A Healthier Nutrient Pack Sugar for the Best Halloween Treats...fudge recipe included

Sugar is the fuel of our energy but as any fuel, too much is hurting and it's the quality of the product that makes or breaks our performance.

All my life I explained to not use sugar substitutes but high quality cane sugar and organic and unadulterated raw honey from a defined origin, in limited quantity.

The search for a high quality organic sugar made Palm sugar the new darling of the natural food market, due to its very low glycemic index at 35 when sucrose is 65, its high nutritional content, and its original taste.

My first experience with Palm Sugar took me back decades, to the “Fondants”  from m childhood. Fondants are French candies with the same texture due to an identical preparation from premium quality cane sugar  sirup. These candies possessed an exquisite aroma, flavored with flowers,  moka coffee or fruit spirits.

Palm sugar is used in countries whose population tend to be lean, such as Thailand, India, Java, China, and Malaysia.

Milk: from Magic to Disillusion (by Aurélie Chevalier)

 It was a year and a half ago. A month had passed since my daughter’s birth and I was gazing at her in awe. She had changed so much and grown so much. How so ? With love and a little bit of milk. Of my milk. This seemed so natural that no alternative was conceivable. It was toward the end of that month that I understood the magic of milk.

For milk really is magic…for young mammals.
At this time, eighteen months ago, I was drinking cow’s milk religiously because I felt guilty after reading some document according to which nursing women have acute needs in calcium, the same calcium we « obviously » in milk products, as advertisement and official nutritional recommendations keep reminding us. One would think the milk industry is trying to make the mother absorb the milk she did not give to her baby in powder form…It is not the acute calcium needs of a nursing mother that I challenge today but this hype around milk products.
Around this time, when my cooking and my eating habits were packed with milk products, from milk in which I drowned my breakfast cereal to the sour cream in my quiches, by way of the milk powder added to my bread (this was the recipe in my book), home made whole milk yogurts, delicious raw cheeses I savored on the way back from the market each Saturday, and the condensed milk in my chocolate spread (also home made), I was unaware of the following facts :  

Eating Green

Advice to eat fruits and vegetables, which are raining from many different sources to keep you healthy, are based on epidemiological studies.
Different studies have denied the effect of the incidence on cancer, the inclusion criteria were mixed and the data were not precise enough to give clear answers.
But no matter what the study we look at, it is clear that more people who are over 90 and free of cancers eat significantly more vegetable than those who never reach 65. New studies are on the way with more appropriate data to consider some parameters involved in related diseases.
Regarding the risk factor for cardiovascular disease, no firm conclusions have been made given abundance of conflicting evidence within the literature. Same thing regarding prevention of type 2 Diabetes. New authors* Laurie Barclay, MD_CME and Charles P. Vega, MD tried to investigate further to determine the independent effect of fruit and vegetable consumption on the incidence of type 2 diabetes.
"Increasing daily intake of green leafy vegetables could significantly reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes and should be investigated further," the study authors write.
"Our results support the evidence that 'foods' rather than isolated components such as antioxidants are beneficial for health," the study authors conclude. "Results from several supplement trials have produced disappointing results for prevention of disease, in contrast with epidemiological evidence. Further investigation is warranted to understand the mechanisms involved in the proposed relation between green leafy vegetables and risk of type 2 diabetes."
"Knowing that type 2 Diabetes is a strong independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease, and the interaction of the 2 diseases, we are tempted to add green leafy vegetables in our everyday eating routine as a 20% risk to be healthier without negative effect.

Sources:
*Eating green leafy vegetables may lower the risk for type 2 diabetes, according to the results of a systematic review and meta-analysis reported in the August 20 issue of the BMJ.

The Supplement Invasion, Part 1: The Role of Supplements

By Dr. Claude Mondiere, M.D., PhD.

We eat to live. Medicine is an empirical science and we are far from mastering the different parameters that influence us.
The so-called supplements’ raison d’etre is the sustenance of every day life.
Their goal is to provide elements missing in our food and necessary for our body's development and maintenance, to give us the energy to be physically and mentally active.
 All human biology is regulated by feedback signals. We must find the right balance, which varies from one person to the next, and from one moment of our lives to another.
Our bodies are composed of multiple elements, including certain organs that pump, transform and stock what we eat.
There are essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals that the body does not produce but needs in order to produce energy.
If they are lacking in our basic nutrition, there may be shortcomings and malaise, even disease. Supplements compensate for these deficiencies.
There can also be overloads, which can be treated through cleansing, purging, fasting, or even bleeding in older times. These come up in all cultures and religions.
Throughout the evolution of mankind, observers have discovered the benefits of certain herbs and minerals, as well as various ways to preserve them for the prevention of  seasonal deficiencies.
Various cultures have their healers who prescribe such “supplements” with a magical touch, thus commanding respect in their communities.
Since the 20th century we have new medicine prescribed by doctors, and house landmark remedies to stay healthy have vanished: who remembers the probiotics given with a antibiotics prescription by a Doctor to avoid a deterioration of the intestinal flora? Probiotics are back now because digestion is a crucial part of well being and we rediscovered that some people were  very healthy before WWI.
Yet this is one return, against mounds of expensive, aggressive and often addictive prescription drugs.
With the dominance of pharmaceutical companies turned multinational, the cost of the health system in America (and in many other countries), the severe lack in cooking skills in many homes, a new kind of  medicine, accessible to all in supermarkets without regulation, has emerged. .