McDonald's Anyone? Never Again!

My husband is always coming up with interesting stories on the internet. He emailed me this one, and I just knew I had to blog about it.

Someone took a picture of a McDonald's hamburger and fries each day for over 100 days to see what would happen. Guess what happened? Pretty much nothing! You can click here to see the article, and you can click here to see all 137 photos!

This is my favorite quote from the article, "Far be it from me to tell you what to eat, but I am pretty sure your stomach can't break that down any better than the mold and microbes in the air."

Computer Fun for Kids

I get a lot of great ideas from my Family Fun magazine. This month, they named their top 10 kids websites. One of them was Fizzy's Lunch Lab on www.pbskids.org/lunchlab. I went and checked it out and it is really the perfect healthy kids website!

Here is what Family Fun had to say about it, "Way more fun than the food pyramid, this PBS site promotes good nutrition and physical activity through education games, yummy recipes, dance-along videos, printable place mats, and funny talk show parodies. A spoonful of humor helps the information go down as do the hip graphics."

I know from experience that kids can be a great example to the whole family. Right now, my one year old twins are folding their arms and bowing their heads at each mealtime. I am sure we will never forget mealtime prayer again! When you teach your children what food are healthy and why, they will remind us over and over again.

Some things that I liked about the website when I went and played around:

• They have lots of recipes and when you click on a recipe it has pictures of the food and the measurements, so it is great for little ones that can't read yet. They also have a lot of recipes and they specify if it is a snack, easy, or hard etc. This way you can have your child pick out a recipe with your guidelines.
• They really seem to emphasize fruits and vegetables.
• They have a "food" tip at the bottom of the screen that has fun food facts (my older son is all about fun facts!)
• It is done by PBS, so you won't have to worry about ads, or commercials!

Hope you get a chance to check out the website with your kids!

Pictured is an example of how they have the recipes to print out. They have the nutrition facts and all!

Comments?

I was changing the Christmas background on my blog yesterday when I noticed that I had about 50 comments waiting for me to "moderate". I had forgotten that a few months back I got some Chinese character comments/links, so I changed it so that I would have to approve the comments. I guess I didn't have it email me when someone left a comment, so I didn't know. So sorry for not responding to the many comments! I really do love them. I think it is great that we can learn from each other.

Favorite Summer Snacks

The kids are home for the summer which means that I will be feeding at least 6 people 3 plus times a day. To make it easier on myself, I like snacks that involve very little of "me".

• Z-Bars- These are a kids version of Clif Bars. My favorite flavor is the chocolate one. It tastes like a brownie. My kids love the Honey Flavored one. I buy these at Costco. They are about 40 cents a piece, but well worth it. If I remember right, they have 5 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber . . . . . all for only 120 calories. This is the granola bar of my house.
• Creamies- These may just be a Utah thing, but Creamies are a low-fat frozen popsicle made out of milk. They sell these at my Costco. They also only have 120 calories and 10% of your daily calcium. Creamies would fit under the catagory of "semi-healthy" in my house. That means that it doesn't have a ton of sugar, no food coloring, no HFCS, and no TRANS FATS, but it also doesn't grow in the ground.
• String Cheese- Only 80 calories, 20% of your calcium, and 8 grams of protein, this is a snack that will help fill your kids up.
• Fresh Fruit- It is so easy to find fruit that tastes great this time of year. Some of my kids favorites are strawberries, peaches, and grapes. Just to give you an idea of how absolutely superior fruit is over any other snack in your house, take a look at the nutrition in 1 Cup of halved strawberries . . . . . . 49 calories, 150% of vitamin C, 3 grams of fiber, and NO fat.
• Danonino Yogurts. My kids like to put a spoon through the top and freeze it for a healthy popsicle. (They got the idea from TV!) I did a post earlier on these yogurts. Click here.

Don't Blame School Lunch Lady

I read an interesting article in the newspaper today about childhood obesity. Did you know that 27% of all Americans ages 17-24 are too heavy to join the armed services, according to a new report by the retired officers.

Now that I have your attention, our kids spend about 180 days in school. Most kids have school lunch, and some eat breakfast there as well. If our kids eat 3 meals a day, for 365 days in the year, that is a total of 1,095 meals. If all our kids are eating is hot lunch all 180 days of school, then that leaves us with 915 that they eat at home. That means that the majority of our children's food is being fed to them at home. That leaves us as parents with a huge responsibility to feed our children healthy foods.

"The EarlyBird Diabetes Study looked at 226 British families and found that :

• Obese mothers are 10 times more likely to have obese daughters
• Obese fathers are 6 times more likely to have obese sons
• There is no association between obese mothers and obese sons, obese fathers and obese daughters"

"A Greek study conducted by Harokopio University in Athens has confirmed the belief amongst health professionals that child obesity risk is much higher when parents themselves are overweight.

