This week during our team meeting in LA, we kicked off a new training program which we hope to continue on a monthly basis. Big kudos to Matt for having this great idea and pulling it together along with Melissa, Amy, Langley and Annette. This session covered a lot of ground on sterols & cholesterol as well as gluten-free and food allergies. I was amazed at how much new information I learned about subjects I already felt I knew a lot about!

One of the most interesting bits of info that I wanted to share with everyone was the impact of antioxidants on heart disease. It turns out that in addition to cholesterol management, one of the most important things you can do to stave off CHD is take in a lot of antioxidants to help combat the free radicals associated with oxidized LDL molecules. These 'bad guys' are responsible for most of the damage to the artery walls which result in problems down the road, and antioxidants are the 'good guys' that capture them and take them out.

Luckily for me I get a lot of antioxidants in my diet. Here's some of my favorite sources:

Tea: Black, Green, Oolong or White. Fresh Brewed is best, be it from a teabag or loose leaf. I brew a pot of tea every afternoon.

Colorful fruits and veggies i.e. beets, blueberries, apples, oranges, acai, Pomegranates etc. Eat a rainbow of colors for maximum protection and keep things varied to avoid getting burned out or bored. Be sure to eat the skin; that's where the good stuff is!

Green Leafy Veggies: Kale, Chard, Spinach etc

Red Wine (my favorite!): Resveratrol in the grape skins is a key combatant of CHD!

I can't wait to see what we learn next month!

I am continuing to keep up my excercise routine of almost an hour a day 5 days a week and heavy duty home improvement work on the weekends. The weekend work is definately harder than the weekly work out regime as I am sore every Monday morning which always makes the Monday 5:00 AM work out a bit more difficult. As for the diet portion, I must confess, I was not very good over the last week as I was definately on the "see food" diet. If I saw it I ate it, but fortunatley I didn't add any weight with my binge last week. I am now back to eating better and limiting my intake of bad foods such as sugar.

As the manufacturing guy for the company, I routinely have the pleasure of traveling for business to our factories where our heart healthy snacks are born.

It may be surprising to you, but food manufacturing plants are typically in low-rent districts. I wouldn't say it is the wrong side of the tracks, but our neighbors are sometimes institutionalized, wearing jumpsuits, and go by numbers and not names. If you are one of these people reading this blog... no offense.

That being said, I have been lucky to see some beautiful spots on my travels and have had the opportunity to stop and smell the roses or more accurately snap a few pictures as I was driving by on my way to the next factory.

Some of my favorite spots are in the Northwest. The Columbia River Gorge is spectacular as well as the Cascade range. The Yakima valley is the produce hot-spot growing apples, hops, and wine grapes among other things. The Tri Cities area is drier and is also an agricultural breadbasket and grows great melons, wine grapes and of course potatoes- wonderful, glorious potatoes. If you haven't experienced the Northwest, it is worth a trip.

Even with all of its natural bounty, I am not quite ready to move away from SoCal just yet (I have gotten spoiled with perfect weather), but it is good to get away ocassionally and see what makes other places unique. I always try to soak in the local culture (within reason) and understand what makes a place tick.

My advice: You gotta stop and smell the hops along the way. And maybe with a few more Alaska Airlines points, I can stop and smell the hibiscus (in Hawaii) as well!

GREG

I have been eating my Corazonas chips and exercising regularly! My favorite is the Baja Bean Dip tortilla chips! My husband and I will be walking with our daughter this weekend to continue my exercise regimen.

I am jumping in to the Cholesterol Challenge to hit my goal of dropping my LDL under 100. This might be a mighty goal since high cholesterol runs in my family, but I am determined to get there through exercise, trying to eat healthier, and eating my Corazonas Chips. Since starting with the company, I was successful in significantly dropping my LDL cholesterol by 28%, but I gave a little of it back with my latest cholesterol check. I crept up a bit to 148, but significantly below the 182 I was at prior to starting with Corazonas. However, I was bale to get my HDL up 8 points which is great news since it is lower that it should be.

