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Sugar, to be or not to be?

So... I did some digging around after seeing a blog post about a woman and her family foregoing all added sugars (minus the natural sugar found in fruits and veggies) and talking about how wonderful it made them feel.

This is the mother that said no to sugar for a year

Now me...I LOVE sugar. Chocolate, cupcakes, sugar in my coffee, starbucks, all that. Yum, yum, but I've been trying to eat better, not to lose weight or anything but just to be a healthier individual.
Now the blog post was by:   http://rawforbeauty.com/blog/our-year-of-no-sugar-one-familys-grand-adventure.html
And what they did was cut any added sugar from their diet. They are a family of two kids, one husband and one wife. They gave themselves a once a month dessert to binge on. After a few months of this no sugar though they found they enjoyed their dessert less and less til finally their bodies couldn't handle it at all, but they felt great all the time. More energized, more ready to take on the flu season and it got me thinking 'how much sugar do I eat?' 'How much sugar are you allowed to eat?' So I started digging around.
I looked around on a couple of different sites. Sites like: http://authoritynutrition.com/how-much-sugar-per-day/
They said it was a hard answer but they made the estimate that a male can consume about 37.5 grams (or 9 tsps) a day. While a female can consume about 25 grams (or 6 tsps) a day.
http://health.yahoo.net/experts/joybauernutrition/sugar-how-much-should-we-eat/ said no more than 8 tsps for both sexes a day for a 2000 calorie diet.
Most gave men 9 tsps and women 6 tsps of sugar per day. Or otherwise men = 37.5 (or) 40 grams (if we're rounding up) and women 25 grams.
Well then I did some digging in my own home.

As you can see by that picture of my pantry, the bottom shelf is pretty crowded.
Well the bottom shelf is all the food in the pantry that contains sugar. I suppose the 'Trix' was a no brainer but I found sugar in tortillas, wheat flower, canned veggies, and even a bag of pinto beans!
The middle shelf is food that contains no sugar. Mostly the shelf is covered with potatoes and teas.
The third shelf is just our vitamins and medicines. Then I went into the fridge, there's sugar in milk! There's sugar in lunch meats! There's sugar in frozen veggies, and lots and lots of sugar in all the condiments and dressings people keep as well. Then I decided to do a little math.

