I had a different title for the blog, which was “The Goddess Has Arrived”. I decided to change the title because I got on my soapbox I was so mad. Funny, the definition of soapbox means: “A modern form of the soapbox is a blog or a website on which a user publishes one’s thoughts to whoever reads them.” Reference the entire definition here. Well, I have thoughts about The Eat Clean Diet that I wanted to share with anyone who is listening. 
Anyway, back to the Goddess. I bet you are wondering exactly what the original title meants, or if I’m just that conceited. NO, I’m not (at least I don’t think so). What I’m referring to is this:
Goddess Dressing
If you haven’t tried Annie’s Goddess Dressing, the ingredients include tahini and lemon with chives and parsley. It is fantastically yummy! I put it on a monster fresh salad that I made from homegrown kale and spinach, organic tomatoes, red onion, cucumber, grapes and goat cheese.
Monster Fresh Salad
Of course there was some homemade bread. I finally got around to trying the sandwich bread that I had made the other day, and I was not impressed. It was way to dense for my liking, and was missing the flavor of the French bread that I like to make.
With Goddess dressing. Mmmmmmm.
Today was a beautiful, awesome day in the ATL. The temperature hit 63*, and the family hung around outside enjoying the sun. The sun makes me happy! The sun can also make the sky look wondrous…
Beautiful Sky Scene
Of course there were chickens, and apparently I am the chicken lady because they follow me around the yard!
The Chicken Lady
Sean was trying to feed them kale from the garden…
One of the chickens was actually eating from his hand!
Sweet Chicken
Fatty the kitty watched and has stopped attacking the chickens and scaring himself…
Fatty the kitten
Fatty is only 10 months old. He had a sister and brother, but they both met an early demise, as did the Mom. Fatty is a sweet kitty and loves lots of attention. He learned not to pounce on the chickens, because they scare him silly!
When I went out in the garden the other day, I was very surprised to see that my spinach had already grown again and needed to be harvested. I wanted to harvest some kale too, and my take was huge!
I love kale and spinach!
Hence the spinach and kale salads I’ve been eating lately. When I was at the store the other day, I picked up a monstrous bunch of collard greens. Being down south, you would think that I would know what to do with them, but they’re an anomaly to me. I plan on doing some research (I’ve noticed a lot of recipes contain bacon) and cook it up soon. 
We ordered Chinese food for dinner one night, and I got Kung Pao Chicken and Miso Soup, (it wasn’t very good, I was thinking it would be more like the thai dish with the peanut sauce but not so much) plus this little diddy here:
Raw Tuna
This had some strange name but it was raw tuna, avocado, chives, black sesame seeds and a sweet sauce. This was the best tuna I have ever had! I hate when they drench the raw tuna in soy sauce. Ick. Plus I don’t need the sodium.
As you know, I’ve stated that I won’t be replacing my foods with organic and/or GMO free until I run out of the items that I already have. Well, I ran out of hot chocolate, and bought some new:
Organic Cocoa
I really like NOW Foods. I have had lots of luck with them every time that I’ve bought them. You can check out the hot chocolate here.
So this week, I had a bit of a shock, and let me tell you why. On Facebook, I was following The Eat Clean Diet. Every once in a while, they post recipes. They had posted a recipe for oatmeal raisin cookies. This was posted on their Facebook page and their blog. The caption above the picture read: “A clean, sugar free version of this delicious cookie!”
The following were the ingredients:
1/2 c + 2 tbs (50g) oats
1/2 c (56g) almond flour
1/2 c baking stevia
1 tbs baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 c (227g) greek yogurt
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 c sugar free maple syrup
1/2 tsp butter extract, optional
1/3 c + 1 tbs (60g) raisins
Can you guess which ingredients I had an issue with? Now, I know that “clean” can be interpreted in many different ways. But the 3 ingredients, the “stevia baking blend”, “sugar free maple syrup” and the “butter extract” are nothing but chemicals.
In my infinite wisdom I decided to call them out on it. This is what I posted below the recipe on their Facebook page:
These aren’t clean! It irritates me when people think they’re eating clean and they’re really not. I explain WHY on my Facebook fan page: http://www.facebook.com/
Here is what happened: they have since REMOVED my post and blocked me from commenting! Because you know what? THEY KNOW I WAS RIGHT! Please share the word about my blog and page if you like it and feel that others would too. They’ve got 146k followers seeing some of their “unclean” recipes and just TAKING THEM AT THEIR WORD that the recipes are clean. I am actually furious about this.
(They didn’t even bother to reply!)
This is why I called them out on their ingredients:
The stevia baking blend: Only 30%-50% of maltodextrin is GMO free and the gums are sometimes questionable.
Sugar Free Maple Syrup can have a conglomeration of chemicals in it. (WATER, SORBITOL*, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: CELLULOSE GUM, SALT, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, CARAMEL COLOR, XANTHAN GUM, SORBIC ACID AND SODIUM BENZOATE (PRESERVATIVES), ACESULFAME POTASSIUM (NON NUTRITIVE SWEETENER)*, SODIUM HEXAMETAPHOSPHATE, PHOSPHORIC ACID, SUCRALOSE (NON NUTRITIVE SWEETENER)*.) ***There’s nothing maple about it!!
Butter Extract doesn’t have any butter in it…and contains water, artificial flavor, propylene glycol, and FD&C Yellow 5.
I’ll get off of my soapbox now. (I’m only allowed 1 per week.)
Hi! I feel your pain. But I followed that post by the Eat-Clean Diet and Tosca Reno and they did make their own recommendations. They said to use 100% pure maple syrup or raw organic honey. They also said to use unsalted organic butter too! I think they meant well. Obviously when it comes to recipes people have to make their own substitutions and use preferred ingredients. Also tone on the internet has to be clearly explained, they may have made that decision to promote a positive environment. I don’t think they’re in it for the money. They truly want to help people change their lives. Best
Hi! The Eat Clean Diet **probably** shouldn’t have posted the recipe the way it read. They only made “modifications” when they were called out by other people. I was only surprised and disappointed at the disregard for people trying to eat clean. I think that you will agree with me, however, that those 2 items are in no way clean, even with all of the different ways that clean eating is interpreted. Thanks for the comment, I love to hear others opinions about issues such as these.
Well if it really is true to every word you’d get and see results in no time! I think with the entire fad diets around you never know who’s telling who or what.