Over 2300 pre-school children, attending 105 nurseries around Greece, were recruited into the study during 2004. Researchers collected data on weight and height and used this to calculate body mass index (BMI). Children were then classified as ‘normal’, ‘at risk of overweight’ or ‘overweight’ depending upon their BMI. At the same time, parents were asked to complete questionnaires about their age, educational level and weight and height. Parental BMI was then estimated.

The results showed that 32% of the children were overweight, which is much higher than the 21% expected using international predictions.Children with 1 obese parent were almost twice as likely to be overweight than children whose parents were of normal weight. Children with two obese parents were 2.4 times more likely to be overweight.

The authors concluded that parental BMI strongly influenced whether or not a child was overweight."

Our children typically eat what is given to them, and over time they will like the food that is most often fed to them. If you are making and eating healthy foods yourself, and you do not provide the junk food in your home, your children will learn to like the foods that are given to them. This is just my opinion as to why parents who are overweight tend to have children who are overweight. I do understand that genetics also has a role in being overweight, but considering that childhood obesity is on the rise, that tells us that we are doing something with our environment, not genetics.

So lets all start right now.

Let's get started today. I made a list of my TOP 5 worst foods. Look down the list and pick one thing that is currently in your house, and change it! One simple step.

1. White Bread. We all need more fiber! - Do 100% whole wheat flour bread.
2. Fruit Snacks. They are not fruit! - Try dried fruit or fresh fruit.
3. Hot Dogs. They might as well be made of dogs! - try nitrate/nitrite free deli meats
4. Trans Fats. Any thing that has the word "partially-hydrogenated . . . .". - most organic crackers/snacks are trans fat free
5. High Fructose Corn Syrup. - If you cut out the amount of processed foods your family eats, this will go away on its own.

Good luck! Feel free to leave a comment on what your goal is, or what you have already done. We will help keep you motivated.

Motherhood is Rewarding

I wanted to start off this post with a little oxymoron. Motherhood is Rewarding. I think it is rewarding in the long run, but for now it is not so much. So you can imagine how excited I was when I got an "award". A blog I follow called Being LDS- We talk of Christ, We Rejoice in Christ nominated me with an award of one of her favorite blogs. I was very surprised because I didn't even know she knew about my blog. It was nice to be recognized for something different. Don't get me wrong, I am the one who chose to have kids and stay at home with them, and I do love them dearly, but as with any job, their are parts that I like better than others.

As part of this award, I am supposed to list 10 things that make me happy, and then pass the award onto someone else.

Dark Chocolate

TV

Religion

Doing Fun things with my Kids

My Husband

Exercising

Sisters/Sister-in-Laws/Friends that you wish you were related to

Family Vacations

Eating Good Food

Flowers (cut, fresh, garden . . .)

Now I am supposed to pass the award on to others.

Kareninphotography.blogspot.com by Karenin

Jouneyings by Diane

Yummy Fun by Jen

Enjoy!

Home of Bulk Shopping

I shop at Costco at least twice a month. I think most people with kids shop at Costco, or a place like it. When you think of Costco, you think bulk, and you also think about snacks, candy, soda and so on. My favorite part of Costco is the fresh fruits and vegetables. When I saw my friend Claudia at Costco a couple of months ago, she suggested that I post about all the healthy things you can buy at Costco.

Here is what I buy the most often at Costco

• Lettuce (6 heads of romaine for $4)
• Carrots (individual snack baby carrots-even organic)
• Hummus- see my previous post
• Eggs
• Blueberries
• Bananas- Don't talk to my oldest sister about bananas at Costco
• Strawberries
• Pears
• Grapes
• Asparagus
• Dark chocolate (the kids don't like it, but Mom does!)
• Milk
• Soy Milk
• Olive oil
• Bread- most of the bread at Costco now does NOT have HFCS in it
• Chicken
• Salmon
• Cheese
• Organic Pop Tarts (kids love them, Mom thinks they are gross)
• Quakers instant Oatmeal
• Canned Beans
• Frozen Strawberries, Blueberries, and other frozen fruit for smoothies
• Frozen Green Beans, Peas, and corn
• Fresh already cut up Broccoli
• Baby spinach
• 100% Real Maple Syrup

Words of advice when shopping in any grocery store

1. Go with a list- this makes you plan out healthy meals for your family and keeps you from buying as much junk
2. Shop in the fruit and Veggie section first- This does make it harder to fit things when you get to the canned food, but it fills your cart up with fresh and healthy things and makes it less tempting to buy junk.
3. Shop the perimeter of the store. That is where they keep all the fresh non-processed foods. Shop the perimeter after the fruits and veggies
4. Next shop the frozen food section- Frozen fruits and veggies are great for you and don't go bad as quickly. There are also a lot of things like frozen burritos that have ok ingredients for a quick snack for your kids.
5. Shop the inside of the store last. This has all the processed food in it. You will end up in the middle for bread, cereal and canned beans, and canned tomatoes, but most of your cart should be full by the time you get to the middle.
6. Think before you put it in your cart. DO NOT buy bulk of any kind of treat or junk food. Feel free to get yourself or your child a single item junk food item like A candy bar, but if you don't buy the junk, you will not have a chance to eat it at home.