Ketchup and Maple Syrup = Big Ticket Items!

A few years back, my husband I bought new appliances for the kitchen. Our purchase included a new refrigerator that dispensed water right on the fridge door. Fast forward a couple of years and another kid later and my husband joked, "We bought the wrong refrigerator, what we should have got was one that dispensed ketchup and maple syrup on the fridge door! Think of all the money we would save opening and closing that door and how much of a time saver it would be!"

He joked, but he was absolutely right, we use a ton of both of these items.

A wise woman I once worked with told me - "Going organic is expensive and time consuming, so just look at your most used items and go organic there for starters". Very wise and smart advice and I hope my readers can think about this. If you can't afford to go organic or if you just don't seem to have that option in your local supermarkets, then just sit down and make a list of the big ticket items in your house and start there!

For me it's these things: milk, apples, bread, ketchup and syrup.

So, let's get down to it - ketchup first.

There are options. Heinz makes an organic ketchup but it is pricey and not easy to find. Trader Joe's makes one as well but I would be lying if I said it tasted the same. My kids poo-poo'd it long ago and it's not even the right color. But, now that product labels are pushing healthy eating, this caught my eye - Hunt's Ketchup says right on the label - No High Fructose Corn Syrup. Cue the enlightening music. What's this? Hunt's - which is a pretty decent ketchup and not to mention easy on the wallet- just took out this one horrible ingredient! There was much rejoicing in the supermarket aisle that day for me! And Hunt's may be happy to know, they have a new customer!

Second big ticket item in my house- maple syrup. Or, fake maple syrup - given that Aunt Jemima is really just manufactured chemical crap. I had to think about this one long and hard. The only way to get the chemical free stuff, from what I have seen (but please correct me if I am wrong) is to buy pure maple syrup and that my friends has about 892 grams of sugar per half of teaspoon :-) (I am kidding of course, it's more like 50 per teaspoon) but oh my god, it's delicious. I prefer Camp's Pure Maple Syrup - and they make an organic version as well. If you read the label (which I do religiously now) it's quite amusing and it says this : maple syrup. Ha ha ha!

No additives, no crap, just right out of the maple tree. I had to struggle with this a bit - given the high sugar content - but I do believe the following : if it comes from a tree- how bad can it be?

Poetry readings coming soon.....