Sourdough baking is a method of baking that has been around for centuries. We’ve been baking bread, in some form, for thousands of years (at least). The first record we have of the sourdough baking method dates back to around 1500 B.C. in Egypt.

With the use of modern store-bought yeast, sourdough is not as common as it used to be, but it has made quite the comeback in recent years. People have discovered the benefits of sourdough as they discover the problems with regular bread.

I use sourdough starter in much of my baking; I’ve used it to make pie crusts, bread doughs, hamburger buns, and pizza doughs. 

What is Sourdough?

The key ingredient in sourdough bread, what it gives it its texture and sour taste, is the sourdough starter. Sourdough starter is a mixture of flour and water (usually 50/50) that has been fed enough to develop its own collection of yeast, bacteria, and lactic acid. Sourdough starter has its own microbiome made up of bacteria and wild yeast collected from its environment. No two sourdough starters are exactly the same. Each one develops its own unique microbiome that gives it a unique smell and taste. 

Sourdough is also unique from other yeasts in the way it develops the gluten in bread. The wild yeast and bacteria in the sourdough starter begin to digest the gluten in the bread during the fermentation process. The longer the dough ferments and the more it rises, the more gluten is broken down. Many people who have previously had problems with gluten have found that, after fixing the gut, they can occasionally enjoy sourdough bread.

Storebought sourdough bread is not the same as homemade sourdough. When you buy sourdough from the store, you have no idea how long the bread fermented or if it’s even real sourdough. If you do want to buy your bread, I recommend looking at a small local bakery or a farmers market where you can ask questions about the baking process.

I’ve linked my favorite sourdough recipes below and given a brief description of our favorite way to use them.

Artisan Sourdough Bread 

This is the classic sourdough loaf of bread.

I get all of my sourdough recipes from Baking Sense, but generally, I don’t follow an exact recipe. I prefer to experiment. I follow this recipe’s measurements, but usually, I mix up the type of flour I’m using. I like the majority of the flour I use to be all-purpose flour, and then I add a little bit of rye flour, bread flour, or einkorn flour (or a mix of all three). Adding a variety of different flours can add nuttiness to your bread that would be lacking if you just used all-purpose flour.

The most important thing, in my experience, is making sure that your sourdough starter is very active, (the recipe I linked goes over this) before baking. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a loaf that doesn’t properly rise. 

We like to make sandwiches with sourdough bread. Generally, we’ll use whatever we’ve got on hand, but whatever we do, we always throw on lots of different vegetables. I’m a fan of caramelized onions with bacon, greens, tomatoes, mustard, and a fried egg. Homemade pesto is also great on sandwiches or plain on toast. This bread is so good, it doesn’t need much else, though.

Hamburger Buns 

I have not eaten storebought hamburger buns since I made my own for the first time. I can’t imagine going back (not to mention regular storebought buns are terrible for you.) I use this recipe from Baking Sense for my hamburger buns. I just skip the sugar and use goat’s milk instead of cow’s milk.

We don’t eat burgers often, but when we do, we eat organic grass-fed ground beef from a local farm and our sourdough buns. Personally, I like to add caramelized mushrooms and onions on top, with tomatoes, greens, cheese, homemade mustard, and an egg. Eggs are a staple. I’ll put eggs on pretty much anything. 

Sourdough Pizza Dough

I use this pizza dough recipe. I don’t even remember what regular pizza tastes like, but I’m almost positive that it’s terrible compared to our pizza. When we do pizza night, we like to do one pizza with pesto sauce and one with tomato sauce. We’ll top the pizzas with cheese, tomatoes, Italian sausage, fresh basil, purple onions, artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes, and olives. To each their own when it comes to pizza, but we recommend more vegetables, more variety, and less meat and cheese. 

Sourdough Pie Crust 

Sourdough pie crust is, in my experience, the best pie crust ever. The crust is flakey and buttery, but because it uses sourdough starter instead of water, you end up with a much more flavorful pie crust. I’ve also found that throughout my experimentation with different flours, including gluten-free flours, all-purpose flour still makes the best pie crust. 

Add 2.5 cups of your flour and a pinch of salt (I recommend Bob’s Red Mill organic all-purpose flour) to a bowl, and then add 1 cup of ice-cold butter. Begin to break up the butter and combine the flour and butter with your fingers into smaller pieces, until you have a mixture resembling kraft parmesan cheese (This is a tip from my Sister Pie cookbook. After lots of experimentation, I can confirm that this is the way to achieve the best pie crust.) Then add half a cup of active sourdough starter and mix until combined. Use your hands to bring the mixture together into a dough. You’ll want to refrigerate this dough for at least two hours or up to two days. If you’re not planning on making pie anytime soon, you can freeze the pie dough.

