beXnlog

Sweetness

1) Tonight be made a big dinner of fake fried fish, broccoli & cheddar Rice A Roni and sauteed yellow squash with lemon pepper. I was a little skeptical of the fff but it was actually fine. I wasn't a big seafood eater growing up; to this day i won't even eat fake shrimp - eww! but what he made tonight was good.

2) On Food TV we caught the end of Iron Chef (the real one, not "America") and i was disappointed that we missed it when i found out the theme ingredient was shitake mushrooms. I wanted to see the whole episode even more when we learned that the challenger Takaya Nakazawa made all vegetarian dishes -- and won against Chen Kenichi! I was really into Iron Chef circa 1998 and although i don't watch it anymore, i still get excited when they use theme ingredients i like.

3) The NY Times has an interesting article today about the popularity of Splenda, the new fake sugar. What i found particularly interesting is this:

According to the McNeil Web site, sucralose [Splenda] is made by adding chlorine to sugar. Aspartame [Equal, NutraSweet] is not made from sugar but from two amino acids that are isolated from bacteria. Saccharin [Sweet'N Low] is produced from a combination of the flavor chemical methyl anthranilate and ammonia.

Don't do it! Just use real sugar. Better yet, use Sucanat, an organic, unrefined sugar made from dried cane. It has a distinctive taste; it's not just "sweet," since all the flavor and minerals from the molasses is still there. It's great for cooking and your cup of coffee, although it's flavor offsets tea. I know i'm not one to talk when it comes to sugar (i have a filling in practically every back tooth) but if you're gonna use it, it might as well be real sugar.

4) And speaking of sugar, the last noteworthy item of the night is GuS: Grown-up Soda. Has anyone tried this? I'm not a big soda drinker (unlike be and his Coke addiction) although i do enjoy a fountain Coke or Cherry Coke occasionally. Soda made with real cane sugar as opposed to corn syrup has a crisper, lighter taste. I want to try the Star Ruby Grapefruit GuS flavor; i'll report as soon as i get my hands on a bottle.

posted by beXn @ 2:25 AM