Sugar Baby!

Oops, it's Wednesday! My how the week passes by so quickly! But what an eventful week I have had!

On Saturday, I presented at "A Taste for You", teaching the audience the importance of reading a food label! Using an awesome video that Cindy Gershon, founder of the Wellness City Challenge, helped put together, I provided a simple three step approach to changing the way we choose our food.

Here is a link to the video.

http://wellnesscitychallenge.com/

I also printed business cards and started my recipe book! Below is my very first recipe for you all.

Nut and Seed Brittle

Ingredients:

2 cups sunflower seeds

1 cup cashews

1 cup almonds coarsely chopped)

1/2 cup flaxseed and sesame seeds

1/2 cup maple syrup

2 tsp cinnamon

1 orange, zested.

Directions: Oil sheet and lay down parchment paper. Preheat Oven to 350. Put 1/4 cup maple syrup in bowl, mix with sunflower seeds. Add remaining nuts and seeds and maple syrup. Mix well. Add cinnamon and orange zest. Spread mixture on cookie sheet and bake for 30 minutes, checking after 15 minutes to see if brittle is golden brown. Done when brittle is slightly hardened (not soft and sticky). Enjoy!

Nutritional Highlights:

This high protein snack is great to grab and go! It’s energy density makes it great to take along on a hike or sustain you until your next meal. Flaxseeds provide much needed omega-3 fatty acids and fiber.

To tie this into my theme...

Sustainable Taco Tuesday Rule #2: Read your food labels. Especially look at the ingredients.
1. If there is sugar in the first 3 ingredients, consider it a dessert! 2. Look for 3 grams of fiber per every 100 calories. And 3. NO TRANS-FAT EVER! Easy enough right??

I read a very interesting article this week in the chronicle that explained the different kind of sugars, including stevia and "fake" sweeteners such as splenda. Here is my take. Sugar is sugar is sugar. It's never going to be good for you in mass quantities. Even in small quantities, when not paired with nutrients to slow it's absorption, it can cause major health problems. This is serious business folks. SUGAR. Real health problems. SO, my advice is not to stress yourself out trying to avoid it altogether (or think you are fooling the system by replacing it with the fake stuff), but to become a conscious consumer. Where is the excess sugar in your diet?? Most likely its in the processed, boxed, junk! Right?? It's time to get back to the wholesome goodness of seasonal, local fresh WHOLE FOODS!

Here's a link to the article. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/21/FDHA1C055U.DTL

I hope that you like my recipe and continue to enjoy my blogging! I look forward to your comments and if you have any recipes you'd like to share, please send them my way!!

Much love,

Zelda F.
Food Enthusiast Extraordinaire

p.s. My brother and I had a great Tamaki making session tonight. I'd like to give a shout out to Eric for his inspiring, go with what you've got on hand, style of cooking. YUM!