Monday, April 15, 2013

            I love sweet.  One might say I’m addicted to sweet.  I believe it has always been that way.  I remember pouring tablespoons of sugar on my Wheaties cereal and thinking the best part of the cereal was eating the sugar slush at the bottom of the bowl.  Ice cream has been a particular weakness, in an array of other particular weaknesses.   We lived very humbly in childhood, but I recall Mom always bringing home Imitation Ice Milk from the grocery store, and we ate it as if we had good sense.  (Is that even for sale these days?) (And what is it, anyway?) In later years as I began to make ice cream, the recipes that stick out in my mind were chocolate so rich and thick you literally couldn’t eat a big bowlful, and custard vanilla of the same ilk.  As kids, we had no money for soda pop, but I would search the hedges and weeds for deposit bottles we could trade in for 2 cents so we could buy candy and soda at the 7-11 on the corner.  Buttermilk donuts and Hostess Apple Pies and fudge and divinity and brownies and caramel.  Dipping strawberries in Eagle Brand and Fireballs and Sweet Tarts and Snickers bars.  I never got tired of any of those things and it’s amazing my pancreas has kept up.  It is true that I don’t feed the sugar monster like I used to .  It would now be unusual for me to drink a “leaded” soda, settling instead for the diet fare so widely available now.  I am still awfully tempted by Hershey’s chocolate or an Apple Fritter, but I substitute Stevia when I can, as much to cut down on calories as sugar.  I read that a rat will suffer malnutrition rather than leave a sugar drip.  Perhaps I am more rat than I know, but I do allow my higher consciousness to inform my decisions, even if it doesn’t always have the final say-so on my actions.  Stevia, by the way, is a naturally occurring sweetener made from the leaves of the stevia plant.  There are many iterations available, and some samples are bitter as well as sweet.  I recommend KAL stevia in the 3.5oz bottle.  It has a tiny scoop inside and that tiny scoop will sweeten a 16-20 oz beverage quite adequately.  The bottle will last a long time, 6-8 months with daily use.  Some stevia competitors are cut with other sugars to dilute them.  I’ve tried several, but this pure stevia extract  is the best I’ve found.  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VRSR84/ref=oh_details_o05_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1