One for me, two for you

It's a fantastic thing to live in a city with world-class restaurants and a reputation for healthy, sustainable dining. And I'm always on the lookout for excuses to blow my dining-out budget on a new restaurant - or having a good reason to visit some of my old favorites. Dining Out for Life raises money for Food and Friends, one of the best organizations in this city to benefit men, women, and children living with HIV/AIDS and other illnesses in DC. This year on March 6, make sure to eat at one of these restaurants for lunch or dinner - some of them donate 100% of their proceeds for the night. Something else that fills me with DC pride is that many of these restaurants get completely booked early on, so visit OpenTable soon to make your reservation.

Remember, if you're in the mood for seafood, make good choices. Chilean sea bass, grouper, monkfish, and others are on the no-no list. We do what we can to make the world a better place. Lucky for us DC offers the opportunity to help others simply by going out to dinner.

Et tu Special K?

I found out this morning that Special K is made with high-fructose corn syrup. It's unbelieeeeeevable! (And yet, believable...) I'm not coming down on one side or the other in the controversy (ok, I don't believe it's "natural" or nutritious) but I have tried to cut most HFCS out of my diet, just as I've tried to limit sugar and fat, and I'm appalled by the number of products that use it. Ever since I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (it's fabulous and funny), I've been counting down the hours until I can shop at a local farmer's market and stop buying tomatoes from Mexico. They taste better and they support a local economy that doesn't waste more energy shipping the food to me than the actual caloric energy provided by the food. Not to mention the whole oil/terrorism thing. What was I ranting about?

Oh yeah, HFCS. This is not nutrition! And what pisses me off is that Special K, while not a baggie of celery sticks, is supposed to be fairly good for you, with the low calories and the fat free and the 11 vitamins and minerals. You know what else is in there? Malt flavoring. What the hell is that? Here's the long answer. The short answer, I think, is that it's barley drippings and bacteria. This produces "positive flavor notes."

What the hell are we putting into our bodies?