The American food industry thinks we are stupid, inattentive, or complacent

Yogurts cropped
The gradually decreasing size of yogurt containers

After a rather stressful appointment today, I decided to pick up a few things from the grocery store. The main items on my list were granulated sugar and pure almond extract. Both items happen to almost always be in the same aisle, the baking aisle, so I went there first before getting side tracked and buying more than I wanted to. The store had zero pure almond extract. They only had the imitation crap. That pissed me off! I refused to buy that. Then what was worse, when I went to pick up a bag (meaning one, 5-lb bag) of granulated sugar, I almost had a fit. I could tell in a millisecond that they were smaller. All of the bags (all brands) were suddenly 4-lb bags! Continue reading

A cook and baker’s view on non-sugar sweeteners

non-sugar-sweeteners

I know there are many people out there that are dead-set against using non-sugar sweeteners. And some research on select non-sugar sweeteners support (or at least used to support) such opposition. Sweetness and no calories? Too good to be true? Well, I have decided that in some cases (or at least for some times) that select non-sugar sweeteners are the better choice for me, not just because of taste or texture, but for baking. Continue reading