I’m lucky we didn’t have soda or processed foods in the house much as a kid. It just wasn’t part of the Italian/Albanian cultural way of eating I grew up with. We ate a lot of simple, healthy foods like pasta e fagioli (beans), homemade pizza with tomatoes and olives (and no cheese), escarole and white beans, and lentil soup. The only “processing” I can think of was my grandmother asking me to go through the huge pile of uncooked lentils on her table to look for stray pebbles.

On holidays we’d have my Italian grandmother’s homemade cookies, or my Albanian grandmother’s homemade baklava. On very rare occasions we had a soda, either root beer or cream soda, as a treat. But that’s what sugar should be, an occasional, festive treat. Yet for many it’s Continue reading →