The best organic lollipops I've ever had!

Hi Sweeties! Oh. My. Goodness. I had the BEST lollipop I've ever eaten. I'm serious. I was so blown away by how yummy it was I HAD to write a post about it! How did I stumble upon such a tasty treat? By spending a lovely lunch hour shopping at TJ Maxx! I spotted this bag of lollipops near the checkout and totally impulse-purchased these not expecting a whole lot. I mean, ORGANIC lollipops? Surely they must taste terrible, right? WRONG. I was so so wrong! I know I'm waxing poetically about candy, but you guys, they are amazing! The flavors are incredible! I know you may be rolling yours eyes and thinking that it's just a lollipop, but I promise you these are so much more! They are made by YumEarth Organics and are USDA Organic, gluten-free, and contain no artificial dyes or flavors. What??? How is that possible, right? Well, here it is, in all of its glory:

Look at that! They use non-GMO products, real fruit extracts and 100% natural flavors. And you get 100% of your Vitamin C intake as well. But here's the best part- they are free from those awful red dyes. Happy Dance!

So after it had passed my ingredient inspection with flying colors I ripped the bag open and grabbed one at random. With eight different flavors you can't go wrong. "Strawberry Smash" and "Wet-face Watermelon" are my absolute favorites, but you can't go wrong with "Very Very Cherry," "Too Berry Blueberry," "Sour Apple Tart," "Pomegranate Pucker," "Razzmatazz Berry," or "Mango Tango." They're almost as much fun to read as they are to eat!

I'm so thrilled that this company recognizes the need for pure foods. The fact that they make pure, FUN, and TASTY candy is just a huge bonus for me. I can only imagine how excited my readers with children are going to be when they try these out for themselves. Artificial colors, especially those nasty reds, can really cause a lot of unpleasantness in children and I know the struggle in can be to find pure foods, especially sweets. If you can't find them in your local store, you can always order online. So get to shopping, sweeties and stash a few in your purse for a sweet treat. Just make sure you save some for the kiddos!

The incredible effects of blueberries in your diet

Hi sweeties!

I hope you all had a wonderful Fourth of July! It was an overcast day for us and we decided to take advantage of the cloudy weather and head out to Hillcrest Farm to go blueberry picking! My husband and I picked 11 pounds of blueberries in about two hours. ELEVEN POUNDS! And it was just incredibly inexpensive and the berries were just so fresh. I will never buy grocery blueberries again after paying substantially less AND having the sweetest, freshest berries available literally at my fingertips. And here’s the best part, the blueberries were never sprayed. Ever. Fan me now because I think I just fainted. Anyway, why on earth did I pick eleven pounds of blueberries? Well, if I could have, I would have picked fifty pounds and stored them in an enormous freezer because blueberries are one of the best food items that you can eat. Seriously! I know we’ve all heard that you should eat blueberries every now and then, but let’s get serious. After the extensive research I did today, I will be eating blueberries every day for the rest of my life. And you should too! So here are the facts, because what’s a statement without facts? A fat load of nothing.

So are you ready for your lecture on blueberries? Get out some paper and take some notes…just kidding, I am going to throw some big words out there, words I had to research to get the exact meaning of, but don’t worry, I’m just going to give you the highlights of the research and boil it down to the nuts and bolts for you. I mean, that’s the whole point of this blog, right? I’ll do the work because it’s what I love to do and all you have to do is read and enjoy! It’s really the perfect relationship.

So, one particular study examined whether eating 250 grams blueberries every day for 6 weeks reduced oxidative stress and increased anti-inflammatory cytokines. Whoa. That’s a lot of words that I’ve never even heard of, but don’t worry, I’ve got you taken care of. Let’s start at the beginning. How many blueberries are equal to 250 grams? Well, some research at www.blueberry.org led me to learn that one serving size of fresh blueberries is equal to one cup, or 140 grams. So essentially, these people ate about a cup and a half of blueberries every day for six weeks. Now, what is oxidative stress? After even more research, I found this great description from Dr. Andrew Weil. He explains that “Oxidative stress is the total burden placed on organisms by the constant production of free radicals in the normal course of metabolism plus whatever other pressures the environment brings to bear (natural and artificial radiation, toxins in air, food and water; and miscellaneous sources of oxidizing activity, such as tobacco smoke)” (Andrew Weil, M.D.). Basically, it’s the stress our bodies go through, the degeneration of our cells, the toxic crap that gets into bodies for whatever reason and blueberries significantly decreased this process. HOLY COW, right? Let’s move on to the second benefit, an increase in anti-inflammatory cytokines. Essentially this means that there is an increase in the chemical messengers that call other immune cells to the region of need to help repair the damage or fight off the invader (McAnulty, L.S., Nieman, D.C., Dumke, C.L., Shooter, L.A., Henson, D.A., Utter, A.C., Milne, G., & McAnulty, S.R., 2011). So to get to the bottom line, blueberries decrease the amount of toxic junk that goes into our bodies AND increases our ability to heal faster. Sign me up, right?

