Tag Archive | Healthy Eating

Healthy Snacks

Feb21

Is there such a thing? That depends on who you listen to. Healthy doesn’t mean it has to be a vegetable, or taste disgusting.

After all, it’s the combining of foods from the food pyramid that creates the energy we need to get us through the day.

Miniature carrot sticks and broccoli are not healthy when served with a dip that has 13 grams of fat per serving even though it’s better than 35 grams of fat in the most popular after school snacks companies pay millions of dollars to advertise all over the place.

I was talking with a friend of mine this evening about snacks. She runs a program for children at a school in the Midwest. As part of the national effort to combat childhood obesity, some changes are being made.

She told me that in her school, they will not be allowed to give the children certain snacks that were formerly acceptable. Birthday cakes will no longer be allowed. I didn’t even want to ask about ice cream.

Chocolate milk can now be served only one day a week, and the same with juice. Popcorn can be served but with no butter or seasoning of any kind. She says the kids refuse to eat it. Gee, I wonder why.

As a former trainer of child care providers in Family Child Care Homes and Day Care Centers, I was surprised. Why the drastic changes?

And what’s this about serving only skim milk or 1% milk? Milk that has a 1% or 2% fat content should be adequate. And no cereal except shredded wheat and similar cereals?

I forgot to ask her about Cheerios, long recommended for little ones yet very high in sugar as healthy snacks go. Why not include puffed rice? It’s sweet enough without all that added sugar.

It seems like regulations go from one extreme to another. For decades, schools pushed sodas and vending machine snacks, even had contracts with the soft drink companies, and now juices are condemned as if they were in the same category.

Vegetables are healthy when prepared in healthy ways, but they aren’t the only healthy foods. There are fruits like plums and bananas; apples with peanut butter make a great snack–if peanut butter’s still allowed.

And what about mini-smoothies? Mix equal parts of apple juice, pineapple juice, orange juice and water. You can use two juices but apple juice should be in the mix.

A scoop of whey protein powder, add a banana and it’s better than a milk shake. It’s healthier too, even if you leave out the protein powder.

An amazing number of children like yogurt and their digestive systems would certainly benefit from all that friendly bacteria.

Celery sticks are very good with peanut butter or a cheese spread. Frozen peaches are a great snack as are melon cubes. There are all sorts of healthy and delicious crackers on supermarket shelves.

The truth is, with some imagination and initiative, plus a little input from your audience, you can come up with some very delicious, nutritious, and economical snacks.

Recommended for children of all ages.

What if I Only Like Addictive Foods?

Feb8

Sometimes you need to know how things work before they can become important to you. Food and food addictions are like anything else.

There’s good stuff and bad stuff. A little education goes a long way.

Here is a quiet little video that tells you what food can actually do for your body. It doesn’t have to be an addictive junk food diet to taste good.

Don’t let the good stuff get away.

Gimme Some Real Food!

Feb7

Where does your food come from? Do you know?

Throughout most of my life, I have eaten foods whose origin was easily determined. We had gardens and raised chickens, and bought milk from farmers in the area. We had apricot and peach trees. We raised strawberries and got apples from neighbors who bartered with us.

We canned and pickled, and kept frozen meat in a locker downtown. The vegetables from our garden were so delicious you could eat them raw right off the vine or stalk. Everything was prepared from scratch, and amazingly enough, it seemed very convenient at the time.

I have growing concerns about the prevalence of processed foods in schools and the ready acceptance of convenience foods in today’s households.

The power Monsanto wields over our food supply with their GM crops and patents is alarming. What the FDA considers good, nutritious food is not necessarily what I care to eat. Last year I planted an organic garden. This year, I will plant a larger one.

Here in the Tampa Bay Area, it is difficult to find Cod, Scrod, and shrimp that do not come from the coast of China. The seafood has no taste except for whatever flavor sauces add to it. Even then, it is mushy and has the consistency of a wet rag.

Why would anyone think it preferable to transport fish—everyday fish, at that—around the world for consumption by people who have lakes and/or oceans within 500-1000 miles of them?

Do they not take into consideration the polluted waters from which these fish are harvested and the amount of time it takes to get them from the source to the table of the consumer?

Eighteen months ago, I could buy fresh frozen Atlantic Cod Loins and Alaskan Salmon at my local Sam’s Club. It was expensive but it came from native waters and always tasted fresh and flavorful when I baked it with only lemon juice and balsamic vinegar.

No sauces or other seasonings were necessary. The tender fish flaked easily and almost melted in my mouth.

Most everything they sell now is fried, processed, sauced up, and greasy. Supposedly, that’s what the public wants these days. Cheeses are added to the already high fat content, and at least half the shoppers I see on any given trip are fifty to one-hundred pounds overweight.

Salmon is farm-raised, Cod is breaded, Cod loins are not available anymore, and frozen Mahi-Mahi has developed an unpleasant back taste.

Even Grouper, our “state fish” rarely has any flavor without breading and sauces. We haven’t had Halibut steak in this area for fifteen years or more. It is becoming a chore to find a nice place to eat out, and I rarely order fish anymore.

It is frightening to think that we could one day become the society depicted in Wall-E, one of the most telling movies I have ever seen.

But we had better wake up soon or that may become the fate of half the people in our beloved United States.

Not everyone is a food addict or an emotional eater but the stress is mounting and the ranks of the morbidly obese are swelling in a way that we can no longer ignore.

It’s time to wake up and do what you can. Plant some herbs or a small garden, a tomato plant, some parsley–something.

Refuse to put that garbage in your bloating stomach. Chicken, hamburgers, potatoes–those aren’t junk foods. It’s what is done to it before you buy it, and sometimes after you get it home, that makes it junk food.

You’re in control of this one, so make your demands.

Enough of this junk. GIMME SOME REAL FOOD!!!!!

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry–Regardless

Nov17

Believe it or not, this is actually good advice, especially for food addicts. When someone has a food addiction, they are always on guard.

It’s hard to enjoy yourself when you’re always on the watch for something you don’t want to have happen. That’s a lot to ask of someone who’s just trying to get through the day without feeling powerless around food.

Holiday foods like turkey, sweet potatoes, and cranberry sauce are all very healthy foods. And then there is Resveratol in red wine, so if you drink wine with your meal, that can be healthy too.

Food needn’t get in the way of fun. It can be part of the fun, and should be. Sondra Ray wrote a book a few years back titled The Only Diet There Is.

That book taught me how to stop feeling guilty about what I ate.  One of my favorite chapters was Pleasure Yourself To Thinness.

Check it out. Let me know what you think.