Strawberry-Watermelon Popsicles | Easy Healthy Treat

Our boys love popsicles. As in they request them even when it's 40 degrees outside! Crazy boys! Anyway, I don't like to buy popsicles from the store because they're loaded with HFCS, food dyes, loads of sugar, and other fake ingredients. And really, making your own popsicles is so easy! And it's a great activity for the kids to do. Who doesn't want to push the ON button on the blender??

Here are our favorite summer popsicles: Strawberry-Watermelon! It seriously takes less than five minutes to whip these babies up! Plus, it's a great way to use up some produce that may be on it's last leg in the fridge.

• Simply cut up strawberries and watermelon (or any fruit of your choice).
• Blend it up in the blender. No sugar needed for these!
• Pour into your favorite popsicle molds and pop in the freezer! These Norpro Silicone Molds and the Orka Twist Pop Molds are our favorites. The twisted ones are perfect for the toddler and the Norpro's are great for the preschooler.
• A refreshing healthy treat for the family will be ready in about two hours!

What's your family's favorite popsicle combination?

Fooled by Labels Again!

 As my husband and I are becoming more aware of what's in our foods and other products, like lotions, other toiletries, medicines, etc, I've become increasingly annoyed at how much garbage is in everything!

OK, so I'm probably several years late joining the non-toxic, chemical free train, but better late than never, right?

I try to carefully read labels and not buy products that have...well ingredients that don't add value to the product.

And I just don't get why companies put ingredients in their products that have been proven harmful or unnecessary. I was reading the label on our Johnson and Johnson baby wash and there are parabens and, wait for it, Red 40 in there. Seriously? Dye in body wash for kids? It's SOAP for crying out loud. It goes directly from the bottle to my hand to my child's body.  It doesn't need to be colorful.

I have purchased J&J for four years because I assumed it was kid-safe, healthy, etc.  I mean, it's tear free, it's specifically for kids, so it must be ok, right?  Fooled by the label! 

I bought some Musselmans Natural Applesauce a few weeks ago, again thinking, "It's Musselmans, it's natural, it's healthy, it's fine." Upon reading the ingredients, I saw that HFCS is added to the applesauce. What? Come ON! Applesauce is sweet already, it doesn't need to taste like candy people! Why is this unnecessary ingredient added to my child's food? Fooled by the label! 

So now I'm on a mission to check labels in our home and get rid of the items that have junk in them. It's going to be a lot of tossing, I'm sure. It's going to be a frustrating process...that's a fact. I can only imagine how many items I have in our home that fooled me by their labels.

So tell me, have you been fooled by labels? Please tell me I'm not the only one?

What is UP??

OK, so I know that, according to extreme health fanatics, high-fructose corn syrup should be avoided. Of course the corn industry would like everyone to think differently. What is their tagline? Something like, "Your body can't tell the diffrence between regular sugar and HFCS?"  Whatever.

In our home, we've made the decision that we don't want to consume foods that contain HFCS. There are tons of sites out there that claim that HFCS' are basically the devil in disguise and do a good job of putting the fear in you. Ugh, it just gets so confusing sometimes! For our family, we just want to limit the amounts of chemically processed foods that we ingest. Common sense says processed foods and ingredients are just that...processed! They are not natural, or real.

That said, it seems like every single food label I've read in our pantry or fridge has HFCS listed. What is UP??? Just this evening, I about flipped a lid because HFCS is in our KETCHUP. Really??? So that's one more item I'm going to have to be careful about when grocery shopping. Sigh. 

I did find a helpful site that has a (hopefully updated) list of foods and beverages that don't contain HFCS. I'll probably be printing this list out for my grocery trips! HFCS Free Food List

Are you interested in understanding the differences between sugar and HFCS? Read on...(source)

SUGAR FACTS

1. FACT: The sugar that we use in our homes comes naturally from sugarcane and sugar beets, and has been consumed for over two thousand years.
2. FACT: Every country in the world uses sugar that comes from sugarcane or sugar beets.
3. FACT: Sugar can be purchased in grocery stores.
4. FACT: The word “Sugar” has been used for centuries to refer to the product that comes from sugarcane or sugar beets.
5. FACT: There’s already a food product recognized by the FDA with the name “corn sugar.” (It’s NOT High Fructose Corn Syrup.) It’s a corn by-product that is used in some foods and in natural beer making.

HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP FACTS:

1. High Fructose Corn Syrup does not occur naturally—it’s man-made, created in a lab and not extracted from corn.
2. FACT: Corn is a starch that’s not very sweet. It’s impossible to get sugar from corn or any other plant besides beets or sugarcane.
3. FACT: High Fructose Corn Syrup is an industrial food product that requires an enzyme process to bond fructose molecules to corn starch.
4. FACT: High Fructose Corn Syrup cannot be purchased in grocery stores.
5. FACT: The U.S. is the only country that uses a significant amount of High Fructose Corn Syrup in its food products.
6. FACT: High Fructose Corn Syrup, while disliked by many consumers, is popular with food and beverage manufacturers because it’s much cheaper than sugar.
7. FACT: High Fructose Corn Syrup is used in hundreds of grocery store products including breakfast cereals, granola bars, salad dressings, mayonnaise, pancake syrups, jelly, ice cream and popsicles, crackers, tomato sauce, energy drinks, yogurt, soda pop, breads, hamburger buns, juice drinks, and many more.
8. FACT: In the wake of widespread consumer concerns, demand for High Fructose Corn Syrup has hit a 20-year low.
9. FACT: The makers of High Fructose Corn Syrup chose the name “High Fructose Corn Syrup” when it was introduced in the 1970’s.
10. FACT: Now the makers of High Fructose Corn Syrup want to change its name on food package labels.

As a result, millions of Americans are against any name change that would allow High Fructose Corn Syrup to call itself “corn sugar” and maybe just “sugar” on food package labels.