I read quite a few blogs, and there were a lot of interesting posts waiting for me when I came back.  These are a few posts that I thought were full of good and interesting information I simply must pass on.

Sally Fallon Interviews on Hartke is Online! – I love Fallon’s books Nourishing Traditions and Eat Fat, Lose Fat.  I’ve cooked many of her recipes and had them all turn out, plus, she only uses whole foods and traditional ingredients.  She stresses the importance of traditional foods and especially traditional fats.  Give her a listen!

High Fructose Corn Syrup Warning on Hartke is Online! – As if I needed more reasons to get this stuff out of my food supply.  But just in case you or someone you know isn’t convinced, send them this link.

Big Corporations Dictate What We Eat at Agricultural Society – Title says it all.

Three Great Traditional Food Videos at  Nourished Kitchen – Videos on making Kombuchu and Fermented Vegetables, and Sally Fallon discusses diet and emotional health.

Fish at Whole Foods at The Slow Cook – If you eat fish (and it is a healthy choice to do so), we are often faced with the reality that what we are doing is not healthy for the planet.  Overfishing and poor fishing practices deplete ocean stock.  Here is a post listing some fish available at a local Whole Foods and if it is a good choice or poor choice.

Heartburn information from Natural Bias – A great article on heartburn.  What causes it, how to treat it, and how antacids and other pills for it are about the worse thing you should do.

Phew!  More later, but I hope this gives you something to read and think about as I get a post together about the farm I visited.  Also, tomorrow I will be seeing FOOD INC. I’m quite excited to see it and I’ll try and post a review.

Plus I made a versatile sauce using lovage that I’d love to share with you, and I’ll be trying to make chicken stock in the crockpot for the first time this weekend.  Lots going on, so stay tuned…

The types of sweeteners you will find in my house - none artificial

I don’t eat Sweet and Low, Equal, or Splenda. I don’t believe they are food. They are chemicals that are masqueraded as food. Geared towards those who want to have their cake and eat it too, these artificial sweeteners supposedly provide all the sweetness of sugar without the side effects of calories. Eat yummy food and keep your waist trim!

Well, my first thought is that they taste awful. Even Splenda, which has marketing materials talking about how much it tastes like sugar, tastes awful to me. I can taste them in anything. Gross.

Secondly, maybe we shouldn’t be eating empty calories (like that which is found in refined sugar and to a lesser degree all the other natural, minimally processed sugars – honey, maple syrup, etc) to such excess that it causes weight gain. Maybe it should remind us that sugar is a treat, something to be used in small amounts and/or infrequently. I bake with sugar and eat it, but I try to use unrefined sugars when I can, and I also try not to bake sweets every week or eat them every day. In fact, I find the less sweets I eat, the less sweets I want to eat!

With all of this already in mind, today I checked out The People’s Chemist and learned some truly awful things about Splenda.

From the article:

Splenda contains the drug sucralose. This chemical is 600 times sweeter than sugar. To make sucralose, chlorine is used. Chlorine has a split personality. It can be harmless or it can be life threatening.

Guess what one Splenda is? It was discovered when its creators were trying to design a new pesticide, so that should tell you something. Go read the rest of the article to get the full scoop.