I’ve been off sugar for a week now – not the naturally occurring stuff found in bananas but the added stuff found in, oh say chocolate bars – chocolate bars that you’ve bought because you rationalize the fact that if they’re DARK chocolate then they’re a health food and if you only eat one piece of this health food then it barely even registers. Problem is you (ok, I) don’t only eat one piece.  I start with one piece and then when it’s gone, I have one more piece and so on and so on until what began as one not-too-bad-for-you piece of chocolate, very quickly spirals into one half a chocolate bar  - gone. Demolished. Delicious.

So with my recent complete absence of willpower, I decided it was time for a monastic plunge into abstinence – not forever, just a short time-out for my sweet tooth.

It really is amazing how quickly my mouth recalibrated and started to taste sugar in all the things I never thought were sweet before. In some cases, I would simply experience something that was mildly sweet as very sweet. But in other cases, even when there was no natural sugar at all in the food, I would still taste it. I made some crepes, with a touch of applesauce on top and I swear I tasted maple syrup. I know it was simply my mind making the association with maple syrup on crepes, but it is astonishing how much influence the mind had over the mouth.

I’m on week two now and it’s actually been pretty easy. Here are a few things that helped ease the “loss  …  if you’re thinking of giving it a try, these might help:

1. Use Spices: Toss some vanilla powder or extract in yogurt, and use ginger slices on sautéed or steamed veggies (they’ll actually make the veggies taste sweet)Snack on
2. Seaweed “paper”: My local Whole Foods as well as Trader Joe’s sell them in small foil packs. They are super addictive, very low calorie and totally sugar-free. It’s nothing more than seaweed, olive oil and salt, but it’s like food from the mermaids. (And it’s high in Vitamin A!)
3. Add slices of orange, lemon or cucumbers to a pitcher of water: They give it so much flavor you won’t be tempted to drink juice or soda.
4. Use a pinch of Stevia: It’s a pure, all-natural herb, but I’m not a fan of the slight licorice after-taste, so I use it in very few foods, but my coffee demands some sweetness so I add a tiny bit of it to coffee.
5. Go Bananas: I let them get super ripe, puree them, freeze small portions in ice cube trays and then use them to sweeten yogurt before adding less sweet fruit.
6. Toss in texture: I eat a lot of yogurt and I tend to miss the sugar less (usually in the form of honey) if there is a lot of texture – I think it distracts my mouth and makes it forget the lack of sugar.  I usually add ground flax seeds or chopped almonds, in addition to loads of chopped fruit.

Any tips you might have for those of trying to lead the not-so-sweet life?

{A post I wrote for Attune Foods}

I finally cleaned out my hall closet and gave away/tossed away half the stuff. I have no need for running shoes that will never be anything but a size too small, and a single mitten whose mate I called off the search for years ago. Even though I open this cupboard daily, I never even noticed most of this stuff as I had gotten so used to seeing it.

I’m starting to feel similarly about a lot of ingredients/additives in my food. When we think about “additives” we usually think about things like MSG, corn syrup, artificial flavors, colors, preservatives etc, but many of the ones that I’m now more aware of are found in high quality food sold in Whole Foods, or health food stores. Even in “good for you food” there is simply a lot of “stuff” that gets shoved into the corners that we either don’t notice or if we do notice, think we need.  And sometimes we DO need them, but that’s often because the food is lacking, and these additives are there to make up for it.

Read the rest on the Attune Foods blog, here.

There are two kinds of people: those who want to know everything that is possible to know about the food they eat (the ingredients, nutrient levels, place of origin, first and last name of the farmer that grew it), and those who, as long as the food is safe, just eat it.

Which are you?  Because whichever camp you fall into, likely dictates whether you care if GMO foods be labeled “GMO foods”. Whole Foods has just announced that by 2018 all their stores will label any foods that contain GMO ingredients and many other stores are likely to follow suite. This has the makers of GMO foods in a tizzy.