I do have to confess though that I have been participating in a lot of product development work with our R&D team tasting new products, flavors and concepts and not keeping up with the normal regiment of the plant sterol chips. When we do R&D development, we don't add the plant sterols until we have developed a product that meets our new product requirements, thus I eat a lot of chips that don't offer the cholesterol lowering benefits of our current product line. However, I will say the new products are awesome and can't wait to begin rolling out the new line of tortilla chips in early October with the plant sterol benefits.

Since my cholesterol ticked up a bit since my last check up in March, I am excited to see how much I can lower my cholesterol when I stick to the regiment with the chips.

I started eating the Corazonas chips last weekend as part of the Corazonas Challenge. My favorite so far is the Baja Bean Dip! High cholesterol runs in my family along with high blood pressure. I am excited to participate in this program and see how eating Corazonas can help me in the future. - posted by Tony Da Costa

I am very excited about participating in the Corazonas Challenge! Since having my daughter a year ago my cholesterol (and weight) has been higher than ever before in my life! I am ready to change some of my eating and exercise habits for good and can't wait to see how Corazonas chips will affect my final results at the end of the month!

I put over in quotes because when the sun is out and its in the 80s it still feels very much like summer. But football starts this weekend (go buffs!), the fall harvest will soon start showing up at the farmers market, and before we know it the year will be over. But that can wait - today let's be thankful for what we have! Especially those amazing looking heirloom tomatoes over there...

Since I am part of the sales organization, I felt it was important that I beleive in what I sell so I set out to see for myself how this product works. So after starting with the company in January '08, I added Corazonas chips to my daily food regiment; an ounce late morning and another ounce late afternoon . Based on the research from Brandies University, it is important to consume the chips with a meal. Adding the chips was about the only thing that I did different since I already try to watch what I eat and excercise regularly. To my amazement, I was able to lower my LDL cholesterol from 182 in 2007 to 131 in 2008. Was it 100% attributable to the chips? This is hard to say, but it was the one thing that I changed that I can attribute my success of lowering my cholesterol.

I am anxious to be part of the upcoming Corazonas Challenge to see where my cholesterol is since my last test in March. I am hoping that I have been able to maintain my lower choleserol level and possibly drop it a bit more. I will make sure that I will update the blog as I am going to add a bit better eating and a more stringent work out plan to see if I can get my LDL cholesterol under 100 points.

I had to share this view we had on the most perfect night for a concert. Red Rocks is a magical place inn any case but tonight was exceptional! If you haven't checked out My Morning Jacket you don't know what you're misssing! Black Keys played an awesome opening set too.

Listening to the new David Byrne/Brian Eno album today; nice to hear both of these guys still at the top of their game. It's only available on the website below; you can also stream it live off our blog by hitting 'play' below. Enjoy!

Read the Rolling Stone Review

http://www.everythingthathappens.com/

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I guess you could say I have the bug....just 2 weeks after climbing my first 14'er (and really, my first mountain of any real significance) I summited Hauge's Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park on Saturday with my friends Steve and Marty (l to r in the group photo). Don't be fooled by the mid-13K elevation - this is no 'walk in the park' (well, techically I guess it is) as it is ~15 miles round trip and a punishing 5,000 feet of vertical (up, and then down again!). The physical exercise, the fresh air, the mind-boggling natural beauty, and especially the reward of reaching the summit make all the aches and pains I'm feeling today well worth it. The last 1000 feet or so of the ascent was a lot more work (and a little hairier) than we'd expected; but I'll never forget pulling myself over the edge and onto the top of the mountain - what a feeling!

1. Oatmeal - try steel-cut oats for a heartier breakfast
   
2. Red grapefruit - just one daily!
   
3. Almonds - a handful is all you need
   
4. Omega-3 fatty acids - salmon and ground flax seed are great sources
   
5. Olive oil - extra virgin is best; use it in place of butter on veggies

Snack to Your Heart's Content!