Conclusion

I generally only eat sourdough once or twice a month. It’s a nice treat, but I wouldn’t recommend it every day. If you’re still sick, you should avoid gluten completely until the gut is healed, and then eat it only in moderation.

Learning how to make sourdough bread can be a great way to incorporate more “normal” foods into your diet, while still knowing exactly what’s going into your body. 

I’ve really enjoyed the process of learning how to make sourdough bread and I love sharing it with other people! It’s not only a treat for me, but for others as well. When I cook sourdough for people who don’t eat as healthy as I do, they’re always impressed!

Refined sugar feeds pathogens, especially candida. An abundance of candida and other pathogens leads to allergies, diabetes, obesity, and a whole lot more. Unfortunately, we love sugar. We love sugar so much that Americans are planning to spend nearly $3 billion on Halloween candy this year. The science is in: if you want to be as healthy as possible refined sugar must be eliminated from your diet.

This includes Halloween. 

This will be my second Halloween without Halloween candy. Truthfully, I can’t say I miss it all that much. I know that’s not the case for everyone, so I’ve put together a guide for some alternatives and ranked them from least healthy to most healthy. Although we have some alternative candies, this isn’t an exact trade-in for your favorite candy bars. This is more a guide to satisfy your sweet tooth. 

This is not an advertisement. None of the brands below paid us.

Least Healthy

Organic Cane Sugar 

Truthfully, I can’t believe I still have to include this. Using organic refined sugar and calling it “healthy” is what my dad did 20 years ago. It’s dated, and it’s not a healthy alternative to regular refined sugar. There was a time when my dad was a radical health nut for eating organic sugar instead of regular sugar, but today, even the least health-conscious people I know who were born within the last 50 years are of the opinion that sugar is sugar. As far as the effects of sugar on your body, organic cane sugar has the same effect. Organic cane sugar will still feed candida growth in your body! 

Coconut Sugar, Brown Rice Syrup, Raw Sugar, and Agave syrup 

There are a lot of sugar alternatives out there that are still very high on the glycemic index chart. The only sugar substitutes we use that I recommend are stevia, monk fruit, and dates. I use blackstrap molasses, too, but I don’t recommend it for everyone. I mix a teaspoon of molasses with whatever quantity of monk fruit that I’m using to make “brown sugar”. Molasses does have some benefits, but it is still a refined sugar. If you use molasses, use it in moderation and pay attention to how it makes you feel. 

Read this article to see some alternative sugars and where they rank on the glycemic index chart. I personally have not used any other alternative sweeteners besides the ones I recommend above. In my opinion and experience, these are the healthiest sugar alternatives you can use.

Anything Too Processed 

Lately, I’ve seen a push for Smart Sweets. Smart Sweets is a brand of candy that makes your favorite regular candy like gummy bears and sour patch kids. They are free from sugars and sugar alcohols, they’re naturally colored, and gluten-free, as well as free from other common allergens like nuts. They even have vegan options. If I took my kids trick-or-treating and they gave these out, I probably wouldn’t tell the kids they couldn’t eat them, but it’s not an everyday healthy alternative. They’re sweetened with monk fruit, and that is a good sugar alternative, however, the candies themselves are just too processed to be considered a great alternative. That being said, these are better for you than regular refined sugar. So they’re not the worst thing you could do. But any naturally sweetened candy like this that is processed into a gummy bear, or sour worm, or anything resembling normal candy, is just too processed to be considered healthy. 

Getting There!

Chocolate

They make a multitude of alternatively sweetened chocolate bars out there. We’ve tried a couple of them, and while they make good alternatives, we wouldn’t recommend them for everyday eating. 

Lily’s Chocolate Bars, and Other Lily’s Products

Lily’s chocolate bars are sweetened with stevia. It is a good alternative to conventional chocolate bars, but they are cooked and more processed than some other raw or otherwise healthier options. They also contain Soy Lecithin, which is essentially a food emulsifier; it helps the chocolate achieve the right texture. My family and I do eat Lily’s chocolate bars occasionally. They also make chocolate chips which are great for baking. 

