Organic!

Somehow I backed into organic food.

Me!

Imbiber of eight TaBs a day. User of dozens of those pink Sweet 'n Low packets on everything from grapefruit to oatmeal to vinaigrette to hot drinks and cold ones, too.

Oooh, I love fake sugar. In fact I adore sugar. Am a processed food lover extraordinaire.

Apparently.

Ersatz low fat or better yet non-fat cheeses, sour creams, half and half. Kind of defies the laws of nature.

So how did I back into this reader of labels and purchaser of foods sans chemicals?

Well, the simple truth. A diet recommended by my good friend Gayla.

I have been wanting to detox. Nope. Not from martinis ... I drink them rarely. Not from Newport Lights ... I stopped puffing my two packs a day almost thirty years ago ... not from a lusty Cab or a sexy, smoky Malbec. No overindulgence there. I never sip alone. So that leaves me sober as a granite stone.

Then what? you are asking.

So if you really care to know. Drumroll ...

Chocolate chip cookies. Baking almost every night to be able to eat the batter (I know, I know salmonella lurks between the blades of the beaters). Brownies. Blueberry crumble. Banana bread. I swear I only buy fruit to see what I can bake it in with a streusel topping. Oh yes and candy. Most kinds. But M&Ms ... peanut ones ... by the bagful are my fave. Or coconut patties handdipped in dark bittersweet chocolate. The ones from Florida in the rectangular box. And, yep, that ubiquitous saccharin sweetener that I sprinkle on or stir in everything.

You'd think I wouldn't be able to fit through a door. But I manage. Although there have been times when I bump into the refridgerator bacause my sonar is off and I underestimated my hip girth. I am the lightest I have been in over two decades.

Ah, but I digress.

So now I find myself marching up the aisle at the supermarket looking for almond butter, forsaking Skippy's reduced sugar highly processed creamy that has forever been a staple in my larder forever. Or, looking for virgin pressed coconut oil. Arteries be damned. Stevia in green packets replace the Pepto Bismal pink ones that litter the bottom of every purse from every season.

I read labels. Pass by all things white. Rice, bread, flour sugar, potatoes, pasta. Gheesh. Forego anything that ends in -ite ... or -ose ... or is difficult to pronounce and makes me feel as if Mrs. Wimp, our 11th grade chem teacher, is spraying her words re marble chips and Hcl as petry dishes bubble steamy.

What's a girl to do? Gotta slide into my seventh (OMG) decade in style. Svelte. Healthy. Glowing skin. And speaking of skin ... in black skinny jeans and ballerina flats.

Cheers to getting through the holidays with nary a sugar plum fairy hovering over my sweet chestnut mane whispering naughty things in my ears. Ever the temptress.