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Why Is Everyone Always Giving My Kids Junk Food?
Tweet Share on Facebook February 20, 2013 CommentI have three lovely little girls who range in age from 3 to 8. All three go to school, participate in organized, after-school activities, enjoy birthday parties and play dates, and have a cadre of friends. And everywhere they go, they're being smothered with junk.
Last week my 3-year-old's pre-school had a "color war." An email sent to parents explained that there would be a fruit snack and "a treat of course." It's not so much the treat that's the problem, it's the "of course."
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The Oscars: A Starlet-Approved (Healthy) Red Carpet Menu
Tweet Share on Facebook February 20, 2013 CommentLet's be honest, the Oscars are the female equivalent of the Super Bowl. Women get just as excited about the Academy Awards as men do about the biggest day in football. We invite our friends over, serve special food and drinks, and speculate at length about the winners. There's even a pre-game show: Red carpet coverage starts at 4:30 p.m. (and some fashion news will start even earlier)—a full four hours before the actual awards show begins at 8:30 p.m. EST.
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Confessions of a Dietitian With a Muffin Top
Tweet Share on Facebook February 19, 2013 CommentDietitians face a major occupational hazard: the underlying pressure to remain a model of good health and fitness. After all, you probably wouldn't trust a dentist with bad teeth, or a mechanic with a jalopy. Would you trust a dietitian with a muffin top?
Of course, we dietitians are people, too. Occasionally, we also get too busy to squeeze in our "nine a day" of fruits and veggies. Some of us are mothers whose childcare obligations make a regular gym commitment difficult to manage and whose post-baby bodies are quite worse for the wear. After a long day at work or at home with our kids, we're equally tempted to plop down on the couch and eat dinner in front of the TV, even though we know that's a recipe for disaster. And so it shouldn't surprise anyone to learn that once in a while, we dietitians may find ourselves a few pounds over our own goal weights—or several hours under our weekly exercise targets.
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Blood Oranges, 3 Ways
Tweet Share on Facebook February 18, 2013 CommentImagine you're strolling along the fruit aisle in the supermarket. You come across a vast display of oranges and mindlessly pick a few and bag them, thinking they are all the same. Never judge an orange by its peel! From the outside, the blood orange—cousin of the Florida orange—may fool you into thinking it's just like any other orange. But once you peel away the rind, you'll discover the uniquely-colored pulp, which ranges from a deep orange speckled with red to a solid crimson, which is almost the color of blood (hence the name).
Blood oranges' distinctive maroon color is due to the antioxidant anthocyanin. Antioxidants may help prevent cancer and heart disease, but anthocyanins, specifically, help lower LDL cholesterol (that's the lousy kind) and keep blood vessels flexible and strong. (Perhaps the name "blood" orange is a double entendre.) The pulp of these oranges is also high in fiber, which keeps the digestive tract in tip-top shape and helps prevent constipation. Blood oranges are a good source of the B vitamin folate, which is essential to the healthy development of a fetus and to slowed aging of the brain.
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Taking Teff Flour to the Test Kitchen
Tweet Share on Facebook February 15, 2013 CommentThis time of year, I love browsing the National Restaurant Association's annual What's Hot culinary forecast, which peeks into the minds of more than 1,800 chefs, who predict the year's food trends. What theme emerged this time? A focus on various types of grains to replace traditional wheat—mainly in an effort to land more gluten-free items on the menu.
Intrigued, I chose one of the more exotic flour varieties mentioned and played a little in the kitchen. One category that caught my attention was "ethnic flour," which consists of fufu, teff, and cassava. This category was considered a hot trend by 56 percent of the chefs surveyed. I enlisted the help of my colleague Michelle Dudash, who's both a registered dietitian and chef. The story unfolded much like the beloved children's book If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, in which the mouse soon wants milk with his cookie, and then a straw for a milk, and eventually lots more. Our story was more like If You Give A Foodie A New Ingredient, in which we were given teff flour, then wanted to make cookies, and then brownies, and probably much more down the road.
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Salt in the Wound
Tweet Share on Facebook February 15, 2013 CommentA sophisticated analysis, just published in the journal Hypertension and based on three distinct computer-modeling approaches, found that meaningful reductions in Americans' average intake of dietary sodium could save between 280,000 and 500,000 lives over the next decade.
Those are big, impressive numbers. Not all that long ago, this provocative finding would have been a clear and direct goad to public action, for there was widespread acceptance that sodium excess was harmful. While that view still persists among the majority of experts, a vocal minority has voiced enough dissent over recent years to create at least the impression of abiding doubt. There is the possibility, therefore, that the opportunity highlighted in this new study may prove only to be new fodder for interminable and contentious debate. I would like to help preempt that.
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Set an Example When You Set the Table
Tweet Share on Facebook February 14, 2013 CommentWhether it's for a birthday, a holiday, or just for no reason at all, we shower our kids with gifts throughout their lives. As our children grow, their closets and dressers see many articles of clothing come and go, but how many of those items will remain indelibly etched in their minds? When making memories, it's not usually the material items that get remembered and re-emerge on a daily basis; it's the life lessons that really penetrate.
The other day, my middle son was about to embark on his first business trip. Right before he left for the airport, he asked, "Could you teach me how to iron?" That question hit me like a ton of bricks. All I could think about was: "My father was a tailor ... how could I have never taught my kids how to iron—or sew, for that matter?" I proceeded to pull out the ironing board that was neatly nestled in the closet and quickly enrolled him in Ironing 101. And it was after his plane took off that I thought about one of the most important lessons I have taught my children: I showed them how to have a wonderful and healthy relationship with food.
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How to Serve Dinner for Breakfast
Tweet Share on Facebook February 14, 2013 CommentI love breakfast. It calms my early-morning hunger and includes foods I adore, like oatmeal and eggs. But not everyone feels this way about breakfast foods. Over the years, many of my patients have complained that they simply don't like cereal, hate yogurt and cottage cheese, and have no love for eggs. My response to them has always been the same: OK, but that shouldn't stop you from eating breakfast!
Breakfast is defined as the day's first meal. In other words, you simply need to start the day with food, which certainly doesn't need to be typical breakfast foods if you don't like them. The key is to find foods that provide the important nutrients we should begin our days with—especially fiber and protein. You can find these nutrients in many foods, including those served at dinner.
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There's No Cure for Obesity
Tweet Share on Facebook February 13, 2013 CommentDespite what you may see in breathless advertisements, or read from the latest diet book guru, or hear from celebrity diet spokespeople, there simply is no cure for obesity. Although you probably already know that in your bones (after all, if there were a cure, the world would certainly not be struggling with weight), I'm guessing that you may still approach weight-management efforts as if a cure was possible.
In my experience working with thousands of people, the majority seem to believe that there are two phases to weight management—the weight-loss phase and the weight-maintenance phase—and that the losing phase will require far more restriction than the maintaining phase.
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How Health-Related Disclaimers are Fooling You
Tweet Share on Facebook February 12, 2013 CommentIf Skechers had included a disclosure in its advertising for Shape-ups and Resistance Runner shoes, it might have avoided a class action lawsuit last year—not to mention a $40 million settlement to provide customer refunds. Skechers was accused of making fitness claims that were poorly supported by the scientific research it cited. But current marketing research suggests that consumers might have been just as likely to buy the shoes even if the weight loss and glute-toning promises came with a disclaimer. In fact, we may have been even more likely to buy.