Lily’s also makes peanut butter cups. Finding Lily’s peanut butter cups was a godsend when I was still craving Reese’s Peanut Butter cups. I don’t crave peanut butter cups much anymore, and when I do I prefer to make my own! (More on that later) Lily’s chocolate has a plethora of sweet alternatives and a multitude of different kinds of chocolate bars. We try to avoid processed foods as much as possible, but Lily’s isn’t the worst thing you could grab as a treat every once in a while. 

Lakanto Monk Fruit Chocolate Bars

Lakanto is the brand of granulated Monk fruit that we use for baking. It’s radically better than sugar, but it does have erythritol, which is a sugar alcohol. Sugar alcohol isn’t great for you, though a little every once in a while with the help of a healthy gut won’t be the worst thing for you. Lakanto also makes chocolate bars, and while I’ve never personally had them, based on the ingredients, they are also a suitable chocolate bar alternative. Again, they’re still a processed food, so not too much!

Honey Mama’s Chocolate Bars

Honey Mama’s makes raw food chocolate bars out of portland. A raw food chocolate bar is going to be much better for you than a processed chocolate bar. For that reason, these are our favorite. They’re made from sprouted almonds, cacao powder, raw honey, and a couple of other ingredients depending on the flavor you get. They melt in your mouth and have the best texture of any candy bar you’ll ever have, hands down. There is, of course, one problem. Raw honey is only good in small amounts and is not good if you haven’t fixed your gut. If you haven’t created a gut microbiome healthy enough to process the sugar from raw honey, then these aren’t for you (of course, if your gut isn’t healthy enough to process sugar, this is the wrong article for you! What are you doing here? Go make a salad!). Don’t cook with these chocolate bars! Heating up honey kills the enzymes and causes it to lose its health benefits- you might as well just eat sugar if you’re going to heat up your honey. 

Peanut Butter/Nut Butter

We like peanut butter. A lot. If sugar is still a regular part of your diet, you likely won’t be able to appreciate a high-quality sugarless peanut butter to its fullest, but trust me, you’re missing out. Most peanut butter isn’t good for you. Large scale factory-farmed peanut butter often has peanut mold problems. Additionally, enzyme inhibitors are particularly bad with peanuts. Small scale peanut butter made from sprouted nuts is much better for you, but expensive and often hard to find.

If you’re buying nut butter or peanut butter, our favorite nut butter is the Nutt-zo Keto butter. It’s got a bunch of nuts and seeds in it and it fantastic. My dad recently found another good one called Fix and Fogg Everything Butter. But ideally, you should be making your peanut butter/nut butter at home from sprouted nuts. Check out the video below to learn more about making sprouted almond butter, and be on the lookout for a video from us to see how we do it, coming soon. 

Most Healthy (Homemade Alternatives)  

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups 

We use a nut butter and Lily’s chocolate chips to make peanut butter cups. I have not made peanut butter cups without Lily’s chocolate chips, but since they have soy lecithin, there are better options.

To make peanut butter cups, I like to take a bowl full of peanut butter or nut butter and put it in the freezer to firm up. In the meantime, I melt a bag of Lily’s chocolate chips on a double boiler until they’re melted. Then I take silicone cup molds, and pour melted chocolate in the bottom, spreading the chocolate up the sides. I roll spoonfuls of the chilled peanut butter into balls and put them in the silicone cups. Then I cover the peanut butter with more chocolate and chill it until it is solid. These peanut butter cups are much better than store-bought because you can add as much or as little peanut butter and chocolate as you want! Truthfully, I don’t know how well these keep because I’ve never had them survive for more than 30 minutes They’re definitely a fan favorite. 

Date Balls 

You can experiment with different flavor combinations with date balls forever. The simplest way to make them is to put pitted dates in a food processor with nut butter and/or nuts, and a little bit of salt. Blend until you get the right consistency to roll them into balls. You can experiment with adding different nuts, nut butter, seeds, and even berries. Roll them into balls and then roll in chocolate powder, or shredded coconut, or even sliced almonds. The possibilities are endless! I don’t make date balls all that often, so I don’t have a go-to recipe. 

Homemade Honey Mama’s Chocolate Bars

If you like Honey Mama’s chocolate bars, you should try making your own! They’ll be better for you because they’re homemade and you can control the ingredients, and you can make them less sweet. (As much as we love Honey Mama’s, they’re way too sweet). So check out this recipe for homemade Honey Mama’s chocolate. Use homemade nut butter from sprouted nuts and as little raw honey as possible for the healthiest version of these bars. I’ve yet to try it, but I suspect you could use homemade Honey Mama’s chocolate bars, with homemade nut butter from sprouted nuts, and make the healthiest peanut butter cups possible. 

