Eat Cake

In an effort to reconnect kids with local whole foods in Fond du Lac County Dean and Natasha Malloy, in conjunction with the Artesian Road Living Foods, began a summer and after-school program called The Enlightened Schoolyard. The lives of 60 kids were touched as they actively participated in this 10-week program.

After the initial program, they brought the kids into a kitchen setting for an additional 10-week period. It ended with a farm-to-table meal prepared and served by the 4th and 5th graders for their families and the volunteers.

To view pictures of the program, click here, here, here, here, and here.

The Enlightened Schoolyard/The Cheesecake Farm is this week's "Favorite Local Find of the Week.

It really is quite a fascinating story, but I'll let Dean tell you about it in his own words!

Q1. How and when did you get involved in this program, Dean?

Jane and Bruce Braun, the producers of Artesian Road Living Foods, have opened their farm and hearts to a vision that came to me through Alice Waters' program the Edible Schoolyard – an experiential garden and kitchen school.

Alice Waters is the chef/owner of Chez Panisse in Berkley California. Her "Delicious Revolution" in the US, instrumental in spurring on the Slow Food Movement along with international founder Carlo Petri, is finally catching on here in the Midwest.

Since January of this year, my wife and I have been working toward forming a non-profit program for children, youth and families of Fond du Lac.

Q2. Dean, what are your aspirations for The Enlightened Schoolyard?

Our goals are to address childhood obesity and healthful nutrition through:

1. whole foods nutrition vs. processed convenience foods

2. sustainability in agriculture vs. conventional industrial agriculture

3. local vs. global food supply

4. and the pending economic implications effecting communities such as ours and program development for youth (summer and after school).

We intend on running the program again next year and opening avenues to include other groups and possibly paying public participants.

Interested volunteers, participants, or community partners can contact me via email: deejmalloy@yahoo.com or at 920.251.6036.

Q3. By the way, what is the Artesian Road Living Foods?

Jane and Bruce Braun operate a sustainable vegetable and egg commercial production farm and sell their produce at their store, Village Market Specialty Food Retail Store, in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin and at their Nutrition Discount Center in Oshkosh, WI.

Q4. So where does The Cheesecake Farm fit into all of this?

In my quest to sustain our Enlightened Schoolyard program I dove headfirst into policies, infrastructure, logistics, and the essence of what all of this local sustainable agricultural movement embodies. I have begun pursuing production and marketing of value-added agricultural products.

Within the coming month, just in time for the holidays, we will be starting our business of selling wholesale "locally-sourced ingredient" cheesecakes.

The business is called The Enlightened Kitchen, and we plan on marketing our cheesecakes wholesale under the brand name, The Cheesecake Farm. We also aim to create other value-added agricultural wholesale products in the future.

Q5. Dean, why cheesecake?

Cheesecake is something that represents the ultimate in an over-the-top unhealthy product. I know people often reserve indulgence for such desserts.

So, from the health perspective I wanted to offer a unique alternative.

Without dismissing the fads of low-fat and non-fat products, the fat content is fully intact in our products. I truly believe that eating a whole fat product is an essential part of good nutrition. Plain and simple our bodies need fat to function.

I use a full flavored Organic Valley Farm Neufchatel cheese and full fat Organic Valley Farm sour cream in our cheesecake, and an egg that is unsurpassed in the quality of nutrition and treatment to the laying hens that produce these eggs.

The other ingredients of cheesecake that are health benefit oriented are the sugars. Our product is much less sweetened. We use stronger natural sweeteners such as maple syrup, sorghum, dried fruit and very small amounts of alcohol that provide a deeper flavor component. These sugars also have better nutritional profiles, offering vitamins and minerals compared to more refined sugars or corn syrup.

Typically baked products aim to use the cheapest ingredients like high fructose corn syrup, white sugar, white flour and hydrogenated fats to increase profits and shelf life.

This is the process that is making our food system, nutritional system, and local economies suffer.

I challenged this system to first make a product that was more locally sourced, secondly to offer a alternative to effect change in the local economy by returning profits to local agricultural producers and thirdly, to offer a nutritionally superior and naturally fresh alternative that would meet the shelf life demand of the market.

We have created these cheesecakes from as many local ingredients as we can. When we say local we mean local – within 100 miles of home.

