Avocado, Corn and Mango Delight

As promised from yesterday here is my inaugural salad recipe entry. I make this one a lot for parties and it is always a huge hit. I am asked for the recipe all the time so I figured you’d like it too. This salad not only tastes great but it is super easy to make and full of nutrition!

Ingredients:

• ½ of a 1 pound bag frozen corn (or a can of corn, drained is ok too)
• 1 large avocado, cubed
• 1 large mango or 2 small, cubed
• 1/2 bunch cilantro (optional-you can use more too), finely chopped
• Seasoned rice vinegar to taste

Combine all ingredients together in a medium to large mixing bowl and toss until the corn, avocado and mango are well mixed. I usually shake the rice vinegar bottle a few times until I get it to the right taste but you can start with about a tablespoon and then add until you think it has enough. I like a lot of rice vinegar but your kids may not, so experiment. The corn thaws pretty quickly but if you’re going to eat this right away you might want to thaw it for a minute in the microwave.

I love to eat this just as a salad but it works great as a topping for grilled fish, chicken or tofu. If you’re making this for a party double or triple the recipe because it goes fast!

Here are just a couple of the nutritional benefits you’ll get from this recipe:

• Avocadoes-high in heart healthy fats and provide some much needed potassium
• Corn-counts as a whole grain and is a nice source of fiber
• Mangoes-high in vitamin C and beta carotene

This one is my own creation but I’d love for you to share your recipes, so send them along and I’ll of course reference you as the creator of the delicious dishes!

Have a fruit and veggie filled day!

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A Salad a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

We know it's good for us but it just got better! A new study from UCLA School of Public Health and Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center says eating just one salad a day is even better for us than we thought. How great is that?

The study, titled Raw Vegetable Consumption and Nutritional Status in the Adult US Population, was published in the September issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association and looked at over 17,500 peoples' diets and their consumption of salad and raw vegetables. Turns out big salad and raw veggie eaters had higher levels of vitamins C, E, B6, and folic acid than those folks who weren't so veg happy. Not only are these vitamins essential but they beef up the immune system and may also ward off heart disease, some cancers and other chronic diseases. The salad and raw veggie eaters also got more lycopene, beta carotene and other phytonutrients that may also beg off chronic diseases. Salad eaters get more fiber too. What more could you ask for?

Well here's more: Eating a salad before a meal can help us eat fewer calories overall cuz it fills us up a little bit so we eat less of our entree. And salad doesn't just mean lettuce tomato and cucumber anymore. Oh no, those days are gone! Get crazy and creative with your salads: flavor 'em up with fruit, nuts, beans, corn, avocado, artichoke hearts, hearts of palm, pretty much anything you and your kids like. I make whole meals out of salads by throwing some salmon, grilled chicken, veggie patties or veggie chicken patties on top.

And this may throw you but we need a little fat in our salad to help us absorb nutrients (I said a little not a lot). So try lowfat salad dressings instead of nonfat salad dressings (they're too watery and sickly sweet anyway) to get the most bang for your salad buck. Adding healthy fats with a little avocado and or nuts works too. Do try to avoid full fat salad dressings cuz they can really add up the calories and cancel out the benefit.

I've got lots of yummy salad recipes so will start posting some of them starting tomorrow. In the meantime check out the website http://www.saladaday.org/default.asp for some salad recipes and more details on the study. And for tips on how to get your kids to eat more fruits and veggies see my post Being Fruit and Veggie Friendly: Tips to Get Your Kids to Eat 'Em from September 12.

Have a fruit and veggie filled day!

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Have You Tried MyPyramid.gov Lately?

Do you want to know how many calories you or your kids should be eating every day; or how much fruit and veggies, meat, bread or dairy foods? If you haven't already checked out the website MyPyramid.gov check it out!

It's a great tool that is so easy to use and tells you approximately how much (or how little) of what you need every day. MyPyramid is the "new" food pyramid from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) that came out last year. A lot of people still aren't aware of it and still think we're using the old Food Guide Pyramid. Well, that got an overhaul and MyPyramid was the outcome.

