Win $1000 And Other Prizes in the California Raisins' Let's Keep It Real Healthy Snack Challenge on Facebook

I heard it through the grapevine (and from the wonderful One2One Network I'm a member of, lol) that the California Raisins' are having a "Let's Keep It Real Healthy Snack Challenge" on Facebook. Click here to join and enter to win!
 http://on.fb.me/LetsKeepItReal 

What fun. I'm humming that song line of yesteryear "I heard it through the Grapevine" as I write this blog entry, and picturing those cute live action claymation raisins singing and dancing it like they did when  I was in my late teens, or was it early 20s? They even had their own Christmas special, and if I remember right they were around before a lot of the now famous and frequent animated 3D productions.

Anyway, I digress, but raisins do bring back some fun memories :)

Here are some important points about California raisins, the kind you can eat, I mean :)

• California Raisins are an all-natural, no-added-sugar snack you can feel good about giving your family! I think that they're especially easy and fun to hand out in those cute little individual size boxes. 
• According to a study done by California Raisins, moms rank trans- and saturated- fats (52%), added sugars (47%) and artificial dyes and color (46%) among the top three attributes that would cause them to put a snack back on the shelf.California Raisins is asking you/your family to pledge to enjoy all-natural, no-added-sugar snacks – like California Raisins – for a week.
• Sign up for the Let’s Keep It Real Healthy Snack Challenge on Facebook and you can be automatically entered to win one of five prize packs that include $1,000 in cash and other goodies to get your healthy snacking on.   I signed up! Gotta love healthy!

 I live in California, so I've seen "California Raisins" "made" first hand...I lived in raisin grape country when I was in high school, plus my dad even grew grapes in our backyard and made raisins out of them one year! My boys have also had the opportunity to watch grapes grown from scratch on the property, and though they weren't raisin grapes it was still cool. So they like raisins too.

I enjoy raisin toast and especially eating them plain to keep my blood sugar more stable -- a little box is great to keep in your purse for emergencies. You can also put raisins in cereal (or buy it that way) or in breads and other baked goods, or they're really yummy in a trail mix. Do you have any fave raisin recipes?


Here are some other fun ideas:

• What are your house rules around snacking and added-sugar snacks?  I find if I don't buy a lot of those added-sugar snacks, it's a lot easier for us not to eat them. So when we crave something sweet and raisins are there, they are easy to grab by me, the kids, or whatever.
• How do you incorporate real foods into your snacks while still trying to save time and keep it simple? A simple snack I make sometimes is the old standby ants on a log, where you put peanut butter in celery and raisins on top for the ants. This is especially fun if you are studying ants in homeschool!
• Are there any snacks you thought were healthy, but then read the label and found out they were not as healthy as you thought? I know I've found that many times, though some specific examples elude me at the moment, sometimes if you read those labels they can make you faint seeing all those added chemicals, etc. Not so with California raisins, thank goodness.
• Any label reading tricks, tips, stories? My main advice is to read the labels at the store, even if it takes a little longer. It's worth it so you know what's going into your family's systems.

Disclosure:  I participated in this campaign as a member of One2One Network and am eligible for a prize drawing. All opinions stated in the post are my own.