The importance of reducing our sugar intake in a world full of attractive and lovely tasting sweet things has not been lost on many of us. We understand the importance of diet and exercise and want to control the variables we actually can in the labrinth that is good health. Natural sweeteners, as these foods should be more accurately named are one way to control our insulin response. Insulin is a hormone produced to enhance glucose absorbtion into the body. When there is too much glucose on your blood your body stops making its own glucose and starts storing away the glucose in the blood, as fat. The fat is deposited in the muscles and also the liver, its not just a matter of aesthetics. If this happens constantly it could lead to obesity and increase your chances of having Diabetes type 2.
Artificial sweeteners or Sugar Substitutes are compounds found to sweeten food without causing our insulin levels to rise much or even at all. Some are actually artificial compounds but I'll only be talking about the types with natural sources: Plant extracts and Sugar alcohols.
 |
| Stevia. So unassuming. |
First on the list of plant extracts is Stevia. Extracted from the leaf of the plant stevia rabaundiana , it levels at about 300 times sweeter than sugar! It's sweet but it doesn't quite taste like sugar, the catch is it's bitter or metallic aftertaste. Steviol glycosides, the compound making stevia so sweet has no calories or sugars leaving our insulin response alone. Many companies cut it with things like maltodextrin and erythritol (sugar alcohol) to reduce it's sweetness, remove the bitterness and mimic sugar effectively. The additives will have some calories and sugars but hey, tradeoffs make the world run. It doesn't spike blood glucose and it doesn't cause digestive problems. It's perfect for drinks and foods but baking with it is not advised. At all. Don't do it.
 |
| Monk Fruit. Aren't humans curious creatures? |
Second is Luo Han Guo more recognizable as Monk Fruit. Monk Fruit sweetener is made from a gourd of the siraitia grosvenorii plant. The juice is dried into a powder that is also about 300 times sweeter than sugar. Unlike stevia it does come with some natural fructose and glucose, which are removed in processing leaving us with the zero calorie mongroside, the compound making the fruit so sweet. It also has a bitter after taste but its milder than stevia, it's also fruity tasting. It has no effect on the insulin response. It is again often mixed so you need to pay attention to what additive is in your sweetener and use sparingly. Lakanto Monk fruit+Erithritol combo is used for baking successfully, straight monk fruit won't work.
Always pay attention to your body's response to any artificial sweeteners. Digestive problems are not unheard of, so if you don't agree with one move on to the next. Sugar alcohols are coming in the next post.
After stumbling into a section of youtube where people live a day in the lives of people past I have decided that the American 1950's woman needs more than a few accolades. Every woman excepting the rich had to do all that work by themselves! The cleaning, endless chores , prepping for 3 meals a day. Even more if they had to work outside the home. Toss in some kids and I just do not know how they managed. Nobody understands how gruelling being a full time housewife is until all duties are written out. Thanks to The Vintage Housewife for doing that. She made a 7 page list of chores that are organized by room. It is as pretty as it is daunting. The printable Checklist is very much appreciated.
 |
| This isnt the chorelist, don't scoff yet. |
It's nice that we get to romanticize these eras, fawn over pictures of elegantly styled women and dashing men. It's however always bemusing to see people claim that the 50's were a better time. For whom? There's charm in the ideal that was the media representation of families in the era, but we should all know better than to get carried away with ideals. The woman was the engine of her household, to have a day where you lay in without any grievious physical injury was for the world to literally stop for your family. Women often took ''uppers'' for energy to keep up with this lifestyle. Uppers which are stimulants like amphetamine were also prescribed for weight loss. To neglect your husband was unthinkable, foisting on the chores of the household and childcare on the man an abomination. Parenting was of course almost solely your job description too.
 |
| Why do we never talk about this drug epidemic? |
Working outside the home wasn't forbidden (if you weren't a fundamentalist that is) but it wasn't exactly encouraged. So many women's dreams compressed by the deceptively soft pressure that is societal dissaproval, even though working out of the home wasn't illegal. Working women were paid less and considered inferior beings in the workplace. Barely any women went to the university even though it was legal. A time of opression for women, doubly so for Black women who had to navigate racism in addition. An important marker of a better time is the ability to choose however we wish to live. We must always remember that the best time to be alive, is today.
**Material on America's First Epidemic https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2377281/
Happy New Month of June! It's always a pleasure to see what bakers come up with as a trend and this is no exception. This is the geometric element cake trend. Sharp edges,lots of black and gold. Artists are absolutely not restricted to canvas and stone, food art is where the views are found. Getting good photography done is also half the battle. You'd have to go all out to get your work out there so these artists are not stinting on good light and angles.
 |
| Poisoned Shuriken by Alex Manning. |
Toxic positivity is positivity that denies truth. It minimizes and dismisses negative emotions regardless of circumstances. It pushes away nuance and reality to focus solely on a narrative of fake joy. Acting positive can be a coping mechanism, but when you do not allow yourself or others to feel and process the emotions they feel it becomes a cage. That makes it as useless as constant negativity. Toxic positivity is stoicism with sparkle emojis attached to it.
We can help people and ourselves better by being constructive with our encouragement. ''Failure is a part of growth and success'' instead of ''Failure is never an option!!''. One tells a person that one failure is not the end of the road because there are more chances to rise, the other is a distressing falsehood. Only one is helpful. Choose to be helpful to your friends, family and self today.
Once in a while we all need to refresh our eyes with some non traditional pretty things. So we don't forget that the world and internet are not homogenous places of pastels and flowers, and our timelimes should reflect it. Or would the addition of moon and stars to these cakes actually make them traditional as they are clearly honoring and celebrating the solstice? Time and culture are such mercurial things. Though ''Till death do us part'' would make the wedding guests of my culture extremely uncomfortable resulting in people refusing to eat it, I find it very adorable.
 |
| I make jokes but she's gorgeous. |
Positive Psychology is hardly a new thing, but some of you like me will only have heard of it recently,or right now. It's a field in Psychology that has promised us better results for easing the burden that life puts on our mental health and It is absolutely worth a listen.
What made Positive Psychology so special they felt it deserved it's own name? In summary, Martin Seligman got fed up with Psychology's excessive focus on trauma, suffering and pain while little attention was given to the processes of making people happy. That is how Positive Psychology was born with Seligman as the founder. Positive Psychology is purely focus on the present. It's focus on the positive and the real life application of it. It's focus on your strenghts and how to boost them. It is the science of optimism.
It is an actual science, It's postulations and theories are based on evaluation made in the light of evidence. Some of the goals of Positive Psycholgy are to enhance the positive experiences of people and to improve their goal getting drives. I'd like to be happier and achieve my goals so I'm paying attention.
It's not a magic wand as there of course is valid criticism of the field. It'll would be easy enough to veer into Toxic Positivity and Victim-blaming if one is reckless. I also believe that integration of traditional method is important for balance. I might write a whole post about this after I'm done with my Positive Psychology learning period. There is criticism of every field however and there should be, nothing is perfect. It's a good way to adress non-pathological unhappiness and malcontent and I believe it should be taken seriously.
If you'd like to delve into the topic you could check these out;
- Martin Seligman, Flourish: A New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being - and how to Achieve Them (a fantastic overview of positive psychology from the father of this discipline)
- Ed Diener, Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth (a nice introduction to the science of well-being from one of its pioneers)
- Coursera The Science of Well Being by Yale University(My personal favourite!)