"I like veggies, corn is my favorite!"

So I spent a week at Science camp with my sixth grader and her classmates, it was awesome to learn, worship and play with those kids! Not so awesome at mealtime! I will never understand dehydrated eggs (gag) or Tang (puke) or a whole meal pulled out a deep fryer, so the salad bar became my best friend! Too bad the didn't serve salad for breakfast! Anyway, in discussing the food with the kids I find they don't really know the definition of a vegetable, or a fruit for that matter. Britannica Encyclopedia says that a vegetable is the fresh, edible portion of a herbaceous plant (roots, stems, flower, or fruit). So nothing off a tree, right? A root would be a potato or turnip, stem would be like asparagus, flower would be lettuces and artichoke, and fruit would be the squash family. The definition of fruit is kinda gross sounding, the ripened ovaries of a plant enclosing the seeds. Thus corn is a fruit, not a veggie! Surprising fruits, bean pods, acorn and almonds! Tomatoes are fruit! Seeds on the inside people! All this means is that you need to make sure the sweet fruits are not taking over the place on your plate reserved for veggies! 5 servings of fruit a day and 5 servings of veggies would be awesome! One way to help younger children with getting a variety is to take a blank peice of paper and draw the outline of a rainbow on it, remember ROY G BIV! Have them color in a square of each color everytime they eat one of the coordinating colored friuts or veggies (better yet, make one for veggies and one for fruit) and then they know they have had enough banana's this week and maybe red grapes would be a better choice for an after school snack. Or if tuesday is a day when the oranges were just right and they had two big jiucy ones, thursday would be a great day for pears! Watching that variety gets in there is important! We started buying 6 of 4 or 5 different friuts so that we would each get one a day instead of all apples or bananas (we still eat more of those than anything else! Also, go with the flow of the seasons, notice how God orchestrated it all and planned watermelon to be ripe in the summer when you need the extra water and oranges in the winter when you need the vit C. Spinach is also a great source of Vit D (great in the winter when there is less sun) and squash has so many different colors right now, you can do soooo many things! My kids beg for roasted butternut squash! Go colorfull with your plate and mix sweet, red and yellow potoatoes! So Fun! Don't think you are lying to them if you sneak it in. Children are born with more taste buds so some of the stronger more unique flavors may be plain less palatable, don't get mad, get sneaky. Pureed eggplant tastes great with out eating a sponge, my favorite way!Mix it in your tomato sauces and it makes it more "meaty" Deceptively delicious was an eye opener for me! I loved that she mixed spinach in her blueberries for oatmeal bars and you never knew! It's by Jessica Seinfeld and it's got great ideas! I felt like an idiot when I saw her put sloppy Joes in hot dog buns, so smart! And the recipe for sloppy joes is a family fav! Anyway, have fun with fruits and veggies and take some time to tell your kids the difference and learn an appreciation for all the colors of the rainbow!

Fat

Trans fat may be monounsaturated or polyunsaturated, but never saturated. They are fat molecules containing one or more double bonds between the carbon atoms, since the carbons are more closely connected, there are less hydrogens. So what does this mean for you? 1, it's no longer natural and therefor no longer desirable, but is it dangerous? They are no longer essential fats and actually increase the risk of coronary disease. That's NOT what you want. I cannot stress enough how important it is to read the side of your packaged items. You simply won't find hydrogentaed oils in natural foods, fruit, veggies, whole grains, eggs, etc. They don't exist naturally, they were created to make things last longer on the shelf, so what does that mean for what it does to your body? Gross. I always advice people to buy on the perimeter of the store and they will have a healthier diet. The meat, produce and dairy are on the perimeter, so is the bakery and cakes, so be careful! Pastries using shortening now have hydrogenated oil! Read the side of your breads, those labeled Whole Wheat may also have High fructose Corn Syrup and Hydrogenated oils, you need to make sure you are getting what you pay for. I have found plenty of breads with neither,, but way fewer than with! 2 of the breads I found are not as expensive as the others either! That's exciting, right! One is at Sam's club and the other is at Winco, I'm not going to tell you which, you have to read for yourselves, but I will tell you they are under 2 dollars a loaf! This is where I do go the organic route, but some balk at the price difference. It is less expensive to go organic than mainstream IF you don't buy packaged! You can live a completely organic life with no packaged food, but your choices are more limited and it will tak emore time, you'll have to make all your own breads and pasta, I have four kids, a job and a wonderful husband,, this is not happening for me! Therefor, I buy these things organic or make sure they don't have the hydrogentaed oils or High Fructose Corn Syrup. So my challenge for you now is to read up! it will take some time at first and you may have to say no to some certain childhood favorites, but there are options out there that will improve your children's health and lower their risk of heart disease! Yeah Mom! So start reading the labels and know what is going in your kids mouth and the risks involved. Personally, with how much food my 7 year old eats, she would be at risk of a major heart attack if I didn't keep the unsaturated fats away from her! You may never buy Kraft MAc and Cheese again, but Annie's a nd Trader Joes have become the staple at our house. You may have to buy natureal PB (NOT JIF NATURAL OR SKIPPY, they add palm oil, the ingredients should read Peanuts, maybe a little salt) my favorite is fresh ground, but my favorite jarred is Laura Scudders. Again, let me stress the importance of making small changes to change you life, this is a journey and you don't want your kids to associate "The Day Mom took all the good food out" with eating healthy, sneak it in in increments! If they have crackers with hydrogentaed oils in their lunch with their lean meats and cheese, your still making progress! Be roud of every step you take, everytime you add half the oil a recipe calls for and your chocolate cookies are just as good, or when you leave out the white sugar completely and use honey instead. These are the perfect little people knit together in your womb, or for some of us, God grew them in someone else's just for us, but they are fearfully and wonderfully made and still our responcibilty to make sure they are growing with the best nutrition possible! There is nothing I love more than God, my Husband, and my kids, I know you all must feel the same way otherwise you would press delete and never think of this again, so thanks for joining this journey with me to better health!

