Food has always been the focus of social and familial events in my life and always will be.  Sometimes I think it would have been nice to have been brought up in a family environment where food was a bothersome interruption, a nuisance to have to stop a task in order to feed oneself because one had to it order to survive.  NOT!  I love everything about food, the hunt for new ingredients, the buying, the preparation, the camaraderie, the rituals, the experience of serving and being served, and mostly the tasting.

Speaking of hunting for new ingredients, I am currently on the hunt for a nutrition bar that can be used as a supplement for energy in support of all dietary limitations, low sugar, no gluten, no dairy, no trans fat, no fructose, whole food, paleo, balanced macronutrients, and most of all, and this is the most important to me, this blog and my mission to advocate anti-aging gastronomy, anti inflammatory.  It is the anti inflammatory nature of the food which has been elusive and I have already looked at the nutritional breakdown and ingredients in 101 bars.  I could not find one bar claiming itself to be a health bar, protein bar, energy bar or nutritition bar that could claim it to be anti inflammatory as well.   And yet, if the bar is anti inflammatory, by the very nature of the ingredients that are used to make it such, it follows that it will also be low sugar, no gluten, no dairy, no trans fat, no fructose, whole food, paleo and balanced.

Of the 101 bars I looked at, most contained some sort of grain, refined flour, white sugar,  cane or rice syrup, whey protein, and hidden fructose.  Who knows agave nectar is high fructose corn syrup?  If you can find a bar that has no grains and no added sugar in any form, please send it to me posthaste or I will be forced to make one myself!

Buon Appetito and Buona Salute, Chef AngelaB