Weight Loss Challenge: Sugar and How Sweet it Is

There are lots of different sweeteners on the market today. In fact, there are so many it can be quite confusing. What is natural? If it is organic is that the best? What type of sugar is better?

Sometimes it feels so overwhelming that we just throw up our hands and stick with plain old sugar even though we know it isn't the best for us.

It is important that we know some facts about our options so we can choose the best thing for us. If you are diabetic for example you will want sweeteners that don't raise your blood sugar level, but maybe you don't want to use the artificial stuff...so what's the best choice for you. What if you want to become more natural--going for less processed foods? Or maybe you were inspired by Oprah to go vegan...

I found a great article on various sweeteners that you should keep in your arsenal. Chef Heather Haxo Phillips tells it like it is--even explaining why you might not want to choose some of the more popular, theoretically "healthy" sweeteners like Agave Nectar.

Chef Heather is of the Bay Area phenomenon Cafe Gratitude and she explains what sugar is and gives lots of details about your options in this article.

What is Sugar? Sugar is a pure carbohydrate, a nutrient that supplies energy to the body. The chemical name for sugar is sucrose. Sucrose occurs naturally in every fruit and vegetable, as it is the major product of photosynthesis. For a long time, fruit and cane sugars were the most common sweeteners on our table. However, over the past 50 years dozens of sweeteners have been developed. Many of them are very useful for helping us to enjoy the sweet things in life without taking our blood sugar for a roller coaster ride.

Read the entire article here.

Earth Day and Food: Movie Food, Inc

If you really want to help the Earth and learn where your food really comes from, check out the movie "Food, Inc"

You can see it on the internet at PBS tv

The movie is about 90 minutes long.

But hurry--the episode is set to expire April 30th...

FYI: some intense images that will have you wanting to change how you eat, this is a real eye-opener...if you are a parent of young kids I suggest you watch it first and determine if it is something you want your kids to see or not.

Is Organic Food Worth the Extra Money?

Most of the time, yes! It is ideal to have as few hormones, pesticides and other chemicals put into our bodies as possible.

Even though we wash our produce, it is next to impossible to get all the chemicals off. And for those of us who eat any animal products, what they have eaten and been injected with ends up in our bodies! Give yourself a fighting chance and eat as naturally as possible!

There is a strictly regulated process that has to be gone through in order to put "Organic" on your label.

Some farms are in the transition phase between traditional and organic. This means you might want to give them a try. Talk to the farmer (if you can) and see how long they have been working at the change. (It takes years to become certified organic...so they may have been following the principles for several years already but cannot call themselves organic.)

Wild fish (which is generally the best type of fish to buy) can be labeled "Organic". Since you really can't control or regulate the ocean...especially the specific place in the ocean from where that fish originated...not to mention they swim around, a lot (!) it isn't worth paying extra for "Organic" fish. Do look for the "Wild caught" or "Wild" label.