need ANOTHER reason...

to avoid high fructose corn syrup in your diet? besides, you know, being a chemically-altered sweetener that actually makes you hungrier in the long run? well, here you go: a recent study found mercury was present in one of every 3 name-brand HFCS-sweetened products. information on the study can be found here. 

mercury content arises out of the use of caustic soda in creating HFCS. maybe it's just me, but i don't want something called "caustic soda" anywhere near my food. and the people over at sweet surprise can try and twist things around all they want to (have you seen their terribly cheesy commercials yet?) but i'm not buying, both literally or figuratively. 

we've all but cut HFCS out of our diets, so finding that there could be a known toxin in products that contain it is pretty much a non-issue at my house. aside from the very occasional coke, i do not purchase any products that have HFCS on the label. shopping at trader joes makes this a pretty easy task. the same goes for all other artificial sweeteners--to me they just taste bad. i'd rather consume less of the real deal than tons of the fake stuff (though i've been known to consume tons of the real deal, too). 

by the way--the average american consumes 63 pounds of HFCS per year. and only 12 pounds of carrots. 

it's amazing what you can find on the internet. 

it's time for some crunchy granola...

here's the recipe that i'm using for granola-type cereal. it's good! so good that i made more of it for our breakfasts this week. the corn tortillas, on the other hand, did not go so well. i followed the instructions on the package of the masa harina perfectly, but the resulting tortillas were super crumbly with a grainy texture. maybe i didn't flatten them thin enough, but that's because the dough itself was really crumbly too. i tried adding more water but that just made everything worse! anyway, they're sitting in the fridge now, hoping to get eaten. we'll see. the taste is okay but the texture is just ick. maybe i should have tried flour instead!



here's the granola:


1 cup safflower oil
1 cup honey
8 cups rolled oats
1/3 cup sunflower seeds (jeremy thinks we could go less on this)
1/3 cup wheat germ
1/3 cup oat groats (i had never heard of this before, but they taste pretty much like oatmeal)
1/3 cup wheat meal
1/3 cup flax seeds
1/2 cup raisins (i used more like a cup)
1/3 cup slivered almonds



combine everything into a large mixing bowl. taste it, and add more of whatever strikes your fancy. divide in half and spread onto 2 greased cookie sheets (don't forget this step or you will be scraping your pans like me!). bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or so, then check. stir it up and put back to bake for another 3-5 minutes, or till oats are just starting to get a touch of golden color. cool & store in an airtight container.

and just for fun, here's a few pictures of miss lucy trying to get at the granola..."bring on the milk, mom!"

and that's that...

we had our second "dining out" meal for the month. jeremy, lucy and i went for a very yummy dinner tonight. fried zucchini, asian pear salad, chicken & biscuits, red-skinned mashed potatoes, beer. it was good. it was also $50. yikes.

for some reason it feels like it's going to be difficult to get through the rest of the month without eating out. i mean, i know i'll be successful b/c that's what i said i was going to do, and i'm totally stubborn when it comes to this kind of thing. but the idea of making it to october without going out for lunch or dinner seems... sad. the whole point of doing this (although it's not necessarily "eco-friendly") is to make eating out more of a "special" thing. so in that sense, i guess it's working. we did have a very good time tonight, since we knew we wouldn't be doing it again for awhile.

on the list of things to do tomorrow: i'm making tortillas! corn or flour? i can't decide. i'll also post the granola recipe i hodge-podged together based on what was available at the market i shopped at. we had granola cereal all this week for breakfast! it was pretty darn good. so i'll be making more of that too.

a well-timed find...

off a tip from my brother, i asked my mom about her recipe for homemade granola. she came back with the crunchiest cookbook i've seen in, well, probably my whole life. not that i go around keeping tabs on things like that, but i wasn't expecting her to produce something so tied in with my "whole-foods septemeber" agenda. published in 1971, the book is called "the wonderful world of natural-food cookery." along with a seemingly simple granola recipe, there's also a section of baby food recipes, which will surely come in handy in a couple of months when lucy starts on cereals & purees. i hope make some granola tomorrow! i'm also trying ellie krieger's food network recipe, as suggested by one of my fabulous readers. perhaps i'll have jeremy do a taste test to see which one is better. (both of them call for lots of nuts though, of which jeremy is not a fan). anyway, it should be fun! i am missing my cereal like crazy!

one down...

and one to go.

part of "whole-food september" is limiting eating out to only twice during the month. not very far in and i'm already down to one more occasion. lucy and i went to visit my lovely friend kelli on friday night. we went to a very yummy barbecue joint and i had a VERY yummy salad that could not be, in any way, shape or form, actually considered healthy eating. but it was good!

things have been shaking out pretty well here at home though. i baked bread and found a tortilla recipe (now i just have to make them!). i've also got homemade pizza dough in the freezer that i haven't yet tried. running out of cereal on day #03 was a bit depressing. in general my morning revolves around trader joe's organic raisin bran clusters... not to be confused with trader joes raisin bran which i find pretty tasteless and horrible. anyway, i can kind of put away 1/2 a box of the clusters in one sitting. but there's a natural foods store a few miles down the freeway that i've never been to, and i'm thinking that they sell fresh grains, the kind where you scoop your own. i'm hoping to make my own granola.

it doesn't get much more crunchy than that, does it?

slow food nation...

jeremy, lucy and i spent last saturday at the slow food nation celebration in san francisco. while there were many ticketed events at fort mason (such as food tastings and an all-day concert), we spent our time at the free marketplace & victory garden, both of which were located near city hall. in short, we had a lot of fun. slow food's website says that over 60,000 people attended over 4 days (and i swear each of them was in line with me as i tried to sample cheeses).

what is slow food nation, exactly? part of a larger non-profit organization, slow food nation was created to "organize the first-ever american collaborative gathering to unite the growing sustainable food movement, and introduce thousands of people to food that is good, clean and fair." which is a fancy way of saying that slow food nation hopes to teach everyday folks about where their food actually comes from--farm to plate.--and to appreciate the work that goes into creating healthy and delicious food. slow food is not convenience food--100 calorie packs, t.v. dinners, or individually-wrapped packages of mini carrots complete with a tiny tub of ranch dressing.

how often do we walk through the supermarket, under the harsh glare of super-fluorescent lighting, mindlessly grabbing at boxes and bags without considering it? where does our produce come from? where is our meat raised? how many of our favorite foods are processed from whole ingredients into a finished product that is hardly recognizable from it's simple beginnings? who grows our food? who (or what) picks & packs it? who drives it to the store & unloads it in the early morning hours? how on earth does it all happen that our homes get filled with food?

the slow food movement is about adjusting our lives as consumers to be able to answer as many of those questions as we can. to be able to track our food from farm to plate. to shake hands with farmers as we purchase our groceries. to support people who care for the planet while they're hard at work raising our food. (this event was perfectly timed for whole-food septemeber). i'm excited by all of these ideas, personally. and living in california, i've got a lot of good opportunities to make it work... massive amounts of diverse produce raised around the state. farmer's markets nearly every day of the week. a handful of grocery stores within driving distance that carry some locally grown fruits & veggies. and even a few sources for locally raised meats & dairy.

slow food part 2 to come tomorrow. less soapbox, more summary of what we actually did at the event... and complete with pictures of lucy at the victory garden. she saw lots and lots of wonderful things!