Author Archives: Caroline

Day 4 – Last day of Mini Vacation Challenge and Conclusions!

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This vacation was different from any other vacation we’ve ever taken. So much so, that each night, we weren’t really sure we would stay an extra day until the last minute so we actually stayed in different hotels each night! We had no plan, no itinerary, and no menu. It was an experience!!!!!

I had breakfast with the boys at Applebees this morning. The menu choices for the boys were pancakes and bacon, or eggs and bacon, or oatmeal. I chose one pancakes, and one scrambled eggs and substituted both bacons for fruit. Then I split the pancakes and eggs so they each had half with their own bowl of fruit. They were happy.

Note: I’ve never put maple syrup on their pancakes because although you can find some good quality maple syrup that is good for you, the stuff we normally see is full of sugar and high fructose corn syrup. So I avoid it, and usually serve it to them with homemade whip cream or some honey. Anyway, here at Applebees they didn’t have those options, so I put a little butter on the pancakes. They never even asked for syrup, because they’re so used to eating the pancakes without it. A little touch of butter was all they needed and they were happy. I try to avoid giving them extra sugar as much as I can.

I saw 2 options I liked. There was a low carb omelette (meaning it didn’t come with bread and potatoes), and a garden vegetable omelette. I ordered the low carb omelette with all the vegetables from the garden omelette. It was pretty good. This was interesting, the waiter asked me what kind of toast I wanted and I said, no, I’m ordering the low carb omelette, it doesn’t bring toast. He says, Oh, that’s right. and walks away. Shortly thereafter, I get my omelette…with the potatoes!!!! I thought it was funny that he just couldn’t register the low-carb part.

A mix of the garden vegetable omelette with the low carb omelette

After breakfast we were on the road. We had a stop at Ikea and then kept going. At around 2pm we were all hungry. Orlando didn’t have breakfast and the boys were starving. Once again we stopped at a service plaza. This time we went to the KFC express because thought we could order the rotisserie chicken. Except that KFT express doesn’t carry rotisserie. Only original or crispy! We left.

The next service plaza had a wendys, earls sandwich, and dunkin donuts. We stopped there. This time around I was done with bad salads so I just ordered a grilled chicken sandwich with a baked potato. Luckily they had these items! I took off the sandwich bread and had the chicken with the lettuce and tomato in the potato. It was pretty good.

Orlando really did the best he could – he ordered a tomato soup from Earl of Sandwich, a baked potato with broccoli, and a side salad.

tomato soup, baked potato with broccoli, and a side salad

For the kids, we got smoothies. There was a smoothie place that had frozen fruit with no sugar added! What a nice surprise!

CONCLUSIONS

So the question we posed at the beginning of this adventure was:

Can we be poor planners, yet healthy eaters?

Our conclusion is NO!!!!!! 

You can opt for healthier choices, but you’re not going to eat healthy, balanced meals without some planning and packing.

I learned something on this trip that I really didn’t see before. I used to think that restaurants didn’t give as healthy options as it should. What I didn’t understand was WHY!!!!! There is NO MARKET for healthy food!!!!! Restaurants don’t make it readily available because there is no demand for it. THIS IS THE BIGGEST PROBLEM!!!!!! So then when you do have someone who wants healthier options, the options are subpar. The quality sucks, the options are limited…and it makes you prefer to eat the bad stuff! It is a vicious cycle.  The first wendys we visited on the way up had 1 baked potato. 1!!!! Plenty of french fries, though! They took an extra 10 minutes to prepare the grilled chicken because no one orders the grilled chicken. Even those that get the salad order the crispy chicken! The KFC express had no rotisserie. No one orders it!!!!

Even when healthy options are offered, people don’t take advantage of them. Here is an example: at the last service plaza we went to they had a dunkin donuts, a wendys and a smoothie place. The smoothie place was the only thing you could buy that consisted of whole foods (Frozen Fruit). I looked around and noticed the lines at each place.

The Line at Dunkin Donuts

 

The Line at Wendys

 

The Line at the Healthy Smoothie Place

That’s right. We were the only people in the line at the smoothie place. People were walking around with frostys and nice big chocolate drinks from dunkin donuts, but no one wanted the fresh fruit. So that’s, in my opinion, the biggest problem. Restaurants need to make money and you’re going to cater to what is in demand. If healthy food is not in demand, it is not offered. PERIOD. If we want to change the way we eat, we have to demand it!!!! To me, this was the biggest eye opener.  We have to work together to educate people, because people really don’t understand what they’re putting in their bodies. FOOD IS INFORMATION. If you are feeding your brain bad information, your body will generate bad results – heart disease, obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol, etc. WE NEED BETTER INFORMATION!

What can we do in the meantime??? 

  • Plan as much as you can. Next time, even if we choose not to take a cooler for example (we probably will), but if we don’t, we would still pack healthy snacks. Maybe nuts, dried fruit, a veggie tray, some pre-made sandwiches for the road trip.
  • drink lots of water with lemon. Lemon is a cleanser. So one of the things I did was order water with lemon for us everywhere we went.
  • Ask for veggies. Our options were limited, and we didn’t necessarily make the best choices everywhere we went. We definitely made exceptions. However, one thing we did do was get as many veggies in our bodies as we could. Veggies in our pizza, veggies in our omelettes, a side of veggies with our dinner. Load up wherever you can. Caveat: because the demand is low, the quality can be poor. Applebees had delicious veggies but naturally the broccoli in our baked potato at Wendys wasn’t great. But at least we ate it and we can only do with what we have at the time.
  • Explore the options the restaurants are giving : low carb menus, gluten free, guilt free.
All in all, our meals weren’t the most satisfying and we definitely ate things we normally don’t eat at home. But one thing we avoided was eating poorly at every meal. We had our soft serve ice cream and that extra dessert at applebees, but we also made good choices where we could.
But we’re definitely happy to be home, ready to get back on track…and next vacation, we won’t forget to plan!!!!!

 

 

Day 3 – Mini vacation challenge

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Day 3, Friday was supposed to be Disney day. But we never went to Disney. Orly had seen a huge pirate ship in a magazine at the hotel and was desperate to go to it. When we inquired we found out that it was Disney Quest in Downtown Disney that had that pirate activity. Being that we weren’t planning to be at Disney for many hours in the first place, we opted for Downtown Disney instead.
Breakfast was the typical continental breakfast offered at most hotels – an array of frozen pancakes, waffles, muffins, doughnuts, bread, and cereals…. oh and some hard boiled eggs and oranges. The boys had some raisin bran cereal, a muffin, and hard boiled eggs.

I had coffee, hard boiled eggs, an orange, and a muffin. Not very satisfying, and on we went.

At Downtown Disney I would like to report that I found 1 healthier alternative restaurant – Fresh A Peel. They served salads and smoothies, and all-natural burgers (doesn’t mean grassfed or organic so beware). But to be honest, I was more intrigued by Fulton’s crab house. The thought of some nice, hot seafood was way more attractive to me than another chicken salad. At Fulton’s we ordered mussels, a lobster bisque, and a seared ahi tuna salad. The food was way overpriced and nothing out of this world, but it seemed like the best alternative for what we wanted.

The Tuna Salad was pretty good. Had avocados and hard boiled eggs, and decent greens.

 

The Lobster Bisque was tasty but had very little lobster. Orlando found it delicious, but I found it had too strong a tomato flavor.

 

 

The sauce of the mussels was delicious but we would not order this app again. There wasn’t enough mussels to warrant ordering it.

 

 

 

 

Disney Quest took up a large chunk of the day – it is a cool place!!!!! so we decided to stay one more night at the hotel just to avoid driving too tired that evening.