The results are in! Corazonas is thrilled to be included in Oprah's O list for July 2008! Our tasty, Margarita Lime heart-healthy tortilla chips were featured in Oprah's list of favorite things in the July issue of O, The Oprah Magazine. Be sure to grab a bag and taste them for yourself!

It may not technically be the 'roof of the world' but it sure feels like it at 14,271 ft above sea level! Depsite having spent all but 2.5 years of my life in CO, I have never climbed, hiked, or otherwise ascended a 14'er. That streak ended today when I climbed Quandary Peak outside of Breckenridge, thus accomplishing one of the goals I set for myself this summer and affording me an awe-inspiring view. Class 1 (read: least technically demanding) rating to the contrary, this was still a pretty physically demanding hike and I was glad I'm in pretty good shape already. Even so I was stopping every 30 or 40 steps for the last hundred yards or so but MAN was it amazing once we got up to the top! We hung out with a family of goats who were munching on some vegetation (what little there is 3000 feet above timberline), ate some lunch and then high-tailed it back down once the weather turned. I've definitely got the bug now - I'm already thinking of my next ascent!

It looks something like these 8 pallets of product (you can't see the back row) pictured here - this is us handing out tortilla chip samples at the Bolder Boulder 10K this year. The race features over 50K runners and is one of the premier (and longest running) road races in the US. As you can tell the weather was not great on Monday but the rain held out for most of the time (we did end up getting a little wet). Melissa, myself and my wife Erin were VERY busy and although I didn't have a chance to stop and check my pulse, I'm pretty sure we got a good workout!

Everyone here knows what a music nut I am. Part of a healthy, happy lifestyle - for me at least - is taking enjoyment from lots of different aspects of life, and music is a HUGE piece of mine. There's a staggering amount of music in my house but I love finding new stuff to get excited about - the search for a new band to discover is almost as much fun as the discovery itself!

This year I'm trying to keep track of my favorite new bands/albums as I go rather than wait till the end of the year (and inevitably forgetting about some). Here's what's been doing it for me through the first 4 1/2 months of 2008 - rather than review each one (things are pretty busy around here!), I linked them to Amazon or emusic so you can hear them for yourself. It's well worth the time!

Black Mountain - In the Future
The Ravonettes - Lust Lust Lust
Pete and the Pirates - Little Death
The Whitsundays - The Whitsundays
Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks - Real Emotional Trash
The Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely
Eric Lau - New Territories
Black Keys - Attack & Release
Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight
MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
Foals - Antidotes
Panic at the Disco - Pretty. Odd.
Hysterics - Hysterics

• 
  
• Using energy saving light bulbs
• 
  
• Using motion-sensitive lighting
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• Powering off on weekends & evenings
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• Using central energy-saving AC/heat
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• Participating in e-cycle day
• 
  
• Recycling paper

In Denver, some of our green actions include:

• Reusing paper twice (printing on both sides)
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• Reusing cardboard boxes, including the cases in which our chips are packaged
• 
  
• Breaking down cardboard and hauling away for recycling
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• Powering off computers on weekends & evenings
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• Recycling paper and plastic

Since our building in Denver does not participate in any recycling programs, Joe and I take it upon ourselves to recycle. Joe is kind enough to haul away our cardboard, paper and plastic and recycle it at his house. Check out Joe in this picture with one of our mountains of cardboard we break down for recycling.

As a company, we also purchase recycled paper products and we print on recycled paper. We are also working to use printers that are Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified. The goal of the FSC is, "to shift the market to eliminate habitat destruction, water pollution, displacement of indigenous peoples and violence against people and wildlife that often accompanies logging". Printers that are FSC-certified go through a number of steps to prove they are socially responsible. http://www.fscus.org/

Corazonas will continue to be green and ensure that we are doing what we can to eliminate our carbon footprint!

