All the news that's fit to eat....

Yesterday was a big day for food in the newspaper. First of all it was reported that Nigella Lawson is going to make her kids bring home their own bacon. Apparently Nigella herself is worth about $36 million and her husband about $200 million. Nigella thinks that she won't be doing her kids any favours by leaving them enough to live off without having to work. She's probably right, look what it did for Paris Hilton. Anyway, Nigella is adamant about this. The kids can relax though because I'm sure she'll pack them a fabulous lunch everyday to take to work with them.

The Washington Post Food Section had a couple of good articles yesterday. One was that we the consumers are becoming the new Food Inspectors, reading labels, insisting on organic where possible and shopping at more than one supermarket weekly to make sure that we are purchasing the best food possible. I shop at more than one place and I know plenty of people that do the same thing. I use Giant for my regular shopping basics like cream cheese, bread, canned tomatoes etc, Costco for all the bulk stuff, which includes milk, eggs, cheese and frozen meats and seafood, Trader Joes for all my kids snacks for school, and some of my basics like Pizza Sauce and Wine (haha), and then Whole Foods or Wegmans for a couple of speciality items for the kids, like Yoghurt in a tube that does not contain high fructose corn syrup. (I buy Horizon Organic Yoghurt Tubes Strawberry and Blueberry) . I cannot believe the garbage they they put in kids yoghurt and then have the nerve to call it healthy. Tons of high fructose corn syrup, food colourings, sprinkles, M&M's the list goes on.

I'm also amazed at the schools. They are passing a bill in Virginia about banning trans fats in the food at schools, which is great, but we still have a long way to go before these school lunches are actually good for the kids. My 7 yr old used to buy chocoalte milk three times a week to have with his lunch, which I pack for him everyday. On the first day of school this year he came home and one of the first things he said was "the chocolate milk has high fructose corn syrup in it". The school district changed milk vendors and now the milk has HFCS. Last year it was regular sugar and cocoa. I just don't get it. The school district makes a huge fuss about fat content and balanced diet (that's why they have blue ice cream and huge chocolate chip cookies for sale), and yet they buy milk with HFCS because it's cheaper. I would be happy to pay more for organic chocolate milk and I'm sure that many other parents would be as well, or at least have the option of buying organic milk at school.

Last but not least,the Washington Post gave two different guacamole recipes which looked good, but neither of them looked half as good as the recipe that I use!