A mere 10% of high school students are getting their minimum recommended 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day! Truly, 5-a-day is barely a minimum and that means, as a country, we are in big trouble. http://bit.ly/OMf4n
The truth is that because it is so difficult to get kids to eat the way they need to, we need to find methods to help them out. I have a few ideas:
1) Provide opportunities for your kids to eat fruit and veggies. Keep them readily available and ready-to-eat. Cut-up veggies inb the fridge with dip (hummus, healthy dressings). Keep offering at every meal...get them used to seeing and tasting them. Add fruits for dessert, veggies at meals. Sneak them in at every possibility. Make salads, soups, and dishes that use veggies and fruits. See my website for cookbook recommendations: www.ToYourHealthNutrition.com.
2) Be a role model. Show your kidlets how much you LOVE eating your fruits and veggies. They watch. They notice. They absorb. It is the single most important behavior you can provide your children.
3) Provide them Juice Plus to fill in the gaps... www.JulieannaMSRDJuicePlus.com. It is literally 15 fruits and veggies with 2 whole grains in a capsule, chewie or gummmie. Kids LOVE them and it bridges the gap between trying to eat enough fruits and veggies and getting the phytonutrients they need...
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Exploiting our MInds at the Grocery Store
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I received this letter in my e-mail this morning and it just proved the point that the food industry is brilliant at manipulating our minds. To make sugary cereal a "healthy choice" is criminal. People end up so confused when shopping at the market, any effort to eat healthy gets sabotaged. Please read this letter and sign the linked petition to the FDA to try and stop this nonsense!
Dear Julieanna,
Ever get the feeling that multinational food corporations are just trying to sell you a bunch of junk in a pretty package? Well, the new Smart Choices® Program proves that hunch to be true.
Recently, an alliance of over a dozen giant food conglomerates and some industry “experts” came up with a new nutrition labeling program meant to help consumers make “smarter food and beverage choices.”1 You might be surprised what they define as a “Smart Choice”: products like Froot Loops®, Keebler Cookie Crunch® and Lucky Charms®.
Are they serious? In an age when childhood obesity and type II diabetes has become an epidemic, labeling sugar cereals as smart choices is unacceptable. Please join us in telling the FDA and USDA to investigate the Smart Choices® Program and put an end to deceptive labeling.
http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/39?akid=23.50689.sSmvcP&t=1
The new Smart Choices® label, a large, bright green checkmark, is starting to appear on packages of processed food across the country thanks to the help of major corporations like ConAgra, General Mills, Kellogg’s, Kraft, PepsiCo, Tyson Foods and Unilever.2 For only $100,000, a company can join the Smart Choices® program3 and “recommend” products that contain as much as 44% sugar to your children.4
This new label is a sign of everything that is wrong with food industry driven labeling programs.
According to Michael Jacobson, the executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the criteria for the new “smarter food” label is so low that: “You could start out with some sawdust, add calcium or Vitamin A and meet the criteria.”5
Jacobson, who was on the original panel of experts that worked to create the nutritional standards for the Smart Choices® program, resigned last September in disgust because the results were so far in favor of the industry.
Thankfully, the FDA and USDA have taken notice. The agencies sent a joint letter saying they would “be concerned if any FOP (front of package) labeling systems…had the effect of encouraging consumers to choose highly processed foods…”6 The letter is a good start, but The FDA and USDA need to do more. The Smart Choices program will encourage bad food choices if it's allowed to proceed. And the FDA and USDA have the ability to stop it.
Please sign this petition now and tell the FDA and the USDA that Froot Loops® is NOT a Smart Choice for our children.
http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/39?akid=23.50689.sSmvcP&t=1
Thanks for all you do,
Dave, Lisa and the Food Democracy Now! Team
Dear Julieanna,
Ever get the feeling that multinational food corporations are just trying to sell you a bunch of junk in a pretty package? Well, the new Smart Choices® Program proves that hunch to be true.
