naturSource - Cooking Quidnunc

As my quest for healthy snacks continue, I want to share with you a Canadian company that specializes in healthy nuts, trail mixes and granola.

naturSource has been around since 1980 and their passion and dedication is to provide healthy, high quality and uniquely flavoured products to people across the globe. naturSoruce guarantees that best practices are used so that only the healthiest, purest ingredients make its way into their hands. They take production seriously and the healthy and safety of their consumers is a number one concern. Strongly believing in following standards of excellence is something that naturSource takes pride in, along with employing operation procedures far beyond industry standards.

One thing I really like about naturSource is that they don’t use any preservatives/chemicals in their products. To protect their products from exposure to oxygen (making them degrade and spoil faster) naturSource uses a technique known as nitrogen flushing. This process involves forcing all of the oxygen out of the package and replacing it with nitrogen, a harmless gas found in the air we breath. Their bags also have a resealable zipper for assured freshness! Also, all of their products are 100% natural, kosher pareve, trans fat free, sulphite free and certified organic!

I was lucky enough to receive samples of their Tamari almonds, So Smart mix, Olio d’Oliva almonds and Salad Topper.

Salad Topper: My fave of all 4 products! The salad topper is a mixture of dried cranberries, sunflower seeds, cashews and pumpkin seeds. This mix jazzes up any salad and adds sweet and salty flavours and crunch. I made a spinach salad the other day with a balsamic dressing and added a few tablespoons of this mix on top and it made a huge difference in the salad. Every bite was unique and that is important when it comes to salad’s as they can get boring fast!
Olio D’Oliva: These dry roasted almonds are tossed with sea salt and olive oil and are very tasty in small quantities. They are definitely salty but you can actually taste the olive oil which makes them quite good. I like to put about 12 almonds in a container and have it at work as an afternoon snack. My friend who doesn’t really like almonds actually loves these ones. She says their not as dry as regular almonds.

So Smart: The So Smart blend contains dried fruit, granola, almonds and pumpkin seeds. This bag was ripped open immediately by my family and was almost done before I even got around to reviewing it. Its a great granola/nut mix to eat right out of the bag or to put on top of yogurt. Its very crunchy and not too sweet, some of the raisins are kind of massive but I don’t mind them!

Tamari Almonds: These almonds are Tamari flavoured which makes them quite salty to eat right out of the bag. Tamari is very similar to soy sauce but the main difference is the wheat content. There is very little to no wheat in Tamari which makes it thick and rich and a little less salty. These almonds actually do well chopped up in a food processor and sprinkled over white rice, or surprisingly they taste amazing on ice cream.

Overall some really great products by a Canadian company! I have seen some of their other products at Costco and I look forward to trying them out. naturSource products can be found on their website at http://www.natursource.com/ or bought online at http://well.ca/brand/Natursource or in the GTA at: