Wednesday, August 8, 2012

calories vs. ingredients

I wish that as a nation, we believed more in homeopaths, quality of food, and overall wellness and health.  I am sure as you all can guess, we eat organic, grass-fed meat, when we eat meat that is, lately we have been eating mostly vegetarian with fish once maybe twice a week.  We also eat gluten and dairy free, as you all know, and I am an avid ingredient reader.  Nothing in this house has maltodextrin, dextrin, sucrolose, aspartame, high fructose corn syrup, or artificial colors like Red 40, blue lake 9, yellow 5.  You know the stuff that is in `so...many good things most of us associate with our childhood.  I got rid of all of our food colorings as well.  Any colors for food are to be from REAL food.  We are also anti GMO anything really.  I did not always eat like this...  I grew up like I am sure many of you did, with McDonald's, pop tarts, candy, and store bought ice cream. Please don't think that is all I ate!  I am simply picking the not so good things that were available. Every meal when I was little we had a salad, that is something I clearly remember about meals. That and that we ate as a family.  The salad thing I didn't keep, but eating as a family every night is super important in this house. In the last year or so of college I began eating healthier, not just watching what I ate but what was in what I ate.  I got really serious with this in 2007.  We made a switch to soy milk and high fructose corn syrup disappeared from our diet once I read a book called Ultra Metabolism.  I didn't read it to lose weight but to figure out why I kept getting headaches and feeling sluggish.   Anyway, I find it difficult sometimes with family because when things change food wise, they don't change for the overall well being but for the calorie count. This brings me to tonight where someone was eating a popsicle.  Audrey, who loves popsicles, catnip and chamomile popsicles when teething , and the awesome agave sweetened ones I found that don't have 15g. of sugar per popsicle as well as sugar free ones.  Please tell me I am not the only one who has noticed yummy seemingly awesome popsicles that have 15 plus grams of sugar in them! Can I hear a big wah wah wah??  Anyway, she wanted it!!  Of course, I didn't have any of our popsicles.  This person, who always asks if Audrey can have something, since it is known how picky we are, came and asked if Audrey could have a popsicle.  It was the popsicle brand ones and I was VERY hesitant.  I went and looked at the ingredient and it read like a nightmare.  dextrin, high fructose corn syrup, red 40, etc.  but you know it was only 15 calories so that makes it okay..... Anyway, I said she could eat off of it.  I regretted that decision when she was super hyper/cranky and went to bed later than normal.  She woke up more than normal throughout the night and had a tough time staying asleep.  I don't blame her, I blame me!!  Hey it's a lesson learned in parenting.  The moment is what is it.  I just worry about people who eat this processed food and don't look at ingredients but calories. There are so many who go out and buy "scary" food and I wonder what health problems are there going to be in the future.  As if there aren't enough already, you know there will be more...

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