Dinner – Pizzeria Uno. Here’s a cool surprise. Pizzeria Uno has a gluten free menu! We always like to have one pizza night on vacation and it was great to be able to enjoy a gluten free pizza.

We ordered a mushroom cheese pizza, and a broccoli, fig and goat cheese pizza with a balsamic glaze.

It was weird because it was a thin crust, and gluten free and yet the pizza crust felt doughy. I expected it to be a lot crispier. The upside, however, was that the ingredients were good and at the end of the pizza we did not get that full, bloated feeling that one normally gets when they stuff their face with pizza!

Interesting note: My kids loooove vegetables and eat them without the need for hiding them in the food. However, they seem to always reject vegetables in their pizza! They ate it, but it took some coercing. Both of them said no to the veggies initially.  My point is, don’t let one experience fool you. Kids will always surprise you. You may never get them to eat broccoli in their pizza but they’ll love it with some sweet potato. Keep introducing the veggies. Something will stick!

Day 2 – mini vacation challenge

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Day 2, Thursday, was particularly difficult for me. We were told we had to be at the Kennedy badging center at 7:15am, so I left Orlando and boys sleeping at the hotel at 6:45am and left with my dad and Aisha. Now I have attended hundreds of conferences with my father.

Breakfast, or at the very least, coffee is always provided. Not today!!!!!! I asked the coordinator if they would be offering coffee and breakfast (I thought maybe I could have some fruit), but the lady told me the only thing they were offering was water. I panicked. Here I am 4 1/2 months pregnant, starving, and no prospect of food until noon. All there was was a vending machine with sodas and another with Chips. If i were not pregnant i think I would’ve fasted, but pregnant, I had to eat something!!!! So I opted for an oats n honey granola bar from the vending machine. Once inside the facility, these people woke up and realized everyone was expecting at least a cup of coffee so they finally made some available.

Noon– I’m starving again! We are taken to a room where lunch is provided. I didn’t know this but the speakers were asked to pick from some menu choices prior to today for themselves and their guests. There were 15 meal boxes. 3 of them were asian chicken salad, the other 12 were turkey or ham sandwiches with chips. My dad ordered me a turkey sandwich. I was so hungry and I sit in front of my meal box and I have turkey and cheese, lettuce and tomato on a croissant, with cheetos, apple slices and 2 cookies -sugar and chocolate chip. I noticed one little lonely box left at the table and I ask the coordinator about it – she said one of the guests didn’t make it and it was left over. I was excited. It was a salad. I open my box and there is iceberg lettuce with chicken, those crispy chicken noodles, stacys pita chips, apple slices, and 2 cookies. The salad was….well… the reason 13 people opted for sandwiches!!!!! The salad had more lettuce than anything else and it tasted like water. there were a few strips of chicken i spotted a couple of shredded carrots, radish and celery and a ton of those crispy noodles. Yet another meal that was unsatisfying. I ended up eating half of the turkey sandwich and the salad just to fill myself up.

 

 

 At the kennedy space center there were no better options and when I finally go to the visitor’s complex with my husband and kids, we were soooooo hot and needed something refreshing. I saw one place sold ice cream and “natural fruit smoothies” I was thrilled!!!! I went and saw they had mango and strawberry and some other flavors. But I had to ask….what was in the smoothies. They told me they buy fruit purees that have sugar added already in order to make the smoothie. I really, really don’t understand why they couldn’t just buy the frozen fruit with no sugar added and add it if someone really wants it!!! At this point, I was done. There is no point in getting a mango smoothie that has all the sugar from the mango plus a ton of sugar on top. I really feel like its no better than having a little ice cream cone and the smoothie is twice the size. So I opted for a soft serve ice cream cone. vanilla and chocolate swirl and I enjoyed it! I was sick of trying to opt for healthier alternatives that are not much healthier!