What's unique about the new food pyramid is it is no longer a one size fits all. Oh no, MyPyramid was designed as a personalized approach to help each one of us make healthy food choices on a daily basis (and also reminds us to be active). It emphasizes what YOU need daily, not your neighbor Sam.

How does it do this? The website walks you through it but essentially you input your age (or your kid's age), gender and how much physical activity you get per day. With that info it calculates how many calories you should eat and how much from each food group. The site gives you examples of foods from all the food groups and how to figure out what the correct portion is for you for certain foods. It's pretty cool.

Keep in mind it's not completely accurate because it doesn't take into account your height and weight. USDA tried to make the MyPyramid.gov website as user friendly as possible so their thought was the less info folks have to input the more likely they would be to use the tool. Nonetheless it's free, easy and very informative. They even have a page just for kids with games and fun activities to get them excited about healthy eating (send your kid to http://mypyramid.gov/kids/index.html).

Check it out and let me know what you think of it. Then let me know if you met your fruit and veggie intake.
Here's the full address of the site http://mypyramid.gov/

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Time to Rethink Your Drink!

Sugary soft drinks are unbelievably popular with our kids and even adults. And I'm not just talking carbonated "sodas"; I'm also talking all soft drinks including "fruit" flavored drinks, sweetened ice teas, flavored waters, even juices are laden with sugar (this doesn't include "diet" drinks btw). And that means calories galore, mostly empty ones at that. What a lot of folks don't realize is how much sugar and calories they're consuming in a lot of these drinks.

These beverages are usually sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, sucrose syrup, crystalline fructose, plain old sugar and so on. (I refer to these as "regular" soft drinks since diet drinks are calorie free or low calorie). Often I see kids (and adults) drinking 20 ounce bottles of these beverages. Take a look at the Nutrition Facts Label and tell me how many calories are in these 20 ounce bottles. The label says 100 calories, right? But that's only for one 8-ounce serving. There's 2½ servings in that bottle! Multiply 100 by 2½ and you get 250 calories, not to mention 65 grams of sugar in the entire bottle. That's a lot of calories just for something to drink, and A LOT of sugar (over 16 teaspoons!). Some drinks have even more; you've got to read food labels. Most people don't drink just one 8 ounce serving, they down the whole thing.

And that can really add up over time. Think about this. If you were to drink just one 20 oz. regular soft drink a day in addition to your regular diet, you could gain up to 26 pounds a year! Our kids are doing that and they don't even realize it (do you?). Furthermore, liquid calories don't satiate us like food calories do. We don't compensate for liquid calories later in the day, so we often end up taking in more calories than we need.

And 100% fruit juice isn't much better. Unlike soft drinks you do get more nutrients, but juices are also concentrated in sugar. Limit your fruit juice intake and your child's intake to 6-8 ounces a day. After you hit 8 ounces you're really just adding calories.

So what should we be drinking? Water is the best choice for hydration. To get our calcium and vitamin D drink lowfat, nonfat milk, fortified soy milk or rice milk (our kids are drinking much more soda than milk putting their precious bones at risk). If you love the sodas, fruit drinks and flavored waters switch to sugar free, diet or low sugar options. There are lots of low cal no cal drinks out there that really taste good. You just have to read the label and be a smart consumer. Explore your grocery and try a few out.

Send me the low cal no cal drinks that you like and want to pass on to the group. I think you'll be surprised by all the options out there.

For more recommendations and info on beverages check out the recent report A new proposed guidance system for beverage consumption in the United States from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

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Preschoolers Get a "Healthy Start"

Listen up if you’ve got preschoolers because there’s more to report from Hawaii! The latest on the childhood obesity epidemic (we won’t stop hearing about this for a looong time) from the American Dietetic Association conference addresses a harsh reality that overweight kids as young as preschool are already exhibiting risk factors for cardiovascular disease. This seems almost inconceivable but recent research does reveal that overweight preschoolers are showing signs of so called ‘adult’ conditions like high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Yikes!

When our kids are at home we have a lot more control over what goes in their mouths, but what about when they’re in school? The Healthy Start program founded by Dr. Christine L. Williams from Columbia University may be part of the answer. At the conference this week she shared results of this innovative (and highly recognized) program that was tested and started in upstate New York. Dr. Williams is another big proponent of prevention and promotes that it's never too early to start teaching kids healthy habits, and preschool is prime time for healthy meal time!