While we are trying to use locally-sourced organic whole products for our ingredients, this is not always possible. In the case of chocolate and minor ingredients we are making the exception. Someone asked why Organic Cheesecake? (It seemed like an oxymoron). I say, why not?

If people want to eat cheesecake let them eat the best cheesecake they can get and feel good about eating!

Q6. What flavors of cheesecake do you sell?

All of our cheesecakes are the 8” size:

• Plain (maple & brandy) with a walnut crust or crustless
  3lbs 12oz (60oz) Serves 10 - 6oz slices or 12 – 5 oz slices
• Triple Chocolate Kahlua with a walnut or almond crust
  3lbs 12oz (60oz) Serves 10 - 6oz slices or 12 – 5 oz slices
• (Turtle) Caramel Nut Chocolate Chunk with a walnut crust
  3lbs (48 oz) Serves 10- 4.8oz slices or 12- 4 oz slices

Because we use farm fresh ingredients, all products keep for 3 weeks covered and refrigerated. Freezing is not suggested. All products can be prepared for freezer storage without sour cream topping.

Q7. What do you do with the proceeds from your cheesecake sales?

We will donate a percentage of profits from cheesecake sales to “The Enlightened Schoolyard”. We will also financially support non-profit organizations that actively strengthen local and global sustainable, environmental and ecological systems and efforts.

Q8. If someone is interested in ordering your cheesecakes, how would they go about it?

Our cheesecakes and other products, such as quiche, will be available through coffeehouses, cafes, restaurants and specialty stores in Milwaukee in the coming months.

If you are interested in purchasing a whole cheesecake for the holidays or you'd like to obtain our product for your business, contact us for details. We will be delivering to Milwaukee once a week in the near future and can arrange a pick-up date and location.

Dean Malloy
Enlightened Kitchen
920.251.6036
localcheesecake@yahoo.com

Thanks so much, Dean, for sharing your vision with us. We need more people like you who are endeavoring to turn back the tide on childhood obesity and the chronic diseases robbing our children of their youth!

I met Dean at the Farmer Chef Connection and was able to enjoy samples from The Cheesecake Farm. Absolutely yummy!

I love the fact that there are healthier alternative sweet treats out there. Besides, I'm also contributing to such a wonderful cause--the health and welfare of our future generations!

Who says I can't have my (cheese)cake and eat it, too?

Splenda-d Deception

Diet sodas may double the risk for obesity. Diet soda drinkers gain weight. Overweight risk soars 41%! Don't take my word for it. These are all headlines from the last year or so.

Unfortunately, obesity is only one of the dangers associated with drinking diet sodas.

I'd like to focus on just one of the ingredients in the soda that may be a contributing factor to a number of unhealthy side effects.

It is actually today's best-selling artificial sweetener, sucralose--more commonly known as Splenda--which has captured 62% of that market.

It is quite interesting the each one of the reassuring claims made by the manufacturers has been rebutted:

Claim #1: Splenda is made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar.

Whoops! It used to be blazoned all over their advertising until the company that owns both Nutrasweet and Equal along with the sugar industry took McNeil Nutritionals (a Johnson and Johnson company) to court for "deceptive advertising and/or misleading representations".

McNeil ended up settling out of court for an undisclosed large sum of money when they could see which way the wind was blowing!

Before then "Johnson & Johnson wanted consumers to think that it (Splenda) is natural sugar without calories.

The truth is that Splenda is not natural and does not taste like sugar.

The sweetness of Splenda derives from a chlorocarbon chemical that contains three atoms of chlorine in every one of its molecules....

The manufactuer has patented several chemical processes for making the chlorinated chemical compound it calls sucralose.

The patent literature illustrates that sucralose can be chemically manufactured from starting materials that do not require natural sugar....

Each molecule of sucralose contains three atoms of chlorine which makes it 600 times sweeter than a natural molecule of sugar which contains no chlorine!

Claim #2: Splenda is safe to eat, even for children.

There has not been a single long-term human study to determine the potential health effects of Splenda on people.

The FDA relied on a few short-term tests when it reviewed the safety of Splenda for human consumption.

Worse, these human tests were all conducted by the manufacturer of Splenda, hardly an unbiased source.

