TERRIBLE TUESDAYS: Kraft Rates Poorly With Sugar-Filled Fat-Free Dressing

Still waiting for the kitchen to finish...it's disappointing to see much-heralded fat-free salad dressing containing refined carbs, like corn syrup. Subway offers a great deal, with any sandwich as a salad for five bucks--thereby removing bread from the menu--but then throws it all to hell by offering salad dressing with sugar in it. Boo.

Product of the Week: Almond Breeze Unsweetened Almond Milk

Delicious, nutritious Almond Breeze Unsweetened Almond Milk, Original Flavor, from Blue Diamond, gets my vote. In Northern California, I've found it at Safeway and Raley's--check out the website, with its product locator, to find some near you.

THEMATIC THURSDAYS: Diabetes and Cheeseburgers

Food Network celeb chef and restaurateur Paula Deen has made headlines with her disclosure of Type 2 diabetes. Now, TMZ via ABC News at Yahoo, has showed her, allegedly, flouting her diabetes by eating a cheeseburger. Although I'm not a doctor, I wonder if the bigger problem isn't the cheeseburger itself, but the accompanying bun and French Fries, examples of refined and simple carbs, respectively, that tinker with blood sugar levels.

The best way to find out about your own risk for diabetes is to have your own blood glucose levels checked; there is a lot of discussion about getting Hba1C tests done as well. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offer a helpful guide.

CORNBREAD: ...with Honey and Real Corn

Some rights reserved by alejandro_c

Generally, I eschew the use of corn meal, but you could substitute oats and/or almond meal for the corn meal. Meanwhile, the use of actual corn kernels, and the absence of white sugar in this great recipe for wheat-flour-less (and sugar-less) cornbread, attracted me to it--I'm putting this on my list to adapt, when my kitchen is done. Try using agave in place of the honey...

GIVING UP SUGAR: More Details Please....

Inspirational, but with few details, of someone giving up sugar.

What I'd really like to see is discussion about the  great substitutes, like fruit juice, honey, agave, etc., and how the person is using it--still, it's worth noting. You can't go cold turkey, unless you've got someplace to replace the 'turkey' with...When I threw out the sugar, breads and pastas in my kitchen, I was ready with apples, bananas, agave, carrots, honey, cheeses, nuts and lots of other stuff.

COCONUT SUGAR: Worth Going Cuckoo Over?

Coconut sugar is gaining in popularity; I haven't even cooked with it yet. But, I'm determined to find out more about it. Reportedly, the glycemic index is low -- 35 -- (below 55 is low), and hence is healthier than white cane sugar, or standard brown sugar. Here's the Wikipedia page, and I'll be looking for more info.

Vitacost is selling two different sizes (12 and 8.4 ounces) for roughly the same price, at around $1.33 per oz. No idea whether this is a good deal or not. I'll try to report on other sources for this product, and prices, soon. Of course, it's more expensive than government-subsidized white cane sugar, to be sure...

FOOTBALL GAME DINNER: Veggies, Beans, Meat, and Hold the Corn Chips

NFC Championship Menu from last night, managed for no-refined-carbs consumption:
Starters:
*Carrots, celery spears with Trader Joe's tomato-basil and eggplant hummus products.
*Guacamole with carrot spears or corn chips (did not have any of the latter).
*Beer (did not have)
*Club soda with blueberry juice

Main Course:
*Slow-Cooker Chili with meat, black beans, Crystal Hot Sauce, jalapenos, onions and condiments: sour cream, shredded cheddar cheese.

Dessert:
*Cupcakes (did not have!)
*Apple slices

FLOURLESS CRUSTS: ...for Pizza!

This interesting thread from Laura Dolson's Low Carb Forum on About.com features some great ideas for flourless pizza crusts. I've featured the cauliflower one before, but it's still worth repeating, along with some new ideas. Thanks Laura.

BEAN SALAD: A Delicious, Easy Take on This Fave

Bean, Corn and Avocado Salad (from SparkRecipes) looks like a winner.

No flour. No Sugar. And, you can make it using canned food (except the avocado, tomato and onion), for those long winter months when fresh produce is either out of season, or coming from too far away to merit consideration. This recipe, a take on bean salad, looks healthy--and portable in a container for lunch at work.

