I'm sharing my thoughts with everyone!

Hey, so sorry it has been over a month with no post. I promised myself and everyone that I wouldn't slack and I did. This month has been so crazy for me. I am doing Gabrielle Bernstein's "May Cause Miracles" and it's totally a mindfuck because it gets so real. I have had so many discoveries about myself, and what I really want my life to be... rather what my life is MEANT to be. Sometimes its super exciting and other times it is so scary and overwhelming. I have been living in this sort of happy but also uncomfortable place for the last month because my brain is in this weird transition. It's cool, i'm in, it is just a crazy place. Sort of like i'm in the Fire Swamp, all proud of myself, feeling good, i'm trucking through, always something in my way but I got it ...then bam! an R.O.U.S. catches me off guard and I really gotta wrestle it... but I fight through it, and i'm better then before.  I know I gotta get through it because the real me, reveling in my truth, will thrive on the other side. It's not even that I got to get through, I want to.

 With that said, I signed up for  Marie Forleo's B-School which is also exciting and scary. In doing the prep, I researched some companies already successful doing similar stuff to what I do. I found Emmy's Organics, and read Samantha's blog... spend over two hours, watched every video. They are so inspiring and so real. It is beautiful. Samantha has inspired me not only to share recipes with you, but to actually share everything going on in real life, and in my head about Moefriendly. Maybe this blog will keep me more grounded. I write in my notebook everything that goes on, and my thoughts and stuff but nothing sticks... I go from point A to point N in my head. Gabby says a lesson in the course is "Only infinite patience offers immediate results". Time to put this ADD to rest!

I have been in talks at work about creating a program where I work with my guys and sell Moefriendly. It would be great for them, the recipes are pretty simple and they will be accomplishing something great, helping to heal the world with yumminess! Meetings coming soon, keep your fingers crossed! I'm also looking up places on Staten Island where I can begin to sell Moefriendly, probably contact the Alice Austin House, the Greenmarket at the Mall,  Enchanted Events, The Richmond County Fair. Where else do you know of?

In my blogging absence,  I have been experimenting with a new ingredient- Irish Moss. It is seaweed, and it smells pretty gross. You clean it off... rinse away the sand and other random sea remnants, and soak it for at least 4 hours, rinsing and changing the soak water. Once it has gone from a cloudy white, light yellow color to almost clear, and gelish.. give it a few whirls in the food processor until its a uniform gel. The smell sort of goes away. Not going to lie... it lingers until you blend it with other ingredients. But once it is all blended, no icky sea smell! I made a Berry Tart with the Irish moss, that I wish I took pictures of! Chocolate crust, coconut filling, and berries on top! Super Yummy! My next creation was similar. Almond crust, coconut filling, and pineapple topping. I'm calling it Pina Colada Tart. The census at work is it might be one of my best recipes yet! Awesome!

 At work I made with my guys a fudgey coconut berry bar. Super tasty too, and so easy to make!Our recipe is just one modification that you can make with this one by Natalia.

 Fudgey Coconut Berry Bars
1/2 cup coconut nectar
1/2 cup coconut oil
 1 cup cacao Powder
8oz coconut manna
2 cups chopped berries

 Line an 8X8 baking pan with parchment paper
 Mix half of the nectar, oil, and cacao in a large bowl.
Take the mixture, and cover the bottom of your pan. Put in refrigerator.
 Heat up your coconut manna so that it is thick but manageable. Take chocolate out of fridge, pour coconut on top, and put pack in fridge
 Mix the other half of your chocolate ingredients, the coconut nectar, oil, and cacao. Take bars out of fridge
 Spread second chocolate layer on top, than evenly spread berries on top as well.
 Put back in freezer for at least 15 minutes, or fridge until set.
 *You could also make all of the chocolate at once, put half in pan, then coconut, then more chocolate, and your bars will have a more marbled look like ours did.