Dinner- for dinner we chose Applebees. This is a safe place for us. Its a great price and we know from experience their vegetables are cooked deliciously. I was hungry and unsatisfied from a day of yucky food! So I wanted to EAT!!  We ordered a grilled chicken and veggies for boys. I ordered a garlic sirloin steak, with a side of creamed spinach, portabello mushroom, onions and garlic mashed potatoes. My meal was on the 550 calories or less menu. The food was delicious. Orlando also ordered a steak but with a side of broccoli instead of the mash. Funny story, when the waiter arrived with the broccoli, Orly, my 4 year old son, screeched “Broccoli, my favorite, yay!!!” The waiter looked at said, “wow thats’s rare!” We got a huge side of broccoli so the four of us were able to have some. I can’t tell you how nice it felt to eat this meal after all the garbage we’d eaten for the last day and a half. Finally, we made a good choice.

I did make one more sugary exception for the day! My father ordered a triple chocolate lava cake with vanilla. I couldn’t pass up 2 spoonfuls! Hey, we’re on vacation!

Friday is Disney World, sans cooler…oh how will it go?????

 

Day 1 – mini vacation eating challenge

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So Wednesday night we hit the road at 6:45pm with no snacks or veggie tray 🙁

We got on the turnpike and at about 8pm decided to stop at a service plaza because the boys were still awake and hungry. There were 3 options: Wendy’s, pizza hit and dunkin donuts. Pizza hut was closed. We chose Wendys and thought, we could get baked potatoes with broccoli and cheese, a side of chill, and a grilled chicken sandwich for the boys and give them the the grilled chicken with the potato. When we ordered at the service plaza, we were told that there was only one baked potato at the store. One baked potato. That’s it. We ordered it and instead opted for salads for ourselves with grilled chicken. But when we asked for the grilled chicken sandwich and the grilled chicken on our salads, we were told that we would have to wait 10 minutes because the grilled chicken had to be prepared.

They had plenty of french fries and the crispy fried chicken readily available but what not the healthier alternatives…. This made me realize that its not entirely Wendy’s fault. They don’t prepare it because there is no demand for it. They couldn’t dream of running low on french fries but the baked potatoes are less popular.

We ended up getting 1 baked potato, broccoli and cheese, a side of chill, 2 salads, and the grilled chicken for the boys.

The truth is we weren’t satisfied with our meal. We’re not used to the greens from the salad we ate…We like the dark greens. The options for salad dressing make the salad super sugary, instead of the olive oil and vinegar we’re used to. The cheese on the broccoli was obviously processed and gross and they put like 4 little stems of broccoli in there. The kids loved it though. The chili was ok.

The experience made me regret not having taken some prepared food in the car to have, or even some sandwiches on ezekiel bread. We tried to opt for the “healthiest” alternatives they had at wendys but really i’m not sure how much better we ate. I think the next time I do Wendy’s I would skip the salads all together and order a grilled chicken sandwich with no fries. And hope they have more baked potatoes because the grilled chicken sandwich would not fill me up!!!!! I eat healthy but I eat a lot!!!!!

 

 

Can we be poor planners, but healthy eaters?

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For the last year, our commitment to eating healthy has been such that we have planned our meals even when on vacation. (we took a cooler to disney world!)

But most people don’t want to plan so much. Our culture has become fast paced and spontaneous. People don’t want to take their coolers to Disney. We want easy, we want convenient, and we want fast.

Orlando and I are dealing with this precise issue this weekend. Last night we got in the car to drive to Cape Canaveral for my father’s speech at NASA. My dad told us about it a couple of weeks ago and told us to make a mini vacation out of it. But the truth is that we put off the mini vacation until the last minute. Between school starting for the boys, work schedules, working on this blog, and all the other commitments we have… We even forgot we were leaving on wednesday evening.
So yesterday after a full day of work and school, I packed some quick bags at 5 pm and got in the car at 6:45pm. Quite spontaneous!!! As soon as we hit the road the famous question surfaced… What are we going to eat when we get hungry??? For the first time in a long time we had no plan.