GLYCEMIC INFO: The Truth is Out There...

As part of the educational mission of Factually Food, I want to explore the facts around the glycemic values for refined carbs and unrefined carbs during the coming year (high-glycemic value foods raise blood sugar more quickly, bringing on hunger and eating excessively, according to many experts and studies; high GI foods include white sugar, pastas and many breads)

Turns out this is more difficult than it might seem because of disagreements about how to measure for glycemic impact, which glycemic measures are most important, the current state of scientific thought and opinion regarding glycemic measures and their importance, and, of course, the politics of government support for various foods, e.g. white cane sugar. On the other side, various food producers have a lot at stake in convincing you that their foods are both of low glycemic value, and may control your body's response to high-glycemic foods

That last point is one reason why it's difficult to get definitive information from governments, for example the U.S. government, about glycemic index and load. However, we will persevere.

IT'S A WINNER: Chipotle Cole Slaw

Wow! So few entries in the salad division of the potluck, that I was bound to win with Chipotle Cole Slaw (made in a friend's kitchen, as mine is under construction). I took home a Fish Eye Shiraz, and a mandate to bring back the dish at the finale after the other nine events are run between now and mid-March.

Some rights reserved by Robert S. Donovan

Although the 'slaw' was not finely chopped, I was very careful not to add too much chipotle--nor too much of the adobo sauce which the peppers came in--to the slaw dressing. See earlier entries for the link and recipe. Here is the Sunset recipe; I left out the molasses.

COOKING W/O REFINED CARBS: Chipotle Cole Slaw

Today I'll be making Chipotle Cole Slaw for a potluck event here on the Russian River; this is a recipe I adapted from Sunset magazine, because it was a NERC ('no-refined-carbs) recipe and also yummy. I posted it previously, but now have to find it. Here it is, and, oops, I'm a little embarrassed: the recipe contains regular mayo, along with molasses--so there is some sugar in it. Arrgh.

The solution should be to make one's own mayo, sin/sans sugar, and then nix the molasses and substitute with the darkest agave syrup you can find--I may not have time for that solution. In which case, I'm going to cut down on the mayo, nix the molasses and pray that it comes out OK.

A New Factually Food Year

Wow, all of sudden, the new year is here, and it feels like so many goals--to begin baking more, to explore the new unrefined sugars--like coconut sugar, to create a sugar-less/flour-less community, whether of cooks or eaters or gastronomes...are slipping away. It's the middle of January already!

Goals are important, and whether your goals include baking something different, going without sugar or flour, having an affair with the UPS guy, running for office, re-painting a room, or re-painting your life, we need to have goals.

Here are some goals for Factually Food this year:

*I'd like to feature more  guest-bloggers, and I would like to guest-blog myself.

*Featuring more alternatives to flour crusts, or clever versions of sandwiches and pizzas--two of the biggest bread-usages. For example, an open-face sandwich using a portobello mushroom as the 'bread', or finally making that army wife's pizza dough-solution out of cheddar cheese and cauliflower...

*More resources for sugarless/flourless eating and baking on the blog--including menu items from restaurants.

*Internet radio show that features Factually Food content.

*A line of edible goods carried in stores or on carts--maybe the cluster cookies, or my version of the no-bake cheesecake featured last year.

*Posting every day, or almost every day (five out of seven?)

Sweetener Resource...or Not

Browsing for new resources on nutritive (like honey) and non-nutritive sweeteners (like artificial sweeteners), I came across a U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Center website on this subject. It's got a lot of information and hyper-links, but I would advise caution as there are a lot of questionable ideas, e.g. that there is no way to measure glycemic load for most foods. Some is out-dated, some up-to-date. Hmmm.

Nevertheless, it's worth wading through it to educate ones self.

We're BACK: Product of the Week

Back and talking about reducing refined carbs--there is crystalline cane SUGAR in everything! Yikes. But substitutes are coming on strong: stevia, agave, honey, barley syrup, coconut sugar.

**Product of the Week: Very, very clever: Trader Joe's makes a take-out Caesar Salad with jicama croutons--rolled in spices, they look just like toasted croutons with spices...but WITHOUT the bread. Really yummy, and ready to revolutionize the world of bread-based croutons.