Category: Review

Protein Shakes: Her Free Soul

As part of my quest to try and be more healthy (and maybe loose weight in the process), I decided that being vegetarian reduced my protein intake. A lack of protein can effect an intake of B vitamins which help with cell metabolism. Simplistically B vitamins can help in the production of red blood cells and neurotransmitters. The benefits of having B vitamins can help with the reduction of anxiety, depression and improve energy. I have known for years I have lacked B vitamins being vegetarian and these past couple of weeks I have been tired and lethargic. I wanted to address that and thought I would introduce a protein shake into my diet.

I have and probably never will be a big breakfast fan so I figured instead of skipping breakfast I could introduce a protein shake into my diet. Similarly rather than reaching for that very tempting bag of chocolate of an evening I could instead supplement that with a protein shake. These are not intended to be a replacement meal with in my diet but more adding a meal I would rarely eat anyway and offering an alternative to an unhealthy (well at the levels I eat chocolate it is unhealthy, as I have no moderation when it comes to chocolate) snack in an evening.

I had been looking at meal replacement shakes and looking at different brands before Christmas before deciding that I did not think it was healthy for me to give up a relationship with food and replace it with shakes. Unfortunately I have not always had the best relationship with food. I am quite neophobic – I hate trying new foods and new meals. If I have it into my head that I will not like a food for possibly trying it when I was a child, to not liking the texture (for example, I could cook a load of vegetables and make a stew and eat it, but blending that into a soup…I won’t eat it). I still need to have a relationship with food and work on making it as positive as I can. So meal replacement was not an option, but adding something additional to my diet was.

I decided on trying Her Free Soul shakes. What drew me to them was the aim of their product which was to:

Help regulate female hormonal balance

Sources of vitamins, minerals and fibre

Improves energy, focus and athletic performance

Contribute to physical and mental well-being

Reduce tiredness

Improve mood and psychological function

Her Free Soul

This appealed for me so I decided to take a little more of a look around the website. They have a Whey powder which is vegetarian and a Vegan powder. I decided to take advantage of their New Year 20 percent discount code and ordered the Whey Protein Starter Pack. This pack included two bags of Whey Protein Shake, a tumbler drinks container and a bag. I would have opted for the Whey Protein Blend + Shaker or just the protein shakes on their own but with this discount it meant I wouldn’t have got free shipping with them and this allowed me to order both flavours (the Whey Powder only has two flavours, whilst the Vegan option has more).

I loved the slogan on the box the products were delivered in. My slogan now comes with bite mark customisation

Delivery was fast and I was able to get them within 48 hours.

My initial impressions of them are quite positive. I really like the taste of the vanilla one and that is my favourite of the two. The chocolate one I did not feel was very chocolatey, at first I thought this was because I added 400ml rather than the recommended 250-300ml of liquid. I followed the recommendations the second time and I still didn’t feel it was as chocolatey as I would like. Third time I added a teaspoon of Hot Chocolate powder to it, and the fourth time I added 2 teaspoons and the taste is more to my liking. It is chocolatey enough now that I consider it a treat shake and an equal replacement to giving up a bag of chocolate. For now I have only tried them with adding water (and the additional chocolate powder), but over the course of February I may experiment with adding different liquids or food items to the shakes. I might even experiment with baking with the powder. I did transfer the contents from their original packaging to a glass container so I could see how much powder I had left and I am not always the best at keeping the sealed packages closed.

I’ll check back in at the end of the month to give another review of how I feel about the shakes and whether I feel they have made an improvement to my diet.

Box was successfully upcycled into the Kitten’s playbox. Result.

Harper Lee – To Kill a Mockingbird

Part of The Book Challenge

The Book Challenge number: 1

Start date: 1st January 2020

End date: 9th February 2020

Time taken to read: 40 days

Thoughts:

I really struggled to get into this book. I think I did not bond well with the protagonist. At first I thought Jean Louise or Scout as she is known as a teenage male to part way through the book realise she was a four year old girl did throw me a little.

I also found the book a little boring. I knew Atticus Finch was a character that is celebrated for his challenging prejudice, championing equal rights and morality…but I did not really know the story prior to reading it. I found it very slow to get to the court case and to begin to show the story that made Atticus to be a strong, moral character. I found those chapters very readable and I did not put it down. Yet then it faded again, but it carried you on willing to find Tom’s justice…to fizzle out again. Then as the last few chapters unfold you, again, get the build up on the walk back home from school, the tension building for the story to almost drop flat, as if in the middle of it. The book that relied so much on the gossip and reactions of the town, falling silent on the last dramatic evening of the book.

Not really knowing all that much about the American south and the culture of slave-owners and the lingering legacy of that in the south. I did enjoy reading about small town America and how society was structured and reading about some of the views. As someone who has studied history and in particular the Holocaust and understanding concepts of Race and Ethnicity. I liked the drawing a criticism of how it was seen as madness for Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany to terrorise Jews, persecute and arrest them and eventually find ‘the final solution for the Jewish question’ through extermination. Yet, similarly naively think that those in Maycomb were more civil, despite treating their fellow Americans, fellow human beings, as second class (or even fourth class citizens as the book implied) simply because of the colour of their skin.

Having read the book I champion the court case and the challenging an aspect of prejudice and injustice in society. I also praise the story for writing a fictionalised account that was inspired by real events. I just feel there was not enough of it in the book. I am glad to have read about Atticus Finch, but I can’t help but think I would have liked to have read about Amasa Coleman Lee (Harper Lee’s lawyer father) and some of his court cases more.