I love Enjoy Life Foods. In fact, I’ve reviewed them a handful of times on Boutique Cafe’s Daily Dish and their allergen-free products are always a hit. I can still remember their semi-sweet chocolate chips, and that review was in 2008! Any time they contact me about taste-testing a new product, I’m all over it—and so is my mouth.

First up I have Enjoy Life Foods’ gluten-free, dairy-free, peanut-free, tree-nut free, soy-free, egg-free and casein-free soft baked cookies. One thing they’re not free of? Taste. The Double Chocolate Brownie and Snickerdoodle varieties were delicious. So delicious I had to physically remove them from being within arm’s reach so I didn’t polish off the entire box!

Olivia and George helped me taste test the Snickerdoodle, Lively Lemon and Double Chocolate Brownie varieties:

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Nathan enjoyed the Lively Lemon, as did Lauren. The other boxes were polished off by day’s end. Soft, chewy, tasty AND all that allergen-friendly goodness makes them the perfect healthy snack! Other flavors of soft baked cookies include: Chewy Chocolate Chip, No-Oats “Oatmeal,” Gingerbread Spice and Happy Apple.

Enjoy Life Foods also sent us some boom CHOCO boom chocolate bars. These little bars of chocolaty goodness are the first, truly allergy-friendly chocolate bar. Dairy-free, nut-free, soy-free and gluten-free. And once again, NOT free on taste. I should know. George and I downed the Dark Chocolate Bar, and then Madison, Lauren and I polished off the Crispy Rice Bar:

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Did you catch how Lauren said they taste better than that other crisp rice bar? Major compliment! They also have a Rice Milk Bar to round out the collection of guilt-free chocolate indulgence. (My kids don’t know I’ve hidden the rest of the samples…and yes, Olivia was able to break out the watercolors.)

Enjoy Life Foods seriously rocks the allergen-free food world with it’s variety of good-for-your-insides cereals, cookies, granolas, snack bars, bagels, trail mixes, chocolate chips and chocolate bars. Thank you, ELF, for allowing me to eat “freely” and with abandon!—Emily

I’ve reviewed Enjoy Life Foods a couple times on the Daily Dish. Their semi-sweet chocolate chips taste just like the “real” thing while their granola is packed full of vitamins, whole grains and taste. That’s not easy to do considering Enjoy Life Foods’ products are free of eight of the most common allergens: wheat/gluten, dairy, peanuts, tree nuts, egg, soy, fish and shellfish. Yet their products are consistently delicious, which is why there are so dang popular!

The company sent me two of their newest products: Perk’s Crunchy Rice cereal and Perk’s Crunchy Flax cereal. The cereals are made with all natural ingredients and sweetened with fruit juice and honey—and look like a smoother version of one of my all-time favorites, Grape-Nuts. Knowing how healthy yet yummy Enjoy Life Foods’ samples have been in the past, and knowing how much I love breakfast cereal, I was anxious to give them a try.

I started with Perk’s Crunchy Rice cereal since it did sound a bit more appealing than Crunchy Flax. This cereal is 100% natural, low in fat and low in sodium and the ingredients list is impressive if you consider short impressive (and I do when it comes to cereal): rice flour, rice bran, raisin juice concentrate, honey and salt. The first bite was a bit crunchy but after a little soaking in some milk (reminiscent of those Grape-Nuts), they were perfect! They probably would’ve been sweet enough on their own but I couldn’t resist a touch of Splenda. The only think I didn’t like was the serving size, but that’s true of a lot of healthy cereals like bite-size shredded wheat, low-fat granola, etc. I finished off the box before anyone else in the family had a chance to grab a bowl, but who says I have to share all my product samples?

Then I tested Perk’s Crunchy Flax cereal, which was similar in size and texture but definitely different in taste. This cereal is a bit more impressive than the rice, boasting 50g of whole grain, 425mg of Omega-3s and 6g of fiber per serving. Perhaps that’s why the Crunchy Flax tasted a whole lot “healthier” to me. It needed an extra spoonful of Splenda, but then again, I’m as big a fan of Apple Jacks as I am of Grape-Nuts and love slathering jam on my toast. (Can you tell I have a bit of a breakfast sweet tooth?) I haven’t yet finished the box but I promise I will! I know what’s good for me, trust me.

