GoPicnic Ready To Eat Meals Product Review and Giveaway!!

Giveaways are intoxicatingly fun for me, especially when they are products that I absolutely love and that have made my family’s gluten-free life easier and infinitely better. It is difficult for me to rave about a gluten-free product on my blog and leave it at that. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a taste-test is unquantifiable!  😀  So for this giveaway, I am going to bump up the “GF Love,” because thanks to GoPicnic, there will be 3 winners! Woo-Hoo!

TUm, did you know I am a die-hard Dr. Alessio Fasano groupie? I need to start a fan club! 🙂

Check out some of GoPicnic’s Gluten-Free Offerings:

So last month I received a few complimentary ready-to-eat meals by GoPicnic to review on my blog. When GoPicnic contacted me and asked if I was interested in reviewing their gluten-free products, it was like the answer to a GF mom’s prayer. In case you didn’t already know (especially now that it has been brought to my attention that my “About Me” page didn’t survive my Blogger to WordPress transfer back in September… another item on my “list”!), I am the mom to 2 young animals boys, ages 6 and 2. This is my first year entering into the world of peer influence by means of kindergarten.

Prior to kindergarten, Sam was very chill on food, he ate what I gave him to eat and that was that, no big deal. Now it seems each day Sam comes home from school with a new list of requests for me to either make or find a GF equivalent for him to take in his lunch box so he can be like his little buddies. GF “Lunchables” have been sitting at the top of this list for quite sometime. I had bought the Laptop Lunch system a few years ago for preschool to make homemade healthy “Lunchables,” but now apparently that is just not “the same,” because it is still “mom’s” food!

The day the GoPicnic ready-to-eat meals arrived, Sam was beside himself with pure joy. He decided to take the ExploreMunch meal to school first. ExploreMunch has a Turkey Snack Stick, a White Cheddar Cheese Slice, Baked Snap Pea Crisps, Natural Strawberry Applesauce, a Sunflower Seed Crunch, a Surf Sweets pouch of Gummy Bears, a Temporary Tattoo, Utensils and a Towelette inside. The inside of the box is also loaded with games, jokes and fun food facts! Oscar Mayer’s Lunchables cannot hold a candle to that!

When Sam came home that day from school, he COULD NOT stop talking about how cool his GF “Lunchable” was, and how all his friends really liked his tattoo! No one in my “real” world really seems to “get” the true impact of that. This was such an emotional moment for me (especially since I was the obvious celiac gene donor), that I am actually fighting the tears again as I write this! The simple fact that Sam can have a special treat like this in his lunch box means more to me than all of the other very useful ways to use these meals:

• Take them on an airplane (BTW, we should all start contacting the airlines and ask them to carry the gluten-free version of these!),

• To stash in the car (non-summer months) for unexpected hunger pangs,

• Throw in your backpack while going on a long bike ride or hike,

• To take camping,

• I think this would be a great thing for college students to have.

• Emergency preparedness.

Heck, I could have used one of these when I was in the hospital after having Luke because the HOSPITAL could not accommodate my gluten-free needs!

GoPicnic meals do not require refrigeration, so this is a great item to keep on hand in your car for you or your kiddos in the event of a gluten-free food emergency!,  Yea!!!

GoPicnic ready-to-eat meals contain none of the following:

• No Trans Fats

• No High Fructose Corn Syrup.

• No Added MSG.

• No Artificial Flavors or Colors.

In addition to the gluten-free meals, GoPicnic also has many meals that are suitable for people who have other dietary needs like Halal, Kosher, Vegan, and Vegetarian diets (as well as mainstream meals that contain gluten ingredients).

So here’s the skinny on the contest, and since this is such a fabulous product I know you are all paying attention!

Each of the 3 winners will receive a 3-pack of GoPicnic ready-to eat meals! You are guaranteed one meal of your choosing, the other two will be based on availability.

Follow this link to the GoPicnic website and sign up to receive the email updates (follow the link located at the top of their page). Even if you do not win, there are great sales each week and you will get a heads up on those.

After you sign up for the newsletter, just leave a quick comment on my site about what you are happy to see in GoPicnic’s ready-to-eat meal lineup (or even what you think is missing).  Remember, all of these folks are entrepreneurs and we need to encourage their creativity, so any suggestions/ideas/criticisms need to be forthcoming so they can adjust to their market…meaning US!!! 🙂

I am adding a new “twist” to this giveaway. You can “earn” bonus entries if you do any (or all) of the following things:

• Follow @GoPicnic on Twitter, then shoot me an email at heidikelly13@gmail.com to let me know you did this (1 bonus entry).

• Tweet about this contest and include a link to this page on Twitter, be sure to include @adventuresgfmom in your tweet (2 bonus entries).

• Become a Fan of GoPicnic on Facebook then send me an email at heidikelly13@gmail.com to let me know you did this (1 bonus entry).

• If you are the author of a blog, mention this contest in one of your posts and include a link back to this page (2 bonus entries).

I will use a Random Number Generator to pick the 3 winners on Monday, February, 8, 2010.

Good Luck! 😀

GoPicnic is also offering my readers a 20% discount on orders until February 24, 2010, when using the promotional code GLUTENFREE at checkout!