Here’s a quick rundown of the program and what positives outcomes it had on the preschoolers health. Healthy Start was designed as a two pronged approach starting with food service. Because saturated fat can increase cholesterol levels in the body, it was significantly reduced in the preschoolers’ meals and snacks. The second prong focused on health education in the classroom through creative activities that the kids could really get in to. They learned about healthy habits and how to make better choices using stories and poems, games and crafts, playtime, hands-on demonstrations and so on. The preschoolers were also given lots of opportunities to practice the positive health behaviors they learned.

They were followed for one school year, and by the end of that year their total cholesterol levels went down, even for kids who hadn’t started out with high cholesterol. Not only were they eating less saturated fat at school, they’d also learned how to make better food choices. Yay!

If we can get our kids to carry healthy habits through their adult years that's going to really help lower heart disease and obesity, but we’ve got to start early! If this sounds good to you check out the Healthy Start website and see if you might want to get this program going in your local preschool. Let me know what you think of it and if it really is part of the answer.

Aloha!

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Get Movin' with "America on the Move"

I've been a little bit out of the loop the last few days because I've been attending a conference in Honolulu, Hawaii. I know, nobody feels sorry for me. Admittedly I have been taking time to enjoy the ocean sand and beautiful sunsets. But believe it or not I have been attending the actual conference and wanted to share some of that with you (while I enjoy the view from my hotel room... ok I'll stop).

I am at the American Dietetic Association's annual conference where every thing you can imagine about nutrition is being discussed and analyzed. Yesterday I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Dr. James Hill who is quite the pioneer in the fight against childhood obesity. He has done a lot of research in this area and just released the results of a program called America on the Move Family Study. It's pretty interesting stuff.

Dr. Hill is all about prevention and in this study the aim was to prevent overweight children from gaining additional weight by making small lifestyle changes targeted at the whole family. Drastic lifestyle changes are rarely sustainable in the long term but small changes can be. Families in the study were asked to eliminate 100 calories from their daily diets and to add 2000 steps into their day to increase physical activity. Not a lot to ask.

And how did they do this? The families decreased their sugar intake by substituting the no calorie sweetener sucralose in many of their sugary beverages and foods. They also kept a food journal to keep track of their daily intake. (The kids apparently had no trouble switching to drinks and foods sweetened with sucralose). To increase their daily steps by 2000 they were given tips such as take family walks together, do jumping jacks in front of the TV, walk the dog, walk to school etc. There was a control group also and they were told only to monitor their physical activity and keep food journals.

Turns out families in both groups benefited. Just keeping track of food intake and physical activity seemed to work and sparked the families to make healthier choices overall. After six months more than half of the families who were just using the tracking methods and two-thirds of the families using sucralose and walking 2000 extra steps a day, had children who actually reduced their Body Mass Index (a measurement of appropriate weight for height) or maintained it. The small changes worked!

America on the Move is really an exciting program that you and your family can get enrolled in right now online! I encourage you to check out the website and get yourself and your kids enrolled and start moving (literally) towards a healthful lifestyle. As for decreasing sugar intake, when I get back from Hawaii I’m going to put up a post all about ‘rethinking your drink’ and what kind of options are out there that are either sugar free or low in sugar. In the meantime Get Moving!

Click here to get to America on the Move.

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How Well are We Fighting Childhood Obesity?

How are we doing so far in the fight against childhood obesity? That was the question the Institute of Medicine (IOM) asked and attempted to answer in a report released yesterday entitled Progress in Preventing Childhood Obesity: How Do We Measure Up? If you watched any news at all yesterday I’m sure you heard about this report.

I don’t think it’s a secret that we do have a problem with childhood obesity in the US, but do you know how staggering it really is? According to the report over the past 3 decades childhood obesity has tripled for our 12-19 year olds and quadrupled for our 6-11 year olds! It’s gotten quite out of hand with 1 in 3 American kids either obese or on their way. On the positive side there are some good programs out there addressing the obesity crisis, but the IOM says there aren’t enough and they are scattered here and there all over the country. Furthermore, many of the programs haven’t been evaluated properly to determine if they are indeed working. The report also states that not nearly enough dollars are being doled out to combat this problem and that needs to change!