Thank you for reading. I hope you are enjoying the recipes!
Cheers!
Love *Moe*

Lemon Curry Chicken with Cauliflower Rice

A few weeks ago I was prepping myself to do a 21 day juice cleanse. I ended up getting a cold, and when I'm sick, my body needs some protein. I think that was totally my body saying "cleansing is springtime cleaning Moe, not in January!" I'm cool with that, and as it gets closer I will totally post some info on why cleansing for the beginner is a springtime affair. So, now the kitchen is overflowing with gorgeous fruits and veggies. This is rad, i'm in... except the number of fruits and veggies you need when eating versus juicing or making smoothies is very different. I had lemons, and parsley like whoa, and I don't eat them often. Needed a recipe ASAP so they didn't go to waste. Additionally, I had this whole container of coconut milk to use before it went bad too (from the pancake recipe). What is a girl to do with lemons, parsley, and coconut milk? Put all those words in a google search and hope it doesn't suck! After sifting through a whole bunch of recipes with 55 ingredients... I felt confident enough to try my hand at my own original version of some curry type concoction. It came out amazing yummy! My next thought though, was what to have it with! Rice, being a grain, is off limits. The stuff isn't that great for your body (yes, even brown rice... but that is also another blog post) so I tried making cauliflower rice. Cauliflower tastes great cooked or raw and has a whole bunch of  perks, like being anti-inflamatory and full of antioxidants.  So, super easy, super scrumptious meal, and  super stoked to share this recipe! Main meal stuff isn't usually where I get creative but this just proves how awesome energy makes everything rock!
*Love Marissa*

 Lemon Curry Chicken (Makes 4 servings)

1 package Chicken Breast

1/2 head large Cauliflower

1 Can  Coconut Milk (minus 1/4 cup)

1 cup parsley

2 whole medium lemons

1 tbsp  Vindaloo Curry Powder

1 tsp Cinnamon Powder

3/4 large onion

Place all ingredients in a food processor and mix well

Put half of sauce in a jar and store in refrigerator.

Clean and trim chicken. Cut into chunks. Place in baking dish

Cut onion into large chunks, add to baking dish with chicken

Take second half of sauce and put into baking dish. Mix well and refrigerate at least 8 hours, or over night.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Bake chicken, onion, and sauce for about 25-30 minutes.

While that is baking rinse head of cauliflower

Using a food processor, with the grating blade, grate cauliflower.

When lemon curry chicken is done, serve over cauliflower “rice”, and top with some extra sauce!

Paleo Pancakes

I'm not a fan of following recipes. If I have something in mind I'll look it up at a few sites and see what the overall gist is, but I rarely follow one. I dig the satisfaction of creating my own thing... but then I get all excited and don't write it down and cannot reproduce it. #Moefriendlyproblems! I decided to start out 2013 decadent style cause that's what i'm working towards. Working with what I got, always through positive eyes, and living it up decadently! Enter Paleo Pancakes. This recipe is more nutty then sweet because I topped it with coconut nectar and berries. There is only so much sweet anyone can take! They would be awesome with a little vanilla and cinnamon, or even with cacao. Feel free to use it as a base and add whatever sweeteners and flavors you like. I will totally be playing with it! This recipe makes about 8 pancakes, about 2 spoonfuls per pancake, for 2 servings.
 *Love Moe*

 Paleo Pancakes
1/4 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup crunchy almond butter
1 large egg
 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp coconut oil

 Mix all ingredients well until you get a batter like consistency.
 Grease pan, and drop 2 spoonfuls of batter per pancake into pan
When sides begin to bubble, flip
 Top with whatever edible goodness you can think of, and enjoy!

Reboot!