Homemade Ice Cream

Another one of my favorite desserts is homemade ice cream. Store-bought “healthy” ice cream is expensive, and also, not healthy! At home, we like to make tart berry-banana ice cream, cranberry-banana, raspberry-banana, blackberry-banana, etc. We like to use tart fruits, especially cranberries because bananas are very sweet. We take 12 bananas, cut them up, and freeze them and our fruit ahead of time. We then pull the bananas out to thaw just a little bit, add 1.5 cups of frozen tart berries, and add salt and cinnamon to taste. Put everything in the food processor and blend to combine for 5 generous servings. This, like most of our recipes, is a loose recipe. Don’t be afraid to set guidelines for what is healthy enough and experiment within those guidelines to find a version that you like best. 

Pies

Pies are a favorite of ours. We make pie crust using butter, sourdough starter, organic flour, and a pinch of salt. If you find that you still have a problem digesting gluten even after healing the gut, you’ll want to use chickpea flour (ideally homemade chickpea flour from sprouted chickpeas) and water instead of sourdough starter. 

Add 2.5 cups of your flour and a pinch of salt to a bowl. I recommend Bob’s Red Mill organic all-purpose flour if you’re using storebought, but personally, I prefer to buy organic local from a farmers market. Then add 1 cup of ice-cold butter. Begin to break up the butter and combine the flour and butter with your fingers into smaller and smaller pieces, until you have a mixture resembling Kraft parmesan cheese (a tip from my Sister Pie cookbook, and after lots of experimentation, I can confirm this is the way to achieve the best pie crust). Add half a cup of active sourdough starter and mix until combined. Use your hands to bring the mixture together into a dough. You’ll want to refrigerate this dough for at least 2 hours and up to 2 days. If you’re not planning on making the pie anytime soon, you can freeze the pie dough.

Pie filling is generally experimental at our house. I usually take a large bowl of fruit, add lemon juice, ¼ cup of tapioca starch, anywhere from ¼ cup to ¾ cup of granulated monk fruit (sometimes I add a teaspoon or less of molasses to the monk fruit for a brown sugar substitute), and salt. I’ve used this with apples, apple-rhubarb, plums, cranberries, peaches, and cherries. Again, I recommend playing around with fruit combinations and ratios. Cranberry pie needs more monk fruit than peach pie, and apple and plum pie go great with cinnamon and other similar flavors. It’s super easy to google your favorite fruit pie recipe and convert it into a healthier version. 

Generally, I top my pies with some sort of crumble. I use about a cup of cold butter, and about ¾ cup of chickpea flour, ¼ cup of tapioca starch, a couple of spoonfuls of monk fruit depending on how tart your pie is, and a pinch of salt. Combine until you achieve the texture of sand. 

Roll out your pie crust into a glass pan (don’t put metal in the oven!) fill with your pie filling and top with your crumble. Bake for about an hour at 325 degrees Fahrenheit, until the topping is golden brown and your pie filling is bubbling. 

Don’t be afraid to experiment! I try new pies all the time. Some are better than others. I rarely measure ingredients when I’m cooking, which obviously makes it difficult to write out the perfect pie recipe!

Fruit 

Whole fruit is the absolute best thing, health-wise, to satisfy a sugar craving. Personally, if watermelon season took place during Halloween, I think we’d have no need for candy! One of our favorite sweet snacks is a bowl full of berries with a spoonful of homemade nut butter on top. You can add Lily’s chocolate chips or some unsweetened shredded coconut on top (although I’d skip the chocolate chips if you’re trying to be as healthy as possible). 

We also keep baking chocolate powder on hand to go with fruit. You can dip bananas, strawberries, oranges, or any other fruit in it that you think would go well with chocolate! You can add a bit of chocolate powder to your homemade nut butter berry concoction as well, if you want to forgo the chocolate chips. 

On farmer’s market days we come home with generally, half a bushel of apples, a case of berries, and 2 boxes of grapes (that is until orange season starts, then we add a case of oranges). With 5 people, this much fruit usually doesn’t even last all week!

Conclusion 

The first time I hung out with my friends after I had converted to a more organic lifestyle got a few funny looks. A lot of people recognize that sugar is bad for you, but would rather just enjoy sugar while they accept the inevitable health problems to come. Warning: some of these food combos might seem a little weird! I wanted to make sure I covered all my bases so I tried to include everything that I myself might eat when I’m craving something sweet. For this Halloween, I’ll be spending some time in the mountains with a couple of friends. I’ll probably make a small batch of peanut butter cups to snack on while they eat Halloween candy, but probably not much else. 