The majority of tests reviewed by the FDA to determine whether Splenda was safe for human consumption were conducted on animals, including rats and rabbits. "

"In fact, as of 2006, only six human trials have been published on Splenda. Of these six trials, only two of the trials were completed and published before the FDA approved sucralose for human consumption. The two published trials had a grand total of 36 total human subjects.

36 people sure doesn't sound like many, but wait, it gets worse, only 23 total were actually given sucralose for testing and here is the real killer.

The longest trial at this time has lasted only four days and looked at sucralose in relation to tooth decay, not human consumption."

Claim #3: Once eaten, Splenda simply passes through the body.

"This is what the manufacturer of Splenda claims, and consumers who realize they are actually eating chlorine may hope it is true, but the FDA determined that as much as 27% of sucralose can be absorbed by the body.

This is particularly alarming for a chemical substance containing chlorine.

Clearly the makers of Splenda are not being entirely forthcoming about their product's influence in the body."

These are just a few of the claims. We as consumers MUST decide who we are going to believe.

When a company has spent $235 million since March of 2004 in advertising dollars to promote their sweetener, and is endeavoring to get a big chunk of the projected $189 million in artificial sweetener sales for 2008 alone, it is no wonder that they want to gloss over any potential problems associated with their product.

So what are some of the unhealthy consequences of drinking this chemical compound?

"For one thing, there have been no long-term human toxicity studies published until after the FDA approved sucralose for human consumption. Following FDA approval a human toxicity trial was conducted, but lasted only three months, hardly the length of time most Splenda users plan to consume sucralose. No studies have ever been done on children or pregnant women.

The manufacturer’s own short-term studies showed that sucralose caused shrunken thymus glands and enlarged livers and kidneys in rodents. But in this case, the FDA decided that because these studies weren’t based on human test animals, they were not conclusive.

Of course, there are countless examples of foods and drugs that have proved dangerous to humans that were first found to be dangerous to laboratory rats, and then again, countless others that have not. So the reality is that we are the guinea pigs for Splenda."

Find out about other documented adverse reactions to Splenda as well as the dangers of this artificial sweetener in its true form as a chlorinated chemical compound by clicking on the embedded links.

I'm so thankful that there are a number of safer, nutritional, natural sweeteners, as well as healthier homemade drinks such as those produced by Burgie's Organics and The Little Red Hen and Company out in the market.

These health-conscious producers just don't have the advertising dollars to promote them like the megadrink companies do. Let's help get the word out!

Reading labels and finding out what ingredients are in our food and drinks must become a priority if we want to live healthy, full lives in our chemically-saturated world!

Or maybe we can just avoid all of these products completely: Sucralose (Splenda®) U.S. Product List.

I'm not sure how current the list is, though, so I just make it a habit to read all labels and buy as much as possible from local food producers that I have come to know, appreciate and trust!

The Little Red Hen

Back in 1990, Mary Thomas, could not have imagined that the experience, knowledge, and skills she gained while attending culinary school near Washington, D.C. would provide her with the background and tools she would need to help get her family business going.

The Little Red Hen and Company was the result, and it is this week's, "Favorite Local Find of the Week!"

Amazingly, in a world full of processed foods, Mary makes all her nutritious and delicious products from scratch!

Thanks so much, Mary, for taking this time out of your busy schedule to share your passion for natural health.

Q1. Why did you decide to start your own home business?

We decided to start the business as part of our homeschooling curriculum. The kids have a lot of opportunities to learn math, science, social skills and life skills.

We have been brewing kombucha tea for ourselves and private customers for awhile and decided to make it official by putting a state-certified kitchen into our home.

Q2. How long have you been doing this business, and how much time do you devote to it each week?

We began with kombucha about three years ago. We chose our name in April of 2006 and became certified in August of 2006. We actually just moved to a new home that had a second kitchen in the basement. We brought our equipment over from our old house and just got re-certified in September.

I would say that we put in an average of 10 hours per week running the business.

Q3. What is involved in certifying your kitchen?

First we had to make sure it was a separate room with a self-closing door. Your family kitchen cannot be your certified kitchen. In both houses, we had to build walls and install doors to make this happen.