I think we are going to be shocked when we see that the majority of our processed foods are GMO. (Many processed foods contain corn and/or soy and the vast majority of those crops are GMO). Although very little of our fresh fruit and vegetables are GMO currently, this could change and one popular fruit that is most likely GMO is papaya. (About half of Hawaiian grown papaya is GMO.)

There are many things that can be done to an organism for it to gain the distinction of being “genetically modified” but one of the most common is when the DNA of a plant is tinkered with such that a pesticide is baked into the genetic material. There has also been discussion of creating fish with pumped up growth hormones so they mature in half the time, and cows that produce milk with a lower fat content. Do any of these “alterations” make the organism unsafe for humans to eat? Most scientists say no, but then again the scientists were saying that DDT (the infamous pesticides used in the 70’s) was safe until they were saying that in fact it was not safe at all.   Ditto for BPA (the chemical found in plastics), asbestos, and on and on…

So do I want to know if my food is GMO? Yes. Even now, knowing that most corn and soy is GMO, I always buy organic kernel corn, organic edamame and organic tofu. (Organic food, by the way, is not allowed to contain any GMO plants).  If you buy conventional corn or soy products, you can pretty much count on it being GMO.

But I fear that once this labeling begins, the price of non GMO food will go through the green house roof and the demand for organic will be even greater (and hence even costlier). I think people will be scared off (rightly or wrongly) by the GMO label and this will then require the sellers to assure is that it IS safe.  We will start seeing ad campaigns telling us that we have nothing to worry about, that the food conglomerates have our best interests in mind and would NEVER sell us anything unsafe. So we should just go back to our soy chips and leave the laboratory experimenting to them….

Your thoughts?

(Oh and in case you’re not a loyal Portlandia watcher (a very funny TV series) and you might have missed an episode or two … Here is a video clip about the “people-who-care”’s approach to ordering chicken at a restaurant.)

{A post I wrote for Attune Foods}

When I walk through my farmers market in the winter months it’s hard to get excited by stocky carrots, thick cabbage and weary apples. Maybe it’s in part because these produce are nearly non-perishable that they seem less desirable – I don’t know, but there is something about the short, fragile, unpredictable life of a pint of raspberries in the August sun, that makes them irresistible. (I think one could extend this theory into other forms of life, but I’ll leave that for the relationship bloggers.) Even the farmers look a little worn down by the sub 30 temps, and a little foggy-headed from the propane heaters…

Read the rest on the Attune Foods Blog, here

“You can’t have it until the baby goats are done with it, and they will be weaned in April.” That was the message I was given by the goat-milk lady at the farmer’s market when I asked whether she was selling any goat milk. (She was selling cheese, so thought I’d ask). It was a stark reminder that we humans are the only mammals to drink another mammal’s milk.  The baby goats, cows and sheep are done after a few months, but we fully grown adults – we just keep on going.

Maybe we shouldn’t….

The lactose-digesting enzyme (lactase) reaches its maximum level in the intestine soon after birth and then declines into adulthood until it reaches a stable level.  Some people maintain a high  level of lactase into adulthood and therefore have no problem digesting milk, but others have low levels and are therefore lactose intolerant.

It turns out that those of us (globally speaking) who tolerate milk well, after infancy, are actually pretty rare.  And it may have something to do with ethnicity – Scandinavians, for example seem to have a low level of lactose intolerance as it’s believed that several thousand years ago they underwent a genetic change allowing them to tolerate lactose since milk was an important part of their diet.  Southern Europeans, North Africans and Asians, on the other hand, have a very high level of lactose intolerance and milk products are not an important part of the diet.  (The Chinese diet has virtually no milk products.)

Although, I’m of Caucasian descent and don’t think I have a severe intolerance, I’ve become increasingly conscious of how much we consume and how unnecessary it really is in our diet.  Yet I also have a one year old (Finn), who I am about to introduce milk to and I am feeling a but conflicted about flooding his system with the milk from another mammal.  Not to mention on top of that, milk that is pasteurized, homogenized (unless you get it from the farmers market), is high in lactase, and has a protein (casein) that for many is hard to digest. I would actually like to not give Finn milk at all anymore, but I think for the short term it’s important for him to get many of the nutrients that are in milk.