I guess this is a good experience for us because it is what most people go through. People pack their tooth brushes, clothes, and phone chargers… But people don’t pack their food. So from now until Monday I will blog about what we are eating and how we are managing to stay as healthy as possible during this spontaneous, poorly planned vacation. This will be an interesting challenge. Wish us luck!!!!!!

Spicy Quinoa Kimchi Fried Rice

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healthy alternative to fried rice

healthy alternative to fried rice

What we used:

  • 3 cups Quinoa
  • 2 cups frozen vegetables (stir fry mix) chopped
  • 1 fried egg per serving
  • 1 tbsp ginger
  • 2 tbsp garlic
  • 3/4 of a bottle of kimchi
  • (reserve some of the liquid from the kimchi)
  • 1/2 onion
  • Sauce – 2tbsp liquid aminos, 1 tbsp honey, 1 tbsp oyster sauce, 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar, dash of red pepper flake – mix well (add to taste, we probably used 1/4 of what we made)

I’m reading a new fascinating book “The Body Ecology Diet” and I’ve discovered the benefits of cultured vegetables. Cultured vegetables are vegetables that are left to “ferment” in an air tight container for several days allowing healthy bacteria to form. During this fermentation period, the friendly bacteria reproduces and converts sugars and starches to lactic acid.

They become rich in lactobacilli (what we know as “probiotics”) and enzyme, vitamins A, B, and C and turn into an alkaline-forming food. In English, this basically means it is a food for health and longevity!!!!!

Among the benefits listed for cultured vegetables are:

  • Help re-establish a healthy inner ecosystem.
  • Great for weight loss
  • Improve digestion
  • Help eliminate sugar cravings!!!!!
  • Help cleanse your system
  • Great for your skin.

The Body Ecology has some basic recipes for making your own cultured vegetables, and if you make them in batches and eat it everyday, it is a much cheaper alternative than taking probiotic supplements. We plan to make them at home, but haven’t gotten around to it yet…so I went to Whole Foods looking for some ready-made cultured vegetables that I could try in the meantime.

What I found was Kimchi. Its a Korean condiment -basically fermented cabbage and other vegetables, with a mix of salt, vinegar and other spices. It was the only cultured vegetable food I found in the store. I bought it, brought it home and a little scared, tried it! I actually liked it and since I bought have used it in my scrambled eggs in the morning, in my salads for lunch, and in the quinoa fried rice Orlando made.

I posted this video of Orlando making the quinoa mainly because it was his first time making it. I thought it would be great for you to see how he creates his meals. He’s always trying new things and changing his mind and sometimes the meal isn’t working out and he figures out how to save it! I think its pretty cool to see his process…and at the end he always comes through.

So for now, Kimchi is a big star in our home but stay tuned….we will be making our own cultured vegetables very soon!!!!!

 

Simple, Fast and Delicious Healthy Dinner Recipe

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Once a week, usually on Mondays, but this week yesterday, Orlando calls me on his way home from work and says, I feel like eating something quick and easy tonight with little mess. This is music to my ears, because as lucky I am that Orlando cooks…the mess he leaves in the kitchen is no joke!!!!! So we have developed this simple staple that is just so easy to make and absolutely divine!

A nice piece of fish of your choosing
cauliflower mash
asparagus and leeks sauteed

VOILA!

This is really no different than a classic American meal of chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans or something like that. And for those of you who do not eat seafood, you can replace the fish with chicken of course…

But as boring as it may sound or look, the dish has flavors that blow me away and leave me completely satisfied. And let’s quickly touch up on the health benefits of the dish:

Our dish consisted of 3 non starchy vegetables and 1 lean protein with lots of omega 3 fatty acids. The seasonings used were kosher salt (less sodium than table salt and equivalent to sea salt), pepper, marsala wine (very little used and heat evaporates most of the sugar it contains), organic unsalted butter (much healthier than margarine or any fake butter), coconut oil (good source of fat), and lemon to drizzle on top of the fish (lemon is helpful for digestion and cleansing your body).