This is dinner. Pretty nice right? We've got the veggies, the chicken, and the beans and rice. All that should be on a dinner plate in the U.S.A.
Well on this plate is about 5.6 grams of sugar. Not bad right? Though I will say, it doesn't look like there should be any sugar in this meal, but there it is. Using the serving sizes (because you know, no one EVER goes over those) I measure that this plate contains that many grams of sugar.
Then I started thinking, what about the whole day?
Let's say you're an average but healthy American.
You start your day with, lets say something like a Denny's Grand slam (two pancakes, two eggs, two slices of bacon or sausage) and you top it off with a big glass of milk. Does a body good right?
Well, using only the serving amount on everything you have the pancakes (bisquick 1 gram per 1/3 cup mix) and you have two pancakes so lets just say 2 grams. You have syrup, now I use Mrs. Butterworths because it's delicious! That right there is 37 grams per 1/4 cup. You might say 'But hey! I don't use Mrs. Butterworths, I'm all natural, I like pure maple syrup!' and I'd say: 'Well you're in luck then because my husband loves it too, so I have it on hand. Sugar is about 53 grams.....yikes!'
Now no added sugar in the eggs of course, and as luck would have it if you chose bacon, no sugar in that either. But how about sausage? I went with a regular sausage, nothing Italian or German, but your average breakfast sausage. That's about 2 grams, per, so 4. Oh and don't forget the big glass of milk to wash it down. If you go with a glass full that's about 3 cups. ... 33 grams. Of course it differs with brand, but for us, regular 2 % cheapy milk was 11 grams a cup. So what's your breakfast at?
Well if you went with Butterworth and Sausage you've got. 2+37+4+33 = 76 .... craaaap!
However it doesn't stop there. You also have lunch. Let's say you just get a regular homemade sandwich, and maybe a small bag of sun chips (because they're oh so good and healthy!) and you splurge and get a 20 oz. coke. You normally don't but just for this one day you do.
Alright well, let's use good whole wheat bread, of course it's going to vary depending on brand but this is what I got: 4 grams per slice so 8. Used Turkey which has sugar but doesn't measure it in grams so we'll cut you a break, then we have a lil Mayo, also has sugar but no amount, and some mustard which doesn't have any sugar. Of course we're not going to count any tomatoes and lettuce if you choose to put it on because that's natural. So not counting the unmeasured sugar you have 8 grams in your sandwich, and the average fun sized bag of sun chips you have 2 grams. Also we KNOW coke has a lot of sugar, all soft drinks do, so what does 20 oz. coke have? 65 grams. . .
Well let's say you take out the coke, you go UBER healthy and have a V8 juice instead. Well that's 7 grams per 8 oz. Yeesh so for your lunch you have 10 grams without the drink. 75 with the coke and 17 with the V8. Add the least amount with a drink to your breakfast and you've got: 93...
Now add that delicious and healthy meal above.....98.6 and that's if you followed all portion control and didn't have a single snack during the day.
What the crap right? How do you eat healthy? Oh and by the way, let's take out the breakfast and add your average Americans breakfast = a bowl of cereal or even less. Well if you don't partake of breakfast and just drink unsweetened black coffee you have 22.6 grams. Not bad, you meet the mark! Let's say you have a bowl of cereal. We'll use 'Trix' because A. it's what I have and B. It along with all other sugary cereal's kids love will have an adequate estimate of sugar in cereal. 10 grams, plus your 11 grams of milk so 22 grams. That puts you at 44.6 grams.
Oh and by the way, I'm a kidney stone survivor. If you've ever had one you'll understand what I mean by 'survivor.' My stone like so many others was caused by a lot of salt. Salt is another thing you see everywhere. We use it along with sugar to prolong shelf life and keep our food edible for long amounts of time. That estimate of sugar up above, with the pancakes, butterworth, the coke, and sausage, all of that equals to about 4245 ml grams of Sodium. After looking around the internet a bit on average they say you can at most intake about 2500, AT MOST.
Makes you feel good right?
At this point in time I would like to try and cut sugar out of my diet. Not for a year, that's insane, but I'd like to try just for a month. I have some prepping to do. I'm not going to throw out all my food, if there's one thing I hate, it's wasted food. One of my biggest pet peeves is throwing away leftovers or unused food. So I'm going to go through the food this month. Eat what we can and then for a month I'm going to try and cut all added sugars out of my diet. If I can do that and it's not killing me I plan on extending this. We'll see how it goes. I'll post as soon as these things are complete. Happy eating!!!

Movie review of the 'The Wind Rises'

If you haven't seen 'The Wind Rises' and you're a Hayao Miyazaki fan then you need to get a move on it! Released in Japan in 2013 it has finally made it's way to America's silver screen.
A beautiful story about dreams, this has been said to be Miyazaki's final film as a director. May he keep creating by story? Maybe, I sincerely hope so.
I and my husband saw this film February 28th in theaters. He surprised me with it because I had no idea a Miyazaki film was even coming out! So as we sat in the theaters me with my rose tea warming my hands I was bouncing with excitement.
Then the film started...
It's a very loose interpretation of the biography of Jiro Horikoshi, a boy that loves airplanes.
When the film first began and it shows this young boy with his dreams of flying airplanes I at first was a little let down to be honest. In my head I thought 'I have no interest in engineering, or airplanes,' but I kept watching.

This story takes you back to Japan before WWII, unlike many of Miyazaki's films it contains no magical influences. There are no mermaids, no little people, Totoro's or gods of the forest. It is just Man and his dreams of flight.
I will do my best to not give away any spoilers in this review, but please forgive me if one or two slips out!

Like I said when the film started I thought it was just going to be about airplanes and I was a little bummed, but as I kept watching I realized that it wasn't just about 'airplanes' it was about how Jiro (the main character) saw airplanes. How he saw the mechanics of airplanes, and flight. It gave me a new and very beautiful perspective of the creations of Man. How Jiro saw lines and how he saw machinery is not like I saw it, and the way his perspective is expressed fully helped me realize how wrong I was to think it was going to be about 'just' airplanes.

