It's sugar, your body doesn't know the difference...

[Camilla Delvalle]

That makes sense. I'll do some more research on juice.

[aruna]

I bought a juicer a few months ago.
I ended up hardly ever using it as it just wastes so much of the solids. I mean, to make just one glass of carrot juice you need about a kilo of carrots, and throw away so much at the end.

[lastlittlebird]

In theory you can use the pulp in baking, say for a carrot cake, and I used to cook carrot pulp, when I had a juicer and just eat it as a mash with dinner, but yeah, there's only so much you can eat.
Perhaps using it in a worm farm or in compost could help? (I'm looking for uses because I love carrot juice!)

[crunchyblanket]

Carrot pulp is lovely when added to rice...gives it a nice flavour and texture.

[aruna]

Originally Posted by lastlittlebird

Perhaps using it in a worm farm or in compost could help? (I'm looking for uses because I love carrot juice!)

Well -- it does go in the compsot, but it's still a waste!

Originally Posted by crunchyblanket

Carrot pulp is lovely when added to rice...gives it a nice flavour and texture.

Thanks for the tip - though I don't eat much rice!

[Katrina S. Forest]

Originally Posted by Al Stevens

Obesity and inactivity. I give equal blame to junk food and video games/smart phones.

Smart phones are a tool, nothing more. There's lots of apps that are designed to help get you moving, keep track of progress, eat healthy, ect. There's also tons of apps that are just time-wasters. The user decides which ones to use. Video games are starting to come out with the same things. (For the winter when my baby was still really little, Dance Dance Revolution was the best form of exercise I could get.)

Sorry for the derail. My other half designs health-based apps in his extra time, so it kinda irks me when people shove anything that happens on a screen into the "unhealthy" category.

Actually, thanks to reading stuff on a screen, I'm learning a lot about HFCS that I didn't know before. So there you go.

[crunchyblanket]

Originally Posted by Al Stevens
Obesity and inactivity. I give equal blame to junk food and video games/smart phones.

Eh, people choose to use/consume those things. They can just as equally choose not to. I enjoy a Subway every now and again, and I love my computer games, but I'm not obese - not even overweight. Because I do it all in moderation. And that's the real problem, I think: inability/unwillingness to moderate the things we enjoy, even though we know they're bad for us.

[Ken]

Originally Posted by aruna

Last week I started drinking tea and coffee unsweetened. Today, for the first time, I found that my tea tasted good.

... you've got my admiration. Drinking unsweetened tea isn't easy. I use one pack of sweetener of some sort in mine. Can't really do w/o it. With everything else, though, I abstain. The natural taste of food really is good once you get used to it.

[kuwisdelu]

Originally Posted by Ken

Drinking unsweetened tea isn't easy.

It is clear to me that you've never had good tea.

[kuwisdelu]

I pretty much gave up sugar cold turkey after nearly going into a diabetic coma from some homemade wine. Fortunately, it wasn't that difficult for me, since I was never really much of a soda drinker. I rarely crave anything sweet, and when I do, some fresh fruit usually quells it. Unfortunately for me, my battle to cut out the greasy foods has been a much longer, more arduous and difficult journey.

[stormie]

For my younger son, when he was a young child, we found that if he ate or drank anything
that had high fructose corn syrup in it, within minutes he'd become hyperactive and agitated.

We found this out through process of elimination and from teachers observations too.
But with sugar--no problem.

[crunchyblanket]

Originally Posted by Ken

... you've got my admiration. Drinking unsweetened tea isn't easy. I use one pack of sweetener of some sort in mine. Can't really do w/o it. With everything else, though, I abstain. The natural taste of food really is good once you get used to it.

Even as an English person (and thus raised in an environment where "milk and two sugars" is considered the RIGHT way to have your tea) I have to say that a good quality black tea, unsweetened, is the beverage of the gods.

[Ken]

Originally Posted by crunchyblanket

Even as an English person (and thus raised in an environment where "milk and two sugars" is considered the RIGHT way to have your tea) I have to say that a good quality black tea, unsweetened, is the beverage of the gods.