It is so healthy and satisfying that I just had to share it! Now, for the preparation:

Yesterday Orlando opted for HOGFISH. We love to buy our fish from a little market across the street called Captain’s Tavern. They sell wonderful fresh fish and the quality is spectacular. Caveat...I have never found wild salmon there so for the days we choose wild salmon we buy at Publix or Whole Foods depending on the better deal!

Orlando seasons it with a little salt and pepper and sazon completo and grills it on our handy little griddle. The griddle is great because he puts all the fish on there at the same time and they cook in about 7-8 minutes.

He used our basic cauliflower mash recipe – although he did do a variation this time that I thought I should share. Instead of adding milk which he normally does, he decided to use the water that the cauliflower was boiled in. The taste and texture still came out delicious but it is a much healthier alternative because you are eliminating milk and adding all the nutrients from the cauliflower that escaped into the water. I encourage you to try this variation!

And with the veggies he chopped them up and sautéed them in a pan over a little coconut oil seasoned with salt, pepper for about 8 minutes and a medium high temperature. When the bottom starts crusting he likes to deglaze the pan with a little marsala wine for 3 more minutes.

And of course as an added benefit…. since he made the fish on the griddle, he made over a pound of it and extra cauliflower mash so the kids will have a delicious dinner tonight!!!! As usual, since the veggies are the star in our meals, there was nothing left of those so I’ll have to whip up some green veggies for the kids!!!

Afraid my veggies will go bad Soup- a pleasant surprise.

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Talking to my cousin Stephanie the other day, she told me about some crazy concoction she invented the other day for fear that all the veggies she bought from Whole Foods would go bad. I was then reading an interesting book “The Body Ecology Diet” and it discusses the many benefits of soups and suggests getting creative with veggies that are about to spoil. What struck me the most was that the book suggests that making soup is fool-proof, meaning you don’t have to know how to cook to pull it off. Since everyone knows I can’t cook for the life of me, I had to try this.

So on Sunday, considering we were in this fake hurricane mode and I was stuck at home anyway, I gave it a shot and tried the following:

I started off by chopping up a ton of celery which was already wilting, ginger, garlic and onions and sauteeing them over some coconut oil. Then I poured in organic chicken broth that I had at home, some left over vegetable broth in the fridge that was about to go bad, carrots, cabbage, rainbow chard, squash, zucchini, and cauliflower. Its pretty much everything I had in the fridge, including leftover veggies from a vegetable tray we served at a get together we had. Instead of tossing the leftovers, I put them in the soup! I added about 5 cayenne pepper liquid drops, a little sazon completo, turmeric powder, and celtic sea salt.

I brought the soup to a boil, then simmered for 20 minutes (until the carrots were tender) and voila! I made the very first soup concoction of my own!!!!! I wanted the soup to be spicy because this pregnancy is stuffing up my sinuses, but when I tasted it I realized the cayenne pepper hadn’t spiced it up much, so I added about 5 more drops to my own personal soup and it made it spicier.

The verdict… I was pleasantly surprised!!! Orlando expected garbage and found it to be bland at first but after a few sips, he actually liked it. The next day I tried another variety and wasn’t quite as successful, it was totally bland…but that’s only because i’m learning to play with seasonings and really am an amateur!

Let’s face it, it can’t compare to the meals my husband makes and it can definitely use a lot of work, but the point is I’m proud to say my kids loved it; it was pretty good; and most importantly it was a bowl of health!!!!!

So the next time your veggies are about to spoil, think twice before you toss and try making your own soup at home. And if your kids are not old enough to drink soups yet, you can puree the leftovers and give it to them that way.

Good luck!!!! Please reply and let us know of any inventions you think are worth sharing.

