Living Green With Jerinda: Mohawk Valley Trading Co. Raw Honey

Mohawk Valley Trading Co. specializes in raw honey. Raw honey is not pasteurized, filtered, processed, heated, or blended. All of the pollen, propolis, live enzymes, amino acids, antioxidants, minerals and aroma are in the same condition as in the hive.

Raw honey is VERY good for you, and is especially helpful to people with allergies because of all the vitamins, minerals, and healing properties it holds. It contains 22 amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein and are essential in the growth of healthy hair, nails and skin. It also contains 27 minerals, a whole host of vitamins, and over 5000 enzymes including amylase, a digestive enzyme for carbs. Ingesting naturally occurring enzymes (as opposed to synthetic, man-made enzymes) reduces the amount the body has to produce to digest food and eating foods rich in natural enzymes is an excellent source of energy for the body.

The antioxidants found in raw honey are believed to aid the body in fighting serious diseases because they provide a natural defense against cell damage by neutralizing unstable oxygen molecules. Honey contains as many antioxidants as spinach, strawberries and blueberries plus it contains an extra antioxidant that is associated with improved brain function. And, raw honey is an excellent alternative to refined sugar and synthetic sugar wannabes (such as high fructose corn syrup) because it is all natural and easier for your body to digest than sugar. My kids love using honey as a maple syrup alternative on their pancakes or waffles. It tastes great and it’s so good for them.

Mohawk Valley’s honey comes packaged in glass, which is a plus because plastics leech toxic chemicals into whatever they are stored in. They come in five delicious flavors: Raw Wildflower Honey, Raw Orange Blossom Honey, Raw Blueberry Blossom Honey (my kids’ favorite), Raw Apple Blossom Honey (my favorite), and Raw Buckwheat Honey. All five are delicious and unique and there isn’t one that we don’t like. We have eaten it on toast, pancakes/waffles (as I mentioned before), dipped chicken nuggets into it, and we’ve eaten it by the spoonful. There are so many ways to eat it and we haven’t had it any way we didn’t like it. Because it’s raw, it does become a soft solid, so we just place the jar in hot water for a few minutes and that loosens it up and makes it more syrup-like. If you’ve never tried raw honey before, it’s worth a try. It really is delicious and nutritious.

This product is made in the USA and can be purchased by emailing or calling Mohawk Valley Trading Company 7 days a week. Each 1lb glass jar of raw honey retails for $10 each.

The following sites were used in researching facts about raw honey:

Global Healing Center: The Health Benefits of Locally-Grown Raw Honey by Dr. Edward Group

Wikipedia.org: Honey

Thank you to Mohawk Valley Trading Company for sending us samples of raw honey free of charge to base this review upon.

Living Green With Jerinda: Rustic Crust All-Natural Pizza Crusts

Rustic Crust makes amazing flatbread pizza crusts that taste fantastic and are so easy. The crust comes packaged ready to use, fully cooked, in a shrink-wrapped package.

We used our Ultimate Cheese and Herb crust to make an Alfredo ham and cheese pizza that was delicious! I put olive oil on the crust first, just a thin layer of it. I followed that up with organic Alfredo sauce, fresh deli ham, and an organic shredded cheese blend.

I baked it for the time indicated on the package and it was scrumptious. We all had seconds, it was that good.

My kids even ate their crust (which they never do) because it was so yummy. The crust was absolutely perfect and we will definitely be buying more of it in the future; my kids want to try it with pepperoni.

It was only moderately hard to find, our regular grocery stores didn’t carry it but I did easily find it at my favorite health food store. It is shelf-stable, not frozen, which threw me off a bit. Rustic Crust does offer an All-Natural Frozen Flatbread Pizza, but it is not available in our area yet.

Rustic Crust offers a wide variety of natural pizza products, including organic and gluten-free crusts and an all-natural pizza sauce. To view their full line of products, visit RusticCrust.com, where you can also purchase Rustic Crust products online.

Thank you to Rustic Crust for providing us with sample product free of charge to base this review upon.

Celebrate Small Victories in the Hunt's All-Natural Ketchup Photo Contest

The only thing my children and I put on our hot dogs is ketchup. My husband is a lone relish and mustard man. That is why we need our ketchup to taste good. So my family was the perfect choice to test out the new all-natural ketchup by Hunt's, which contains no high fructose corn syrup.

I personally did not taste any difference in the 100% Natural Hunt's Ketchup and the children did not either. They never seem to be able to tell the difference when we replace a product with a better-for-you version, especially when we do not tip them off. I'd say this transition was a huge success.

To celebrate this achievement and to show that small victories are sometimes the best ones, Hunt's is hosting the High Five Family Fun Photo Contest. The grand prize is a $5,000 check that the winner can use towards a family vacation! There are also prizes worth $125 to be awarded weekly. To enter, simply fill out the short form on Hunt's Facebook page and upload a photo depicting a small victory experienced by your family. This contest ends on August 5th, 2010 at 11:59pm EST. Click here to read the official contest rules.


I wrote this review while participating in a blog campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Hunt’s and received a ketchup sample to facilitate my candid review. Mom Central also sent me a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate.