My other favorite sugar...

I won't even call it a sugar substitute because that conjures up images of sickeningly sweet things, which this product is not. It is real sugar, 70-80% lower on the glycemic index than regular sugar.

While I use my SweetLeaf liquid Stevia for all drinks, my baking is something entirely different. I really haven't even researched whether or not one can use granulated Stevia for baking because I bake on a scale where it quite likely would make them prohibitively priced.

However, I found a fabulous product which enabled me to eliminate every bit of "real" sugar (if that's what you want to call it) from my kitchen without sacrificing a thing. And it's available in small or large quantities for the occasional baker to one who, like me, often bakes for farmers' markets.

I think if I were marketing it, I'd call it something other than "Whey Low," because some people have connotations of whey like they do of sugar substitute. Yet, it's truth in advertising, and I suppose they avoid angry vegans or lactose intolerant people who order without reading.

Anyway, once you taste a Whey Low product, or a product made with Whey Low you won't worry about the name. Whey Low *GUARANTEES* their product to taste exactly like sugar. And it does -- only better. It can be substituted tablespoon for tablespoon or cup for cup for sugar, and they have all kinds -- Whey Low Granulated, Whey Low Gold (like Brown Sugar), Whey Low Maple, Whey Low Powdered, and Whey Low Ice Cream Sugar. They even have a special formulation for diabetics called Whey Low-D.

So, how can it be better than sugar? Although my partner and I noticed no difference in taste making recipes with Whey Low over recipes made with regular brown or white sugar, we found after using it for a while that we completely lost our "taste" for products made with regular sugar. Products made with regular sugar taste cloyingly sweet now. We easily pass up commercial treats, no matter how tempting they look, because we know we won't like their ultra-sweetness.

Same thing with ice cream. We were store-bought ice cream-aholics. But once we bought our own ice cream maker (an upcoming review), the Cuisinart Ice-20, and started making our own ice cream with the Whey Low ice cream sugar, we were never tempted to go back to commercial ice cream. I'll share all the benefits of that with you in my upcoming review of the Ice-20.

And a little secret -- after buying the sampler pack from Whey Low and trying all of the various flavors, We primarily center on just two of them: the ice cream and the maple. The ice cream sugar I buy in 20 lb tubs for all my ice cream and baking, and I have found that it works equally well for anything requiring just regular granulated sugar as well for the ice cream. The maple sugar is said to be for making maple syrup, but as we don't use much syrup, I just use it for many recipes calling for granulated sugar and maple flavoring. I make a delectable apple/maple cake, maple cookies, maple pecan ice cream, and anything else I think might benefit from maple flavoring. I was making iced raisin cookies this morning, and the recipe called for brown sugar. I didn't have any Whey Low Gold on hand, so I substituted the Whey Low Maple, and they were lovely. It's a subtle flavor, barely detectable as different from brown sugar in many recipes, but an outstanding addition to plain cake recipes, or to sprinkle on top of apple slices by themselves.

Read all about or order Whey Low here: www.wheylow.com. You won't regret making the switch! (But if you somehow do regret it, they have a full, money-back guarantee. ><)

Keepin' up the good work & nourishing your pancreas

A lot of us would probably prefer to be out on our own little plot of land, raising our own non-GMO products for consumption and to share with others -- our own meat, veggies, eggs, etc. But for one reason or another, it's just not possible. And so we do the best we can, caught between two worlds, the desire to live "off-grid" and away from the consumer rat race, and living simply and doing what we can in the position we're in.

Even in pioneer days, certain things had to be bartered for a the general store. Things like coffee, tea, sugar, and often, flour, tobacco, etc. had to be purchased or bartered for. So I'm going to devote a few entries to those kinds of things, because off-grid or on, you likely still have to purchase those kinds of items.

I'm still a wimp, I guess, because I have to have things sweetened. Ever mindful of the pre-disposition to diabetes that runs in my family, I've tried them all. And there are only a couple that I feel comfortable with anymore.

Let's start with liquid Stevia. I'm so glad it is finally FDA approved, and doesn't have to be sold as a "beauty product" anymore. It seems the FDA regularly approves things that are dubious at best, yet it rarely ever takes cues from other 1st world nations. Canada banned aspartame (the ingredient you might know as Equal, Nutrasweet, etc.) long before it was ever available on the U.S. market. But when the FDA approved it, it went gangbusters into every cold drink , syrup, what-have-you. I'm not going to continue in this vein -- you can look up non-nutritive sweeteners and their dangers for yourself - (saccharine, aspartame, sucralose).

But I am going to talk about liquid Stevia. I mention the liquid because it is consistently the best tasting, easiest to gauge sweetener all around. It also comes in a granulated form with and without fiber, but I find it difficult to dissolve, so I prefer the liquid. It may seem expensive when you look at a 4 or 6 oz. bottle, but I use it daily, and a 4 oz. bottle lasts me a good six months. I've tried other brands and not found a whole lot of difference in them since the old days when it came as a brown liquid, but I always go back to Sweetleaf brand Stevia.

Any drink, no matter cold or hot, can use Stevia. Aspartame loses its flavor in hot drinks, and has been postulated to be toxic when left in sun exposure too long. (How do you know what docks your diet drink sat on, in what temperature. and for how long?)

A few commercial drinks are now available with Stevia, and I hope the market is growing. The liquid Stevia comes with a dropper. I use just 2 or 3 drops to sweeten something only slightly, and 3/4 of a dropper will sweeten an entire blender canister full of smoothie.

The BEST part of Stevia is that, unlike sugar or non-nutritive sweeteners that can damage your natural insulin processes or other cautions, Stevia actually nourishes the pancreas. That's really good news.

So if you want to get off of corn-syrup laden drinks but don't really like the flavor or worry about the safety of other sweeteners, give Stevia a try. There are several convenient sizes, 2oz., 4 oz. and .5 ounce bottles. The half ounce bottles are convenient to stick in your purse for when you eat out.

And there are also lots of yummy flavors available from Sweetleaf -- such delectables as chocolate raspberry, English toffee, cinnamon, orange cream, root beer, lemon, and many others. But despite any flavors I occasionally use, I always have a 4 oz. bottle or two on hand and use it every day!

Intrepid discoveries and a great coffee

I discovered early that the greatest part of joie de vivre is in discovering small things and in making unusual connections. It's fun, and a taste for such discoveries has led me on an intrepid life of adventure. One of the reasons I continue to enjoy such adventures is because making connections between what I notice about myself and the products I use leads to a healthier lifestyle. And as the old saw goes, having your health is everything.

I spent years dazed and confused by diet recommendations and the basic idea that certain foods were just plain evil. Underneath it all, I didn't really have to give up my favorite things; I had to figure out what worked for me, in what form, and in what proportion.

Once I discovered the "organic" label, understood it, and began to try it, I quickly discovered that for maximum health, organic products were best. But the next discovery was, organic may automatically mean healthier, but not necessarily tastier. Product improvements over the last several years have been great, but as with anything, there are variations between products, and sometimes one has to search to find the best.

Of course, taste is subjective, too, but I will always try a product recommended by a trusted friend when it is accompanied by an alluring description.

My partner is a regular coffee toper. He goes through several 8-cup pots a day. I hadn't been a coffee drinker for quite a while, but I'm one of those people who, if it's in the house, I'm going to want it. So I began the campaign to convert him to organic and free-trade coffee.

We found that we liked a dark roast the best. We tried grocery store brands and private company brands. But one thing we noticed was a lot of inconsistency within a brand. We would buy a batch and like it, then we'd go back and buy the same one again, and it wouldn't be as good sometimes.

Finally, I went to the Amazon grocery section, which was new to me. I was quite surprised when I put in both organic and fair trade as keywords and came up with several products. Comparisons between brands led us to sample Café Altura Sumatran Dark Roast. The sampling quickly led to a second purchase. We liked it just as much as the first purchase. We kept ordering it. We ran out a couple of times and had to hastily purchase something from a local grocery store. Every time, we couldn't wait to get our next shipment of Café Altura. We finally put it on Subscribe and Save so that we get it via regular shipment and never run out. Plus, we get a 15% discount with Subscribe and Save.

After a few weeks of use, we began to realize some extra benefits to buying this particular organic coffee. Although it is full and robust, it never jangles my nerves nor makes my stomach feel acidic. The caffeine content is plenty for stimulation, but it doesn't affect my hypertension. It doesn't cause breast tenderness (sorry, guys, but that's a reality for us girls), nor a whole host of other problems I used to have drinking coffee. I have to assume it's because being organic eliminates the nasty chemicals used to grow and process regular coffee. So, go organic, and if you like dark roast Sumatran, Cafe Altura has the best! (P.S. I haven't tried other Cafe Altura coffees, but I'm betting the consistent excellence of the product would be the same.)