We all make these but how often do we actually follow through on our New Year’s Resolutions. Well this year like every year I made the resolution to get in better shape. So on January 2^nd I went to the gym and it felt great, but then I didn’t go again until the next week. It’s so easy to make excuses like I ‘m tired or one day off won’t hurt, but those days add up to weeks and months. Well anyway I went to the gym off and on until February 27^th. February 27^th was a day of reckoning for me. I really don’t know what got into me, but I finally decided that I was going to make a commitment to becoming a better me. I had seen signs for personal training sessions for only $25/session and finally called up the place to get more information. The name of the gym is Precision Fitness and Buddy (my trainer) is the owner of the Redondo Beach location. Buddy asked me to come in and check out the gym. Precision Fitness is not a regular gym, it’s a private gym but there is no membership fee. Basically the concept is group training, Buddy trains between 3-5 people at the same time and this is how they can offer $25 or less per session. Well I don’t want to bore you with gym facts, if you would like to find out more check out the website www.pfitness.net.

Ok so now to the exciting news, it’s been 2 months and I am still going strong. This has probably been the hardest commitment to keep since I am accountable only to myself. When I stared on February 27^th I weighed 147lbs with a BMI of 25.92% which was 38.11 lbs of fat and 108.89lbs of muscle. I have never been concerned with weight as long as my clothes fit, but I had noticed that my clothes were not fitting like they use to. Well I started working out with Buddy twice a week at 5AM; oh did I mention I am NOT a morning person. So not only was I committing to working out I also had to get up at 4:30am. Buddy said he would measure my progress about every 2-3 weeks to make sure I am on track. My goals included strength training with Buddy 2 times a week followed by 20minutes of cardio and my nutritional goals were to eat 120g of protein, 90g of fat and 100-150g of carbohydrates. I was also given a nutrition journal to track what I eat. On March 17^th I had my first checkup coming in at 146lbs with a BMI of 22.02% composed of 32.14lbs of fat and 113.86lbs of muscle. WOW I had already lost 5.97lbs of fat and gained 4.96 lbs of muscle. This was so exciting to actually see that already in a short time I had made progress. But I knew my eating could still improve so I took on another challenge.

Nutrition is its own beast for me. Both my parents emigrated from India and were skinny tooth picks growing up, but they didn’t have McDonald's around the corner. I grew up in a South Asian household where you always had to finish your food, but not over eat. Yeah right is that even possible? We always had big meals and we ate late in the day. My brother and I have always had weight issues. I started working out in high school and have always had to keep active to maintain a healthy weight. Food has always been a struggle for me and I knew that if I wanted to continue to see results I had to reformat my eating habits. I LOVE CARBS! I can not even tell you how much I love carbs. I knew I would have to cut back but Buddy made it easy for me with a simple tip. He told me I could have carbs, but to get them through whole wheat items and fruits. Well this was not as hard as I had expected. Another thing I realized was its not easy to eat so much protein. I started drinking protein shakes but not regularly and this showed on my next check-up.

On April 2^nd I weighed in at 143.5lbs with a BMI of 19.64% composed of 28.18lbs of fat and 115.32lbs of muscle. So I had lost 3.96lbs of fat but only gained 1.47lbs of muscle. Since than I have been getting in more protein and training with Buddy 3 times a week. My next checkup is today, I will post my results very soon.

Also just so you know I do have my reward days where I eat whatever I want and guess what everyone needs that to stay on track. One thing I've learned is that there is no finish line to cross. I have made a life long commitment to improve and maintain my health. So I challenge all of you to make the commitment! I promise it will be the best thing you ever do for yourself, guaranteed. :)

Posted by: Rashi K.

I was blessed to spend the Easter weekend with my three brothers and their families. We don't get together as often as we'd like and always have a great time when we do! Having lost our parents and all of our grandparents, we cherish the time we have together and count ourselves as lucky to laugh as hard as we do on these occasions!
After two days of solid cooking (and now enjoying the leftovers - yummmm!!!!), Easter egg hunts, and long feasts, it is nice to just relax at night & fall asleep to the memories of the stories that were shared!
Today a very dear friend is in surgery for breast cancer, so I am reminded how important our health is and that we simply can not take it for granted!!!! Yesterday I found out that I tore my ACL ligament in my knee skiing with Joe (see his earlier blog) on the most gorgeous of days at Copper Mountain 3 weeks ago, and I will need surgery - but at least my is not life threatening (maybe lifestyle threatening!!! :)!!! I will be putting that off until after my trip to Macchu Picchu in May! May we all continue to grab the most out of life!!!! Have a great day!