A three compartment stainless steel sink with drain boards on both sides is required, along with a hand-washing sink with wrist-operated faucets. All work surfaces and racks must be stainless steel. A sufficient pest control method must be in place for mice, etc. The inspector, who works for the state DATCP, went over our labels and verified the sources of ingredients.

Q4. Why do you call your business "The Little Red Hen"?

One of our products is sprouted wheat flour. I was describing the process to a friend (first you buy the wheat, then you sprout it, then you dehydrate it, then you grind it, then you package it...), and I laughingly came up with The Little Red Hen. The "and Company" refers to my four young helpers and our CFO, Gordon.

Q5. How do you involve your children and their schooling in your business?

• Grant, the oldest (12), does a lot of the heavy lifting (cases of water are 50 pounds; cases of cabbage are 45 pounds).
• Hannah (10) is my unofficial apprentice, and she helps shred vegetables. You should see her operate the Cuisinart! She does most of the packaging, and is almost fully handling the sprouted wheat process.
• Natalie (8) hasn't gotten too involved with the business yet, but she is a great dishwasher!
• Zach at 7 is eagerly learning how to label and seal under Hannah's watchful eye.
• All of them help me make deliveries.

Q6. How did you decide what products that you were going to sell in your business?

We started with the kombucha tea since we love it so much oversleves. We then added the sprouted wheat flour, and finally a line of organic speciality sauerkrauts.

I had so much fun developing new recipes of fermented vegetables, and even today it is one of my favorite parts of running this business.

Q7. Can you tell us something about each of your products, and why they are so healthy?

The kombucha tea takes two things that should be avoided--sugar and caffeine--and turns them into something healthy. The fermenting process metabolizes both the sugar and caffeine, and produces numerous substances into B vitamins, live enzymes, beneficial bacteria, and glucuronic acid, which is a liver detoxifier.

We feature two flavors--Original, and our signature Cherry 'Cha, flavored with juice from organically grown cherries.

Sprouted wheat flour has had the phytic acid neutralized through the sprouting process. Phytic acid, which will preserve the grain for years in its harvested state, will bind with nutrients from your food and carry them out of your body. Neutralizing the phytic acid is important so that the body will get the full benefits of the nutrients from your food.

Naturally fermented sauerkraut has been eaten for millennia. Traditional peoples knew that fermented vegetables were important for digestion, adding enzymes to the process, especially when consumed with cooked meat.

It is eaten as a condiment--a few spoonfuls on the side of every meal.

Sailors took barrels of sauerkraut onto ships and thus prevented scurvy. The fermentation process preserved the vitamin C in the cabbage.

Modern "sauerkraut" (made with vinegar and then canned with high heat which destroys vitamins and enzymes) is a product meant to imitate the classic sauerkraut made with the time-honored process of fermentation.

Q7. What are some of the steps that you take with your children to try to keep them in good health?

In the final words of Weston Price, "You teach. You teach. You teach!"

I let them know why something is or is not served at our house. I try to help them know how to make good food choices when they are away from home. I also like them to get involved in the meal process--menu planning, shopping, cooking.

When we make treats, we make them with healthy ingredients. They are learning that they don't have to pass on dessert or feel deprived in order to eat healthy.

The exception to this is Natalie, who has been suffering from severe eczema since she was a year old. She has finally been diagnosed with Candida Albicans and leaky gut and is being treated naturally for it. Part of her treatment is a diet *free* of all sugar, including fruit sugar. For an 8-year old, that can be very difficult!

Q8. Do you have any words of encouragement for mothers/fathers who are trying to change their family's nutritional habits, and their husbands/wives and/or children are resistant to the change?

This is a tough question. It was my husband's Type 2 diabetes that led us to start eating healthy back in 2003. I was a military general in implementing our new diet, and a friend gave me the unfortunate title of "Food Nazi." I don't necessarily recommend this approach! I am thankful that in our situation, nobody rebelled, and the kids adjusted to the new diet quite well.

Some may find that baby steps are the most beneficial to their family situation.

• Start by eliminating processed foods and cooking with wholesome ingredients.


• Your family will probably appreciate the taste of real butter!


• When you introduce that great new healthy beverage to your kids or husband, be positive and excited about it (and then pray that he likes it better than his Mountain Dew!).


• Get them involved with the meal planning process and make their favorites using healthy ingredients.


• Encourage them to try new things.


