Sugar

Did the flour post break your heart? Let’s break your heart again. Let’s talk about sugar.

 There are so many types of sugar: white sugar, brown sugar, cane sugar, and unrefined cane sugar to name a few. And, you know what? None of them are healthy. Not even cane sugar. To play it simple and pull the band aid off as quickly as possible, I’ll just go out there and say that sugar is not your friend. It slowly kills humans. (That sounds super harsh but sometimes that’s the best way to pull away from something you love.) Think about it. Sugar leads to diabetes and obesity, which slowly kill you, while other foods lessen your change of diabetes and obesity. It’s that easy.

So what do we do now? What can we eat? Will there ever be sweetness in our lives again? Of course! There are a lot of alternatives to sugar. There are some fake sugar products, some are better than others, but I don’t trust synthetic products, plus the bad one are really bad for your body (like the sweeteners in diet drinks), so I won’t even mention them here. I like my substitutes to be all-natural, so I go all honey. I love honey! There are so many types of honey with so many different flavors that can go with anything. I substitute honey for sugar in any recipe (you just have to find what kind of proportions you like). Sometimes I combine the honey with applesauce or crushed really ripe bananas for a change in flavor. Just be sure to get unheated and unfiltered honey because, when honey is heated too high, it looses its health benefit.

Others use date paste and love it. Honey is cheaper. Word of caution, don’t go crazy. (I definitely probably overdo it with the honey. I love my sweets! But I should be a guiding blogger, so I will tell you to be better than I am.) Too much of any type of sugar is too much. Another word of caution: Don’t fall for agave nectar. It is really processed and is even comparable to high fructose corn syrup!

Happy Eating,

Ashley

Labels II

Let’s Bust Some Myths (haha, get it?)

Yesterday, I promised you a post about labeling and how it can tell us when foods are healthy or not and when it can’t. So, let’s get right into it.

One of the most obvious ones that we have covered to death is brown bread…. We’ll be skipping over that (but, if you want to know what to look for in your bread, please see my post on flour).

Let’s break new and interesting ground! Let’s talk about yogurt. First of all, the basic problem with dairy products is that they are really high in unhealthy fats. This means full-fat yogurt, cheese, milk, butter, sour cream, whipped cream (which is also high in sugar…), and crème fraîche, just to name a few. You can, however, buy low fat or zero fat versions.

A lot of people like skimmed milk. I don’t. I would rather buy alternative milks. (Also I’m newly lactose intolerant, so it’s not so much of a choice.) Alternative milks are their own post. I substitute butter with olive oil or canola oil. Low fat cheese is gross, but goat and sheep cheese are generally a bit lower in fat (and easier for lactose intolerant people to take). I just try not to eat so much cheese, in general. Lastly, I use plain natural zero-percent fat greek yogurt as a substitute for sour cream and cream and even as a substitute for whipped cream. (I also use pureed cashews as a substitute for cream in soups.) Plus, lactose intolerant people can eat yogurt because it doesn’t have lactose! I just asked G, and he said he can’t even tell if I used greek yogurt or the original, and the “whipped cream” he says he even likes better!

Now, let’s get into the nitty gritty about yogurt. No matter what I am making, I always buy natural zero-percent fat greek yogurt as opposed to normal zero-percent fat yogurt because it is high in protein, you cannot taste a difference between it and higher fat greek yogurt, and it has an amazing thick texture. But why only natural? Don’t I like flavor and love and happiness in my life? I DO, and I get flavor (and love and happiness). The problem with flavored yogurt is written all over the label (thankfully, no tricks here). I have yet to find a supermarket flavored yogurt that was without sugar. Generally, one of the first ingredients is sugar and only one of the last ingredients is the fruit. Even honey yogurts are generally sweetened with sugar (sugar is its own post). So I would rather sweeten my own yogurt with pure honey or add honey and freshly cut fruit.

Let’s talk about one example where the unhealthiness of the item isn’t written on the label (oh no!): 100% fruit juice. Yes, your eyes aren’t deceiving you. But how? Why? Because juice means squeezed/pressed/hammered to an unrecognizable substance, which means stripped of all the healthy fibers and full of sugars (even too much natural sugar is too much). Let’s say you have the choice between two drinks with the following ingredients list: apples, raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries. First off, YUM. Second, you notice one says it is a fruit smoothie and the other is a fruit juice. Always pick the smoothie. A smoothie basically means that they took the fruit whole, meaning all of the fiber with the sugars, and blended them into a delicious creation. Enjoy.

Happy Eating,

Ashley

You are What You Eat (so you should know you’re eating)

I figured a discussion about labeling was the most necessary post to follow a (dreadful) discovery about flour/wheat. When you are feeling lost about any change in your diet, labels are your best friend and guiding light. Labels are the only clue we have to knowing what kind of wheat-like substance you are buying when you pick up that brown bread.

Let’s start with a quiz. (I bet you love hearing that.)

Of the following two pictures, which is the most important?

*drumroll please*

Always.

Calories are really misleading because the amount of calories is not as important as the type of calories that you are consuming. And the only place on the label where you will find the type of calories is the ingredients list.

Let’s cover a few things about the ingredients list. First, ingredients are listed in order of amount. So, if you buy an apple juice and the ingredient list looks like this “Ingredients: water (50%), sugar, pressed apple (24%),” you know that water makes up the largest component in the juice, and pressed apple the least. You also know that sugar is 26% of the juice (50-24=26), which also makes sense, since it is the middle ingredient.

Also, a lot of the time percentages aren’t even listed on the ingredients. In these cases (for example if you are comparing products, which you should always do to make sure you are getting the best product offered), you should just be smart about it. If you are buying hummus and the first ingredient is chickpea and the second onions, you should know that hummus is ground chickpea and the onions are just for flavor so there probably aren’t so many onions (not that onions are unhealthy, just as an example).

Second, the ingredients tell you exactly what you are eating. So if one cracker brand calls itself “healthy whole-meal rye sent from healthy heaven yummy cracker” and another calls itself “digestive cracker,” you really can make no assumption as to which is healthier just by the name. You will be surprised to find that sometimes the first ingredient of the “healthy” cracker is enriched wheat while the digestive cracker (or sometimes just “cracker”) is rye.

Third, I have heard it said that, as a general rule, the few ingredients the better…. I don’t agree. Food is never so easy. If you are buying a dip made from the puree of 13 different vegetable ingredients, it is healthier than buying the cheese dip made from some sort of former cheese-like (but not really related to cheese) product and chopped peppers.

The fourth point will need it’s own post. Tomorrow, we will be discussing some foods that the ingredients list will help you figure out are surprisingly unhealthy and other foods that it won’t.

Moral? Just be smart and know what you are eating. Stop worrying about calories. (I never have any clue about the calories I eat.) This is how you know you are making a lifestyle change rather than sticking to a diet with rules that are without thought.

Happy Eating,

Ashley