Green Heart Foods

Healthy eating.  Not generally the focus of my life, nor my blog, but, I do appreciate tasty, nutritious, and easy options too, particularly when I am in the middle of a busy workday.  Green Heart Foods aims to serve this need, making ready to eat bowls, marketed primarily at businesses to stock for their employees, although they also sell to regular retail consumers through Good Eggs.   As you may have guessed, they are a San Francisco based company.

The primary offering from Green Heart Foods is heart healthy bowls, hence the "Heart" part of their name.  If you are wondering about the "Green" part of the name, you'd be right to guess that it has to do with their focus on environmental impact, as they take care to offset the carbon impact of their business.  And thus, Green Heart Foods, good for you, good for the environment.

Brite Bowls 

"At Green Heart Foods, we make food we believe in. Our Bowls are responsibly sourced, thoughtfully composed, and nutritionally balanced for the perfect in-between-meal fuel. Free from the refined sugars, carbohydrates, and sodium that laces most grab ‘n’ go options, GHF Bowls are the energy-rich answer to your 3pm prayers."

The bowls have names like "The Beauty Bowl", "The Glow Bowl", "The Balance Bowl", etc, not particularly helpful in determining what they are, but, they are in theme with the company mantra.  Bowls feature salad or grain bases, including global offerings like Korean Bibimbap, Japanese Donburi, Greek Ryzi, and South Indian Biryani).  They also have breakfast or snack style parfaits with chia pudding, overnight oats, (coconut milk) yogurt, and yup, even acai bases.

Mini Vibrant BOWL

"Steamed Quinoa, Black Beans, Sweet Potato Mash, House Made Kimchi, Shaved Carrots, Tahini-Lemon Dressing."

I was having a healthy moment.  It came on the heels of way over indulging in heavy foods, way too many sweets, and way too many carbs.  I knew I was clearly in need of a detox when this sounded good to me.  I hate black beans.  I don't really like quinoa.  I really dislike kimchi.  Tahini is fine, but, why pick that when there are mayo based creamy dressings?

Yet I went for this.  I wanted it.  And I liked it.  This was the mini version of their regular Vibrant Bowl, which I opted for as I wasn't certain I'd like it, and I just wanted a snack, not a full meal.

The base was the chilled steamed quinoa, which provided good protein, and something a bit hearty.  The bowl was nicely balanced though, not too much of the quinoa.

On top was the black beans which I didn't really want and did pick around, a pile of enjoyable soft sweet potato mash, shredded carrots which were nice fresh crunch, and the kimchi that I predictably didn't care for the flavor of.  On top of all that was shredded kale and assorted seeds.

I did like the sweet potato mash, not something I normally would be excited to eat cold, but, the flavor was good, and it was comforting.  Like baby food, but good nonetheless.  I guess we eat cold potato salad, why not cold mash?  I liked the fresh crunchy carrots and kale, and really liked the pumpkin, sunflower, and sesame seeds scattered on top, for even more crunch.  It felt, well, good to eat this, and the flavors and textures made it a good eating experience.

In a separate little container on top was the tahini-lemon dressing, and I liked that too.  Thinner than just tahini (since, well, dressing), but nice flavor all around.  I didn't quite use it as dressing, but rather just to dunk a few choice bites into.  The bowl had enough flavor to not really need dressing mixed in, which surprised me.

The packaging did leave something to be desired though.  The separate compartment on top with the dressing was hard to get off, and it was just difficult to eat all the layers in such a small container.  I made a bit of a mess.

For a healthy, pre-packaged product, I liked this far more than anticipated.  

***+.

Update: I've had several more of these, and generally enjoyed them.  The top layers in particular - the kale, carrots, kimchi (which I do sometimes like) with the tahini dressing and seeds is really satisfying sometimes.  Yup, even I can get pretty satisfied by healthy things!