The IOM’s report addresses ways everyone can come together to reverse this epidemic. And that’s where you come in. The media, government (make funds for programs a priority!!!) industry etc. have to do their part too, but there are lots of things you can do as a parent and care giver. Here are just some of the recommendations (straight out of the report with a few comments from me) the IOM has designated as the most important steps families can take in fighting this epidemic:

• Parents and caregivers should make physical activity and healthful eating priorities at home (a no brainer but we’ve got to actually do it!). They should:
• Provide food and beverage choices for their children that contribute to a healthful diet (i.e. avoid high calorie, low on nutrition junk food),
• Encourage and support physical activity,
• Limit children's television viewing and other recreational screen time (that includes computer time and video games),
• Serve as positive role models (in other words do as you want them to do).
• Parents can also serve as advocates to promote changes that encourage and support healthy behaviors in their local schools and communities.
• Families should regularly assess their progress in adopting and maintaining healthful behaviors at home and achieving positive lifestyle changes (ask yourself -how we doin'?).
• Parents should work with their child’s physician to track body mass indices and healthy growth (track your child’s weight over time to determine if he is in the appropriate range).*

There’s lots more and if you’re interested in what role the IOM asks the media, government, healthcare sector, schools, communities and industry to take in order to solve this problem click here for the full report. Let me know your thoughts and if you think the report is on target or if it has missed the boat anywhere along the line.

*Source: Progress in Preventing Childhood Obesity: How Do We Measure Up? Institute of Medicine, September 2006

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Watch HealthZone Sept 14 for the College Show

As promised I said I would let you know when the program I taped for Adelpia's HealthZone with Amy Hendel would air highlighting how to avoid gaining the college 'Freshman 15'. The next airdate is September 14th at 3:30pm. If you're in Southern California check your local listings for the channel Adelphia is on in your area. (It'll air again but that's the lastest date I have right now. Check your guide for additional dates.)

Many other aspects of what freshman students may encounter in their first year of college are also addressed in this one hour program called "The College Show" ; such as the parties with alcohol (of course) and practicing safe sex. Check it out so you can better prepare yourself and your teen for an all new environment.

If you didn't get a chance to see my tips on how to avoid the 'Freshman 15' click on "Facing the Freshman 15" to the right of this post under Recent Posts subheading.

And if you have any tips to share don't forget to pass them along.

In the meantime have a fruit and veggie filled day :)

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Being Fruit and Veggie Friendly: Tips to Get Your Kids to Eat 'Em

September is Fruit and Vegetable month! We need more of ‘em and so do our kids. Yeah yeah, they’re full of vitamins, minerals, and fiber, you already know. But did you know that eating lots of fruits and veggies can also help keep weight under control. Plus they're packed with phytonutrients that can fight off chronic diseases. And if that’s not enough fruits and veggies help our kids grow, perform better in school, and stay energetic so they can get out and be kids!

Sold yet? You’re probably saying, “ok, just how do you expect me to do get my kids to eat more?” I hear ya. To start, a good rule of thumb is to build every meal and snack around fruits and vegetables. Try some of these tips and techniques to get you on track:

• First ask your kids what their favorite fruits and vegetables are and how they like them prepared
• Then take your kids grocery shopping with you and have them pick out new fresh, canned or frozen fruit and veggies to try out
• Make mealtime fun-let your kids help you prepare fruits and veggies at home-they can tear up broccoli, wash vegetables, toss salad etc.
• Kids like to have control. Put out small bowls of raisins, baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, crunchy noodles, chopped fruit etc and let them make their own salads
• Pick a dressing they will like-they tend to go more towards the sweeter ones like honey mustard, rather than a vinaigrette
• They can make their own wraps or tacos too, loaded with beans, tomatoes, corn, cucumber, avocado, tomatoes and so on
• Stuff a baked potato with salsa and guacamole
• Try peanut butter and banana instead of PB&J (Yum!)
• Serve chopped veggies (like baby carrots, celery stalks, Jicama sticks, asparagus spears, broccoli and cauliflower florets) with salsa, low fat ranch dressing, flavored hummus, peanut butter, or guacamole
• Dish up boiled edamame in their shell as a snack (soy beans in the pod-they’re such a fun food)
• Add pureed or finley veggies to soups, sauces and casseroles
• Start the day with a fresh fruit smoothie by blending ½ banana, ½ cup frozen strawberries, ½ cup 1% milk and ½ cup 100% fruit juice
• Have your kids make ants on a log for a snack-spread peanut butter onto celery stalks and top with raisins
• Or make elephant ears-spread peanut butter onto lettuce leaves