So it has been over a year since I blogged. I have been meaning to try working on it again but life just kept getting in the way. For some people 2012 has been pretty good, for others, it was pretty shitty. I can say that 2012 probably wasn't the worst year of my life but I know it WAS the year that I grew the fuck up! Every year I make New Years Resolutions, just like everyone else... to stick to my goals and lose weight. This past year I lost about 30 pounds (from my heavies to my thinnest), but since gained back about 10, 15 of 'em. Even when I was the thinnest, at the goal weight I wanted to be my whole life... I wasn't happy. It still wasn't the body I wanted. So many goals came and went this year but one that stuck was Moefriendly. I am the Queen of "this is what I want to do with my life" ideas and then I drop the ball. Moefriendly has been around for a while now and I know I have found my Element (check out Ken Robinson's book The Element for more about it). The last like, 4 or 5 months of the year was spent being overwhelmed by all this goodness and growth. Silly as it may sound, too much of anything can be bad, even good stuff.. because even if there is too much good stuff GOING ON, there leaves little time for YOU. No time to take a break, dick around, be lazy, decompress. Everything that you HAVE to do takes over... and good, bad, or otherwise... that's kind of shitty. Que up those 15 "stress" pounds and Moe is not a happy chick. I began watching a lot of videos on youtube and reading books/websites by Brian Johnson , Gabrielle Bernstein and Kris Carr I was checking websites like en*theos, positively positive, and finding my muchness, daily. My classes at school to be a Mind Body Wellness Practitioner shifted from nutrition to Life Coaching (Thank you SWIHA and Dr. Henele!). People began to tell me I was much calmer, more relaxed. My first thought was "what the fuck? Me? Really?!" Looks like that is the situation. A huge part of it is that I have learned to own my shit... the choices I make and the things I say. No one can make me feel anything I don't want to, or hold me back. Sure anyone can throw a wrench in the plan and make life a million times more difficult and crappy... but letting that be the crutch for failure, or crapping out is just an excuse. That is the choice you make. I'm not about crutches anymore. I have goals and dreams and I am about finding constructive ways to make them happen... not dwelling on all the reasons why I can't. Forgive, let it roll off your back and move forward. Not giving something/someone that kind of power over you is pretty fucking empowering dude! We grow up learning that failure is not ok. A lot of us become terrified of it... I know I was. But I have learned that with each failure is a lesson, and what good is getting what you want all of the time if you don't learn anything from it? We have to appreciate, and be grateful for lessons learned. You can't grow from getting what you want all of the time. However great that may sound... it is really so disconnecting. And so... getting back to fear... I also think a huge part of not blogging for the past year can be attributed back to failing. Failing through a blog? Moe, WTF? Well friends... by having this blog and everything I want to do with it, I hold myself accountable to you. I have a fear of being responsible, and accountable and then not. Failing you. Ever have this idea in your head... for a long time... and then you say it out loud, or write it down... and all of a sudden it becomes real and this thought or idea has a whole new effect on you? That is what it's like. I want to put all of my thoughts on food, and happiness, and recipes, and exercising, and trials and tribulations with Moefriendly, and Rebooting myself, on here and take you all with me. Thats pretty heavy stuff. I don't want this to be another New Year's resolution that I crap out in in six weeks. Putting all of that stuff on here makes me accountable to actually go trough with stuff. That is kind of scary. However... I have learned that once you get passed that road block of fear, on the other side is endless possibility. So this is a Reboot of the old Moefriendly. It didn't suck at all, but time for a new phase. Hooray for being accountable, learning, growing, and food that doesn't suck! *Love Moe*

Sickened and Disgusted!

I have included the link so credit is given where it is due. Gross.

A second chance for faulty food? FDA calls it ’reconditioning’

By JoNel Aleccia

When a school lunch supplier repackaged moldy applesauce into canned goods and fruit cups, it drew a sharp warning from federal health regulators last month -- and general disgust from almost everyone else.

“I was appalled that there were actually human beings that were OK with this,” said Kantha Shelke, a food scientist and spokeswoman for the Institute of Food Technologists. “This is a case of unsafe food. They are trying to salvage that to make a buck.”

But even as Food and Drug Administration officials prepare to re-inspect Snokist Growers of Yakima, Wash., to ensure that the applesauce maker keeps toxin-tainted fruit off store shelves, federal officials and industry experts acknowledge that Snokist is not alone in “reworking” faulty food.

Turning imperfect, mislabeled or outright contaminated foods into edible -- and profitable -- goods is so common that virtually all producers do it, at least to some extent, sources say.

“Any food can be reconditioned,” said Jay Cole, a former federal inspector who now works as a senior consultant with The FDA Group, a firm that specializes in helping manufacturers comply with industry regulations.

“It’s how people do their business,” added Shelke, founder of Corvus Blue, a Chicago-based packaged goods consulting firm.