But that’s not all. If you’re still with me after reading all of the “Mr. Science” stuff before, then hold on because it only gets better! You’ve probably read in the press that blueberries can improve memory in the elderly, but this study shows that it has a huge impact on the young too! Of course this study was conducted using mice, BUT, it showed that there was a significant impact on spatial learning performance in young, healthy animals (Rendeiro, C., Vauzour, D., Kean, R., Butler, L., Rattray, M., Spencer, J., & Williams, C., 2012). I think we could all use a little help in the memory department, regardless of our age! Finally, blueberry consumption has also shown to increase bone mass in mice. Goodbye osteoporosis! AND, it has also shown a significant decrease in LDL cholesterol (the bad kind) in hamsters, specifically, it decreased it by 44% (Blueberries and Your Health, 2011). So we’re going to be the healthiest, longest living, and a&* kicking people out there all because of a tiny blue fruit. Amazing, right?

But what happens when you get totally bored of eating raw blueberries all the time? Does baking them alter their “goodness”? Nope. In fact, it was scientifically proven that “cooking does not decrease hydrophilic antioxidant capacity of wild blueberries (Murphy, R.R., Renfroe, M.H., Brevard, P.B., Lee, R.E., & Gloeckner, J.W., 2009). So cook them, bake them, sauté them, blanch them, whatever, just make sure you eat those babies, okay?!

And for those gals who are worried about the calories, this is for you! A serving size of fresh blueberries (remember, that’s one cup) contains 80 calories, with no fat, cholesterol or sodium. It also contains 5 grams of fiber goodness, 19 grams of carbs, and 1 gram of protein. Yum yum!

Okay, sweeties, that’s all for now! Be on the lookout for my next post on a fantastic way to juice AND make incredibly healthy and delicious muffins using the juicer’s “leftovers”. Leave me a comment on how YOU are using blueberries in your life; we sweeties have to stick together!

Picking fat and juicy blueberries!

This is just under three pounds. Crazy, right?

References

Blueberries and Your Health: Scientists Study Nutrition Secrets of Popular Fruit. Agricultural  
     Research. May 2011, Vol. 59, Issue 5, p9-13.

McAnulty, L.S.; Nieman, D.C.; Dumke, C.L.; Shooter, L.A.; Henson, D.A.; Utter, A.C.; Milne, G.;
     McAnulty, S.R. Applied Physiology Nutrition and Metabolism, 2011; 36; 6; p. 976-984.

Murphy R.R.; Renfroe M.H.; Brevard P.B.; Lee R.E.; Gloeckner J.W.; International Journal of Food
     Sciences & Nutrition, 2009; 60: Suppl 2: 88-98.

Rendeiro, C.; Vauzour, D.; Kean, R.; Butler, L.; Rattray, M.; Spencer, J.; Williams, C., 
     Psychopharmacology Oct 2012, Vol. 223 Issue 3, p319.

Welcome, Sweeties!

Hi sweeties!

First of all, let me welcome you to my blog! This is a place of sweetness, fun, education, and collaboration. So what is this blog about, you ask? Why did I decide to enter the blogging world when it’s already filled with millions of other bloggers? Because when I went out looking for makeup products, hair care products, recipes, and healthy lifestyle activities, I couldn’t find them…at least not together. I would find snippets of information about all-natural facial moisturizers in one place, a recipe for an organic smoothie in another, and household cleaning revolutions somewhere else.  And to be quite honest, the quality of the information I found was suspect. Where were the references? The ingredients? The “I would put it on my child” quality stamp? I couldn’t find it. So I decided to take matters into my own hands. We needed, I needed, a central place to compile my findings, my reviews of products and I want to be able to share that with you! You might ask what spurned me on to start this intensive “quest” so to speak? Was it a viewing of “Supersize Me” or the perusal of the organic aisle in Publix? No, and to make a very long story short, it came about when I was diagnosed with cancer. Yeah, the c-word. At age 29. When I went in to have a routine procedure, cancer was found completely unexpected…I mean, when is cancer expected anyway? So I’ve since had the cancer removed and am still undergoing lots of fun “stuff” at the moment, but as a way to educate myself and my loved ones, I decided that as a part of my effort to kick cancer’s f^&%$#@ ass from here to the other side of the world, I would create something beautiful to offset the ugliness of the c-word. So here we are! Are you ready to kick off this awesome journey? Let's go!