Pineapple and Greens Smoothie

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This smoothie was particularly delicious:

1 cup of fresh chopped pineapple
(Frozen works fine but this pineapple was very juicy)
2 rainbow chard leaves
1 inch ginger root
1 banana
Water as base for blending

This smoothie is so light and fresh and great for hot summer days. And of course, filled with nutritious and healthy ingredients. Enjoy!!!!!

Read Ingredients not Nutrition Facts only

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When discussing food, the general consensus is to look at the numbers.

How many calories does it have?

How many grams of fat, carbs, protein, fiber?

When the numbers are low, people feel comfortable eating or drinking that product. We do this because we have been taught to do this. If you have ever battled with weight and have joined programs such as weight watchers or jenny craig, you learn point systems, calorie counting and portion control.

While I recognize that these methods can be effective, especially at the beginning when you have the most weight to lose, I believe this mentality can do your health more damage than good.

My theory is this. Who cares if you are consuming 500 calories a day if those calories are coming from foods that are bad for you? A few months ago, my mother attempted the HCG diet. Its the new big thing and everyone is losing weight doing it. She went to a DOCTOR and along with the HCG, he gave her a diet plan that she needed to follow. I was appalled as I read through it. It stated obvious things such as you can have unlimited vegetables, etc. Then it stated certain fruits she wasn’t allowed to eat. I thought, well, fruits are whole foods but they do contain sugar even though its natural sugar so maybe limiting those foods would be wise during a period of weight loss, okay, so I kept reading

…and then I saw it.

She could have unlimited diet soda. She could drink diet soda until her heart was content. Along with that were other products such as margarine, sugar free yogurts, sugar free ice creams, etc.

Diet Sodas and all these other “sugar-free” products for the most part contain an ingredient called “Aspartame.”

Aspartame has been linked to the following diseases:

  • Multiple sclerosis
  • Epilepsy
  • Chronic fatigue syndrome
  • Parkinson’s disease
  • Alzheimer’s disease
  • Mental retardation
  • Lymphoma
  • Birth defects
  • Fibromyalgia
  • Diabetes

The research shows that consuming Aspartame is terrible for your health. Plus it has been proven to stimulate your appetite and actually cause weight-gain in the long term. Yet my mom can have those products in unlimited quantities but has to stay away from fruits?

I am  insulted by that concept. Food is information for our brain. If we feed our brains good information, then we promote our metabolism, fat burning, and healing properties…our bodies are being told to function properly. Our livers, hearts, intestines, and kidneys need good information to work at maximum capacity. If we continue to feed our brains this garbage, our bodies respond accordingly. Isn’t it incredible that despite all the diets out there, the no sugar movement, and the low fat foods, obesity, heart disease, cancer and gastric illnesses are all on the rise? Is this just a coincidence?

I was at lunch the other day and our cousin was drinking PEPSI NEXT. It says proudly not the label – “60% less sugar!!!!” They are just screaming at you, Go ahead, Drink me, I”m a healthy alternative, I have less sugar than other sodas.  Then you read the nutrition facts and LOOK!!!!! Only 60 calories in 1 whole can. NO FAT! 15g of Sugars…well thats not too good because diet pepsi is 0grams, BUT it tastes more like regular Pepsi and its a lot lower in sugar than the regular one. You know what, this is not a bad option.

60% less sugar Nutrition info

THAT IS WHEN I URGE YOU TO READ THE INGREDIENTS!!!!

INGREDIENTS

Among all the other undetectable ingredients it has, there are 2 that you can easily recognize and pronounce… HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, and ASPARTAME. DOUBLE WHAMMY!!!! Two addictive ingredients that stimulate appetite, cause addiction, and are not metabolized in your body but instead go straight to your liver.

I urge you not to fall for this trap. This is NOT a healthy alternative. If you want to eat smaller portions fine. If you want to limit your caloric intake, fine. But put food in your body that helps you instead of hurts you.

Look for single ingredients; ingredients you can pronounce and understand. Learn about what you’re eating. Eliminate high fructose corn syrup and aspartame from your diet.  Eat real food. Your health will thank you for it.