• Don't keep junk in the house.

Mary, thanks for all of this invaluable information about your products. The great nutrition and life lessons you are providing for your children are amazing. As a customer, it gives me confidence that I'm getting high-quality, health-enhancing food whenever I see The Little Red Hen and Company label!

There is even more detail on each one of the products and their health benefits on their website. Please feel free to contact her with any questions.

The Little Red Hen products can be purchased at Back to the Best in Rubicon , Slowpoke's Local Food Store in Grafton, and Hartland Market in Hartland.

Just tonight we ate a delicious pastured chicken with organic green beans and long-grain rice. Knowing that we could probably all use some help with our digestion, I pulled out a bottle of The Little Red Hen Heartland Kraut and passed it around the table.

What a great addition to our meal. It isn't just that it is so healthy; it also tastes great! I haven't found a flavor that I haven't liked yet!

Also Friday evening while shopping at Back to the Best, I picked up some of the kombucha. The half gallon jar was all gone by this morning! It was very refreshing, energizing, and fantastic! I can't wait to try the Cherry 'Cha next. It comes highly recommended!

The story of "The Little Red Hen" has been rewritten by Mary and her family.

They do all the work, and we reap all the great health benefits!

Artificial Intelligence

"Drinking more than one soft drink daily -- whether it's regular or diet -- may be associated with an increase in the risk factors for heart disease, Framingham researchers reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association."

'We were struck by the fact that it didn't matter whether it was a diet or regular soda that participants consumed, the association with increased risk was present,' said Ramachandran Vasan, M.D., senior author of the Framingham Heart Study and professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine.

Prior studies linked soft drink consumption to multiple risk factors for heart disease. However, this study showed that association not only included drinking regular calorie-laden soft drinks, but artificially sweetened diet sodas as well, researchers said."

Could it have anything to do with the fact that we are talking about "artificial" sweeteners here?

Courtesy of Wikipedia: Artificial refers to something which is not natural. Its original sense, related to artifact and artifice, refers to a product of human endeavor; a more English synonym is man-made. It is also used, however, to mean false, a substitute for the real thing, as in artificial turf or artificial sweetener.

Not natural, man-made, false, or a substitute! Hmmmm!

So how did the man-made, unnatural sweetener substitutes come about in the first place?

"The history of artificial sweetener development is an interesting one. The rationale for searching for such material was presented earlier, but the discoveries of the three most well-known compounds apparently were accidental.

Saccharin’s sweetness was noted in 1879 by a Johns Hopkins worker who inadvertently licked his fingers after spilling the chemical on his hands.

Similarly, a University of Illinois graduate student detected the sweet taste of cyclamate in 1937 after it made contact with the cigarette he was smoking.

And James Schlatter’s 1965 discovery of aspartame’s sweetness occurred when he licked his fingers in preparing to pick up a piece of weighing paper. So much for safe laboratory practices!"

Well, OK, there are more scientific approaches than this. If you're interested click on the link to find out more.

What is most troubling to me, though, is this industry's intent on trying to analzye and break down the components of the truly natural sugar in fruits and other food sources in order to "imitate" these qualities in their production of a synthetic, chemical alternative.

Why not? It would be a cheaper, more cost-effective way to satisfy our sweet tooth, right?

Have they even considered what might be the long-term ramifications health-wise of adding even more toxins to our current chemical overload?

Ultimately, we end up with a sweetener that has zero calories because our bodies cannot metabolize it. Therefore, we drink our diet soda under the false assumption that this is a healthier alternative, but what we fail to realize is that we've just downed zero nutrition as well!

Our bodies are not stupid. If we aren't getting the nutrition we need to function properly, our bodies will continue to send out signals that we didn't eat enough so we keep eating, or an hour later we can't imagine why we're hungry again!

Is it any wonder then that the introduction of diet soda has not brought about a decrease in the obesity rate? In fact, it is just the opposite!

The findings come from eight years of data collected by Sharon P. Fowler, MPH, and colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio. Fowler reported the data at this week's annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association in San Diego.

'What didn't surprise us was that total soft drink use was linked to overweight and obesity,' Fowler tells WebMD. 'What was surprising was when we looked at people only drinking diet soft drinks, their risk of obesity was even higher.'

