Bad Food!

So, you think you're healthy?

You eat your veggies, like Mom told you to, eat lean meats and fish, eat plenty of nutritious grains, drink plenty of water, and stay away from Twinkies®. But how much do you really know about some of the other food products in your life?

Let's see :

Canned Tomatoes

Tinned tomatoes have been linked to reproductive problems, heart disease, diabetes and obesity – thanks to the bisphenol-A (BPA) that lines the tins. Endocrinologist Fredrick vomSaal blames the resin lining of tin cans as they contain BPA which is a synthetic oestrogen linked to all the above diseases. It is the acidity of the tomatoes that causes the BPA to leach into your food from the tins.

As if this wasnn’t enough, the tomatoes are picked prematurely and hormones and gas are used to ripen them, depriving them of their optimum nutrition.

So much for them being a “superfood”!

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Fruit Smoothies

Many fruit smoothies contain added sugars and high-fructose corn syrup, which means they’re more milkshake than smoothie. The reality is all is all in the name. You should choose a 100% real fruit smoothie made with plain yogurt instead of ice cream or sherbet. These contain nearly half the calories and significantly less sugar, plus they also provide all of the fibre, vitamin, and antioxidant capacity that a smoothie is supposed to have as well as providing some of your five-a-day nutritional allotment.

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Green Tea

Green Tea is famous for its health benefits, and is very popular in Southern and Eastern Asia, as it contains antioxidants and caffeine. Research has shown Green Tea to be the oriental “secret” in the fight against cancer, heart disease, skin diseases, and senility. However, natural Green Tea sacrifices taste for its health benefits. Virtually all commercial beverage manufacturers that use Green Tea add boat-loads of sugars and additives to counteract the impossibly bitter taste.

Scientists have also warned people who drink Green Tea in high amounts that they are posing a risk to their kidneys and liver, as it contains large quantities of polyphenols, and the EGCG  (epigallocatechingallate) in the tea can interfere with a child’s growth whilst in the womb, which can create complications.

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Dried Fruit

It lasts.

It tastes good.

It’s fruit!

So what’s the problem?

Okay, there are worse things to snack on, but that doesn’t mean dried fruit is a harmless snack. First of all, as it’s dried fruit, they lack moisture, and moisture is normally what gives fruit it’s volume and gives you that nice, much sought after, “full” feeling. So, 600 calories of volumeless dried fruit later, you’re still hungry (kinda like Chinese food).

However, what’s worse is the fact that companies such as Sun-Maid and Ocean Spray add rail-cars full of sugar to the fruit, making it taste nice but making Craisins more like sweets than natural healthy goodness.

So, what alternatives are there?

Well, maybe, I don’t know, try real fruit?

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Creamsicle

When the ice cream cart at the playground ran out of Popsicles®, this was always a safe bet...

The Creamsicle®, not quite sherbet and not quite ice cream, it had all of the artificial orangy flavor of a Crush with the texture of oozy cream.

Make some at home today, National Creamsicle® Day!

Homemade Creamsicles

INGREDIENTS

• Two (2) cups (473 ml.) of Orange Juice
• up to 1/3 cup (80 ml.) of your favorite Honey, not your significant other, silly
• Four (4) egg yolks
• Two (2) cups (473 ml.) fresh Heavy Cream
• Two (2) cups (473 ml.) fresh Whole Milk
• Four (4) to six (6) drops Organic Sweet Orange Essential Oil or 1/4 teaspoon Orange Extract
• One (1) teaspoon Vanilla Extract

TECHNIQUE

Combine the Honey and the Orange juice in a medium-sized mixing bowl.

Pour the Orange Juice and Honey mixture into a heavy-bottomed sauce pan and heat it over a medium flame until reduced by half. Go rinse out the mixing bowl, you'll need it later.

Once the Orange Juice and Honey mixture have reduced down to a viscous syrup, remove it from the heat and allow it to cool to room temperature.

Whisk together the Egg Yolks, Cream, Whole Milk, Sweet Orange Essential Oil or Orange Extract, and Vanilla Extract in the rinsed out mixing bowl. Continue whisking until all of the ingredients are very well combined.

Whisk the cooled Orange Juice and Honey syrup into the Egg and Creme mixture. Whisk everything well to combine.

Pour the creamsicle mixture into your popsicle molds and freeze them until solid, at least twelve hours.

NOTE: If you do not have popsicle molds, try using Dixie™ cups and popsicle sticks. Pour the mixture into Dixie™ cups, place them in the freezer and after four to six hours place popsicle sticks into the center of each cup and continue to freeze for at least an additional six hours.

Recipe adapted from Nourished Kitchen.

For a more "Adult" version, try this :

The Creamsicle® Cocktail

A childhood treat - with a kick! 

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 oz. (15 ml.) Vodka or Orange Vodka 
• 1/2 oz. (15 ml.) Triple Sec 
• 1 oz. (30 ml.) Orange Juice 
• 1 oz. (30 ml.) Heavy Cream 

TECHNIQUE

Fill a cocktail shaker half-way with ice. Pour in all ingredients.

Shake to a good Disco beat to combine. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. 

VARIATIONS

Instead of Heavy Cream and ice, use a scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream, and you've got yourself a Dreamsicle Cocktail. Serve in a large stem or hurricane glass.

Why We're Fat Volume 11

Why are Big Macs© cheaper than more nutritious alternatives?

vs.