It may be something benign, such as misshapen pieces of pasta that are re-ground into semolina, or something unexpected, like a batch of mislabeled blueberry ice cream mixed in with chocolate to avoid waste.

It might be something unappetizing, such as insect parts sifted out of cocoa beans or live bugs irradiated -- and left behind -- in dried fruits like dates and figs.

Or it could be something alarming, such as the salmonella Tennessee bacteria detected last year in huge lots of hydrolyzed vegetable protein, or HVP, a flavor enhancer used in foods from gravy mix and snack foods to dairy products, spices and soups.

Some 177 products were recalled in 2010, but bulk HVP products from Basic Food Flavors Inc. of Las Vegas, Nev., were allowed to be reconditioned by heat-treating the foods to kill the salmonella, according to the FDA. The reprocessed foods were then distributed and sold.

“Some things can be adulterated and fixed, and you’re not throwing out food that would otherwise be OK,” Correll said.

No question, FDA regulations do permit foods to be reconditioned, said William Correll, the agency’s acting director of compliance. That leeway can avoid both waste and expense, he explained.

That’s why chocolate ice cream becomes the catch-all when other flavors aren’t quite right, said Shelke. If a producer accidentally botches a batch of blueberry, small amounts of the mistaken treat can be mixed into future bins of chocolate, where the dark color and rich flavor mask any error.

The key, however, is that the process must render the food safe for consumption.

That’s why Snokist Growers drew such a strong warning. In the case of the moldy applesauce, there are a couple of problems, Correll said. Mold is tricky because when contamination is extensive, it’s not enough to simply remove the obviously tainted parts and then zap the food with heat.

Snokist officials claim that their heat process kills patulin, the most common toxin produced by mold in apples, and renders the food commercially sterile. But FDA officials counter that the firm’s thermal process is not adequate to ensure that other heat-stable mycotoxins are eradicated from the food.

“Mold is not an easily reconditionable product,” Correll said. “It’s not OK to take moldy tomatoes and make them into tomato paste.”

Not that some food firms don’t try. It’s no secret that the FDA allows certain levels of expected contaminants to remain in foods, simply because a zero-tolerance standard would be impossible to meet, officials said.

The agency’s “defect action levels” are used to define the point at which food becomes adulterated and subject to enforcement. Below that level, however, some unappetizing substances make it through.

The FDA allows, for instance, an average of 225 insect fragments or 4.5 rodent hairs per 8 ounces of macaroni or noodle products. An average of 20 or more maggots of any size is permitted per 3.5 ounces of drained canned mushrooms, or per half-ounce of dried mushrooms. When it comes to mold, an average count of 15 percent is OK for canned cranberry sauce.

“Dilution is not the solution,” he said.

Because such levels are permitted, some food producers propose to combine faulty and sound products to lower the overall level. An apple-juice maker might ask to mix juice with high counts of mold with a batch with low counts, for instance. But, Correll said, that’s not allowed.

Similarly, companies that propose to eliminate a serious contaminant without addressing the source are turned down. He recalled a seafood firm with faulty bathroom practices that led to canned crab contaminated with fecal E. coli bacteria. Heat-treating would have eradicated the bugs -- but not the problem, Correll said.

FDA officials couldn’t provide an estimate of the number of reconditioning requests received from food firms each year. But in 2009, the agency started a new Reportable Food Registry, which requires notification of hazards to human health. At least 2,240 reports were logged in the registry’s first year, including the salmonella-tainted vegetable protein.

“If food is adulterated in an unacceptable way, reconditioning won’t fix it,” he said. “You can’t cook the poop out of it.”

Many producers faced with faulty food simply want to minimize their losses without harming public health, said Peter Quinter and Jennifer Diaz, lawyers with the Florida firm Becker & Poliakoff, which represents importers of foreign food.

Such firms want to avoid having product refused, so they go to great expense to salvage products such as insect-infested rice for future consumption, Diaz said. Grain products can be sifted, re-inspected, repackaged – and sent on to grocery stores.

“Taking the ick factor away is that the product is no longer contaminated,” she added.

Food Labels are pretty Inaccurate. Just so you know, put down the "organic" cookies...

