Yogurt & Book Banning

I love plain Greek yogurt. Throw in some fresh fruit and I'm good to go for breakfast, lunch or dinner. (And, apparently it's one of the Best Healthy Foods You Aren't Eating.) So when I was wandering through the grocery store one day and discovered Greek yogurt with chocolate my eyes instantly lit up! See, I also have a thing for ice cream. I try not to eat it often because it's an overload of dairy, fat and calories but... it sure is good! So when I saw Greek yogurt with chocolate I thought that maybe this could be an acceptable replacement for ice cream and bought the pack of four cartons, which is the only way it came.

I took one bite and passed it off to my mom, who took one bite and passed it off to my dad. Who loaded it up with peanut butter. And then with even more peanut butter. And after topping it off with a little more peanut butter thought it was acceptable and finished the carton. (He likes mixing peanut butter with different things after reading an article about a local Lebanese restaurant owner who makes his own--delicious, I might add--hummus for his restaurant. He is now in process of making hummus mixes--such as hummus and guacamole--after mixing hummus and peanut butter in an attempt to get his daughter to eat it.) Now we have three cartons sitting in our refrigerator, waiting to be eaten.

So, tell me your stories! Is there a food you once bought thinking it would be healthier substitute for a bad food? Was it as good as you expected or did it completely flop?

In other news, people who know me are aware that I am not a fan of banning books. Take a look at this list. I am often shocked when I look through lists of banned books to see exactly what people are banning. Some of the books banned include the only classics that actually interested me when I was assigned to read them in high school as well as other books that just confuse me. Why was The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway banned? Could it possibly be for putting students to sleep when forced to read it?

Over the weekend the YA literary world was outraged when a man in Missouri requested that the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson should be banned from a school district, along with Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut and Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler. I won't go into too much detail here because others have discussed this topic much better than I could. Instead, I will direct you to Laurie Halse Anderson's blog on the topic. In this post she gives many links to some of the discussion that has taken place about the attempted banning of her book, including links to the original complaints made the man trying to ban the books.

This weekend I'm off work and I haven't been feeling well so I'm planning to spend the weekend in, drinking lots of tea and water and resting in an attempt to get better before I get really sick. This means plenty of time for reading! I'm hoping that, along with homework, I will finish reading Speak and will be able to get through at least half, if not finish, Twenty Boy Summer. Look for more on those two books in the near future!

I also feel like I should add one of the more interesting Hemingway books to my reading list for the weekend after that comment above. I do like Hemingway, just not The Old Man and the Sea.