Hormones in Chickens and Beef, you may be surprised!

Let me start by saying I am not a chemist or cattle farmer, I am an advocate for your children and your pocketbook, and don't be naive to think that the government tells you everything you need to hear! Do your research on your own and see what I have seen!
Ok. This is a heated topic. Manufacturers are playing us for fools. Everyone is worked up over hormones in foods and what they are doing to our children, but did you know that only 30% of cows in the entire United States are treated with rbGH (hormone extracted from the cow's pituitary gland and injected into calfs to make them grow). The thing about rbGH is that it is a protein hormone, which mean that they are broken down when eaten and lose their effect in the body, they would have to be injected to affect you. Also, these hormones are only allowed for dairy cattle and not beef cattle, so the hormone goes into the cow and then we drink their milk, remember your body will not absorb a protein hormone, crazy! Steroid Hormones are the ones you need to watch out for. The FDA currently allows 6 steroid hormones to be used in dairy cattle and sheep, NOT POULTRY! are you hearing me, how many chicken packages have you read that say no growth hormone, well thank you for following the law! They say that to sell their product because they don't think you are smart enough to do your own research, my research was from Cornell University and I thought it was an easy read, clear and to the point with no bias. So the FDA can't regulate how much progesterone and testosterone are administered because it occurs naturally in the cow's body, but the do regulate the residual and check for illegal DES (which is the growth hormone used in chickens and outlawed in the 1970s). They started doing this in response to concerns of early puberty in Puerto Rico and found no trace of synthetic hormone in the meats. So what does that tell us, should we chuck all our organic milk and fruit? Hold your Horses one second. My personal belief system for what I eat is, "If you have to open a package to eat something, there is probably a better choice" so the same would be true up the line, if there is natural food for the cow's wouldn't that make more sense. You have to realize, that organic milk is 2x if not 3x as expensive, so I tell you this to assure you that there is no proof that this is making girls have their periods at 10-12. My daughter is 11 and not even close, but she has had commercial milk products her whole life. I want you to make decisions based on fact, not fear and I want you to sleep at night knowing you are doing your best, even if you don't take a second mortgage to buy organic milk and eggs. Organic is a realtive term anyway. If you had any idea what the federal government does with the "organic approved" and "non-organic approved" you would bang your head against the wall. My husband works in fertilizer and pesticides for farmers in the Sacramento Valley and he sees the new list every 3 months for "organic approved" pesticides, so please know they aren't pesticide free unless you grow them yourself, or find the very few farmers that are finding new and inventive ways to work with the land, and they pass back and forth from approved to non-approved with no change to the chemical. What this information is to tell you, is that you don't have to break your neck! The fewer the chemicals, the better! so how do you find this out? You ask! Find out where the foods are coming from, are they even from America? If not, what are the policies of the country they are imported from and are the parts per million (pesticide to fruit) the same? What are the regulations? Arm yourself with knowledge, don't just believe everything suzy-homemaker tells you you have to do if you don't want your child having their period in 1st grade! Manufacturers are using the fact that most people believe allthat they hear to sell their product, I do want your children to have the very best, but don't just go out and buy organic because you are fearful, buy the best foods because you know how and why they are the best! My new project is to find a family or two to split a grass-fed cow with! I also want to start a small garden and maybe find some other mom's who want to grow other things and we can share the bounty! I want to encourage you mom' s that there are so many things that are going to come your way with what is best for your child and why you need to do this or that, my advice is, get all the info and pray about what to do. God has placed His children in your care because He trusts you and fortunately, He is not a hands off parent, and want to help you make decisions for his tiny humans! Just don't get me started on the ad campaign for High Fructose Corn Syrup, next week! Remember Natural is best, but don't get manic about organic!

