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President's Choice Summer Insider's Report Review

Every season I look forward to President's Choice Insider's Report.  What new healthy and yummy products will they have?

Unfortunately, along with the great new items, there are always a ton of nutritional duds.
The Summer 2012 issue came out recently and I was underwhelmed, to say the least.  As a company, Loblaws has vowed to eliminate all artificial flavours and colours from their products over the next year or so, but, Hey Loblaws, what about all the refined flour and sugar??

On a positive note, they have a slew of new condiments out, some of which look and sound great.

PC ® Thick & Juicy™ Jalapeno Cheese Beef Burgers

Just check the ingredient lists, I suspect they are all full of sugar, except perhaps the sofrito.

They also have a precooked grains blend, which is good for people who feel they don't have time to cook.


Their organic fresh produce is always a good bet, of course, and usually found at a great price point. 

For fans of frozen desserts - of which I am not one - there are greek yogurt smoothie bars, fruit smoothie bars and regular fruit bars.  All are low-fat or fat-free, but contain refined sugar.



As someone who loves to cook, and in particular, loves to explore new products and flavours, I am most disappointed by their Black Label collection.  Every cracker, pasta or grain product in this line is white flour and many of the sauces and dressings are excessively high in fat and sugar.

PC black label
The worst new products, from a nutrition perspective are the Decadent Peanut Butter Ice Cream Sandwiches, which are saturated fat and calorie bombs, the pretzel buns which are all white-flour and dense, making them 2x the calories of most buns, the Almost Foot Long Franks - hotdogs are junk to begin with, who needs one that is a foot long?

Other misses include all the sweetened beverages, the S`mores Pie, Cupcake and S`mores Kits,  Loads of Cheese Nachos - although really all processed snack food is basically garbage,  and their whole line of Ice Cream Shop Flavours Ice Cream.



The reality is, most processed foods are not going to be the healthiest choices.  And the vast majority of snack foods and desserts are empty calories and nutritionally void, regardless of whether or not they are low-fat or baked instead of fried, etc.  But I`m not telling you anything you didn`t already know right?

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