Please note that if your gut is unwell even some of the healthiest alternatives above may not be that healthy for you. Fruit that is blended or cooked down at all is not as good for you as fresh, raw fruit. But if you’re cooking at home, anything you make will be radically better than something you would get at a restaurant or grocery store. Even now, if I eat too much sugar, I may need to take SF722 to combat the yeast. If I skip a salad and eat a bunch of fruit or sugar, I feel the effects even more! So remember to plan accordingly and take care of yourself before, during, and after a day of eating too much junk food. 

Happy Halloween! 

More than 100 million tonnes of nitrogen fertilizer is sprayed on crops every year. When sprayed, the nitrogen releases nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. Over recent years Nitrous Oxide emissions from natural sources have remained stagnate, whereas emissions from human causes have skyrocketed over the last couple of decades. Concentrations of nitrous oxide have reached 331 parts per billion in 2018, 22% higher than before the industrial era. Emissions are caused by the use of synthetic fertilizers.

The emissions are created through microbial processes in soils. The use of nitrogen in synthetic fertilizers and manure is a key driver of this process. Other human sources of N₂O include the chemical industry, wastewater and the burning of fossil fuels.

New research: nitrous oxide emissions 300 times more powerful than CO₂ are jeopardising Earth’s future

Nitrous Oxide is typically destroyed in the atmosphere by solar radiation, but The Conversation reports that we’re currently emitting it faster than it’s being destroyed. Nitrous Oxide has 300 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide and stays in the atmosphere for an average of 116 years.

Research from the intergovernmental panel on Climate change has shown that we have exceeded the levels of nitrous oxide expected in all of our developed scenarios for the future. We are on track to see a global temperature increase of 3 degrees Celsius, this century.

Emissions of nitrous oxide have grown 30% globally over the last three decades. Brazil, China, and India have been some of the top contributors, with growing economies and increasing numbers of livestock and crop production. In Europe, nitrous oxide emissions have decreased over the past two decades- even while agricultural productivity increased. Europe had implemented governmental policies to reduce pollution and encourage more efficient fertilizer use.

To reduce greenhouse gas emissions we should focus on sustainable small scale agriculture that promotes carbon sequestration. Our health and environment are very intertwined. By eating locally grown organic produce that is good for your body, you can also do good for the Earth.

Human beings like to chew on things. Multiple ancient societies had chewing gum in some form, from the Mayans with chicle to the Ancient Greeks with Mastic resin. The modern candy aisle has significant shelf space dedicated to chewing gum. However, the sweet and minty treats familiar to people today bear little resemblance to the gum of old, and ingredients in this modern chewing gum should give you pause.

Conventional gums have sweeteners like corn syrup, sugar alcohols (such as xylitol), aspartame, and other ingredients like glycerine (to maintain moistness) and natural and/or artificial flavorings. Many of these ingredients have been shown to have negative effects on human health.

Related: How to Detox From Plastics and Other Endocrine Disruptors

Most of these ingredients are problematic, but at least they are clearly listed on labels, unlike gum base which is listed as a single ingredient even though the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) categorizes 46 different chemicals as gum base. Gum base provides the structure for the gum and makes up the largest percentage of the gum, although the actual amount of gum base varies based on what kind of gum it is. Bubble gum consists of 15–20% gum base. Chewing gum consists of 20–25% gum base, and sugar-free chewing gum contains 25–30% gum base.

What it is in the gum base specifically is considered a trade secret, but typical ingredients include;

• natural coagulated or concentrated latices of vegetable origin (resins like chicle, beeswax, and natural rubbers like latex)
• synthetic coagulated or concentrated latices (paraffins; petroleum wax; and polymers like butadiene-styrene, vinyl acetate, and polyethylene)
• softeners and plasticizers (lecithins; hydrogenated vegetable oils; lanolin, glycerol, methyl, and pentaerythritol esters; sodium and potassium stearates)
• terpene resins
• antioxidants (usually BHT)

Recommended: How to Eliminate IBS, IBD, Leaky Gut 

Gum base also includes fillers like calcium carbonate or talc. Another chewing gum ingredient to watch out for is polyvinyl acetate, a plastic substance which causes tumors in rats, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

Many consider chewing gum a harmless pastime but imagine the harmful effects of each of these ingredients. Now add them all together…not pleasant. Yet another reason to never swallow your gum.

