Mystery Food Revealed

Thank you everyone for participating in this month’s Mystery Food guessing game. Most of the responses were on facebook, so I will list them here. Here are the guesses:

• canned buttercream frosting
• ice cream
• pudding
• sweetened condensed milk
• Miracle Whip
• caramel ice cream topping

Caramel ice cream topping was SO close! Good job! This happens to be Marzetti’s Light Caramel Apple Dip.



Let’s review these ingredients again:
HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, CORN SYRUP, NON FAT MILK, POLYDEXTROSE, MODIFIED CORN STARCH, BUTTER (MILK, CREAM, SALT), SUGAR, LESS THAN 2% OF: DISODIUM PHOSPHATE, SALT, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN OIL, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS, POTASSIUM SORBATE (PRESERVATIVE), MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES.



Is nothing made from good old-fashioned sugar anymore? Everything is high fructose corn syrup based. Notice it’s the first ingredient, meaning, of all the ingredients, this one is the highest quantity.  Then corn syrup. Sugar is the 7th ingredient listed. And then…aaaah!–partially hydrogenated soybean oil–this is the trans fat we talked about, just the other day. Mono and diglycerides are also trans fat.



But you may be thinking, it’s a treat, all treats are bad for us.  We can have a little, right?



There are levels of bad. If you were to make your own caramel dip (not that hard) at home, you would use sugar, butter, cream, salt, vanilla, and maybe a little corn syrup (I use Griffin’s since it lists corn syrup and sugar syrup on the label, not high fructose corn syrup). These ingredients are much better for you. (Note, I did not say “healthy”, but better. For more information, check out my Ladder of Healthy Eating.)



This is an October treat for us, we don’t eat it all the time. I used to buy the Marzetti dip. No more, we are taking our steps up the ladder. Checkout any good cookbook for a recipe for real caramel. Make some at home. I especially like Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything and The Joy of Cooking. Real food–this is what grandma lived to 90 on!

September Challenge Update

Well, our first challenge has concluded, going without high fructose corn syrup for seven days.



How did you do?  Was it difficult?   Was it easy?  Were there any food items that you were surprised to see HFCS on the ingredients listing?



Well, on day 1, I noticed that the sandwich bread I buy for the family (I don’t eat it), contains HFCS.  It’s really hard with sandwich bread.  Most of them contain trans fat.  This was one I found without trans fat, but they put HFCS in it.

I tried making homemade bread for my family.  I even compromised and made it mostly white.  (I figured mostly white, made at home, was better than a loaf with HFCS, trans fat, and numerous dough conditioner chemicals and preservatives.)  It was delicious!  But after about two days, it gets crumbly and stale tasting.  It doesn’t stay soft as long as store-bought bread.  So my family refused it.



On day 2, I was feeding my kids yogurt with their breakfast.  We make our own yogurt from raw milk.  I eat it plain, my daughter has recently switched from plain to having it with honey, and my son likes strawberry jam in it.  I buy all-fruit jam, specifically to avoid sugar and HFCS.  I checked the Yoplait label at the store and sure enough, it contains HFCS.  I’m so glad we cut that out years ago.  The kids do get it as a treat once in a while.  But that’s what it is, a dessert, not a healthy breakfast.



On day 5, I goofed!  We were having homemade hamburgers, french fries, and strawberry shortcake.  I kept thinking, we’re doing good, because we’re making the shortcake from scratch, no HFCS there!  Well, I was in the middle of my meal and it dawned on me that I was dipping my fries in Ranch dressing and I had ketchup on my burger!!!!!!  Yes, both of those items have HFCS in them.  And guess what else?!?  The hamburger buns.  It just goes to show how many items contain HFCS these days.  It is hard to escape.  I am not at the place, yet, of making my own salad dressing and ketchup.  Some day, but not yet.  Occasionally I do drizzle my salad with red wine vinegar and olive oil.  This encourages me to do that more often.



Well, the rest of the week, we were in the clear.  Let me know how you did!

