Fun Goodies for Kids in honor of National Nutrition Month

March is National Nutrition Month and obesity has become an epidemic with adults and especially our children. If we don’t start teaching our kids how to eat well and start focusing on exercise and nutrition at an early age, we’re taking away their opportunity for a long, healthy, and successful life. Who wants a life rigored by trips to the doctors, illness, and disease? As parents and caring adults it’s our responsibility to be our own advocate and more importantly for our children, grandchildren, Godchildren, nieces and nephews, etc.

Spring is right around the corner and that opens more opportunities to eat better with vegetables and fruits coming into season. Sometimes healthy food can be kind of boring and bland especially to children who have been used to a lot of salt (chips, pretzels, processed foods) and sugar (cookies, candy, ice cream, processed foods). Find ways to up your flavor profiles, make eating healthy an adventure or field trip, start a small garden, and have them learn to grow and take care of it.

I teach elementary kids how to start seeds, care for the seedlings, transplant them to our edible school yard, weed and care for their growing plants, harvest, and then we learn how to make something nutritious with their harvest. To watch them get so excited to get their hands dirty and run out and pick a tomato or pea pod to eat right off the vine is an incredible thing to see!

Need some help? Here are a few ideas to celebrate National Nutrition Month!

Start a snack garden- It doesn’t have to be a farmette or gigantic overwhelming garden. You can actually grow most veggies in  pots. Sit down with your little ones and see what they would like to try to eat and grow. The easy ones are tomatoes, peas, peppers, cucumbers, and herbs. You can actually start your pot with a tomato plant and grow the basil around the base of the tomato plant if you really want to save space! Use a large pot, add some soil, drop in a couple of seeds or to make it even easier buy an established plant at a hardware store. Place in full sun, make sure to give it a little water when the soil gets dry and watch it grow together. Once you plant starts to fruit. At snack time send the kids out picking. Come in and dip into some humus, sunflower butter, Greek yogurt mixed with herbs and a little lemon juice.

Get them in the kitchen with Kids Stir– I just found these guys and it’s so cool! I love it! It’s a monthly box that shows up in your mailbox each month. You can set your membership to your liking, but each month’s box is completely different. They contain different cooking exercises and everything you need for the activity in the box. So I’ve seen one called build a fish bowl. It has the directions, a poster of a fish bowl, and you get a cookie cutter shaped as a fish and the recipe to make the cookies, crackers, etc. You can always change recipes to be healthier too. It gets kids in the kitchen cooking and getting hands on with their foods. They love it! I can’t get my kids out of the kitchen, so much I can never get dinner cooked because they want to help so much! Check out their site, super cute! Or if you’re super creative make up your own ideas!

Skip the Fast Food Joints & Make your own at Home- The fast food joints are the worst, between the high caloric food, low-grade meats, all the hands touching and retouching your food, not to mention how awful and sluggish you feel after eating it! Have “fast food” at home! Dinner doesn’t have to take 2+ hours to make every night most meals can take 20 minutes from prep to table. Some times you just have to multitask! Have kid-friendly and fast food nights with a healthy twist. Make your own taco bar, put each ingredient in separate bowls and let everyone build their own tacos. You can get frozen pizza dough balls, let them thaw, knead them out a bit and let everyone make their own separate pizzas! Choose a good mozzarella cheese, make your own sauce with just tomato paste, olive oil, herbs, salt and pepper, and then load up the veggies for everyone to pile high on their pizza. Make breakfast for dinner one night a week. I actually just started doing this and kids think it so fun and they get super excited. Waffles, omelets, pancakes, etc are all fast and healthier options then running to the closest burger joint,plus the kids can get involved and help in the kitchen with these too!

 

Here’s to a celebrating National Nutrition Month and to a healthier kids!

 

 

 

National Nutrition Month

March is National Nutrition Month, if you haven’t started gearing up for bikini season, this is the month to help you get a little more motivation. I can’t believe March is almost over and still feels like winter where I am. We’re actually forecasted for snow again tonight. Beach season doesn’t feel like it will ever get here! So in honor of nutrition and the upcoming sun, sand and surf season. Here’s a few points on how you can embrace your health and give yourself some love this month.

I had a client call me this morning and tell me she’s been eating clean 80% of the time, dropped the soda completely, been eating breakfast every morning and she can’t believe how much energy she has and how great she actually feels now! I love those stories. I wanted to give her the biggest hug and big sloppy kiss. She totally made my day! I knew she could do it, it’s just getting past that big hump in the beginning that’s the hardest. Those little success stories are what keep me going as a Holistic Health Coach and Healthy Living Advocate. “A little ripple effect” that will hopefully start a change in the world.

So here is 10 things to do for yourself this month (well what’s left of it) 😉 But you can continue on and reap all the benefits!

1. Try something new! Never eaten brussel sprouts, artichokes, or monk fruit? Try it out once, you may surprise yourself.
2. Try to incorporate different greens into your diet. If you’re not too crazy about one, try another. You can always hide them in smoothies too!
3. Learn to read a label. You’ll be surprised what you’re really eating!!!
4. Start a garden. Grow your own food, eat the things you really like. Visit a farmers market.
5. Add an extra glass of water to your diet each day.
6. Eat off a smaller plate. You’ll learn portion control and you won’t consume so much food. If you’re still hungry after, then go for seconds.
7. Replace processed sugars with natural…honey and 100% maple syrup are great ones to use.
8. Choose healthy snacks like nuts, fruit, veggies with hummus, plain yogurt and add your own berries, The possibilities are endless!
9. Chose wild caught fish, skip the farm raised. And choose organic or humanely raised pork, beef, and poultry.
10. Get in the kitchen, stay out of the drive-thrus. Anything coming through the window is not food!

Hope these little pointers help! Here is a healthy snacks guide you can check out and grab some great, new healthy recipes!

National Nutrition Month!

March is National Nutrition Month and with today being the first day of spring, there are so many reasons to celebrate! Hopefully old man winter is behind us, (even though he went pretty easy on most of the US this year) which means warmer weather, with that brings fresh fruits and vegetables, outdoor activities and exercise, and fresh air and sunshine.

There are so many reasons to celebrate National Nutrition Month, with obesity, diabetes, and chronic illness on the rise there is no better time than now to decide to get healthy. The Raw Food Institute reports, “…100 years ago, Americans consumed only 10 pounds of sugar a year, now the average American is consuming over 170 POUNDS of sugar a year.” I was dumb founded to hear those numbers. But the more I thought about what Americans are eating every day from lattes and pastries to fast foods and desserts, I guess it does make sense. It’s no wonder this country seems to constantly sick.

So, for the rest of the month why not decide to do something better for yourself. Choose to make better food choices and establish good eating habits. Try one meal a day to really make and effort to eat the entire meal completely thoughtful and nutritious and try it for week!The next week, try making good choices on all your lunches or all your snacking.

Commit yourself to get outside more and get more physical activity and exercise. It can be as simple as mowing the lawn or raking the leaves to walking for 20 minutes to swimming laps at your local pool. The old saying “if you don’t have your health, then you have nothing,” is true. You only get one body and one life! Make today the day you decide to take back your health. Choose to take better care of your family and yourself.

If you live in Maryland or near the Eastern Shore in Virginia and Delaware. Here are a couple extra sites to check out! They contain information on recipes, meet up groups and events for knowledge and information from local farmers, health, and non-profit organizations. Chop Chop Magazine or you can text Chop Chop to 43186 to get information via text from this magazine loaded with information by the state of Maryland or check out Slow Food Delmarva for upcoming events and meetings for the whole family.