In fact, when the researchers took a closer look at their data, they found that nearly all the obesity risk from soft drinks came from diet sodas.

'There was a 41% increase in risk of being overweight for every can or bottle of diet soft drink a person consumes each day,' Fowler says.

For diet soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:

36.5% for up to 1/2 can each day
37.5% for 1/2 to one can each day
54.5% for 1 to 2 cans each day
57.1% for more than 2 cans each day.

How can this be possible? There are no calories involved!

'If you offer your body something that tastes like a lot of calories, but it isn't there, your body is alerted to the possibility that there is something there and it will search for the calories promised but not delivered,' Fowler says.

'Perhaps,' nutrition expert Leslie Bonci, MPH, RD, says, 'our bodies are smarter than we think. People think they can just fool the body. But maybe the body isn't fooled. If you are not giving your body those calories you promised it, maybe your body will retaliate by wanting more calories. Some soft drink studies do suggest that diet drinks stimulate appetite.'"

That's not something that you hear on the diet soft drink commercials now is it?

Obviously, there is a lot more here than meets the eye. I'm definitely going to be doing more research on each one of these FDA-approved nonnutritive artificial sweeteners: saccharin, aspartame, acesulfame potassium, sucralose, and neotame.

In the meantime, I'll be checking labels even more thoroughly looking for the healthier alternatives both in natural sweeteners and health-enhancing drinks (including good water)!

The megadrink industry has only one interest, and it has nothing to do with me, my children or my grandchildren!

Please give me a little credit for some intelligence!

Liquid Health

All it took was an intriguing suggestion by a good friend that set in motion the development of a home business for Mike and Becky Burgmeier.

The end result was a whole new line of amazing soft drinks that offer a healthy alternative to the processed beverages full of chemicals and other unwanted ingredients currently wreaking havoc in families all across this nation.

Unfortunately, as a result of the exceptional marketing successes of the soda industry, "Liquid Sugar" is also a contributing factor to the increase of major health problems in many other countries as well.

Burgie's Organics is striving to change that unhealthy scenario and is this week's "Favorite Local Find of the Week"!

Becky, thanks for sharing your passion for providing alternative soft drinks that contribute to the health and well-being of our families, not insidiously undermining it.

I love the fact that I can read, pronounce, and even recognize the ingredients on your beverage labels.

Q1. Becky, when did you actually start your family business?

We started this two years ago wanting to work together as a family focusing on specialty products promoting health. It also gave us an opportunity to teach our two daughters, Emma and Hanna, how to run a business. We homeschool, and it is so wonderful sharing this with them.

Q2. How did you decide on the flavors that you are currently producing?

We tried a whole bunch of different flavors, but these really seemed to be the favorites. Also there are additional benefits with the lemonade since lemons are very alkalizing. Ginger ale is a great aide, too. If someone has an upset stomach, a few sips of the ginger ale will provide relief and help with the problem.

Q3. In describing your sodas you mention words such as "probiotic" and having a "healthy inner ecosystem", what do you mean by that?

The word, "probiotic" actually means "for life" and it describes the beneficial bacterium found in our intestinal tract. This bacterium is extremely important for maintaining a strong healthy immune system among other things.

The key to creating a "healthy inner ecosystem" is promoting your intestinal microflora, in other words, the organisms that help your body defend against disease-causing, harmful bacteria, viruses, yeast and other dangerous invaders.

All of our delicious probiotic drinks are ready-made and are naturally fermented to nourish and support the inner ecosystem.

Q4. Why is fermentation such an important process in your healthy drinks?

The fermentation of the sodas and coconut water makes them alive. We believe that is the key. If we want to be healthy, we need to eat and/or drink more "living" foods!

Fermentation also aides in the whole digestion process and is a great source of amino acids, vitamins and minerals.

These are only a few of the health-filled benefits that take place during the entire fermentation process.

Q5. Can you tell us a little more about your other speciality drinks?

Let's start with the kefir:

Kefir is generally thought of as a milk product, but in our process we add the kefir grains to our own special mixture. We then end up with a great combo of beneficial bacteria and yeast.

We chose to produce coconut kefir as it is one of the healthiest drinks there is. It's made from the water of the young coconuts, and it's very alkalinizing to the body. It is high in potassium and contains other alkalinizing minerals such as calcium and magnesium.

