agave nectar, yogurt news, dutch baby recipe

We are constantly striving to eat better- to eat real, whole foods. Because of the book I will tell you about tomorrow, we recently switched to organic milk. I had been dragging my feet. We don't drink much milk here so I didn't think it was a huge deal. When I made the switch, the kids and hubby said the milk actually tasted better. My main concern in the milk was rBST (recombinant bovine somatotropin), a synthetic hormone that has been approved and declared safe for use by the FDA (but as I read in the book I'll write about tomorrow- it is a pretty nasty thing.) It's not in organic milk, but other than that, it is actually illegal for companies to advertise that their product does not contain rBST milk. How silly is that. It's because the FDA has not found rBST unsafe. This despite the fact that cows given rBST almost always have mastitis ('breast' infection) and are on antibiotics most of their lives. It does increase the milk output, but it shortens their milk producing lifetime and the general quality of life for the cows. FYI- If you've ever had mastitis, you know there's infected puss involved.... do you want that in your milk?

The next logical step for us was going organic with our yogurt. We eat a lot more yogurt than we drink milk. I had been buying Dannon natural vanilla in the large tub. It doesn't have high fructose corn syrup. It does have some sugar (not much), but I'd rather have that than HFCS. The organic Stoney Fields Farms yogurt (also has some sugar in it) was our only organic option for our grocery store. It is considerably more than the Dannon. Neither has the coloring and additives that many colored and flavored yogurts have. I contacted Dannon asking if they had any products that used 100% rBST free milk (since it can't be advertised on their products). It took almost 2 months- but I received a reply this week.

Here is part of it:

Thank you for your recent inquiry regarding Dannon's use of milk from cows treated with hormones.The Dannon Company has been working towards its goal of using only milk from cows not treated with rBST (recombinant bovine somatotropin), a synthetic hormone that has been approved and declared safe for use by the FDA.We are pleased to inform you that we have achieved this goal. All Dannon products are now made with milk from cows that are not treated with rBST. Although no safety issue is involved, as the FDA had confirmed that no significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBST-treated cows and cows not treated with rBST, Dannon has been taking steps to use only milk from cows not treated with rBST in response to growing consumer preference for so-called 'rBST-free' dairy products. Dannon always listens carefully to the preferences expressed by consumers.Dannon's products will continue to meet FDA requirements for safety as well as continue to be great-tasting and a nutritious part of a healthy diet....

So, good news for the yogurt (and cows).... bad news recently though for agave nectar. I recently stumbled across some blogs discussing natural sweeteners and alternative sweeteners. Apparently Agave isn't all the greatness that I had heard it was. It's disappointing to say the least. Here's the agave nectar article a few people linked to.

I realize that I'm doing this all backwards. I am going to share a recipe from this book I read.. a book that I'm not going to talk about until tomorrow. It's become a favorite breakfast at our house.

Dutch Baby 3/4 c milk, 1/2 c flour, 1/4 t salt, 2 eggs. mix all ingredients and pour into a greased pie pan. Bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes. It puffs up large and then after about 30 seconds it deflates. Kiddos will want to watch! We served it with some maple syrup.

The above picture is it all puffed up..... then below it's all shriveled up....

She's not a pretty gal, but she makes up for it in taste.