No Added…. What ?

I was wandering around the grocery store the other day. My wife and I have always had the opposites attract dynamic between us and nothing illustrates this more than our different shopping techniques. She’s very task oriented in everything she does. Work, hobbies, chores, shopping….everything is a task that must be completed as quickly as possible so she can start a new task. Armed with her ear buds and list she grabs a cart and zig-zags her way through the grocery store as if on a mission. She’s very much a hunter-gatherer.

Meanwhile I wander and meander about going down aisles just to see if there’s anything new. The spice aisle might have a new chicken spice rub that I just need to try, never-mind the spice rack at home has 2 nearly full bottles of rubs that looked very tempting in the store but now sit unused for months. (note to self….might be time to clean out the spice rack)

The yogurt aisle is always beckoning me with new flavors. I usually just settle for the same ones I get every week but that confetti birthday cake flavor might just get an experimental tasting.

And so it was that I was meandering through the grocery store vaguely searching for something to replace my morning coffee. I enjoy a morning coffee but I must admit I don’t crave it in the summer-time. When I was working full-time quite often I was outside or in a cold warehouse and so coffee served the dual purpose of a hot morning beverage with a little jolt and it was something warm to hold onto. During the summer months I don’t crave hot beverages, in fact I much prefer cold, icy glasses filled with lemonade or tea. But this creates a problem in the morning and so my wandering ways of shopping led me to stop suddenly in the milk section. There before me appeared to be the answer to my morning beverage conundrum. Mocha flavored iced latte made with real milk & cream and get this…..zero added sugar.

The perfect answer to my summer-time morning beverage needs and all packaged neatly in a cardboard box. I know it contained no added sugar because it proclaimed this fact 3….yes you read that correctly….. 3 times on the front of the container. I was thrilled at the prospect of a morning iced mocha latte conveniently consumed in my own home without having to negotiate the line or drive thru at my local coffee shop. And so I purchased the cardboard container with real milk & cream and zero added sugars and felt quite proud of myself for once again my wandering ways had successfully paid off…..just like with the chicken rub in the spice aisle.

The next morning I was immensely enjoying my first iced latte and feeling quite smug that the beverage I was consuming had zero added sugars, when I began to wonder why it might be necessary to state that fact 3 times on the cover……oh container of iced mocha latte me thinks you doth protest too much or in this case you brag too much. And so I did what I rarely do but should do more often, I turned the container around and read the nutritional label.

Made with real milk and cream, no corn syrup and no carrageenan (whatever the hell that is) some protein, some carbs, some fat and then there it was…..I wish I could say it was in the fine tiny print but no right there in the nutritional table….7 grams sugar. To be fair they never said there was no sugar in their tasty mocha latte and it was quite naive of me to assume there wasn’t any sugar especially since it is quite tasty. In fact in the fine print next to the nutritional table they do say this iced latte contains 7 grams of sugar but no added sugar and their regular iced latte contains a whopping 29 grams of sugar.

A quick internet search revealed that no added sugars means that natural sugars may be present but no extra sugar was added during manufacturing. Which to be fair seems reasonable but again they seemed to be bragging about this fact by loudly proclaiming this 3 (!!!!) times on the front of the container.

I didn’t feel deceived, although I did feel slightly misled with the zero added sugars pronouncement. I’m not sure if I will purchase another container of iced mocha latte or perhaps I’ll wander the store again hoping to find another beverage for my morning summer-time enjoyment….now onto that spice rack.

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Peace and love,

John

Saturday Afternoon

A Saturday afternoon in the summer….could there be anything more perfect.

I sit at my desk, a brief summer thunderstorm just rolled through. It was the kind of summer storm you hope cools things off but as soon as it ends you realize it’s just as humid as before. But the wind it rolled in on blew the smoke and haze from the Canadian wildfires out of the area. It was the kind of storm that begins with the wind and ends with a downpour that lasts approximately 3 minutes. All that for 3 minutes you think.

I had waited just long enough to begin cutting the grass that as soon as I gassed up the lawnmower it started raining, and now the grass is to wet and it’s too late in the day to mess around with that.

