musings of a gluten free runner

Archive for the ‘Favorite Products’ Category

I was so excited to find this stuff last week… all I kept thinking was: it’s about time! Zevia is a “natural” soda made very simply: water, stevia and flavoring ingredient. I haven’t bought any kind of soda in ages, but I just had to try this stuff because it had stevia in it. Hopefully this is a good sign that more foods will start using the delicious calorie-free herbal sweetener instead of all the chemical sh*t that’s been out there since the days of women drinking Diet Rite. (For some reason those cans always conjure pictures of feather-haired women donning leg warmers, sweatbands, and full body leotards.)

More to the point, stevia is still considered a supplement. The sugar industry, and especially the established big boys of the artificial sweetener realm have been pressuring the FDA for years to keep this thing under-wraps.

What a shame. And if, like me, you tried using stevia 10 years ago and shied away because of the aftertaste… you will be pleasantly surprised by all the new “non-bitter” formulas out there. Basically a little of this “sweet leaf” goes a long way. Many of the new stevia powders (especially the packets) are cut with small amounts of other sweeteners (like sugar alcohols) and this mellows the flavor and makes it less potent. The straight stuff is SUPER easy to overdo!

It’s just a matter of time before this one hits huge… and we start seeing it appearing in more processed foods and drinks. Even with all the recent fan-fare stores like Whole Foods still can’t keep stevia next to the other sweeteners, because technically the FDA still classifies it as a “supplement.” So sometimes you have to go hunting for the herbal nectar. Most Whole Foods keep the packets by their tea selection. Trader Joes and Whole Foods both have really reasonably priced boxes of 100 packets under their own labels… both are around $5.00.

Sweetness.

For more information on Stevia and articles on artificial supplements check out the Zevia website links page. (Obviously they are going to be a little biased, but it has some good links).
http://www.zevia.com/products_stevia.html

Last night, basking in the light of our beautiful fridge, I drank my second dessert straight from the carton… (The first having been a nice glass of ruby port from a serene Northern Italian restaurant where we ended up with Ian’s mom and stepdad.) I had gone a mini chocolate “milk” binge over the last week and a half after attending an endurance sports supplement lecture by a physiologist and doctor of sports nutrition up at OHSU – but more on that in a second.

So there I was slurping down my chocolate rice milk staring into the fridge and thinking: well at least being gluten free, I can still have this. The stuff is incredible. The amazing thing is that I don’t even consider myself a chocolate fan. When pondering flavor choices, be it energy bars or dessert menus, I will always choose the other option.

Anyways, standing in front of the open fridge I just happened to be reading the ingredients on the carton of chocolate soy milk that I bought Ian (he’s not a big fan of rice milk, and I didn’t want him drinking mine). And BEHOLD- Organic Barley Extract. What? Why? I love when companies just seem to indiscriminately throw gluten into the mix for no apparent reason. Why limit your customers? Who would miss the barley extract? uggh.

OK- how about some background…

The sports supplement lecture was given as part of an endurance athlete educational series at a well respected physical therapy office in town. The speaker was very qualified: a physiologist, an MD, a PhD in sports nutrition, blah blah. He basically had my attention. That is, until he mentioned that he thought the ideal recovery drink was CHOCOLATE MILK- which of course should be consumed 15 minutes after finishing your workout for maximum refueling. I mentally let it slide when he referred to the two types of protein as casein and whey, I just figured he meant two of the types of animal protein…. but when he said it a second and third time, I was done.

I can buy the reasoning behind his argument for chocolate milk, being that it has protein and carbohydrates for recovery. He just lost credibility by telling me to have dairy right after a hard effort…. It just seemed so establishment and so ignorant. And so likely to cause people to puke. So many people are sensitive to dairy, not to mention the fact that there is such an enormous and growing body of knowledge out there about the health risks.

I wanted to throw a copy of The China Study at him.

In the end, though, I guess he did get me thinking about chocolate “milk.”