He didn't propose to me again, although my wedding band did come in the mail this week! I looove it and how it goes perfectly with my engagement ring. I can't wait until I can wear it all the time but for now it's safely locked away. Josh just proposed his dissertation and I am so proud of him for getting it approved. His next step is to run studies and collect data, then analyze the data and write his dissertation, then defend it and become a Doctor! He is so smart and such a hard worker. I am so happy watching all of his dreams come true.
To celebrate I surprised him with some pumpkin mookies and a congratulations card. I always like to put little silly things on the front of his cards. ;p I'm so glad I was actually able to surprise him, I'm horrible with surprises and normally give away what I'm doing well in advance.
The mookies turned out really good although I was unsure if they were going to happen after a trip to pick up ingredients at the store. When I bake special occasion cookies and cakes I typically bake them from scratch. But sometimes you just need to be able to grab a box mix to make something quick. I haven't made mookies in a while so when browsing all the big name box brands at Wegmans the other day I was shocked to find that even though they all say 0 grams trans fat they all have partially hydrogenated soybean oil as their third or fourth ingredient. What that means is that each serving of cake has .49 grams of trans fat. Which if you eat mookies like Josh and I do means you'll be getting a lot of unexpected trans fat. I consider myself very moderate when it comes to food views. I eat tons of less-than-healthy for you foods and love snacks and sweets as much as the next person. Everything can be good in moderation, except for trans fat. It doesn't have a recommended serving size on nutrition labels because Doctors recommend you shouldn't consume any trans fat. It is man made and was popularized in the 60's and 70's because it's cheap to make and helps preserve food. At the time it was also thought to be healthier than saturated fat. It's now known to be worse because while saturated fat increases the bad cholesterol in your body, trans fat increases the bad cholesterol and decreases the good cholesterol.
I know that things happen and if I order a baked good or eat a snack at a friend's house sometimes there will be trans fat in it. I don't really let that bug me because those instances are so few and far between, but I never knowingly buy a product that has trans fat in it. Which is why I was so torn in the cake aisle. I didn't have time to make mookies from scratch and I really wanted to make something for Josh to celebrate his hard work. I was also a little mad at the big brands for keeping a product in their food and hiding it from us when there is no need to do so. You don't gain anything from having trans fat in a product, it doesn't enhance the taste and there are a million other products you can use instead.
A government study recently found that while the childhood obesity rate hasn't changed for the first time in 20 years the number of children with high cholesterol has declined. Experts were wondering how this could be possible because obesity and high cholesterol go hand in hand and the leading theory is that it is because companies are scaling back the use of trans fat in their products.
Just when I was about to leave the store empty handed I spotted a box of Naturally Nora cake mix. They didn't have a spice cake flavor but they were made of only eight ingredients. They were free of partially hydrogenated anything. I decided to put my money where my mouth is and pay $3.99 for a box of trans fat free cake mix over an .89 cent box of a popular brand cake mix. I'd rather spend a little more and feel comfortable with what I'm eating. I'm so happy to report that Josh loved the mookies and that both he and my dad (and myself) think they taste just as good as the ones made with traditional cake mixes.
To continue the celebration Josh and I met up with a group of friends for trivia at Zenos over dinner and a beer. I got my veggie cheesesteak again and loved every bite of the cheesy mushroom goodness. It was a fun trivia night with Mark Twain's Mustache in the lead for most of the night until we fell into second in the last round.
This morning I had one of my favorite breakfast treats. Josh brought breakfast food for his committee the day of his dissertation proposal but ended up with extras afterwards. He brought them home which meant a Panera bagel and cream cheese for me, covered with two scrambled eggs. It was so delicious!
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! I'm so excited that Josh and I finally get to dress up like penguins for Halloween parties! It's going to be a blast!
Question of the Day: How do you feel about trans fat? Is it something you feel okay eating or do you avoid it as much as possible? Do you have a nutrition or health issue that you feel really strongly about?
0 comments