seeds and peanuts, so if you don’t like those, these probably are not for you. It was really like unlike anything I’ve ever eating. Soft, but chewy and crunchy all at the same time.  I really liked the flavor because it wasn’t too sweet, but had a nice nutty taste.  They are really big and because of the consistency of the bar, I can’t imagine eating the whole thing at once. It’s kind of a lot of work to chew! 

Here are the ingredients and nutrition info straight from the BumbleBars website. 

Additionally, BumbleBars are Vegan, organic and gluten free! So all my bloggies with allergies can enjoy away!

I am looking forward to try the other flavors, especially the lemon! 

Hangry Pants Food Drive 

Today is the last day to leave a comment! Sabrina (Rhodey Girl) and I are going shopping for the food later tonight. I plane to get as much healthy cheap food as possible. The R.I. Community Food Bank has a list of items then need. One thing they are asking for is peanut butter. I think it will be pretty easy to find other cheap, healthy things (beans, canned veggies, cereal), but what should I do about the peanut butter? The cheapest peanut butter will surely be filled with salt and partially hydrogenated oils. Natural peanut butter is more expensive, but much better for people. What kind of peanut butter do you think I should get? I know people in need would appreciate any food they get, but does that mean they deserve unhealthy items?!?

I plan to do a Yoga Donwnload now then finish up some baking projects.  Have a great day!

Mark and I started Hangry Pants as a way to record our Meatless Month experiment. It was Mark’s idea, although I am not sure he knew what he was getting himself into entering the food blog world! He wanted to see what it would be like for someone to live his life as a vegetarian. I wanted a reason to do something I’d wanted to do for awhile; put ahimsa into practice by not eating meat anymore. From there, we wanted to see if we could eliminate high fructose corn syrup from our diets. This experiment coincidentally coincided with the famous HFCS commercials, and so we learned more about what was in our food than expected. Last month, we tried to go back to basics. Mark failed to make many meals for himself, but he tried and saw how hard it was for him. I was a bit more successful at eating less food like substances. I even ate all my dinners at the table! 

Now, it’s time for a new challenge. Over the weekend Mark and I tossed some ideas around, but in the end we both agreed that to do something new right now would be insincere. It would be to fulfill a “duty” to the blog rather than to challenge ourselves or learn something new. Therefore, we decided not to do the traditional kind of challenge this month.  

Instead, we want to bring awareness to food in a different way. It is sort of oddly ironic that we talk about food, worry about eating cookies, plan what we will eat, create wonderful recipes, eat at Popeye’s and photograph our food when there are people in our world, country, state, city, who go without. I recently read this article that the number of children who went hungry in the U.S. went from 430,000 in 2006 to 691,000 in 2007. And that was before the economic state of our country was labeled as “in the crapper.”

Mark and I are wonderfully blessed to have access to fresh, safe food and water. We are grateful that many people enjoy reading our humble blog. Neither of us thought it would be such fun and that we would make such great blog “friends” in this community. I know how much work it is to blog, read and comment, but I also know how fun and rewarding it can be. We’ve decided, therefore, to use this blog of ours for some good. We’re having a food drive - Hangry Pants style. Closely mimicking Peanut Butter Boy’s Leave a Comment, Feed the Hungry post, every comment (one comment per reader) left on this post is worth 5 cents! On Decemeber 22, I will use the Hangry Pants November Foodbuzz earnings (up to the amount earned from the comments) and go on a different kind of supermarket sweep. I will buy as much non-perishible food as possible and donate it to the Rhode Island Community Food Bank. 

So everyone, get commenting! Feel free to be anonymous because we can determine whether each comment is from a new person anyway. Tell your friends and family and let’s raise some money!!!!