... that's the key, I suspect: getting a "good quality tea." If you do, then the flavor is there. But if you go for the ordinary type, like me, then some flavor is there, but probably not enough to make for something substantial. So you go with the sweetener. I'm going to look about for better tea. Maybe it's in the way you make it, too. I use tea bags. Got some research ahead of me ...

[kuwisdelu]

Originally Posted by Ken

... that's the key, I suspect: getting a "good quality tea." If you do, then the flavor is there. But if you go for the ordinary type, like me, then some flavor is there, but probably not enough to make for something substantial. So you go with the sweetener. I'm going to look about for better tea. Maybe it's in the way you make it, too. I use tea bags. Got some research ahead of me ...

I usually drink Japanese green tea, so I don't know much about black tea, but with green tea, the most common mistake is using water that's too hot.

[thebloodfiend]

If you can't bear unsweetened tea, stevia isn't bad. Alright, that's a lie. It's quite horrendous if you aren't used to it.

I tend to drink unsweetened tea, or I use honey/agave/stevia. But, yes, quality tea is a must if it's unsweetened.

Matcha, gyokuru, and tamaryokucha are pretty good. Oolong, too. It should be a light gold when made, not dark green, if it's fresh. Old tea is pungent.

I don't like black tea unless it's sweet. Mixing it with fresh mint is quite nice.

[Ken]

Originally Posted by kuwisdelu

I usually drink Japanese green tea, so I don't know much about black tea, but with green tea, the most common mistake is using water that's too hot.

... that's interesting. I drink green tea, on occasion. I'll have to let the water cool a bit before seeping it and see if there's a difference. I know with some teas if the water isn't hot enough the tea doesn't dissolve as much.

Originally Posted by thebloodfiend

If you can't bear unsweetened tea, stevia isn't bad. Alright, that's a lie. It's quite horrendous if you aren't used to it.

I tend to drink unsweetened tea, or I use honey/agave/stevia. But, yes, quality tea is a must if it's unsweetened.

Matcha, gyokuru, and tamaryokucha are pretty good. Oolong, too. It should be a light gold when made, not dark green, if it's fresh. Old tea is pungent.

I don't like black tea unless it's sweet. Mixing it with fresh mint is quite nice.

... I use stevia some of the time. Not bad. Supposedly healthier than other sweeteners. Lower glycemic index rate or something. Mixing in mint is something I've never considered. Very interesting option. I'll look for those brands you've mentioned. Probably am not going to find them in the supermarket. Where do you get yours? Specialty shops?

Thnx for the tips, kuwisdelu and thebloodfiend.

[kuwisdelu]

Originally Posted by Ken

... that's interesting. I drink green tea, on occasion. I'll have to let the water cool a bit before seeping it and see if there's a difference. I know with some teas if the water isn't hot enough the tea doesn't dissolve as much.

With green tea, the higher quality the tea, the lower temperature water you use and the longer the steeping time.

[backslashbaby]

Originally Posted by crunchyblanket

Eh, people choose to use/consume those things. They can just as equally choose not to. I enjoy a Subway every now and again, and I love my computer games, but I'm not obese - not even overweight. Because I do it all in moderation. And that's the real problem, I think: inability/unwillingness to moderate the things we enjoy, even though we know they're bad for us.

Many folks have to be much more careful than others (just the hand we're dealt, apparently). Lots of studies are finding that it's not as simple as calories in + energy out. So that's where I get angry that the vast majority of the food we can buy in the US is now offered in ways that add to obesity.

Personally, I have gone to eating a bunch of raw foods as most of what I eat. I do grow it myself, too Still, it'd be nice to find a healthy sandwich in this town!

I used to be fine when I spent every afternoon dancing or on the gymnastics team for hours, lol. Generally 4-5 hours of exercise a day will make that possible, yeah!

[Ken]

Originally Posted by kuwisdelu

With green tea, the higher quality the tea, the lower temperature water you use and the longer the steeping time.

... that makes sense, about letting it seep longer, allowing it time to dissolve. Will give that a try. Thanks.

(Maybe this will also work for other types of tea?)

[kuwisdelu]

Originally Posted by Ken

(Maybe this will also work for other types of tea?)

Maybe, but I only ever really make green tea, so I can't say.

