Whole Foods Transition: Coffee Creamer

I wanted to talk for a minute about one thing I have made a 100% leap on during this transition to eating whole, real foods. BTW, again, what do I call this? A 'diet', a new way of life? Lunacy? ;)

Anyways, I was a total flavored coffee creamer junkie. Especially during the holidays when, starting in fall, the stores would stock their shelves with flavors like Pumpkin Spice and then move into White Chocolate Raspberry :)

Throughout a lot of the reading I have been doing, it was pretty much a no brainer that these creamers really aren't really 'cream' - get me? So I figured it was probably to my overall benefit, especially my teeth, if I try to cut out these 'creamers' loaded full of sugar and things produced in a scientific lab. I had already started dabbling in my obsession of making things from scratch, and I stumbled upon Carrie Vitt's recipes for homemade coffee creamers. I made them a few times and they weren't bad. They weren't what I was used to, but in a good way. They weren't knock my teeth out sweet. So I kept up with them for a few weeks. Occasionally, I would be somewhere and use a flavored creamer. They started to taste terrible, like I was drinking something metallic, every time. The longer I went without drinking them in my daily coffee, the worse they tasted when I did.

Then, the inevitable happened. I ran out of my homemade stuff and didn't have time to think/remember/just make another batch. Coffee without cream for me is like taking a shower in cold water...like trying to drive your car with no gas. Follow me? So, because I can't drink my coffee black, or couldn't, I should say, I just used some cream I had in the fridge. After all, it was half of the ingredients I used to make the homemade stuff. Certainly it tasted different - again. But again, it tasted different in a good way. It tasted healthy - normal - what it probably should taste like! And I also noticed I needed less and less; from the transition to the fake flavored creamers, to the homemade creamers, to just the cream. Now, if I must, I really can just drink the coffee black, but I do prefer a little slurp of cream in there.

And do you know the most amazing thing I noticed. (I know, I am weird). The drops that form at the top of your drink, after your 5th cup of the morning sits on your desk for a few hours, look buttery! Not like some synthetic oil forming on a puddle. That is when you know it has to be good!

Can you see the 'droplets' that look like the color of butter? :)