A Little Help From My Friends - And Family!

Good Evening! I have some tips from my good friend Joyce, from my Mom Sue, and from my Aunt Liz.

From Joyce:
I substitute olive oil spray for drizzles, and I find I use much less oil and still get the flavor. It works well on garlic bread, oven fried potatoes, chicken and fish, and all vegetables. It’s not as messy as drizzling and tossing either. Give it a try sometime! You might just love it!

For oven fries, use good baking potatoes. Slice lengthwise into wedges, place on baking sheet, spray with light coating of oil, and sprinkle with seasoning. I use Mrs. Dash (table blend) and a little paprika for color, and just a tiny sprinkle of salt. Bake at 425 for about 20 minutes, turning once. Time varies according to thickness of wedges. Delicious!

From Sue:
I love this website. Anything you want to know about food...
http://www.nutritiondata.com/

From Liz:
For years I used sugar substitutes. We found it caused a lot of problems with my joints. Once I returned to sugar use, in small amounts, my joints improved. I also try to avoid high fructose corn syrup, this has been substituted for sugar in many products. (cheaper)

In the 70's we didn't eat at fast food restaurants, we ate at home. We also didn't watch as much TV and never ate while watching it except an occasional popcorn for a ball game.

Just wanted to share what I have figured out. Eat slower, and a little less; substitute vegetables for 2nds and move more. I use sugar, butter and anything that isn't man made.

More on sugar substitutes:

Well, as my very wise husband reminds me, the internet is a place where you can second guess everything and drive yourself crazy going in circles. So my research on sugar substitutes has led me to find out a few things. If I'm understanding everything correctly...Aspartame was created by a Searle employee over 20 years ago and it took them almost that long for the FDA to approve it. Despite controversy that it was thought to cause some brain cancers in lab mice, it was pushed into being approved with a GRAS stamp. GRAS means Generally Regarded As Safe. McNeil stumbled upon a new sweetener by adding chlorine to chemically alter a derivitive of sugar, which they call Splenda, from sucralose. Eventually the creators of Aspartame sued the creators of Splenda for false advertising and they've been battling in the courts and through the Better Business Bureau for years. In the meantime, the Sugar industry was losing money so they began creating websites and other alerts to discourage people from consuming Aspartame and Splenda. Politics, Drug Companies, Lawyers, the FDA are all involved and are all making a huge profit from this controversy and from sales.

So where does that leave us? It will take some time to figure it all out. Nonetheless, I am still horrified by the articles I am reading and scared about consuming any more sugar substitutes. It would appear that Splenda is the least offensive. However, there are other new natural sweeteners out there such as Stevia, Agave Nectar, and Honey (watch the calories!). Peapod.com sells an organic/natural carbonated soda that is sweetened with Stevia, which is a natural plant derivitive, but it is very costly. How long has Stevia been tested? What are the side effects? Are there any long term statistics? You can go on and on with this topic and eventually drive yourself over the edge. At the end of the day, I really don't feel comfortable making a recommendation to you on what to do. I think it will have to be based on your own research, experience and gut feelings.

Aaron and I even disagree on Aspartame. I don't want it in my body any more and Aaron reminds me that when we first went on Weight Watchers several years ago, that's all we ate and between the 2 of us we lost almost 80 pounds and neither of us have a tumor or brain cancer.

However, the 80 pounds has been found again! But that's another story for another day.

(10:05pm)