A new study finds that fructose, a commonly used sweetener, causes intestinal inflammation to worsen. Inflammation in the intestine can lead to Intestinal Bowel Disease (IBD) like Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis. The study comes from Stony Brook University and tested three different mouse models of IBD.

Our findings provide evidence of a direct link between dietary fructose and IBD and support the concept that high consumption of fructose could worsen disease in people with IBD. This is important because it has the potential to provide guidance on diet choices for IBD patients, something that is currently lacking.”

David Montrose, PhD, of the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University

Related: How to Eliminate IBS, IBD, Leaky Gut

The most famous form of fructose in the modern Western diet is high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The corn-based sweetener was introduced to the public in the 1970s, and since then it has become a rather controversial ingredient. HFCS provides no nutritional value and has been linked to multiple inflammatory conditions like diabetes, fatty liver disease, heart disease, and others.

This study is part of the growing research into the importance of the gut microbiota and the negative impact of the modern Western diet on that. Many scientists are analyzing the guts of hunter-gathers in comparison to ours and finding our gut microbes have been permanently weakened and altered. Many types of bacteria present in the hunter-gatherer’s gut were completely gone from ours.

In October, the Mexican government will require warning labels on the front of sugary, processed junk food describing the health risks of choosing these products. The regulation as passed in October of 2019, and now the United States, Canada, the European Union, and Switzerland are asking the country to delay implementing those labels. The U.S. and the E.U. are asking for 2 years, Canada is asking for a year, and Switzerland has not specified a date for the postponement to end. COVID-19 is cited as a reason for the delay. Additionally, the United States delegation questioned Mexico’s new initiative at a World Trade Organization meeting in May, including statements that the new regulations…

…may be more trade restrictive than necessary…” and “may not be based on robust scientific evidence…” and “does not appear to consider relevant international standards…” and “may contribute to consumer confusion….”

U.S. delegation to the WTO, May 2020

Related: Sugar Leads to Depression – World’s First Trial Proves Gut and Brain are Linked (Protocol Included)

Mexico has been dealing with a severe obesity epidemic for over twenty years, a problem that was exacerbated when NAFTA allowed an increased amount of processed junk food to flood the country. Mexico is the most overweight nation in Latin America, where 64% of people have a body mass index of more than 25%, and as of 2016, 10% of the population has diabetes. In 2017, diabetes claimed the lives of twice of 80,000 Mexicans, twice the number of those killed in homicides. Front of package nutritional labels have been endorsed by the World Health Organization, and Mexico plans to also ban cartoon characters targeted at children from junk food.

This is not the first time the United States has aligned itself with the junk food industry in opposition to public health initiatives. The much-criticized NAFTA, which bears responsibility for the increased access to junk food in Mexico, was renegotiated in 2018. In those negotiations, the Office of the United States Trade Representative pushed to keep Mexico and Canada from being able to add labels denoting there was a hazard in consuming a product.

Mexican regulations requiring mandatory labels that describe the health risks of processed foods on the front of processed products are due to be implemented in October, and major governments like the U.S., Canada, and the European Union are now asking Mexico to delay the implementation of the rule.

Reuters obtained information from a Mexican government official who wished to remain anonymous. According to them, the Mexican government intends to continue with its plans.

“We told them there would be no additional time.”

Reuters

The government official also indicated that major food companies like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Nestle were also asking for the regulations to be delayed.

The city of Berkeley, California continues its quest to make its residents healthier, becoming the first city in the United States to ban sugary candy, sodas, and other junk foods from the checkout aisle. The banned food items are those with 5 grams of added sugars and 200 milligrams of sodium, chewing gum and mints with added sugars, and beverages with added sugars or artificial sweeteners.

Placement of unhealthy snacks near a register increases the likelihood that customers will purchase these foods and drinks when willpower is weak at the end of a long shopping trip…It’s not a ban, it’s a nudge. Stores can still sell candy and soda, just not at your child’s eye level in the checkout.”

Kate Harrison, Berkeley city council member and ordinance sponsor

The unanimously passed ordinance will go into effect in March of 2021. Grocery stores affected will include Safeway, Monterey Market, Whole Foods, and Berkeley Bowl.

Related: Sugar Leads to Depression – World’s First Trial Proves Gut and Brain are Linked (Protocol Included)

This is not the first time that Berkeley has taken a stand against sugary products. Last time it was sodas and sugary beverages, as Berkeley became the first city in the U.S. to implement a soda tax in 2014. That tax proved to be successful, as residents in affected areas reported drinking 52% fewer servings of sugary drinks. The city of Berkeley clearly wants to continue to offer its residents healthier options.