Super sorry!

I know it has been a long time, but school got the best of me! 3-4 lunches a day is a lot of work, but I am proud to say that we are nearing the end of week 4 and no two lunches have been the same! Yeah Trader Joe's and Costco for having lots of healthy varieties! Now don't get me wrong, there have been similarities to things, pitas and mini bagels, but always with different ingredients, and different sides! The crunchy. fruit, veggie, and main dish base has been the same, but some days my girls are the only ones in their school with tomato, cucumber and feta salad! Other days they stand out with my favorite treat, the mini muffin pan, greatest invention ever! I make about a hundred (literally) mini muffins every other week. After going through the recipe and replacing the fat (butter or oil) with applesauce or yogurt, and slicing the sugar in half and changing it to honey or brown sugar, and using only whole wheat flour, i further expand the benefits by putting it in a mini muffin pan. A standard pan uses 1/3 cup for a muffin, and the minis use a Tablespoon. That's a little more than five minis to one standard. I will tell you that even my bottomless carnivore (who had a competition with her thirty something aunt this weekend and ate an entire chicken leg and a bowl of homemade baked beans. It was over a pound of meat alone, and she had ice cream, I'm telling you, we've heard "I'm full" twice!) is satisfied with two in her lunchbox. So, totally healthified and still fun! Yeah! Now that my granola pear muffins are gone, there are pumpkin chocolate chip in the oven. Oh yeah, even that I used 1/2 a cup of the mini chocolate chips and they spread out better in the batter! So treat yourself to a mini muffin pan and get creative with your muffins. I find the cutest and prettiest mini muffin papers all over the place and they aren't expensive! So have fun slashing calories and saving yourself the money on "100 calorie packs" make your own! (That is the topic of my next post!)

A cool website sent to me!

epicurious.com great kid snack options!

Challenge #2

We're going to save you money, how exciting is that?! 1 Capri Sun pouch can be sucked down in 2.3 seconds, ingesting 110 calories and 30g of sugar (that's like 2.5 TABLESPOONS!) according to my favorite website, www.calorieking.com. So what can we do about this, you may ask? I will tell you! Take any pitcher in your cabinet (one you may have sugary juices in, dump that out) and put any frozen fruit in the bottom. 1/2 a cup should do you just fine! Then fill the container (4 quarts, I'm assuming) and then pour from there into reusable water bottles. Now you are green and your kids have slashed their calories and sugars! Yeah Mom!

Any moms out there with Comcast? Did you know there are a lot of kids workouts and yoga on Demand! How exciting is that? My 11 year old and I do it before bed (with the 2 year old climbing through the poses and everything!) and the lengthening in her muscles helps with growth and development. I run with friends and one brought her daughter last night. It was great because at a track they can run their own pace with out getting left behind. And I'll have you know they love competition, so race the straights, walk the curves!

Good luck and happy packing!

Challenge 1

Baby steps and we'll get there! Make it your goal to put only one packaged item in your kid"s lunch each day this first week. I always say, if you have to open a package, there is probably a better choice. So what does that leave you with? A sandwich, piece of fruit, packaged item (granola bar :), storebought cookies :( Chips :( pretzles :) ) One option that may make you look like the world's coolest mom is on Saturday or Sunday you could make up a bunch of "healthified" oatmeal cookies. I just use half the butter the recipe calls for and no white sugar. What it asks for in white sugar, use applesauce and as a way to give it an extra ump to get your kids though the day, throw 1 scoop of protein powder in there and they'll never know! The more "candy" (raisins, craisens, dried anything really) you put in the cookie the more they'll love it! Just so you know, they will cook up smaller, so throw two or three in their lunch feeling good that you have given them fuel for their hard day! And even if they aren't loading up on sugar, for some reason it is important to kids that their friends see their mom packs them cookies. It's weird, but whatever! There are a lot of great ideas out there, but I want this to be a successful mission and one with great rewards along the way! You will see your kids have more energy, trimmer waistlines and all around feel better when they eat whole, real food that energize and strengthen their bodies. So take the first challenge and eliminate all but one packaged item from their lunch!