Enter goat’s milk …. I’m at the early stage of deciding whether I might give this to Finn. I am already a huge fan of goat milk yogurt – the barnyardy taste alone makes me feel like I’ve just dived into a pile of hay – but there there is considerable evidence to suggest that it is. It is…

• Lower in lactose
• Lower in casein (protein) which many people have an intolerance to
• Naturally homogenized – meaning the fat does not separate from the rest of the milk. When milk is homogenized  - which most cow’s milk is – it destroys the fat globule cell wall and produces free radicals in the milk which your body has to get rid of.

One thing that is NOT in goat’s milk is vitamin D – this is added to most cows milk so if (or your kids) drink goats milk (or the yogurt) that’s one thing to keep in mind.

So that’s where we stand. I’ll keep you posted as to what direction we go … but would love to hear from any of you if you’ve ever tried goat milk…  What about the yogurt? Like it more than cow?

{A post I wrote for Attune Foods}

A year ago, breakfast was often a kale and shitake frittata, farm-fresh goat cheese crumbled on top, still warm from the pan….Though I’ve kicked my coffee-shop-muffin habit that had crept into my routine, the just-cooked eggs are frequently “just-cooked” two hours ago.  At 9 am I often find myself eating the remains of Finn’s scrambled eggs – cold, picked over, and in some cases “pre-mouthed” (but not chewed – I do have my standards).  If I never ate my child’s food remains (“leftovers” is too elevated a term once the food has sat on someone else’s plate – or high chair), I would be tossing away eggs, fish, applesauce – all partially eaten and 100% touched.  Since I can’t bring myself to throw them out, I instead throw myself into the role of scrap-eater.

Please read the rest on the Attune Foods blog, here.

I was struck by a recent New York Times article (see link at bottom of this post) about a 3 year old who was diagnosed with arthritis.  The drugs he was put on did little to help and it was not until his mother radically altered his diet, eliminating gluten, dairy, and refined sugar among other adjustments, that his arthritis went away.  She is quick to point out that the meds may have played a role in his recovery, but she is convinced that it was the diet that not only cleared things up, but that brought on the arthritis.

The syndrome she refers to is known as “leaky gut” syndrome.  The belief is that inflammation in the gut (which is often caused by gluten or dairy or by antibiotics which wipe out good bacteria) causes the intestines to leak undesirable proteins or bacteria into the surrounding tissue; this then triggers an inflammatory response by the body – in this case, arthritis.

I have known about this syndrome for a while, but it was a bit of a personal wake up call. I’ve always been a conscientious eater, but when you have a little less time on your hands and a lot more baby in your arms, it is shockingly easy to let poor eating habits creep in. And those poor eating habits usually contain a lot of gluten and sugar. As I admitted in this post here, I had begun a decline into a world of morning muffins (rich in gluten and refined sugar) and evening cereal. I saw no reason to end this pattern as it was easy, comforting, quick and I felt pretty good despite the diet.

But the truth is I do feel better when I eat well. I am sure there is an element of the placebo effect at play – when I’m eating a kale and quinoa salad, it is not only the kale itself that’s working its healing power, but my mind backing up the kale’s effort.  So I’ve left my coffee-shop breakfast and boxed-dinner ways behind me, and am back to eggs in the morning (albeit sometimes in the form of crepes with a hint of maple syrup) and something-other-than-cereal in the evening.

As for Finn (my 11 month old) and his diet, I don’t have him on a gluten-free diet, but I don’t feed him wheat-based cereal or toast and today I went out and bought gluten-free fussilli (made with brown rice flour). This came about after witnessing him inhale a bowl (a baby bowl, but a bowl) of gluten-rich pasta. Were it not for me tugging the bowl away in between mouthfuls to allow him to breath, he would have stuffed the entire portion in his mouth. (As a side note, rice is still a grain and I try to limit both my intake as well as Finn’s but as it’s gluten-free, it is arguably easier for the body to digest.) I wrote about the difficulties the body has digesting grains here.)