Challenge of the Month

This is something new I’m doing.  I am going to issue a new challenge every month.  The challenge will be for 7 days.



This month’s challenge is to cut out High Fructose Corn Syrup.  Now this is only for 7 days.  You will want to start checking your labels to see what foods have HFCS in them.



Why?  Why do we care if there is HFCS in our diets?  Isn’t it just sugar?  A little sugar does no harm, right?



Well, all sugars are not equal.  The closer a food is to how God created it, the better it is for you. Natural sugars contain enzymes, vitamins and minerals.  Refined sugars are stripped of all that and rob your body of those things as they’re digested.  If we’re going to chart things on a Great-Good-Bad-Worse chart, sugar would be bad, but HFCS is worse.  You can’t make this stuff in your home kitchen.  It actually takes battery acid to make and is reported to contain levels of mercury.  Read this article on that subject.



Most of the junk food my generation grew up on was loaded with sugar, but the same foods today are loaded with HFCS instead.  Could there be a link with this change and the rise in obesity rates?



So check your labels.  I challenge you to cut this one ingredient out for just 7 days.  Let me know if you have questions.  Get creative.  Remember, I didn’t say you had to cut out all sugar.  If there is a food that you like that contains HFCS, make it from scratch with sugar instead.



I will report back here at the end of the 7 days and let you know what I’ve had to cut out.  (Yes, I’m sure I’m ingesting some HFCS, too!)  See you then!

Yummy!

I made the most delicious thing the other night–homemade egg nog!  Let me tell you, it was fabulous!



I love egg nog, but it is not something I have had much in the last few years.  I don’t think I’ve bought any in the last year at least, maybe two.  I can’t help but read labels and I can’t bear to buy it when it has all that junk in it–high fructose corn syrup and chemical thickeners, flavors, and preservatives.  Plus in the last few years the store kind is just too sticky sweet for my taste.



I opened up my Joy of Cooking the other day and the recipe for homemade egg nog didn’t seem to fit my needs.  First of all, it was for a very large crowd, second, it was complicated as it called for cooking for egg safety, and third, it called for Rum.  I wasn’t sure if I could cut the recipe down by 12ths or if it would taste like my favorite store brand without the rum.



On a whim I just decided to be creative and create some of my own.  I used the following ingredients:

1/3 cup raw cream
1/3 cup raw whole milk
1 raw egg yolk
1 Tb sugar (you could use honey or stevia, they may impart their own flavor)
dash of vanilla
sprinkle of nutmeg

 

This made one serving (about 7 ounces).  I mixed it with an immersion blender, but I think you could whisk it, as well.  The blender actually made it foamy and I could do without the foam.

 

I did not heat this to cook the egg, I was brave and drank it raw!  I consider myself a brave person when it comes to food.  I cooked a roast one time that I had left on the counter all night to thaw.  I figured I was going to be cooking it for 3 hours, that should kill anything harmful.  :)  I’m sure some of you have nibbled on raw cookie dough, even though we’re told we’re not supposed to do that!

 

I mixed the nog and then had it drank within 30 minutes, it’s not like it sat out for hours.  :)  So procede at your own risk.  Ideally, use eggs that are farm fresh, they are safer.  Or you could look up the Joy of Cooking recipe and follow the instruction for heating it up.  The other day a friend mentioned that this would make good ice cream.  Maybe next year I’ll try that!

 

I am going to enjoy making this every holiday season now.  I hope you enjoy it as well.

Funny

I found a funny on a blog I frequent – Cheeseslave.  It’s funny, but it also reiterates my motto – If God created it, it is healthy; if man has processed it, it is unhealthy.

I had not personally seen the ads from the Corn Refiner’s Association until reading this post.  I don’t watch much television.

The spoofs in this post are great!  I especially like the one with the fellows from King Corn.  If you haven’t seen King Corn yet, please check it out.  I also really like the one with the children and the apple.

These will only take a couple minutes to watch.  And you might learn something, too!

Beware that at the very end of the post, there is an offensive word.