GIVEAWAY: Superfood Budi Bars Keep Me Full ALL Morning!

There's a store in Porter Square that I help keep in business. Cambridge Naturals stocks a great selection of supplements; healthy snacks; bulk herbs, spices, and tea; personal care products and essential oils; candles; and more. The staff there is very helpful and they have a lot of demos in the store on the weekend. I discovered Culinary Cruisers there one weekend and fell in love with Katalyst Kombucha, brewed right here in MA. Sometimes the folks from Taza Chocolate (stone ground right here in Somerville) show up to sample and every once in a while, there are free chair massages!

Recently, I met Micahel McCarthy at Cambridge Naturals sampling his delicious and nutritious Budi Bar. I tasted a few bites of his anytime superfood bar and was sufficiently impressed, so, in true FSTS fashion, I started asking Michael all about his food product and we talked for a while (while I noshed on a few more bites of budi).

I have a ton of admiration for entrepreneurs in the food business. They have to source ingredients they feel good about and can get reliably, figure out where to assemble and package those ingredients, and get those perishable goods to market. Then people have to buy them, eat them, and like them enough to buy them again! Sound easy? I think not.

So... back to Michael and his Budi Bar. Turns out, Michael is a graduate of IIN (Institute for Integrative Nutrition in NYC) with a great life story. After working as a money manager for most of his career, he decided to leave the money business to pursue his dream of becoming a baker. Michael didn't want to be just any baker. He wanted to bake with superfoods and he wanted some street cred. So he enrolled in Nutrition School at IIN and after completing the program, he moved to Germany to become a European Artisnal Baker. He studied at the German Bakers Academy before moving back to Boston to take some mind/body and entrepreneurship classes at Harvard. Now Michael spends his time baking up healthy new ideas (like Hemp Bread and Gluten Free Pizza Dough) and the Budi Bar is just one of those ideas.

Budi bar combines coconut, nuts, chi seeds, hemp seeds, green tea amino acid, and milk into a delicious and nutritious snack that will keep you full for three hours thanks to the chia seeds (as long as you wash it down with some water or tea). Chia seeds (yes, the kind that you spread on a chia pet!) are full of Omega 3s (they have more of these healthy fats that combat inflammation than most other plant sources, including flax and don't need to be ground). Some of the Budi Bars have stone-ground Taza chocolate and Michael's currently working on a vegan version that should be out soon (which I was very excited to hear since milk is the first ingredient on the label).

I met Michael for tea this past weekend and learned even more about Budi and his experience starting a superfood company. We had a great conversation and he gave me a bunch of Budi bars to sample and give away to you. Just comment on this post (full giveaway rules below) for a chance to win one!)

Dark Chocolate and Almonds? Yes, Please, and Thank You! 

I've been eating them for breakfast all week and love them. I don't usually like to eat packaged foods and have never been a fan of protein/breakfast/meal replacement bars, but these bars are delicious, nutritious, and filling. They're high in fiber, protein, and omega 3 and have under 200 calories, which is impressive given the generous proportions of chocolate and nuts! You can learn more about the ingredients here and see the nutrition facts here.

View from above. See the seeds?!

The bars themselves are moist and sweet. Michael entered them into the New England Dessert contest in 2010 and 2011 and won best healthy dessert 2 years in a row! They're that delicious. 

Are you excited to try a Budi Bar or what? I've got a good number of them to give away, so your chances at winning one are pretty strong. 


Here's how to enter:
There are lots of ways to enter, so read the full list and enter more than once. Just make sure that for each entry, you leave a separate comment! 

• Sign up for From Seed to Stomach's RSS feed. In the right sidebar, just click on the button that says "Posts" where it says "SUBSCRIBE TO FROM SEED TO STOMACH"
• Sign up for From Seed to Stomach's email. Toward the top of the right sidebar, just enter your email address where it says "SUBSCRIBE! GET AN EMAIL ALERT FOR EACH NEW POST!"
• Follow @FrSeed2Stomach on Twitter and tweet a link to this post mentioning @FrSeed2Stomach.
• Follow @budibar on Twitter and tweet a link to this post mentioning @budibar. 
• Like From Seed to Stomach on Facebook and share this post.
• Like Budi Bar on Facebook.
• If you’re a blogger, post a link to this giveaway (include link in your comment).
• Email 5 friends a link to this giveaway.
• Stumble this post.
• Join this site.

Again, for each entry, you have to leave a separate comment below!!

Drawing Details:

Giveaway ends in on Thursday, 3/29/12 at 11:59 pm Eastern. All winners will be chosen randomly and announced on Friday, 3/30/12. GOOD LUCK!!