(The alkalinizing of our bodies is so critical to our health as germs, bacteria, viruses and all those nasty things cannot survive in an alkaline environment. Too many of our foods and drinks actually acidify our bodies which leads to the many health issues that we grapple with today--Editor's comments)

Our kefir beverages are all made from organic ingredients. These drinks are probiotic and contain no preservatives.

We also produce and market beet kvass:

Kvass is a common Russian fermented drink known for its medicinal qualities. It is typically made from rye bread.

We chose to make ours with beets. Our beet kvass is an excellent blood tonic. It promotes regularity, aides in digestion, alkalizes the blood, cleanses the liver, and has many other health benefits.

Q6. Where can we find these fantastic health drinks?

Look for us at Back to the Best Country Store in Rubicon, Slowpoke's Local Food Store in Grafton, Hartland Market in Hartland, at all three Outpost Natural Foods (two in Milwaukee and one in Tosa) and soon to be in Whole Foods in Milwaukee.

If you prefer, you can order these products online from our website at Burgie's Organics.

Thanks so much, Becky, for sharing all this great information with us.

Because of the health hazards associated with soda pop our family had stopped drinking it altogether. One day as we were shopping at Back to the Best, I noticed Burgie's Organic Sodas in the cooler there.

Out of curiosity I picked up some for my family to try. At the checkout counter I was told how fantastic the product was and that the lemonade was their best-seller.

Delicious, tasty, amazing, satisfying, light, creamy, sweet but not sickeningly sweet, refreshing, smooth, and wonderful were just a few of the adjectives my family used to describe these outstanding healthy beverages.

All the kefir sodas have distinct flavors and are fabulous!

I don't know how they did it, but Burgie's Organics have figured out a unique way to "deliciously" package health in a bottle!

It truly is "Liquid Health"!

Liquid Sugar

Over the past 40 years our nation's soda consumption has almost doubled. Here are just a few of the many shocking statistics:

"Americans drank 52 gallons of carbonated soft drinks in 1996, compared to 35 gallons in 1980, and 24.3 gallons in 1970...."

Do the math. That averages out to at least one 12-ounce can of soda per day for every man, woman and child in America!

"This trend is particularly troubling, since there are few things worse for your body than soda."

"One 8-ounce serving of non-diet pop contains the FDA's recommended daily allowance for sugar."

"A 'Super-size' Coke (44-ounce bottle, which is now the norm) has around 400 calories; about the same as two Krispy Kreme glazed donuts."

"Carbonated soda pop provides more added sugar in a typical 2-year-old toddler's diet than cookies, candies and ice cream combined."

"56% of 8-year-olds down soft drinks daily."

"Not only are soft drinks widely available everywhere, from fast food restaurants to video games, they're now sold in 60% of all public and private middle schools and high schools nationwide according to the National Soft Drink Association."

"The average soda consumption among teenage males between ages 13 and 18 who drink soda is three or more cans a day, and 10% drink seven or more cans a day!"

Of 13 to 18-year-old girls who drink the beverages, the average intake is more than two cans a day, and 10% of those teenagers drink more than 5 cans a day."

And this was one of the most shocking statistics to me by far:

"One-fifth of all infants one or two are now soda drinkers."

I would urge you to read the following alarming 46-page report called, "Liquid Candy, How Soft Drinks are Harming Americans' Health."

Consider these chapter headings: Soaring Consumption of Soft Drinks, Nutritional Impact of Soft Drinks,Health Impact of Soft Drinks (which includes: Obesity, Bones and Osteoporosis, Tooth Decay and Erosion, Heart Disease, Kidney Stones, Additives: Psychoactive Drug, Allergens, and More), Aggressive Marketing of Soft Drinks, Citizens Fight Back, and Recommendations for Action.

One of the most troubling concerns in all of this, though, is that many of the adult onset diseases are impacting our children at earlier and earlier ages. The following is just a short exerpt. Please read the whole article by clicking on it.

"THE DIAGNOSES: Type 2 diabetes, gallstones, liver failure ...THE PATIENTS: Children at risk.

Ten years ago, doctors saw these diseases in adults. Now, as the number of overweight kids rises, so does the danger....

