The Kitchen

We just found fifty or so 6-pack cases of our original Light Mac & Cheese formulation, which we launched in 2008 (pictured). Since we've had several people tell us they actually liked that formula better, we thought we should make it available here on the website.

Nutrition facts are as pictured, and pretty close to our new formulation (the new formula saved 10 calories on the new cheese sauce). Best by date is May 2010, but the pasta will probably be fine afterwards, too.

Since it's not our current spec, we lopped 15% of the price, and are selling a box of 6 for just $17, while supplies last. So if you liked that original formula, buy it fast!

First, a little background about our shipping procedures. We use a program from UPS called WorldShip to print our UPS shipping labels in the morning.

WorldShip works by taking the XML files created by our website, extracting the name, address, and other shipment info, and turning that into a label. WorldShip does this by looking for XML files in a specific directory. For each XML file WorldShip creates one label, and then renames the file from a .xml extension to a .xxx extension, so that it doesn't process it again. Then it moves on to the next file.

On the day in question there was some kind of hiccup and one of the .xxx file wouldn't stay named that way. This meant that WorldShip cheerfully kept re-processing that one XML file over, and over, and over again until a human operator noticed that it was printing out a heck of a lot of labels this morning.

All told, we ended up printing out 761 identical UPS labels for that one file, when all we needed was one. At around $10 each (this would be a shipment going to the other coast), we were looking at a hefty bill. And of course, you can't just void 760 shipments on the UPS website.

After a few frantic phone calls, we finally got things straightened out. Thanks again to Damien and the fine folks in the UPS Preferred Customer division, especially whoever got stuck copy and pasting all 760 shipments. The credit is supposed to be arriving back to our account sometime this week, and we're left with a cute story :)

In addition to our new Trial-Size Box, here's another easy way to tell if you're going to like a product you see on our website but haven't tried yet: take someone else's word for it

Studies have shown that the best way to find out whether a certain choice will make you, personally, happy is to get the opinion of other people who have made the same choice. If they liked their choice, chances are you will, too.

With that in mind, you might want to check out our page of Raves & Reviews, featuring what other people and websites have said about our products. All the Reviews contain links back to the original website which reviewed us* (most recently, some kind words from Healthful Bites). So check them out, and happy snacking!

* I only mention that because I knew someone whose job was composing fake customer reviews for a website she worked for. Shocking, I know.

So you found the only cheese crackers that taste just like the Cheez-It's (or Cheese Nips) you love, but with literally half the calories, and 12g of Fiber. Sounds great, right? But how do they taste? Sure, we have a lot of raves & reviews, but that's not the same as tasting it for yourself.

Now you can dip your toe into FiberGourmet without commiting to buy a whole case. We're now offering a trial-size box of crackers (6 of the 80-calorie bags), for a mere $7.50, with free shipping. That works out to $1.25 per 1.15 oz bag, still pretty close to the price for Cheez-Its. Click here to buy them today!

We've received some questions about how to easily measure the bulk-packed light pasta mentioned in our last post. While our standard light pasta comes in handy 8-oz boxes, this pasta comes in a giant 20 lb box which at first glance is a bit tricky to deal with.

Fortunately, there's a very simple way to measure out exactly how much pasta you need before cooking it, without even resorting to a scale. All you need is a standard baking measuring cup, like the one shown in the picture below. The rule of thumb is that every ounce of pasta will show up as two ounces in a standard measuring cup (basically because water is twice as dense as pasta). So if you'd like 8 ounces of pasta, simply fill the cup to the 16 ounce line, as in the picture below.

For 2 ounces go to the 4 ounce line, 4 ounces is the 8 ounce line, and so forth. The same would apply to other measuring cups or spoons if you don't have one exactly like the one below. Feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions, and bon apetit!