We should shoot for at least 1 ½ cups fruit and 2 cups vegetables for our kids. An apple, orange, pear and medium banana all count as a cup. For some of the smaller fruit, about 8 strawberries, 3 small plums and 32 grapes make a cup. Note: ½ cup of dried fruit counts as 1 cup. 100% fruit juice counts too but limit juice to 6-8 ounces a day. Juice is high in calories and is easy to over consume.

As for veggies, a medium potato (of course having them as French fries negates their benefit, and eating the skin is key to get the maximum nutrition), about 12 baby carrots, 2 large celery stalks and 2 cups salad greens are all about 1 cup. And don’t ‘forget beans and peas count as veggies too!

Please share your tips with me and I’ll post them to pass along to the group.

For more tips and recipes for fruits and veggies visit the Produce for Better Health Foundation and the 5 A Day campaign websites.

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Healthy Dining is Headed Your Way!

Are you big on eating out but grapple with the lack of healthy options out there in restaurantland? Well a new website is being launched to help you navigate through that maze of menus. It’s called HealthyDiningFinder.com and is the first of its kind. The website will serve as a resource for diners to find restaurants in their area that offer healthier choices. You’ll even be able to check out the nutrition facts for those dishes. Who could ask for more?

The Healthy Dining organization has been guiding Southern Californians for over 15 years to guilt free noshing away from home. But now they are getting set to go nationwide (thanx to support from the National Restaurant Association, and a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) with the HealthyDiningFinder.com website. HealthyDiningFinder.com is in its infancy but you can go online now to peruse through the site. The folks behind this great resource are working furiously to sign on more and more restaurants.

They actually help each restaurant either formulate new recipes or tinker with old ones to make them healthier. Any kind of restaurant can be part of the program from fast food to fine dining. There’s no limit. If you want any of your favorite eating places to get an overhaul encourage them to try the Healthy Dining way.

This certainly doesn’t mean you can’t indulge once in a while and enjoy those old favorites. Healthy Dining just helps you make better choices all those other times. So check out the website and if you can’t find anything in your area, go to your neighborhood eateries and tell them all about HealthyDiningFinder.com. Let them know you want options!

Buon Appetito!

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Filling the Whole Grain Gap

My first comment came in today, yay! And actually it was a request for ideas on how to get more whole grains into our kids’ diets. It can seem like a daunting task when our kids are so used to consuming refined grain foods made with enriched flours like white bread, bagels, hamburger buns, (most baked goods really), pasta, white rice etc. (BTW-enriched flour just means the grain has been refined and only a few of the original nutrients have been added back. “Enriched” is really a misnomer and somewhat deceptive because those flours are actually less rich in nutrients). But we do need to turn this tide and get our kids used to the taste and mouth feel of whole grain foods.

Fortunately, adding more whole grains into our diets and our kids’ diets is now easier than ever. With all the recent press and publicity on the benefits of whole grains, food manufacturers are bending over backwards to get as many products out on the market that are made with whole grains and that have acceptable taste and mouth feel. Here are some things to try to get your family started:

• The most obvious is switching to whole wheat or other whole grain bread, bagels, and buns. Not all whole grain breads are created equally, however so be prepared to try a few brands before you find the right one for your family. Some of them are very dense while others are nice and soft and fluffy.
• Breakfast cereals are a great way to get the day started with whole grains. Besides oatmeal, there are so many options now but be careful to check ingredients. Look for whole wheat, whole oats, whole corn and so on. Some examples are Cheerios, frosted mini wheats, low fat granolas, oat squares, and Kix. All General Mills cereals contain whole grain, but try to avoid the sugary ones like chocolate puffs and the like, because they are just that, still high in sugar. Dry cereal also makes a great munching snack.
• Mix whole wheat pasta with regular pasta to ease the transition. You can find whole wheat pastas in most of the shapes kids love.
• Corn counts as a whole grain! Kids love corn and there are so many fun ways to eat it i.e. popcorn, corn tortillas, tortilla chips (go for baked if your child will eat them), polenta, corn on the cob, corn nuts just to name a few. As for popcorn, yes it’s a whole grain but stay away from those slathered with butter and oil. Try 94% fat free microwave popcorn or pop it yourself on the stove with a little vegetable oil in a nonstick pan.
• When baking mix half whole wheat flour with all-purpose flour
• Instant, quick cook and frozen brown rice products tend to be softer and fluffier than regular brown rice. Rice-A-Roni and Near East now make a variety of flavored dishes with brown rice blends.
• Try whole wheat couscous, you can barely tell the difference because it’s so small. Like the rice blends you can also find yummy whole wheat couscous mixes.
• Try some of the meat substitute products like Gardenburgers made with brown rice. They have lots of tasty flavors now.
• Experiment with whole wheat crackers like Triscuits.
• There are oodles of tasty chewy granola bars and energy bars made with oats and other whole grains. Read the nutrition facts label and go for the ones under 200 calories, preferably less.
• Many companies are making whole grain options now like fig newtons and whole grain goldfish. Keep your eye out for more of these.

Things to watch out for: Don’t be fooled by multi-grain on the front of a package. Flip it over and read the ingredients. Any grain can be refined.

This was a little long winded but I wanted to get in as many tips as I could today. Have fun! And to learn more about whole grains visit the Whole Grains Council website http://www.wholegrainscouncil.org/.

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Get an Early Start to Ward off Childhood Overweight

Here’s more fuel to add to the childhood obesity flame. A couple of interesting reports came out this week highlighting risk factors that may predispose our kids to being overweight. Listen up if you want to know what to be on the lookout for.

The first, Identifying Risk for Obesity in Early Childhood, a study from the journal Pediatrics, has found that tracking growth patterns of children over time (starting when they are in preschool) can predict their chances of being overweight when they reach the age of 12.

Ok, let’s define childhood overweight before we get into more detail. In this study if children had a body mass index over the 85th percentile they were considered overweight. Body mass index is a measure of weight compared to height.

So, the nuts and bolts of the study are, if a child is overweight at any time before the age of 12, the higher his chances are for being overweight when he actually reaches 12. And the more times he is measured as being overweight during that period, his chances for ending up overweight at 12 increase. In other words, if the child is found to be overweight at 3, 5 and 7 years old, his chances are much higher than if he was measured as overweight one time, say at 3 years old only. Here are the numbers according to the study authors:
-if a child was overweight just once, he was 25 times more likely to be overweight at age 12, than a child who was never measured as being overweight;
-if he was measured as overweight two times he was 159 times more likely;
-and for three times he was 374 times more likely.

That’s big stakes.

There’s always hope and that’s where the second report comes in. But we’ve got to start early (although it is never too late to make changes at any time in your child’s life or your life). In the report, What You Feed Your Baby Now May Impact His Waistline Later, researchers from the University of Michigan Health System advise that feeding babies (wait until at least 4 months of age for solids) and toddlers lots of whole fruits and vegetables early on may help them control their waistline later in life. Giving them any kind of sweets too early can predispose them to consuming too many of these foods later, possibly increasing their risk for obesity.

So if it’s that easy let’s get started! And parents you have to get in the game too. If we want our kids to eat more fruits and vegetables and fewer sweets, than we’ve got to do that as well, and in front of them. We must always remember that we are models of behavior for our kids.

With that being said, please share with us the techniques and tricks you use at home or at school to get your child and/or other kids to eat more fruits and vegetables? Send in your tips and I’ll post them so everyone can try them.

(for more info on these reports click on the underlined links above)

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