Though Perk’s Crunchy Flax cereal wasn’t my favorite, Perk’s Crunchy Rice was a nice alternative to what’s usually in our pantry. A little bit (okay, I usually poured myself a serving and a half) did go a long way to keeping me full until lunch time and it felt good to fuel my body with something all-natural and packed with nutrients. Enjoy Life Foods never ceases to amaze me with the full-flavored products they offer their allergen-sensitive customers and their new cereals are no exception!—Emily

*** Giveaway! Enjoy Life Foods is giving away one set of their new cereals plus some fabulous coupons to two (2) Daily Dish readers! ***

Here’s how to enter. You can do as many of these as you’d like. Each one is worth one entry into our giveaway; please leave a comment for each one you do:

•   Visit EnjoyLifeFoods.com and leave a comment telling us your favorite product.
•   Become a fan of Enjoy Life Foods on Facebook and leave a comment telling us you’re their newest fan.
•   Follow Enjoy Life Foods on Twitter and leave a comment telling is you’re their newest follower.
•   Tweet about this giveaway and leave a comment with the URL of your tweet.
•   Blog about this giveaway and leave a comment with the URL to your blog post.

Include a valid email address for our drawing. We’ll draw the winners from the comments and contact them via email. Deadline: February 2, 2010 (midnight). The winner will have 24 hours to claim her prize or a new winner will be chosen.

• Congratulations to Kelly T., the winner of the Enjoy Life Foods giveaway! Thank you to everyone who took the time to read the review and add a comment. Keep reading the Daily Dish for your chance to participate in more giveaways!

I first reviewed Enjoy Life Foods when they sent me their semi-sweet chocolate chips back in May of 2008. For a product that was free of the seven most common allergens, those little mini chips were surprisingly tasty. We gobbled those up in dozens of cookies and my kids had no idea those flavorful little chips were devoid of seven things: wheat, gluten, dairy, nut, egg, lactose and casein (the principal protein found in milk and other dairy products). Yes, all of Enjoy Life Foods’ products steer clear of these ingredients and are produced in a nut-free, gluten-free bakery. Pretty impressive, huh?

So when Enjoy Life Foods wanted to send me three bags of their new granola to taste test, I was totally up to the challenge. I love granola and I love Enjoy Life Foods—seemed like the perfect review! I received their Cinnamon Crunch, Cranapple Crunch and Verry Berry Crunch “new and improved” granola mixes. Why are these guys new and improved? Well, they are now crispier with smaller granola clusters so they “look and taste more like the ‘real’ thing.”

Um, I’m not sure what they tasted like before but these babies definitely taste like granola to me. Okay, so they’re not as decadent and diet-killing as my favorite, fat-packed French vanilla almond granola, but they do have more vitamins and whole grain than my current granola choice. (Enjoy Life Foods granola is vitamin fortified and includes 23 grams or more of whole grain per serving.)

I didn’t test the mixes on top of yogurt, one of my favorite ways to enjoy granola, but the Cinnamon Crunch held up well as a breakfast cereal (i.e. no soggy clusters). I’m thinking these mixes would also make a great base for a customized mix including Enjoy Life Foods’ chocolate chips and a few other fun ingredients!

*** Giveaway! Enjoy Life Foods is giving away one of their totes and coupons for three (3) free products! Please leave a comment with a valid email address for our drawing. We’ll draw the winner from the comments and contact her via email. Deadline: July 27, 2009 (midnight). The winner will have 24 hours to claim her prize or a new winner will be chosen.

** For an extra entry tweet about this giveaway and leave a link with the URL to your tweet in a separate comment!

• Congratulations to Lisa C., the winner of the Enjoy Life Foods giveaway! Thank you to everyone who took the time to read the review and add a comment. Keep reading the Daily Dish for your chance to participate in more giveaways!

And that’s surprising for someone like me who originally thought food free of wheat, gluten, dairy, nut, egg, lactose, casein (the principal protein found in milk and other dairy products) would also be free of taste. Enjoy Life has changed my way of thinking about gluten-free and allergen-free foods.

So if they’re products are free of so many allergen-inducing ingredients what ARE they made of? I went online to read more about a company whose dairy-free, soy-free and gluten-free semi-sweet chocolate chips are just plain yummy. (I’ll get to those in a minute.) Though Enjoy Life foods have some rice products (rice flour, rice flakes, rice protein) they differ from “other” manufacturers by using nutrient- and flavor-rich alternatives like amaranth and sorghum flour. “Instead of eggs, we use a combination of aluminum-free baking powder, flax, and applesauce. Rather than saturated fats, we use non-hydrogenated, trans fat-free safflower oil. For sweeteners, we skip the refined stuff and use a combination of natural fruit juices and honey or pure brown cane sugar. Instead of the artificial stuff, we bake with rosemary extract and a fruit juice/grain dextrin mixture to lock-in freshness and extend shelf life.” With all that good stuff inside it’s no wonder Enjoy Life foods taste so dang good!

And my family should know—we recently used their semi-sweet chocolate chips in our favorite cookie recipe. Read the rest of this entry »

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