There’s no doubt that most of us love to use sweeteners in some of our foods. I’ll admit, I love cookies, candies and ice cream. I wish I didn’t! The ice cream is something I consider especially bad for me so I go very easy on it.

Recently I did an extensive overview of various types of sweeteners that people put in their foods. I tried to include all sweeteners but I know there are a few I have yet to add to the project which I posted at Natural and Artificial Sweeteners. I hope you have time to take a look at it. The report includes illustrations and videos that I believe are worth considering.

What we put into our bodies is one of the most important issues we’ll ever deal with. I’ve used chemical sweeteners in the past and am sorry I did. Now I use natural sweeteners. My favorite is maple syrup!

Sweeteners I included in my report are:

I’m working on including Rice Syrup. Am I forgetting anything else?

I’ve noticed several different brands of hummus in stores recently, and tried a few. This inspired me to pull out my old Hummus recipe. Making it is very easy, and I think it is more flavorful, being as it’s fresh.

Hummus is made from garbanzo beans, which are also known as chick peas. You can buy them in a bag and cook them, or buy two 16 ounce cans, which is what I usually do.

Drain the beans but keep about 1/2 cup of the liquid. Put the beans in a blender and add the 1/2 cup liquid. It will become a smooth paste soon enough. Add 1/2 cup tahini paste, the juice of one lemon, and two cloves of garlic. Blend well, then put in a bowl. On top drizzle a bit of olive oil and sprinkle with paprika.

I like to spread this on bread but the traditional way to eat it is to dip pieces of bread into it, or vegetables of various types. Last week I got some spicy black bean chips from the natural foods section of our local grocery store, and ate those with hummus as a dip. That’s what I call good food.

This morning I woke to two news articles about tainted meat on my Google home page, and once again praised my good luck that I prefer to be vegetarian. But I know most people aren’t, and thought about a blog I visited yesterday through a lucky click on my Stumble Upon toolbar.

First, the meat articles. They are Chemical in tainted pet food turns up on hog farms, and E. coli’s trail ends in Merced California … Not very appetizing, is it?

So here’s the solution: great vegetarian meals. The kind that make you feel like you’re not missing anything. That’s what I found during my visit to Vegetarian Meal Plans, a blog by Cassie Young that’s been serving up great vegetarian meal plan ideas and recipes, along with a serving of practical advice, since last December. The recipes with their colorful close-up photographs of her culinary creations are simple enough to be do-able, but complex enough to impress me. The author tells us this is what she’s been eating at her home so I’m sure we can do it at ours.

I work in a pizza restaurant that serves up meat-laden pizzas all day long. Very few come in asking for our veggie combo, and I wonder why, with all the publicity about tainted meat, so many people have a problem with making the break to more healthy, natural foods.

For me, it was a decision I made early-on in my life; I decided as a teenager that pillaging animals for their flesh was not for me. But most people eat meat as if their life depends on it. I wonder if it is caused by government propaganda that tells us meat is one of the four food groups.

Meat is not necessary for human survival. Living without it is a blessing, and is the best way to avoid tainted meat that is becoming more common in the 21st century.

Vegetarian Meal Plans deserves a link in my blogroll on the right-hand side of this blog.