Musings From Day One

It's Day 2 of the Fed Up Challenge and I'm feeling good! Yesterday wasn't perfect from a "no sugar" point-of-view but I'm still calling it a great start. Officially, or at least in my own head, I didn't start until after breakfast. I had some leftover (frozen) pizza from Sunday night and in an "Oh, what the hell" moment I nuked it in the microwave and finished it off for breakfast. Why? I'm not really sure. Partly just because it was there, although I did rationalize to myself that once it was eaten and gone, it wouldn't be a problem anymore.

After that things went pretty well. For lunch I had pasta, topped with the last cup of my first batch of homemade tomato sauce. I usually top pasta with Parmesan cheese, and although the cheese doesn't have sugar in it I skipped it anyway, saving myself from a few grams of fat and some calories, perhaps an example of what can happen when you really start thinking about every morsel of food that goes into your mouth.

Dinner was a chicken salad - lettuce, celery, chicken and homemade vinaigrette. Like tomato sauce, salad dressing, specifically Wish-Bone Robusto Italian, is something I eat all the time, not just on actual salads but sometimes on pasta as well. Also like jarred tomato/pasta sauce, the label promises lots of great nutrition, but the ingredient list and nutrition facts chart tell a different story. Health claims on the label:

• Get More from Your Salad
• Naturally helps better absorb vitamins A & E
• A splash of Wish-Bone doesn't just add delicious flavor, it helps you get more goodness from your salad
• Excellent Source of Omega 3 ALA 
• And, of course, No High Fructose Corn Syrup

The ingredient list has about 18 things and I'm not going to type them all, but sugar is listed fourth. The nutrition chart informs me that a 2 tablespoon serving contains 3 grams of sugar and 340 mgs of sodium. Not good, so I made an easy vinaigrette. If you're sensing a trend here, you're right - a big part of giving up sugar is cooking your own food and today's focus is Tomato Sauce, The Sequel. Stay tuned...