The Flexitarian Pantry- Science Fiction Included.

As my husband, ‘Oscar’, says- “You’ve gotta have your head so far up your ass you’re looking out your ear.”

Read this: From the San Francisco Chronicle- Here’s My Plan to Stop Eating Food

Julia says- “No fuckin’ way!”

Now, watch this:

The film, Soylent Green, is based upon the science fiction novel Make Room! Make Room!, written by Harry Harrison.

Shall I continue?

The Flexitarian Pantry - Real Food for Real People who do not have their heads up their asses because if your head is up your ass you surely can’t chew… at least not very well so therefore perhaps you should ‘stop eating’.

Sweeteners:

You may buy into the myth that all sweeteners are created unequal, as in it’s much healthier to cook and bake with honey or maple syrup or coconut sugar or palm sugar or date sugar or any alterna-sugar instead of white sugar.

Well, you would be wrong, more or less. While it’s true that the less processed sweeteners do contain marginally more nutrition- as in a few more anti-oxidants than does plain old white table sugar which basically is just sucrose- for the most part the body metabolizes sweeteners exactly the same. The body does not differentiate. To the body, glucose is glucose is glucose. The body even metabolizes fruit the same- which is why it’s best to eat the whole fruit, not just drink the juice.

Right or wrong, there are a couple of sweeteners I avoid in principle - high fructose corn syrup and plain fructose. Fructose is not good for the liver. Not good. Avoid. (Fruit contains fructose. Fruit also contains fiber, vitamins, minerals, micro-nutrients, anti-oxidants so therefore fruit is good, but plain old fructose me thinks is bad.)

Not only do I use white sugar for baking, I use Superfine Sugar because it makes the best pastries, cakes and cookies. It’s not like I’m stuffing spoonfuls, or spoons full, of sugar into my mouth for god’s sake. All things in moderation!

So here’s what I keep in my pantry-

Superfine Sugar- Best for baking.

Superfine Sugar.

Confectioners Sugar- Best used for frosting or if you need a sugar which will dissolve almost instantly. It also sticks to warm cookies and fudge, creating a nice sugar coating. It’s nothing more than pulverized white sugar.

Confectioners or Powdered Sugar.

Brown Sugar- Brown sugar is a mix of sugar and molasses. It remains soft and makes super good cookies!

Brown Sugar.

Raw Unrefined Sugar- Best for sprinkling over cereal, oatmeal, into coffee. We’re talking the same difference folks - there is no difference, nutritionally speaking, between the way the body metabolizes raw unrefined sugar or coconut sugar or palm sugar. You can damn me all you want for that statement but it’s the truth. Raw sugar can be used for baking but it’s a little too grainy for my taste.

Raw Sugar.

My Personal Stash of La Perruche Pure Cane Rough Cut Cubes- Perfect for my coffee!

Rough Cut Brown Sugar Cubes.

Raw Honey- Here’s my fave~ Branches Black Button Sage Honey. Oh my god! It’s heavenly! Remember, honey is a more concentrated sweetener than sugar. It contains both fructose and sucrose. Any recipe must be adjusted if you substitute honey for sugar. I have a great honey cake recipe from my grandmother, but for the most part our honey gets spread on peanut butter toast, drizzled into tea, and used for coughs.

Black Button Sage Honey.

Maple Syrup- A sweetener which is also in my list of Sauces and Seasonings. I prefer Grade B. The taste is less refined and much more robust than Grade A. I don’t often use maple syrup when baking, instead I use it in cooking and in marinades. That being said, I will use it to sweeten a pecan pie or a custard or pudding.

Maple Syrup.

Secondary Sweeteners:

Molasses- I keep molasses around in case I want to make a pot of baked beans or I feel like including molasses in a marinade, otherwise I don’t much use molasses.

Karo Syrup- This is corn syrup, not high-fructose corn syrup. I use Karo Syrup for two food items and two food items only - pecan pie and my grandmother’s Whiskey Cake. Therefore one bottle of Karo Syrup might sit in my pantry for five years or more.

Golden Syrup- This is a very sweet sugar syrup, mostly fructose. It’s actually a by-product of sugar refining. Golden Syrup is much more commonly used in Britain, which is, in fact, where I bought my can of Golden Syrup. I still haven’t figured out how I want to use it.

I don’t keep them on hand, but there are other Alterna-Sugars: there is palm sugar, date sugar, coconut sugar, agave syrup (somebody gag me with a spoon), brown rice syrup, carob (gag me again).

Sweeteners alone are not food, although they are a part of the food palate - I view them more as flavor/food enhancers. Some people believe sugar to be poison, and it may well be. Certainly when one considers the current obesity epidemic it’s easy to point an accusing finger at sugar. However, I tend to think it’s more the hidden sugars in processed food, and the processed foods themselves, that contribute to obesity, not the judicious use of sweeteners in homemade foods.

***The one caveat - Diabetics have an entirely other set of issues and must find alternatives to natural sweeteners for cooking and baking. It is not my intention to suggest any foods to diabetics- a diabetic diet is between a patient and his or her doctor or diabetic educator.