Ignore All Organic Labels, Except This One

By Dr. Mercola

Are the words written on food packaging honest?

Many corporations hire lawyers to carefully craft words that are just barely on the side of being legal. The Yahoo health site has collected eight common package proclamations that are red flags of "crafty" advertising.

These include:

Flavored: Both artificial and natural flavors are actually made in laboratories, and natural flavors are not necessarily healthier than artificial ones.

Pure: "100 percent pure" products such as orange juice can be doctored with flavor packs for aroma and taste.

Nectar: While 'nectar' may sound particularly wholesome, it's really just a fancy name for "not completely juice." These "diluted juice beverages" may contain more high fructose corn syrup and other sweeteners than fruit puree.

Fat free: Some cooking sprays are "fat free" only if they are sprayed for a fraction of a second to produce a microscopic "serving".

The Importance of Deciphering Food Labels

It's unfortunate, but reading food labels isn't as easy as you might think. In addition to determining what ingredients are in the food, you also need to have the foundational knowledge of how to decipher certain verbiage used to describe them. The words listed above are just a few of the words that can be used to mislead you.

Below, I'll review a few more label items that are often used in deceptive ways, or that may lead you to buy a product you'd otherwise avoid:

1. Vitamin and mineral claims
2. The "All Natural" label
3. The "Organic" label
4. Misleading nutritional facts
5. Dangerous ingredients not required to be listed on any food label

Beware of Vitamin and Mineral Claims

In an effort to optimize your diet, you may reach for so-called fortified foods; products that proclaim to be more healthful due to their vitamin or mineral content. Unfortunately, foods fortified with "extra" nutrients are nearly always processed, and the nutrients added are typically synthetic; neither of which will promote your health.

Likewise, most commercial vitamin supplements are synthetic vitamins that have been robbed of all of the co-factors and accessory micronutrients that they naturally associated with. In turn, just like refined foods, they can create numerous problems and imbalances in your body if taken for long periods of time. They can also act more like drugs in your body. At the very least, they won't be as beneficial as high quality food and whole food-based supplements are.

When it comes to foods fortified with minerals, matters can get even worse. Be particularly wary of foods fortified with iron, such as many breakfast cereals, as some of these have been shown to contain actual iron filings, which is not the ideal way to supplement your body with iron.

What Does the "All Natural" Label Really Mean?

When it comes to processed food bearing this label, it means virtually nothing... This is because there's no standard definition for the term "all natural" when used on processed foods, which leaves it wide open for creative interpretation. The term is only regulated on meat and poultry, for which an item labeled "natural" may not contain any:

• Artificial flavors
• Colors
• Chemical preservatives

But in the processed food arena, a "natural" product can be virtually anything; it can be genetically modified, full of pesticides, made with corn syrup, additives, preservatives and artificial ingredients...

If You Want Organic, There's Only One Label that Can Assure it

Similar problems pester the organic label. There's really only one organic label out there that means anything as far as organic food is concerned, and that's the USDA Certified Organic label.

This seal, which is governed by the USDA's National Organic Program (NOP), is your BEST assurance of organic food quality. (As a side note, it's also the international gold standard for personal care products that contain organic agricultural ingredients, because the ingredients in USDA certified beauty products are certified organic for food, adhering to much stricter standards as they are intended specifically for human consumption.)

There are three "tiers" within the USDA organic label:

• Products labeled "100% Organic" must contain only organically produced materials
• Products labeled simply "Organic" must contain at least 95 percent organic ingredients
• The label "Made with organic ingredients" can contain anywhere between 70 to 95 percent organic ingredients

Farmers and growers of organic produce bearing the USDA seal have to meet the strictest standards of any organic label. USDA certified organic livestock must have access to the outdoors and cannot be given antibiotics or growth hormones. And in order to qualify as an organic crop, it must be grown and processed using organic farming methods that recycle resources and promote biodiversity.