[WildScribe]

Green tea needs cooler temps than black tea. Please tell me you aren't drinking Liptons... that stuff is disgusting. Twinnings is a decent tasting cheap tea that I quite enjoy. Numi is very good (I am in LOVE with their gunpowder green).

I put sugar in my tea ONCE, when I was a kid. It was oolong, and I probably poured too much. It was nasty, and my parents wouldn't let me ask for a new tea cup or dump it out. I've never, ever, ever put sweetener in my tea since.

[missesdash]

Anyone else notice that raw sugar is less sweet than the refined kind? I use raw at home but I grew up on white sugar and so I find myself dumping quite a bit of it into whatever I'm using it for. I wonder if that does't defeat the purpose?

[muravyets]

Raw sugar has more of a flavor aside from sweet. It has more of a molasses flavor that dilutes the pure sweetness.

[aruna]

Originally Posted by Ken

... you've got my admiration. Drinking unsweetened tea isn't easy. I use one pack of sweetener of some sort in mine. Can't really do w/o it. With everything else, though, I abstain. The natural taste of food really is good once you get used to it.

UNsweetened tea is OK -- it's unsweetened coffee that is horrendous. Bitter and totally unenjoyable. I'll never ger used to ir. If I can't have sweetener in it I'll probably just give it up. I'm giving it a week longer to see if I can bear it.

Originally Posted by crunchyblanket

Even as an English person (and thus raised in an environment where "milk and two sugars" is considered the RIGHT way to have your tea) I have to say that a good quality black tea, unsweetened, is the beverage of the gods.

I drink chai, which by definition is milky and sweet! I've made it from scratch, adding the spices myself, but I don't have the time for that any more so I just use readymade teabags.

I'm not fussy about quality tea. I don't drink green tea; only black, preferably chai. I don't really get the fuss about tea. As long as it's black and milky and sweet, I love it.

[TedTheewen]

There is so much more to this question of sugar vs. corn syrup than what's on the surface.

First, high fructose corn syrup is a very complex sugar that doesn't digest easily.

But more importantly, most of the corn that does enter our food system is a Genetically Modified Organism (GMO). Did you know if you have a trough of organic corn on one side of a feed lot and a trough of GMO corn on the other side, the cattle will eat all of the organic corn first?

And I really wish those who blame farm subsidies would check the record on Monsanto and how they have manipulated the USDA and farm markets. I don't blame farmers, I blame corporations. Monsanto has made it almost impossible for farmers to be profitable without their GMO seeds. Ever heard of Frankenfood? Monsanto is the leader in that and they have pushed for HFCS to be in everything.

But it is more than just Monsanto and GMOs. We Americans love our convenient foods and we love our foods to taste better and better. Sadly, those two ideas don't always work together.

Most of the chemicals we have in our food are probably not a very good idea.

This link here is about a new documentary about artificial sweeteners, like Aspartame. Did you know there is such a thing as Aspartame Poisoning? Yup.

I'm going to admit something here that I don't admit to anybody: I'm morbidly obese.

This is my fault for a number of reasons. First, I drank way too much soda. Second, when I knew what was going on, I did nothing. It was easy to ignore the problem because I could always just buy bigger pants. I'm just now working on fixing this problem and it's not easy.

The cheaper the food, the worse it is for us. Crap is cheap while the good stuff costs more. I'll spend an hour in a store checking labels against my checkbook. It sucks.

Avoiding the crap in American food takes a lot of planning and forethought. I'm quickly learning that the more it is processed, the worse it is. My shopping has gotten better but I spend a lot more time not eating because I don't have the time to cook.

I used to joke about how I wouldn't drink water because fish crapped in it. Now I drink it a lot more than I used to because of the various health problems that come with being my size. I won't go into details because it's embarrassing. That's another side effect, I guess.

I've finally reached the point where I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. I just hope it isn't too late for my various organs that have taken a beating.

If you want to avoid the whole GMO/HFCS debate, then learn to cook, and do what I've done--make a plan. I'm still learning how to incorporate this into my daily routine and it hasn't been easy. But, I'm sure that it'll be a nice habit to have eventually.

Good luck to all of those who are trying to lose weight and be more healthy. I hope you're younger than I am and are able to avoid the things I've run into in my years.