Well, according to Time Magazine, look at what a dollar can get you. One U. S. Dollar can buy 1,200 calories of potato chips or 875 calories of soda and only 250 calories of vegetables or 170 calories of fresh fruit. Since the normal healthy male should consume a 2,000 calorie a day diet to maintain the body, two dollars, a bag of chips, and a soda is all that is required.

So, why spend the four dollars for fruit and vegetables to keep yourself alive?

Well, lets ask the agricultural conglomerates.

Lawmakers (that would be Congress, y'all), whose political campaigns are underwritten by agricultural conglomerates, have used billions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize those conglomerates' specific commodities, i.e. corn, soybeans, wheat, etc. It is these commodities that are the key ingredients of unhealthy food. Hmmm? Not surprisingly, these subsidies have caused such a massive price difference in raw ingredients that allows junk food to undersell nutritious-but-unsubsidized foodstuffs, like fruits and vegetables. So, in the end, the recession-battered consumer (that would be you and me, y'all) are increasingly forced by economic circumstance to "choose" the lower-priced junk food that their own taxes support.

Since we can't afford apples or tomatoes, that five dollar "Xtra Value Meal" is looking better and better.

So, let's keep the McDonalds Corporation, the Coca-Cola corporation, and Monsanto in business, hunh?

Diet Hunh???

Diet Water

This has been around for some time.

Since normal water has so many calories, specifically, zero (0), Diet Water was created to assist with weight loss and as a health supplement.

What goes into Sapporo's signature beverage remains a mystery, the only listings that I have been able to find are in Japanese.

But, being somewhat of a purist and easily confused by all of the dietary supplements available to the American public, I think I'll stick with this...

Château Bloomberg

Baby???

Baby Carrots

Everybody loves them. They're so cute, so small, so tasty, so orange, so crunchy, so convenient, and, inexplicably, so uniform in size.

Hmmmmm?

Why do they all look the same?

Why are there exactly the same number of them in every package??

Why won't rabbits even go near them???

Time to ruin your day.

"Baby Carrots" are not babies at all.

Yes, they are real carrots, but they are plain old regular adult-sized carrots that have been run through a milling machine that shaves and pares them down to marketing perfection. Some marketing genius was sitting around one day thinking, "what am I going to do with all of these old mutant-looking carrots that I have everywhere? I know! Slice and dice 'em down to very small bits and package them as 'baby-cut carrots'. Then, I can charge twice as much for the factory rejects! Brilliant!!"

Who's the sucker now?

Now, "real" baby carrots are knobby, gnarly, misshapen, stemmy, and utterly delicious. If your not growing them yourselves, many farmer's markets and roadside vegetable stands have them aplenty. Let's keep the local growers in business.

Since local farm-stand baby carrots are so good and don't need Madison Avenue, they don't need marketing gimmicks like this:

The Baby Carrot Xtreme Xrunch Game

To download the game for your iPhone, go HERE.

Lollipop...

Do I really need a Kim Kardashian "designed" lollipop?????

Well according to The Sugar Factory I do.

The Sugar Factory has created their Signature Series of lollies designed by such luminaries as Britney Spears, former Spice Girl Mel B., The Pussycat Dolls, and, not to be upstaged, Ms. Kardashian.

I wonder what desperation tastes like??

Probably just like their Vegas Series.

A taste of failure.........

Zucchini

Zucchini are like weeds.

Everyone whom I have ever known that wanted to start a vegetable patch of some kind always began with Zucchini. "Everybody" said that Zucchini were easy to grow and so hearty that even those with "black thumbs" could do it. What "everybody" didn't tell them was that Zucchini take over a garden like a Latin American Junta.


"The peppers never made it because they were choked by the Zucchini, the carrots, I think we had three, and don't even start with me about the tomatoes."
-your clueless 'Gentleman Farmer' best-friend

After a few short weeks, the novelty of a few fresh vegetables from their own garden grew stale when bushel after bushel of the prolific Zucchini were brought to the kitchen.

"What's for dinner, Honey??"

Zucchini flowers, sautéed Zucchini, baked Zucchini, Zucchini bread, Zucchini "pasta", Zucchini spread, stuffed Zucchini, Zucchini soup, Zucchini ice cream, Zucchini casserole Zucchini omelets, Zucchini ratatouille, Zucchini flambé, Zucchini fritters, Zucchini en croûte, Zucchini crudité, sweet Zucchini pie, little orphan Zucchini, grilled Zucchini, Zucchini "surprise" ..............

All of this from a vegetable that was practically unheard of here in the good 'ole U. S. of A. thirty years ago. The inhabitants of Central and South America have been eating Zucchini for several thousand years, but the Zucchini, as we know it today, is actually a variety of summer squash that was developed in Italy. So, I guess we can blame the Italians for having nothing but squash all summer long.

Personally, my summertime favorite way to use up all of this Zucchini is a slow cooked Zucchini "stew". I know it doesn't sound like much, but the slow cooking allows the natural sweetness and explosive Zucchini flavour to come out.

There are lots of uses for this dish beyond a simple side. It freezes so well that you can have Zucchini all winter long too!

Try it.....

Zucchini de Olla

This is one of those recipes where there are very few ingredients, so the quality and the time you spend making it are the keys. This is a very slow cooked dish which means it takes a lot of time, but it doesn't really require a whole lot of tending to, so you can be doing other things while this cooks.