For example, crops must be grown without:

• Synthetic pesticides
• Bioengineered genes
• Petroleum-based fertilizers
• Sewage sludge-based fertilizers

Organic products also cannot be irradiated, are not allowed to contain preservatives or flavor enhancing chemicals, nor can they contain traces of heavy metals or other contaminants in excess of tolerances set by the FDA. The pesticide residue level cannot be higher than 5 percent of the maximum EPA pesticide tolerance. (For the complete National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances under the USDA organic label, see this link.) So remember, if you see anything that says it's "organic," it must specify "USDA Certified Organic" to be meaningful.

What You Need to Know about Nutrition Labels

Other factors that can make labels less than helpful include the nutrition facts and the stated serving size.

It's important to understand that while the FDA does check food labels, they only check to see whether or not the Nutrition Facts panel is present. They rarely ever verify that the nutrition facts are true and accurate. Furthermore, the government allows foods to contain 20 percent more diet-damaging ingredients than the label lists before taking enforcement action. So while certainly a useful and important start, reading the Nutrition Facts panels on foods may not be as reliable an indicator of a food's nutrients as you may think.

The FDA also allows processed food manufacturers to use absurdly tiny serving sizes on their labels, which can lull you into a false sense of security when it comes to determining how much of each stated nutrient or toxin, like trans-fat, you're actually consuming. If the serving size is small enough then trans-fats can fall under the minimum requirement for labeling them, meaning they are left off the label entirely despite the fact they are present in the product. Needless to say, this tactic is intentionally employed, to make the product appear more healthful than it actually is

It is deceptive labeling tricks like these that can leave you eating things you would rather avoid.

Another example well worth mentioning here is the lack of any requirement to label genetically modified components in packaged foods, even though this is mandated law in the entire European Union. In the US, you simply will never know if GM foods are present in your processed food, but more than likely they are—especially if the product contains soy or corn, or any derivative thereof...

Fortunately, we now have a practical plan to end this disaster. By educating the public about the risks of GM foods through a massive education campaign, and launching a ballot initiative in California for 2012 that will require mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods and food ingredients, the plan is to generate a tipping point of consumer rejection to make GMOs a thing of the past. To learn how you can be part of this important movement, please see The California Ballot Initiative: Taking Down Monsanto.

How to Choose High-Quality Foods for Yourself and Your Family

While reading labels on everything you buy is important, when it comes to food, you're far better off limiting or eliminating foods that require a listing of its ingredients in the first place. What are you left with? Fresh (preferably organic) WHOLE foods!

Remember, virtually ALL processed foods contain cheap, chemical-laden ingredients that will eventually take their toll on your health. By educating yourself on what 'healthy food' really is, and how not to be led astray by label claims that toe the line in terms of being truthful, you'll be well on your way toward a healthier you.

Best and Worst Sweeteners

This is an article on yahoo health. Sweetners are so important because the wrong sweetner feeds the bad bacteria in your gut, which leads to disease, infection, and other health issues. Weather your issue is in your tummy or not, EVERYTHING begins in your gut!

The 4 Best and 3 Worst Sweeteners to Have in Your Kitchen

By Leah Zerbe, Rodale.com
Thu, Sep 08, 2011

At this point, it's common knowledge that high-fructose corn syrup and refined sugar are bad for us. But given all the marketing hype behind different "natural" alternatives, it's hard to know which ones really are the best sweeteners. Complicating matters, new studies, like one just published in the journal CancerResearch, are finding that fructose, a sugar found in high-fructose corn syrup, agave, honey, and, in small amounts, even in fruit, actually feeds some cancers. But don't give up apples and oranges, or even honey, based on a single study. "Natural sugars found in fruits and vegetables—things like berries, green apples, grapefruit, kiwi—are needed to feed beneficial microflora in the gut for a healthy immune system," explains Donna Gates, who led the movement to bring stevia, a natural sweetener, into this country more than a decade ago. "That's why nature put a little bit of sugar in fruits and vegetables. It keeps the ecosystem alive in us," she says, adding that the small amounts of fructose in fruits and vegetables are balanced with minerals, vitamins, and other vital nutrients. "Our body reads it differently," she notes.Fruits and vegetables provide a perfect sugar fix, but when you're in need of a sweetener to add to iced tea, baked goods, or anything else, make sure you know the difference between the good guys and bad guys of the sweetener world. (Some of the not-so-sweet details could leave you gagging.)

