fage yogurt, sugary smoothies and ode to summer

Hello world. Greetings from 106th street my new abode. Today I got a post from Daily Candy on Fage yogurt. I've been eating fage for maybe 4 years now, ever since I returned from Greece where I fell in love with the yogurt there - which sorry, Fage producers, isn't even close to what you produce. However, Fage is a good replication of the real stuff. Fage brand yogurt which comes in a full fat version containing a whopping 20 grams of fat (and a good deal of it saturated) per 1 cup serving is a non-stabilized, non-processed wonderful tasting (without any added sugar) thick yogurt. Its great for snack, use in sauces, smoothies, what have you. It comes in a 5% fat, 2% or 0% fat version as well. I can sort of tell the difference between the full fat and the 0% fat versions, but the 2% and the 5% are fairly hard to distinguish. I love the 2% one and somehow I feel better about it. I've had their fruit ones as well - where you get something resembling fruit on the side and you can determine how much you add. So I add the bare minimum to get the taste without the tons of sugar added to it - but the amount of sugar in the entire fruit topping is still less than danon or breyers. Now what I wonder about Fage yogurt is if the milk comes from grass fed cows or if the cows are fed grains and given growth hormones. I believe that all the milk is imported from Greece or maybe even the yogurt is imported from Greece in the containers already. I wish it weren't pasteurized as I am sure the Greek yogurt in Greece, especially in the Islands or villages certainly was not pasteurized.

I'm started having Danon plain low fat yogurt as well which I don't think has any stabilizers in it. Its quite good tasting, but I am sure it comes from grain fed cows pumped full of hormones.

I went to a new smoothie bar yesterday. They only have smoothies in 24 ounce size. I went home and looked up their website - they have 73 grams of sugar per serving. 73 grams - that about 20 teaspoons of sugar - double the amount in a can of regular coke. I felt lightheaded and starving for sugary snacks most of the day afterwards. I had a new dark chocolate bar that evening (which I was planning to give to a client, but forgot) which had 14 grams of sugar per serving instead of my usual 5 grams or 8 grams and the same thing happened. Even with 14 grams of sugar, the chocolate tasted incredibly sweet and where in the past I would have been satisfied with 3 squares I felt inclined to eat half the bar which I would never do. Damn sugar and your addictive nature. I hope this diatribe from a former recovered sugar addict can help you on your quest to recover from your sugar addiction and shed some light on this very serious condition.

Summer is upon us. Thank God here in New York we're experiencing a bit of a setback in sweltering temperatures and the rain has lifted a bit so I can get some outdoor runs in. I hope that all of you are taking advantage of summer temperatures and getting out there on a bike, on the road or climbing rocks or whatever it is you do for fun and sweat! Does moving boxes count?