I know I’ve written about Just Like Sugar before, but it’s topping my list of “what I missed” while living abroad this summer, and so I gotta give it another shout out (in addition to yerba mate tea, which is also high on the list).
Our family rented a beautiful apartment on the ÃŽle Saint-Louis in France for the summer, and the owners graciously left us some espresso and sugar cubes and these teeny tiny pellets of some sort of sweetener. Now Supermom don’t drink coffee, never have (and never even liked the taste); however, during our travels, I tried some espresso in a hotel suite that had a machine and some pods””and became hooked.
So I started drinking it every morning, and was lovin’ it. I had brought some Just Like Sugar with me, but not enough for our entire stay. Once my stash was gone, I switched to sugar cubes””but was horrified by the number I needed to make my espresso as sweet as I liked it. So I tried the sweetener pellets. I had no idea what they were, but just a few sweetened my espresso real quick, so I didn’t think about it. (Denial, I know!)
About a week later, my fingers began to peel, like they do when I’m detoxing, so I asked my husband to email the owners and find out what the sweetener was.
“Aspartame,” they said, and I shuddered.
I hadn’t consumed aspartame since 1998 when I read about how bad it is for you. If you are now consuming aspartame in any form, don’t panic. Just step away from the aspartame. And get yourself some Just Like Sugar.
And while you’re at it, get some yerba matte tea. It gives you energy without the ups and downs of “regular” coffee or tea.
Have the best day ever!
Namaste!
Taylor plus 5
Taylor Wells, M.A., M.Ed., RYT, owns Prana Power Yoga, Inc., super-mom.com and Prana Super-mom Consulting. She is also a Boston Herald columnist and blogger, United Nations Yoga Peace Ambassador, activist, and happy Super-mom of 5 kids.