Dr. Mark Wulkan, a pediatric surgeon at Emory Medical School and Children's Healthcare, sees the consequence of obesity in children's gallbladders, the pear-shaped organs that store bile.

Surgeons, he said, used to talk about the 'three F's of gallbladder disease —- fat, forty and fertile,' meaning most patients were middle-aged women.

Now, Wulkan said, it's showing up in adolescents, and "occasionally even in younger kids."
Eight years ago when Wulkan started work at Egleston, the seven pediatric surgeons removed a child's gallbladder because of gallstones every couple of months. Now, he said, the rate is more like every couple of weeks."

Does the fact that soda has now become the "drink of choice" morning, noon, and night as well as how many times in between have anything to do with this?

Isn't it time for us to begin to make some drastic changes in our food and drink choices? Our children's health and well-being depends on it!

So how much sugar are we consuming in just one can of soda?

Here's an easy little exercise that was recommended in "Liquid Candy" to do with our children:

Spoon out 10 level teaspoons of sugar to see about how much sugar (actually high fructose corn syrup--I feel another "post" coming over me!) is in a 12-ounce can of regular soda. Or how about spooning out 17 teaspoons of sugar for a 20-ounce bottle of soda?

Can you imagine consuming that much sugar all at one time?

Then multiply that times three, four, five, six and even seven cans of soda per day which is what our teenagers, in particular, are drinking.

That's 51, 68, 85, 102, and 119 teaspoons of sugar just from drinking soda! Or with the analogy of the doughnuts that would equal 6, 8, 10, 12, or 14 Krispy Kreme glazed doughnuts! These are, mind you, just one day's worth of sugar! Multiply that by a week, a month, a year!

By the way, don't be fooled by all the hype surrounding the sugar-free drinks. The sugar may be absent, but did you think about what has been substituted in its place? (Darn, that urge for another "post" is hitting me again!)

Initially, it wasn't easy to give up the soda, and we weren't even soda junkies by any stretch of the imagination, but we realized that it was a choice that clearly would have an impact on our health now and in the days and years to come. Giving up soda became a no-brainer!

It was incredibly rewarding to see our then teenagers follow our lead in the area of soda consumption as well. Even last week when we weren't eating the greatest, soda was not even an option, or even a temptation for that matter!

Soda consumption has risen dramatically! Chronic diseases have become epidemic!

Is this just coincidental, or is there some correlation between the two?

Extreme Floor Makeover

For a few months now we've put off a major remodeling project in our home.

We finally took the plunge last week by ripping up the old carpet in the living room and the flooring in the foyer and kitchen. Now we had no other choice but to just do it.

As always seems to be the case, the whole project took us longer than we had anticipated, and I barely had time to read my emails--let alone post to my blog.

We finished our main floor makeover this week. It looks absolutely fantastic! My "men" (husband and two sons) did a fabulous job!

I do love the new look!

I certainly didn't anticipate how demoralizing it would be having our home in such disarray. I honestly believe that the worst part was not being able to use our kitchen for a few days.

Our brains and bodies were reacting to eating on the run as well as injesting food that was convenient, but pretty much nutritionally deficient or else totally defunct!

We just aren't used to eating that way anymore.

Quite frankly, I was surprised when my sons lamented more than once about having to stop to pick up something on the way home. That kind of "food" just didn't satisfy them.

Another common complaint was, "I don't feel so good!" (That was not to get out of work; they were just stating a fact that I could relate to as well.)

Breakfast wasn't bad because we did have our fridge going, and we always had our wonderful kefir to start us on the right track. It was usually downhill from there, though.

Sunday afternoon was the highlight of my week. Not only did I get to spend time with my granddaughter, but we also had dinner there.

My son-in-law grilled a big hunk of Vande Boom's Angus Beef and served it with steamed organic green beans and cauliflower that I had picked up at Slowpoke's the day before.

It was our first home-cooked meal in almost a week!

My son-in-law is a great cook, but I was also reminded of one particularly telling remark of Chef Kaestner's during the Farmer Chef Connection.

He said, "The local food comes in the door already tasting good!"

The chefs don't need to spend a lot of time doctoring it up like they do the tasteless fruits and vegetables that are routinely picked, shipped and sold prematurely.

It had to have been the combination of a great cook, great food, and great company.

All I know is that I savored every single bite!