More on the Great Yogurt Search

I think I've found my yogurt. Safeway carries a store brand called "O Organics" which appear to be sort of organics for the masses. I don't know how sustainable or truly organic they are, but every food I've had of this brand I've really liked.
I like the yogurt especially because it is fairly low-fat and low-cal, but there is no aspartame. In addition, there is no high fructose corn syrup in it. Instead, it's sweetened with evaporated cane juice. Why is high fructose corn syrup bad? Well, there are debates. From a SF Chronicle article a few years ago:

"The theory goes like this: The body processes the fructose in high fructose corn syrup differently than it does old-fashioned cane or beet sugar, which in turn alters the way metabolic-regulating hormones function. It also forces the liver to kick more fat out into the bloodstream.
The end result is that our bodies are essentially tricked into wanting to eat more and at the same time, we are storing more fat."

Here's the article from the San Francisco Chronicle about corn syrup. The wikipedia entry goes into more detail, but is a little harder to translate. Basically, even today, we still don't really know if this is worse for our body than regular sugar. A lot of people think it's like the aspartame issue: that it's a lot of hype. Other people think this could be at the root of the obesity epidemic. Corn Syrup is in EVERYTHING now.
I have decided to be distrustful of extra chemicals in general. There is nothing in this yogurt that I can't pronounce, and that can't be a bad thing.
There are other organic yogurts, but they tend to be very expensive. This is a good happy-medium. It costs more than Dannon but less than Stoneybrook farms. Plus, many of the other organic yogurts only have full-fat versions.
Unfortunately this brand is only available at Safeway, which I think is only on the west coast. But check some labels. I'm sure they're not the only ones out there.

Food

Apparently I do the same thing with cherry tomatoes as I do with sugar snap peas and chocolate chips.

This sunday is the garlic festival. I do NOT do the same thing with garlic. I have a strange relationship with garlic, rather love-hate. Also, it is apparently going to be like a hundred degrees there, which will not do wonders for the smell, I'm sure. Perhaps the stench will revive me when I faint. I may even be persuaded to try garlic ice cream afterwards.

FYI: People who do not like bacon annoy me. I mean, it's BACON. What's not to like? If you're morally opposed to it because you're a vegetarian, that's fine, as long as you still acknowledge that it's the greatest smell in the world, and that if you were going to break your vegetarianism for anything, it would totally be bacon.

Fake Sugar

There is a new, but controversial and arguable, study out that shows:

"People who drank one or more diet sodas each day developed the same risks for heart disease as those who downed sugary regular soda...
It could be, they suggest, that even no-calorie sweet drinks increase the craving for more sweets, and that people who indulge in sodas probably have less healthy diets overall."

My money is on the "increased craving for sweets" thing. I try to avoid fake sweeteners like aspartame when I can. I think it keeps us all addicted to sugar. I don't drink any kind of soda, but it drives me nuts that I can't find a low-calorie yogurt that isn't full of fake sweetener. I really don't need it to taste THAT sweet.
To read the full article about the study, click HERE.
There is probably fake sugar in more things than I think, like the "light" Swenson's ice cream I like so much. I'd better watch out for that. I'd really just rather eat the real thing, but less of it.
That's why I only eat dark chocolate :) Why muck it up with milk and sugar?

War and Peas

I eat sugar-snap peas the same way I eat chocolate chips.
I think, I'll just have one or two, just for the taste. I'm not really hungry. Then, well, I'll grab a handful. Then before I know it I'm sneaking them left and right, not paying attention to what I'm eating and the entire bag is gone.
Why can't I be like that with ALL veggies?

Whale Chase

Blogger is making me do weird things, changing the way you sign in and post. Ugh. I may switch over the Live Journal entirely.

I've been having intensely weird dreams lately. Last night I dreamt I was being chased by a whale. When I finally got out of the water. the whale jumped onto the beach and kept chasing me by kind of flopping foward. He gashed my leg with his teeth (yes, I know whales don't really have teeth, per se, but I'm sure he could draw blood with his jaws, regardless). However then he was too far inland and had to go back. I drew a line in the sand so I knew how far he could get, because I knew he would try again later. I was too scared to go into the jungle on this desert island, so I needed to know where it was safe to sleep on the beach.

I think it's no coincidence I was dreaming about work just before this. Feel trapped much?

I got my hair cut again, and this may be the shortest it's ever been. I have learned (in my wise old age) the value of a really good haircut. Even when the old one started to grow out, even when I don't do anything to it, my hair looks much nicer than it ever did before.

I always tell them it needs to be super low maintanence. I am not a blow dryer kind of girl. I am not a hot iron kind of girl. I'm barely even a product kind of girl. And they swear to me that it will look fine if I just let it air-dry and it does, but...
It never looks nearly as cool as when they do it. My hair is sort of...fluffy. Not curly, but not totally straight either. So the super-shortness can look a little weird. It makes my head look incredibly round, which is why hairstylists are often hesistant to cut it that short.

So yesterday I found myself buying a hot iron. I haven't burned myself yet.

On Valentines' Day, Joe and I got takeout burgers, then stopped at the new candy store on the way home. That candy store is SO MUCH FUN! They have all kinds of stuff, and we got lots of little baggies of things to try.
I swear, we didn't even eat that much, but both of us did not feel well afterwards. I don't know if it was the burgers or the candy or the collective rot of eating junk food we're not used to. Bleh.

But Saturday is our real Valentines' Day. We're going out to eat at a restaurant overlooking the ocean, way out by the beach. Hopefully it won't make us sick.