Assess your diabetes risk In 5 mnutes.

Bad Guy #1: Aspartame

There's conflicting evidence regarding the safety of aspartame, a common chemical sweetener used in diet soda and other low-cal or low-sugar goods, but some people report headaches or generally feeling unwell after ingesting anything containing the chemical. To make life easier for everyone, this is one instance where you may want to follow the "better safe than sorry" principle. That's because a University of Liverpool test-tube study found that when mixed with a common food color ingredient, aspartame actually became toxic to brain cells. Making matters worse, aspartame is used in many diet sodas, and studies have found drinking diet soda may increase your risk of developing diabetes and metabolic syndrome. Also of concern with aspartame, researchers have found that one harmful breakdown product is formaldehyde. Sweet? We don't think so.

Bad Guy #2: Agave

While your health food store likely stocks agave sweeteners, it may be best to keep them out of your cart. Many agave nectars consist of 70 to 80 percent fructose—that's more than what's found in high-fructose corn syrup! If you don't want to give up agave, look for types that contain no more than 30 to 40 percent fructose, recommends Christine Gerbstadt, MD, PhD, RD, spokeswoman for theAmerican Dietetic Association. Agave is also very heavily processed in an extremely energy-intensive manner that's similar to the way corn is converted into high-fructose corn syrup.

Bad Guy #3: Sucralose

While sucralose, better known by its brand name, Splenda, may originate with sugar, the end product is anything but natural. It's processed using chlorine, and researchers are finding that the artificial sweetener is passing through our bodies and winding up in wastewater treatment plants, where it can't be broken down. Tests in Norway and Sweden found sucralose in surface water released downstream from treatment discharge sites. Scientists worry it could change organisms' feeding habits and interfere with photosynthesis, putting the entire food chain at risk. The chemically derived artificial sweetener acesulfame K (sold under the brand name Sunett) was also detected in treated wastewater and tap water.

The European Fat Tax: Should we try it?.

Good Guy #1: Stevia

"We need to be off of sugar, but we need good alternatives, and stevia is the safest sweetener there is, period," says Gates, who coauthored The Stevia Cookbook: Cooking with Nature's Calorie-Free Sweetener (Avery Trade, 2004). All types of stevia are extracted from the leaves of the stevia plant, but some forms taste better than others, says Gates. People tend to overuse powders, in which the sweetness is really concentrated, so if you've tried powders in the past and didn't like them, try liquid forms, explains Gates, who helped develop a liquid stevia sweetener product. Stevia contains zero calories, but its one downfall is that it doesn't work well for baking. Expect to see more stevia on store shelves, as Coke and Pepsi got the green light to use Truvia (a sweetener made in part from stevia) starting later this year.

Good Guy #2: Sugar alcohols

Popular sugar alcohol sweeteners include xylitol, sorbitol, and erythritol, natural sweeteners made through a fermentation process of corn or sugar cane. They contain fewer calories than sweeteners like pure sugar and honey, but more than stevia. They also leave a cooling sensation in the mouth, and have been found to prevent cavities, explains Dr. Gerbstadt. Just don't overdo it—too much can cause GI distress.

Good Guy #3: Organic, raw local honey

While honey does boast higher fructose levels, it also contains a bounty of cancer-defending antioxidants, and local honey has been said to help alleviate allergy symptoms. Don't limit raw honey's use to your tea, either. Use it to speed healing on burns, and as a natural antiseptic on cuts and scrapes. Honey also has a low glycemic index, so adding it to your tea or yogurt won't lead to energy-busting blood sugar drops later in the day.

Good Guy #4: Blackstrap molasses

Although heavy on the calorie content, blackstrap is rich in iron, potassium, and calcium, making it a healthier choice than nutritionally defunct artificial sweeteners or even regular refined sugar, despite the fact that blackstrap and refined sugar both come from sugar cane. (Dr. Gerbstadt says calorie-containing sweeteners are not recommended for people with diabetes.) We like the organic, Fair Trade Certified version of blackstrap molasses from Wholesome Sweeteners.

Is your child overweight? Your child needs healthier school lunches and more of this.

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