The rain was just enough to water the garden. As I sit here I can see the kitchen table which is already full of cucumbers. There’s at least 2 dozen cucumbers we’ve picked in the last couple of days. It’s that time of year when my wife makes cucumber salad every week and everywhere we go we take a bag of cucumbers to pass out to friends and family. At first everyone is very happy to receive garden fresh cucumbers but I know in a couple of weeks when I give them another armload of cucumbers they’ll have that look on their face, that look that says

“I don’t know what to do with all these cucumbers, everything cucumber dish I know I’ve already made, please stop bringing me cucumbers”

Sometimes I think cucumbers are the fruit cake of the vegetables. Everyone acts like they like receiving them but they quickly pass it on to someone else. But then I realize that zucchini is truly the fruit cake of vegetables as I’ve never done anything with a zucchini except pass it on or let it rot and then throw it out to the animals. The raccoons out here know that any left over zucchini and cucumbers we can’t pass on to friends will soon be late night snacking for them.

My mom loved zucchini and would always use it as a side dish in the summer and when there was too much of it, as there invariably always is, she would make zucchini bread. Knowing that my siblings and I generally detested the taste of zucchini she then did the most obvious mom thing…..she tried to tell us it was banana bread. This actually worked for one entire summer and I’m not sure which of us figured it out first but we soon grew wise to the difference in the taste of banana bread and zucchini bread. Even today when my mom presents me with homemade bread or muffins I ask if it’s really banana bread.

This blog post did 2 things…..got me to sit and write and I learned how to spell zucchini….

Peace and Love,

John

A Taste of Fall

I promised myself I wasn’t going to write about the time change. Our twice a year attempt to manipulate daylight usually leaves me with a feeling of dread and annoyance. Oh sure some people proclaim to love it, especially the fall back…… “we get an extra hour of sleep”…..people exclaim with excitement. As if 1 extra hour of sleep will make up for late night binging the latest series on Netflix. And if when presented with the gift of more time you want to slumber it away I say…. “hey go ahead, you do you”…..but I can’t tell myself to sleep longer any more than I can convince myself to fall asleep quicker. The body wants what the body wants. See, told you I wouldn’t drone on about time and space.

No today I will tackle a bigger, more wide ranging issue involving fall…….a little something called pumpkin spice.

Starbucks introduced their pumpkin spice lattes in the fall of 2003 selling approximately 20 million a year and launching a cultural phenomenon. Selling 20 million latte’s a year in a 90 day period of time means they’re selling over 18,000 latte’s an hour….think about that next time your in the drive thru behind 10 cars and all you want is a regular coffee.

Any trip to the grocery store beginning in the still sweltering months of August will reveal more and more pumpkin spice products. There’s the obvious ones that kinda make sense like breads, cookies, coffee, tea. But with each year the number of products with pumpkin spice continue to rise to staggering proportions. It’s become an industry in and of itself. Walk down any aisle and you can see a variety of a favorite item that now has a pumpkin spice offering. The cereal aisle has oatmeal, cereal, even the American icon the Pop Tart offers a pumpkin spice flavor. And yes there’s even pumpkin spice syrup for your pancakes or waffles, although walking through the freezer aisle reveals pumpkin spice frozen waffles so maybe you should top that with just regular syrup so you don’t fall into a pumpkin spice morning breakfast coma. The dairy aisle has pumpkin spice yogurt and cottage cheese, the snack aisle has popcorn, chips and pretzels, the cookie aisle has a wide variety of offerings……..hello pumpkin spice Oreo’s, do you come here often ?

I must admit I had absolutely no interest or even the faintest curiosity in any pumpkin spice product. I figured most of them would taste overly artificial and I would regret buying an entire package and end up throwing away most of it after it sat in my cupboard for far too long. But recently on a blustery, fall day with a bright sun shining and leaves blowing about I ventured into my local coffee shop with the express purpose of ordering a pumpkin spice latte. I figured if I enjoyed the product that launched an entire industry then perhaps I might branch out my interest and sample other products.

Admittedly my local coffee shop is not a Starbucks but it is a regional chain so I figured it must be very similar if not exactly like the Starbucks offering. The first few sips were warm and delightful, my taste buds were awakened. My curiosity was piqued…..it was then I started researching the beginnings of pumpkin spice and it all seems to lead back to Starbucks and their original latte.

I found so many stories about pumpkin spice and people trying to sample different products that as I sat there my latte soon grew cold and each sip became less satisfying until the end felt forced and artificial. Hmm, forced and artificial…..although I decided not to title this blog post forced and artificial it did seem appropriate that my first experience with a cultural phenomenon was exactly that. Perhaps there was a reason a spice that has been around seemingly forever never made a breakthrough until a giant corporation created a demand for it.

I headed out back into a glorious autumn day and I noticed a poster on the door I hadn’t seen when I entered. It was for a peppermint mocha latte that was soon to be available for the holiday season. Mmm, peppermint mocha latte….now that sounds like something I might just have to try.

Peace and Love,

John