So that’s where we are on our food odyssey. How are you feeling, now that we’re six weeks into the New Year and many of us have “resolved” to Eat Better in 2013…

(Here is the link to the NYTimes article.)

{A post I wrote for Attune foods}

Do you remember the first time you ate junk food?   I have foggy memories of eating Arrowroot cookies (a gentler junk food but lets be honest) and I recall pizza parties around age 6 but I can’t really recall “The First Time”.  Well I know when it was for Finn (my 10 mos old).  He ate his first chocolate chip cookie (well half of a chocolate chip cookie but the “half” was the size of many “wholes”) last week.  I have to admit I felt a tinge of guilt, polluting his virginal digestive track with double chunk chocolate chip cookies, but I was eating it and his hands are fast and his desire strong. And what was worse was how much he loved it. And how much I hated the fact that he loved it. With most foods he smells it, takes it to his mouth, tentatively tries it and then might proceed with the rest. With this, he spotted his goal, pulled it from my hand, and did not remove it from his mouth until it was well inside his belly. The cookie was conquered.

Read the rest on the Attune Foods blog, here.

I don’t know whether it’s because I just have less time now to remember to take them or because half my fridge is being occupied by baby puree, but I just did a thorough cleanse of the supplement section of my refridgerator and only one’s left standing – the fish oil – old habits die hard (not to mention old recollections of how much the stuff cost). But to be honest, I don’t think I’m going to replenish the bottle once it’s done (which at the current rate of consumption will be next year).

I’ve been reading more and more, (see one article here,) about the questionable benefits of supplements and increasingly I’m starting to side with the skeptics. It seems that the body knows how to make good use of a slow drip of Omega 3 fatty acids when they’re embedded in the salmon, but doesn’t necessarily recognize the nutrient (or know how to process it) when it’s stripped of its host, shoved into a capsule and consumed in large quantities. Much of the supplement (studies are showing) passes right through, leaving you not with a healthier body, just healthier urine.

I even chose to go against the prevailing custom of taking mega doses of supplements when pregnant and opted to take only folic acid at the early stage and that was it.  I had an extremely balanced diet with all nutrients covered, and gave birth to a 9 pound baby at 42 weeks, healthy as an ox.

Not only have there been questions raised as to the effectiveness of supplements, but one study, here, conducted several years ago, showed that for those with irregular heart beats, taking a fish oil capsule actually contributed to greater irregularity.  Hardly the heart-health-helper you thought it was.

In addition to fish oil, another supplement that has gained popularity and is being tucked into everything from orange juice to chocolate, is probiotics. They are exceptionally expensive when you buy the “live” ones, and again there is no evidence that the supplement itself is effective.  I do however, consume a pretty healthy level of the foods that are known to contain probiotics in their natural state (see below), and anytime I find my digestive system a little “off” I load up even more.

So in the spirit of out-with-the-old-and-in-with-the-new, rather than swallowing the supplements here’s what I’ll be eating …

• Instead of Fish oil: Salmon, sole, ground flax seeds
• Instead of Probiotics: Yogurt, kombucha, pickled/fermented foods
• Instead of Vitamin C: Red peppers, broccoli,oranges, papaya
• Instead of Calcium: Sesame seeds, yogurt, kale
• Instead of Vitamin D: Salmon, eggs, mushrooms

What about you?

(As an aside, I am in no way suggesting that if you’re taking supplements and they’re working for you, that you should stop. If they’re working for you keep taking them! )

Oh and the winner of the 5 pack of free-product coupons for the Erewhon cereal?

Emily A.  – Congrats!

{A post I wrote for Attune Food’s blog}

Now that Christmas is wrapped up, Hanukah’s passed, Thanksgiving has come and gone, is there anything left to say about food?  Is there anything more to eat? Anything more to cook?  What’s left?

Read about this creative way to use what’s left on the Attune Foods blog …