Recently, an alliance of over a dozen giant food conglomerates and some industry “experts” came up with a new nutrition labeling program meant to help consumers make “smarter food and beverage choices.”1 You might be surprised what they define as a “Smart Choice”: products like Froot Loops®, Keebler Cookie Crunch® and Lucky Charms®.
Are they serious? In an age when childhood obesity and type II diabetes has become an epidemic, labeling sugar cereals as smart choices is unacceptable. Please join us in telling the FDA and USDA to investigate the Smart Choices® Program and put an end to deceptive labeling.
http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/39?akid=23.50689.sSmvcP&t=1
The new Smart Choices® label, a large, bright green checkmark, is starting to appear on packages of processed food across the country thanks to the help of major corporations like ConAgra, General Mills, Kellogg’s, Kraft, PepsiCo, Tyson Foods and Unilever.2 For only $100,000, a company can join the Smart Choices® program3 and “recommend” products that contain as much as 44% sugar to your children.4
This new label is a sign of everything that is wrong with food industry driven labeling programs.
According to Michael Jacobson, the executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the criteria for the new “smarter food” label is so low that: “You could start out with some sawdust, add calcium or Vitamin A and meet the criteria.”5
Jacobson, who was on the original panel of experts that worked to create the nutritional standards for the Smart Choices® program, resigned last September in disgust because the results were so far in favor of the industry.
Thankfully, the FDA and USDA have taken notice. The agencies sent a joint letter saying they would “be concerned if any FOP (front of package) labeling systems…had the effect of encouraging consumers to choose highly processed foods…”6 The letter is a good start, but The FDA and USDA need to do more. The Smart Choices program will encourage bad food choices if it's allowed to proceed. And the FDA and USDA have the ability to stop it.
Please sign this petition now and tell the FDA and the USDA that Froot Loops® is NOT a Smart Choice for our children.
http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/39?akid=23.50689.sSmvcP&t=1
Thanks for all you do,
Dave, Lisa and the Food Democracy Now! Team
Monday, September 21, 2009
Collaboration with Genre Pictures
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Please take a look at my dear friend and fantastic filmmaker, Jesse Pomeroy's, blog at: http://genrepix.wordpress.com/. We are currently working on a Plant-Based documentary as he is the best filmmaker I know and am thrilled to be collaborating with him. His latest film, World Full of Nothing, is being shown at the Naperville Independent Film Festival this week and Jesse has been nominated for Best Feature Director!!!
Meatless Mondays!
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Happy Monday! Check out my interview that came out today on Meatless Mondays at http://www.meatlessmonday.com/nutrition-is-a-family-affair/
Try going meatless this Monday! There are delicious recipes on their website plus my website, www.ToYourHealthNutrition.com has some great cookbook suggestions as well as other website links!
Try going meatless this Monday! There are delicious recipes on their website plus my website, www.ToYourHealthNutrition.com has some great cookbook suggestions as well as other website links!
Sunday, September 20, 2009
A Plant-Based Mom's Dream Come True!
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When I picked up my daughter from Pre-Kindergarten the other day, the teacher alerted me to the fact that when they passed around doughnuts for snack, my daughter elected to grab her apple from her lunch and eat that instead!!!
The biggest challenge when trying to implement a healthy diet for your children is all the opposition that is readily available when you send them into the world, unsheltered and left to fight for themselves.
All I can hope for is that the constant bombardment of health information I provide to my kids as well as the consistent role modeling (plus the extreme cheerleading when they get it right) will lead them to make healthy choices on their own, as my daughter did at school the other day.
The biggest challenge when trying to implement a healthy diet for your children is all the opposition that is readily available when you send them into the world, unsheltered and left to fight for themselves.
All I can hope for is that the constant bombardment of health information I provide to my kids as well as the consistent role modeling (plus the extreme cheerleading when they get it right) will lead them to make healthy choices on their own, as my daughter did at school the other day.
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