Rockin' Rockville!

Just a quick note to let all you folks around Rockville, MD know that our fabulous simmer sauces are now gracing the shelves of the newly opened FRESH MARKET, located on Rockville Pike. The fresh Market is a beautiful upscale food store chain with a great variety of quality food and specialty food items. They are based in Greensboro, NC. and are expanding northward. We hope they'll open more stores in the Philly area. Presently, there's only one located on Rt. 1 near the Brandywine region.

Wipe out!

Rid here....
Well, it's the height of demo season for us. We are setting up our tables and sampling our luxurious simmer sauces to store customers around the Delaware Valley. Man....the response is fantastic. So many people are loving them! They try them and then they buy them. Well, duh, that's the idea, right?

They love that we're local. they love the crew we've hired to do the demos. They are doing a terrific job. Michael and I are doing some demos as well. It's tough being on your feet for 4 hours at a time, but hey, that's the deal. No way around it. Today, Michael cleaned out the McCaffrey's store in Yardley, PA. Not a friggin jar left. One of our demo pros, Amanda, cleaned out the ACME store in Newtown Square as well. Today, we sold over 64 jars of sauce. That's a good day...no?!! These stores are happy to order more....and so are we!

We've learned that demos need to take place on a weekend. That's when folks are doing their big week's worth of shopping. Unlike me, who bounces into my food store almost every day to buy a few things. I love to see these dads and moms dragging their kids around the store on the weekend. We end up being a "culinary oasis" where they can stop for a moment and sample the good stuff during their mad dash up and down the aisles. Even the kids love our sauces. It's funny too, how the kids will sample the sauces and then tell their mom to buy some. Yes... we always get mom's permission to serve the little ones. And yes....mom will buy a jar or two.

Tuesday we do a big food show at ACME corporate offices. All their buyers and managers will be there. We'll be sampling up a storm there, too. All four sauces. What stores we're not presently in will now get a chance to taste the world's finest simmer sauces.

We have a serious problem in this country. It's the food you buy at the local food store.

There is so much sodium in the foods we buy that it's shocking. We are quite literally saturating our bodies with it. Most people don't know this. Or care. Well, you should. The long term effects of too much sodium aren't pretty. High blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

In a recent report form CDC in Atlanta, it was eye opening to read that 40% of our sodium intake is from the following popular foods; bread, cold cuts, pizza, poultry, soups, sandwiches, cheese, pasta dishes, meat dishes and all those snacks out there. These are foods that we eat all the time--every day! Even when you make a "healthy" homemade soup using chicken stock, the stock you use can have over 900mg of sodium in just 1 cup of stock! Those popular frozen entrees that many people eat to help them lose weight? They average around 400-600mg. of sodium. Even the chicken breast you buy at the store has probably been dipped or sprayed with a sodium solution to preserve it and give it extra flavor. It is obscene.

So why do they put all this sodium in food? Simple. For taste. They cut back on the good, flavorful ingredients to save money and make up for the lack of taste by adding sodium. It's what America is used to. And craves. Americans average over 3000 mg. of sodium per day. People over 51 years of age should limit their intake to around 1,500 mg per day. Yikes!

So why is Lizbeth Lane featuring this information? Because we care about the quality (or lack of) in the food we buy. Many of the processed foods produced in the US are SO loaded in sodium and SO bad for you---and your children--and your grandchildren! We want to educate you whats really out there in your local food markets. And....what you can do to counter this menace.

Habit one: Read those nutritional labels and learn. Read the sodium content for every item you pick up in a food store. You will be shocked. You will be disgusted. And, you may become a little dismayed at how hard it is to buy food that's not loaded with sodium.

We will keep you in informed. Check back in a couple of weeks to learn more about "Our War on Sodium".

Check out this link to get the basics on sodium use:
CDC Vital Signs- Where's the Sodium