Being excited by the results of your annual cholesterol screening. For those scoring at home, my LDL is down -8% since last year. I've been making a point to eat well, exercise more and of course eat Corazonas chips! I'm pretty excited by the improvements in my Triglycerides and ratios too.

Here's to a happy heart!

Throughout the month of February, Corazonas brand ambassador street teams passed out samples and coupons in Northern California, Southern California, Denver, Dallas, and Chicago. In the Denver market, we launched two wrapped vehicles in addition to our street team. The programs were a huge success in all markets and awareness of Corazonas is spreading. I went to a new doctor a couple weeks ago and she asked what I did for a living. I told her I worked for a company that produces heart-healthy tortilla and potato chips. To my surprise, she nodded and replied, "Is the company called Cora...Corazon?". I was so excited that she had heard of us (even though she was slightly off base on the company name, but what's a few letters anyway?)! She told me that she had been at one of the local parks in Denver and a brightly colored car had pulled up and a brand ambassador had hopped out handed her a sample of our chips!
Joe and I were lucky enough to be graced by the presence of our CEO as she wanted to observe the street teams and wrapped vehicles firsthand. Check out the fabulous Ramona Cappello alongside one of the wrapped vehicles below!

I know some of you out there would think I was mad if I told you how happy 38 degrees (Fahrenheit, mind you) feels, but then you'd be identifying yourself as someone who's never sat at the base of a ski run, enjoying food and drink with friends and soaking up rays. And yes, mom, I wore my sunscreen! I love big powder days as much as anyone else who's had the pleasure of floating down a steep face through a giant pile of Colorado champagne powder - but there's something so incredibly joyous about spring skiing. Maybe it's because it's the first sign that winter is almost over or maybe it's the way the bumps soften up a bit (allowing those of us with poor mogul form to feel like we're better than we actually are), or maybe it's the juxtaposition of warm sun and cold air....it's probably all of the above and a lot more. And it's all good!

Here we are slopeside at Copper Mountain with my good friends Matt and Erin. What a day!

Today marks the first day of our Heart Health Month team pledge. Please join us and make your heart health a priority this month and always!

Our goal is for each of us (we are 13 strong!) to exercise at a moderate-intensity (within 50-85% of our target heart rate zone) for a minimum of 30 minutes, 5 days a week. This means 130 hours total of heart pounding exercise for the next 29 days in honor of Heart Health Month (and our own health of course)!

Here are some helpful links to get you started!

Use this age chart to find your target heart rate:
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4736

Or for a personalized number, use this calculator:
http://www.polarusa.com/targetzone/default.asp

We'll keep you updated and write in to share your successes as well!

Cheers to happy feet and healthy hearts!

Rain in LA or Chips that lower cholesterol??? Both seem outrageous but both are 100% true. :)



Emily and I swung by the Fox studios yesterday to deliver some much-needed heart-healthy snacks to the men and women working the picket lines out front.



Amid a multitude of honking cars on Pico Boulevard, Emily distributed bags of our Tortilla chips to the grateful members of the Writer's Guild.



They commented that it was great to have a heart-healthy snack for once; and one gentlemen liked them so much that he accompanied us back to the check-in tent (where we'd dropped several more cases of our other flavors) to get an immediate taste of Original and Jalapeño Jack!

We just returned from the Fancy Food Show in San Diego and WOW were our chips popular! People kept coming up, taking a bite, saying "wow, that's really good" - and then reacting in disbelief when we told them they were lowering their cholesterol too!

them: "No way."
us: "Yes way!"
them: "You're kidding."
us: "I swear I am not kidding. These chips actually lower your cholesterol!"
them: "Really?"
us: "Yes really!"

