As far as the margarine vs. butter debate, I come down squarely on the margarine side when I want to slather my toast. Earth Balance is by far the best. It’s trans-fat free and tastes really good — much better than Promise, in my opinion. When baking I use butter. When cooking, it’s olive oil.

Happy healthy eating!

That’s a long-winded way to voice my support of butter, but I also wanted to say that reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma was fascinating and eye-opening! I don’t recall if its been brought up on your site before, but I highly recommend it.

PQ – I had to google TVP to figure out you meant “textured vegetable protein” because I had never heard of it before this video. I thought it was something special they made for prisons, like soylent green. I’ve never had it, so, hell, maybe it is good.

I want to side with the butter camp. I went off all oils except butter and olive oil and it has made a huge difference in how I feel and how foods taste. Anything they have to manufacture and adjust just can’t be considered real food… And if you want absolutely heavenly butter, try kerrygold, an imported irish butter. It can be a little pricey, but since I use it infrequently, it is okay. When I started this weight loss journey two years ago, I decided that if i was going to eat something, I was going to enjoy it. And if I am to stick with this business, i have to enjoy what I eat…so even though I eat far less food now, my grocery budget actually had to go UP! Fresh foods (mostly organic) cost a lot more, but the taste and quality difference is significant and worth it. If you decide to go the organic route, start with your dairy, eggs and meat…and go from there. Once you do, you’ll never turn back!

And as far as the whisk goes, I feel similarly about kitchen gadgets and cleaning them up…but i am making myself learn to like the ones that help, in the long run, because i do really prefer my own foods to anything else now—I just hate the tedious clean up when I’m done. I make my own soups for lunch each week (and even make my own stock from bones…), and i grew tomatoes this summer and i’ve been making my own sauces. I broke down and bought a food mill (another gadget to clean…) but I LOVE it! And the sauce is amazing—good-bye jar sauce! So this food journey just goes on and on… who knows what i’ll learn next (or what kind of gadget i’ll need to support it!).

I find that when I check a lot of labels I’m surprised that some things I think are healthy really are not and have the trans fat so they go back on the shelf usually. bummer, but at least the labels/ingredients are listed and we can make informed decisions now.