February - the Second thing you can do to improve your diet.

[thomer]

2. ELIMINATE PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED OILS

A process to lengthen shelf life can shorten your life! Trans Fatty
Acids created by hydogenation have been linked to cancer,
cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Don't risk it!

http://my.webmd.com/content/article/70/81100.htm

http://www.recoverymedicine.com/hydrogenated_oils.htm

http://www.bantransfats.com/

Wow, this one is going to be hard I think. I went grocery shopping yesterday, and had to put a lot back on the shelves. I had to read every single label of everything I picked up. :eek Every single pre-packaged or convenience food had PHO (partially hydrogenated oils). Icky!

As far a snacks, I had to find some new stuff. Instead of cookies, which we normally have for dessert a few times a week, I bought a big Swiss chocolate bar and we're eating a few squares at a time. Much better than Oreo's in my opinion. :yum DH likes snack crackers (cheezeits and those types of things) so I'm trying to find a recipe for spicy peanuts that I can make in the oven.

Also there was PHO in macaroni and cheese, frozen burritos, and cream of mushroom soup. What are we going to eat this week?? :O

[erinee]

I have a recipe for spiced nuts somewhere -- I'll see if I can find it and post it.

[hbmamma]

I roast the nuts in a dry pan till they just start to smell "nutty" and then remove them, melt some butter, add some Chinese five spice and add nuts back to pan. Yummy!! :tu

[thomer]

Do you have to use raw nuts? I could only find Unsalted Dry Roasted at Aldi.

[hbmamma]

If the produce section has nuts, it's usually cheaper to buy them in bulk then in the baking isle. But buying them in the baking isle is a lot more conveinent! :tu I guess, yeah, raw nuts: walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, almonds (although I buy the smoked almonds in a can and add them after the toasting the others. You can usually find a big bag of bulk peanuts in the produce as well - you'll just have to crack them open yourself :grin

[thomer]

Well I used the dry roasted unsalted peanuts - I mixed them with olive oil and put on some Hot Salt that i found in the cupboard. DH really likde them. :rockon But then I read the ingredients for the Hot Salt and guess what was on there? PHO!!! :banghead On a spice for pete's sake! So I will try to make my own spice combination I guess.

[Myrtle]

I know I'm behind on this, but I'm limiting (not completely eliminating) pho due to finances (WIC gives free peanut butter). Anyways, there was a day when I could buy crackers at Wild Oats and could get the nut butters that were just crushed nuts, and in those days I searched for a lot of pho alternatives. I've found that using real butter is a great alternative for biscuits, pie crusts, dumplins, etc, and in a lot of recipes you can use olive oil instead of shortening. I still read labels and try to avoid pho as much as I can (it's much easier at home that when you're at someone else's house b/c everyone seems to think graham crackers and Ritz and Crisco are just staples of life).

Another added benefit of using real butter is that it's way more expensive, so you'll eat less of those fattening treats :mrgreen