And on it went, for three days. If the reaction from people at this show was any indication, we have a real winner on our hands!

Here are two of the intrepid travelers, Jeff (Director of Sales) and Ramona (our founder, CEO and CHHO - that's Chief Heart Health Officer!)

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• "...just one taste of these potato chips and you now have a fan for life" - S.J., California
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• "You folks have the best chip out there bar none...an instant hit at my house." - M.H., Colorado
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• "I wanted to let you know that the chips I “sampled” with my family and friends were a HUGE hit…you guys really have a good thing going." - S.F., California

Available in stores soon, our potato chips come in 5 world-inspired flavors: Mediterranean Garlic & Herb, Italiano 4 Cheese, Pacific Rim Barbecue, Spicy Rio Habanero, and Slightly Salted.

If you'd like a sample and want to help us spread the word, email info@corazonas.com and we'd be happy to share the love!

As you might expect, I think our chips taste great; almost TOO good to be as healthy as they are! But it's easy to put healthy stuff in your body; and you can get creative about it too. Lately I've been making a smoothie each morning that's super easy and super healthy:

10oz Plain Kefir
1/2 bag frozen Organic Wild Blueberries
1 pack Sambazon frozen plain Acai (sold in natural foods stores as a 4-pack)

Put them all in a blender and let it whirl!

I eat very little manufactured/refined sugar so I like that the only sweetness in this smoothie comes from the fruits! The combination of blueberries and Acai makes this an absolute POWERHOUSE of antioxidants and natural energy while the kefir provides me with satiety and a great dose of probiotics. I usually eat an apple or raw food bar (I love Larabars) mid-morning and my energy level stays nice an even and I never get that sudden need to gorge that comes from a drastic change in blood sugar.

You could obviously try all sorts of different combinations of ingredients that suit your tastes and dietary needs. Try it out and see!

The holiday season is truly a special time. It's a time to celebrate, visit with friends and family, enjoy delicious food, and give thanks. It's a time to give and receive gifts, and to spread love and cheer.

The Corazonas team wishes you and your loved ones a wonderful and safe holiday season. Here are a few fun ways to incorporate Corazonas into your holiday celebrations!


Appetizers anyone?

• Instead of the standard cheese & crackers, mix it up and serve cheese & Corazonas.
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• Serving chips & dip? Pick up a bag of Corazonas and get your munch on! After all, you're filling up on fiber and helping to lower your bad cholesterol. With the tasty flavors, you might not even need the dip!

Give the gift of lower LDL!

• Instead of baking cookies to share with friends and family, why not whip up some homemade salsa or guacamole (check out the recipes on our website or create your own!) and pair it with a bag of Corazonas?
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• Fill the stockings! Encourage your loved ones to snack healthy with a bag of Corazonas.

~Sue

It's great to be back in the States after a 11-day tour of Southeast Asia! The beauty of that part of the world is simply breathtaking, the people were some of the warmest I’ve ever met, and yet the poverty and living conditions alternately break my heart and make me so thankful for what we have in America! Incidentally, a trip somewhere in the world is something I try to do with several of my dearest friends each year or so, as part of our shared quest to see 50 countries by age 50. In case you're wondering, my country count on this trip has hit 45 with visits to Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos!

Even halfway around the world, my mind is never far from chips...here is a picture of me in Luang Prabang, Laos next to taro chips being dried in the sun. We bought a giant bag of them for about $1 US - what a deal!

Ramona

OK get ready for the cliché.....'Music has been important to me since before I can even remember.' I hate clichés but there's no other way to say that. Some of my earliest memories are of digging through my parents records to find music I was in the mood for, or that suited a snowy day, or that I just couldn't get enough of. Ever since then I've spent an inordinate (and possibly unhealthy) amount of time and money finding, buying and listening to music from pretty much every genre imaginable.

As almost anyone with an ear and a pulse can tell you, the right music at the right time can dramatically change the mood of a crowd or the emotion in a room, for better or worse. There's a reason I used to play Pink Floyd's 'Comfor