This story follows Jiro Horikoshi and his journey to building the fighter plane known as 'zero.' It shows through his perspective his countries depression, their war plans and how little any of that has to do with his dreams.
Following his life from a boy to a man in college studying engineering, to when he gets his first job, to his first failure, his first love, and his first triumph. Along the way it introduces a collection of lovely unforgettable characters that will bring you into the world of early Japan.
This story makes you fall in love, again and again.
I will say this isn't the best movie to take the kids to, giving to more of an adult theme it follows the classic story telling of an old black and white film. Letting you feel that mystery and awe. Telling the story through clips of Jiro's life as he journey's through what they call 'the artists ten years.' It gives me flashbacks of watching 'Casablanca' more than what we would consider a 'modern' film.
So if you're planning on watching this in theaters my advice is: leave the kids at home, grab your love, or a love of yours and enjoy this film with them. I highly recommend something wonderful and warm to drink while you watch (it's been rather chilly here so that might have something to do with that!), and some salty sweet popcorn to enjoy.
 This movie is about so many things, dreams, craftsmanship, dedication but I would say it is entirely about love and passion. While a country is crumbling, a war is looming, and a way of life is ending, it has little-to no involvement with what truly matters. Love, passion, truth, and the beauty of life.

I really don't want to give anything away, watching it without any notions about it from commercials or spoilers was one of the magical things about this experience for me, so I will not rob you of your chance for the same here. All I can say is if this really is Hayao's last movie then he chose to go out with a bang and flying colors. 

A story teller after my own heart, I will never forget the stories he gave to us, and I sincerely hope this is not his final chapter for the silver screen. 

The Biz...

So... it's been a while... yep. Haven't posted in over a month, actually I didn't post for the whole month of January. Why you ask? Well not really, I'm almost positive that the only people that have read this blog is myself lol, so maybe that's the why...that and laziness.
But I'm here now, and here to update all my amazing fans of how it's going. First off! I finished my huge rewrite. I'm in the proof reading stage now and IT. IS. Slow!!! I don't know if my book sucks or if it's because I've already read it a bazillion times but I'm having a hard time proof reading.
Also I've emailed a book editor (also known as 'book doctor') about taking a look at my book.
 We'll see where that goes... lol but now back to the blog. You see this picture here to the right of you? Yep, that's how I'm feeling about now on editing, I'm sure I'm not the only one either.
In reality I've been concentrating more on my Aromatherapy studies lately. I've recently started the advanced portion and there is a lot to learn, and a lot of reading. I'm also focusing more on my future perfume business. Which is why I put the title 'The Biz...' because today, I ordered Business Cards.
I've started experimenting with scents, figuring out what I need to do, finding all the little problems of mine and then fixing them. I still won't be in business for some time but there was a deal so I ordered some business cards. Now you might think that's no big deal, cards right? Little bits of Card Board that has your name and you pass them out to people....well I'll tell you... It's a freaking HUGE DEAL!!! When I ordered those cards something in my head just 'clicked' and I thought 'this is real, I'm really going through with this.' Apparently spending over two grand on schooling wasn't the huge wake up call ordering Business cards for 23 bucks was.
Weird Right?  

I thought so. Up above is my first attempt at making a solid perfume...well technically it's the second attempt, I've made some before but this is the first attempt at making some for business purposes. It wen't well...sorta, everything came out fine but the scent was barely there and I've found that to get the percentage of scent verses the percentage of carrier I'll need to triple my dosage of essential oils, which for me is a little frightening because they're expensive and I hate to waste things. But technically I've already wasted these eight 1/2 ounce containers and the products inside them. Though they do make a nice salve.
So...as of right now, I'm searching out an editor. I'm wary of querying Agents again because of all the rejection I've received last time, so I'm sticking to poking around and looking for an editor. Also have to finish my proof reading anyway before I attempt to try and get an Agent interested in my work.
With Aromatherapy I'm working on schooling, there's a lot of reading, I have to do a bunch of case studies, a final exam, and a final paper before I am done but it's all good. It's interesting and fun when I do it.
This is what's going on with me!! Well some of it, mean while I have tried making a sleep mask with lavender herbs....I packed it so full that it pushed miserably on my eyes lol. I'll have to attempt it again, and I also tried lavender Hot Chocolate...delicious! Though I would suggest heating the buds in the milk over the stove then straining the milk into your cup. The buds are very strong and overwhelm the chocolatey goodness of the cocoa.
Happy February!!

I shouldn't be allowed to post this because I've read all the books and seen all the movies. Though I will say it was entertaining but I couldn't help sitting there, waiting for it to get better.