choices

Back in the 90’s we were fat phobic. Resulting in the new millennium’s 180-degree turn and the rise of the Two Fat Ladies signaled the repeal of the lipid’s prohibition. Over the past ten years I have had overwrought workings of anything bacon from bacon brittle to pork belly truffles. Denial of anything will result in a zealot’s crusade once unshackled.

Lately, it is sugar. That quick, rush of calories that most of us take in too much of. It is interesting to me that we are addicted to two of the elements in contained in are first meal – milk. I will confess to enjoying a bowl of ice cream, a slab of white cake with rose scented creambutter or white chocolate bark studded with dried cherries. I will even a drink Coca-Cola, but only when it is the holiday of Passover and I find the one sweetened with cane sugar, which fulfills the Jewish dietary restrictions of that 8-day period.

My position with sweet that I like it – but it is more important that I get my sweetening from sugar-in-th-raw, local, unprocessed honey, agave and fruits. I am firm in my rejection of corn syrup, or corn sugar whatever they plan to call it. I did not need it my loaf of bread or in cans of tomatoes or salad dressing. It is a likely element in almost every prepared product put out of the market. It requires us to read every food label and once you do it will be shocking how often you come across the addictive. I am okay that the professional association that markets corn syrup thinks it is okay for little Johnny to consume this unnaturally occurring sweeter – I do not. Nature in her wonder gives us sweet notes throughout every season, and I for one find these sweet notes more than satisfactory. Give me foods that I can easily recognize and trace to their origins without needing a science food degree. We may possess the intellectual ability to isolate chemical compounds, but I fear our metabolic system is still attached to our origin of development and ability to derive nutrition and energy from naturally available food sources.

So, perhaps this time instead of a radical rejection we should take a cleanse and reset our palates then start afresh by going back to the old, tried the true – the natural.





Cucumber Soup - yields approx. 4-cups
2-1/2 pounds cucumber
2-inch piece of ginger - peeled and diced
1/4-cup fresh lemon juice
2-tablespoons mint leaves
1/8-teaspoon black pepper
1/4-teaspoon salt
3/4-cup iced water
Peel the cucumbers, and then cut in half lengthwise. Remove the seed pocket, and roughly chopped the cucumbers.




Place all the ingredients in a blender and process until smooth. Chill and serve cold.