FLAVORING FOOD WITHOUT SALT

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS

This week�s WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS column is filled with ideas for parents to bring out the best flavors in real foods.  In our Growing Healthy Kids in the Kitchenprograms, we teach kids (and parents, too) how to make kitchen herb gardens and how to season, cook, and flavor foods using fresh and dried herbs.  Learning to cook without relying on salt is important because when someone is overweight, they are more likely to have high blood pressure.  It is well known that the more salt you eat, the higher your blood pressure will be.  

As I like to say, when you know what to do, it is easy to eat healthy foods every day!

Spices, herbs, and sauces add depth and interest to everyday foods.   One of my new favorite finds, since discovering their store in a recent trip to Louisville, Kentucky, is a company called Penzeys Spices.  They search around the world for the best spices so that we can create and enjoy foods.  Their bumper sticker says it all: �Love People.  Cook Them Tasty Food.�  Their catalog includes recipes from readers and artwork from kids.  I�m really not into catalogs, but I do enjoy the one from Penzeys.  One of the first issues I received featured a Chicken Paprikash recipe by someone named Balog and I thought, "What a concidence!" because the parents of James Balog live in the same town as I do (Vero Beach, Florida).  I kept reading and was indeed delighted to find myself reading an interview with James Balog, the photographer and explorer who is documenting the melting glaciers with time-lapse photography.  A quote from him really hit home: �I dream of a society focused not on money or markets but on quality and meaning, purpose and goodness.�  Good words to live by.

Sauces are a great way to kick up the flavor without a lot of calories.

For three good reasons, herbs are a favorite topic in our educational programs with kids.  One, because we distribute a lot of herb seeds, two, because we teach kids how to propagate, plant, and grow the seeds, and three, because we use fresh and dried herbs in all our kitchen programs.  But I find there are many adults who know little or nothing about growing and using fresh herbs in cooking.  Just yesterday an acquaintance stopped by my house after arriving in Vero Beach for the winter from her other home outside out New York City.  I gave her a pot of fresh basil to take to her winter home here.  She asked me how to take care of it and what to do with it.  It made me realize that the simple ways to flavor foods that I have grown up with I take for granted and not everyone knows how to play in the dirt! 

Keeping several pots of fresh herbs can make cooking fun for your family!

Sauces are the third way to add incredible flavor to foods.  One of the books I am reading now, In the Green Kitchen: Techniques to Learn by Heart by Alice Waters, has great recipes from lots of chefs.  I have long admired Alice Waters because of her commitment to using locally grown foods and because of her Edible Education Foundation, a national movement to change the way children eat and how they learn about food in the public schools.  Her work inspires me to teach parents just like you that when you start making simple changes to eat real foods, the health � and lives � of America�s children - YOUR children - will improve. 

Here are links to resources you can use:

www.penzeys.com

http://www.seedsofchange.com/

http://edibleschoolyard.org/

In gratitude,
Nancy Heinrich

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids, Inc.

3 TIPS FOR GREAT LUNCHES

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS

Last month I wrote a column about great breakfasts.  Now let�s talk about great lunches.  Since February is American Heart Month, we are going to keep the conversation going about how to keep our ticker ticking.  For a healthy heart, parents need to be aware of the importance of getting to � and staying at � a healthy weight.  What we feed our kids is a matter of great importance, because if they are categorized as obese when they are children, they are much more likely to be obese as adults.  Eating 3 small meals and a couple of small snacks every day is key to a successful plan for staying at a healthy weight. 

LUNCH IS A MEAL WE NEED TO EAT EVERY DAY.  Are you a parent who packs a lunch for your child (or children) every day?  What about your own lunch?  Do you skip lunch?  What are your kids eating for lunch?  Are you eating a lot of junk foods?  Sodas?  Cookies?  Are there Burger King wrappers in the car when you pick up your kids from school?  We are the role models for our kids, so whatever you eat, your kids are watching you, even if they don't say anything now.  

LUNCH IS ONE OF THE MEALS WHEN WE NEED A SERVING OF CALCIUM.  When you are planning lunches, for your kids or you, remember to include the calcium.  Kids need their 3 servings of calcium every day for healthy bones and teeth.  Adults need 3 servings of calcium for our heart health.  We all need calcium to get a good night�s sleep!  Remember that there are dairy sources of calcium (think milk, cheese, and yogurt) and non-dairy sources (think almonds and broccoli). 

GREAT LUNCH TIP #1:  Use dinner leftovers as the basis for a healthy lunch.  At my house, I plan dinners and cook a little extra so I can take leftovers for lunch the next day (and make all my coworkers ask me what smells so good!).   When I make a fresh fruit salad or a chopped green salad, I always make a little extra for lunch the next.  Package up a couple of slices of your child�s favorite cheese.  Place a serving of freshly prepared tuna salad in a beautiful container, add an oat bran pita cut into quarters, and you�ve got a healthy lunch that will have all the kids in the cafeteria (or your coworkers at the office) wanting to trade lunches. 

Use Barilla Whole Grain Rotini for a delicious pasta salad your kids will love!

GREAT LUNCH TIP #2:  Include whole grains in your kids� lunchboxes.  One great suggestion is to make a whole grain pasta salad for dinner.  Just make a little extra for lunches the next day.  After dinner, let the kids pick out their favorite container and pack up some pasta salad for their school lunch, adding the right amount of parmesan cheese on top. 

Creating customized LUNCHABLES can be fun using in-season fruits and veggies!

GREAT LUNCH TIP #3:  Pack either fresh in-season fruit or vegetables as part of a healthy lunch AND as a source of dietary fiber, which is what fills us up.  Right now in Florida, we�re getting the delicious Plant City strawberries in the markets and I can�t get enough of them at my house!  Pears are a fabulous source of dietary fiber.  Cut up a fresh apple into slices (add a little lemon juice to prevent oxidation) and pack a few slices of your child�s favorite cheddar cheese for a great lunch combo.  Or pack celery strips with a 1 ounce container of almond butter. 

All these ideas have received the Growing Healthy Kids Seal of Approval and are recommended for kids everywhere!  

For more healthy lunch box ideas, here are 3 resources parents can use:

http://www.parenting.com/tags/kids-lunch-ideas

http://pinterest.com/tpasholk/kids-lunch-ideas/

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/category/lifestyle/vegetarian

In gratitude,

Nancy Heinrich,

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids, Inc.

TIPS FOR HEART HEALTH

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS

February is a great month to learn about fiber.  This is American Heart Month and one great way to improve our heart�s health is to eat plenty of foods high in dietary fiber such as whole grains, fruits and vegetables, lentils and split peas. 

Half of your lunch and dinner plate should be fruits and veggies.

Lentil burger on a whole grain flatbread bun.  

I frequently write about the importance of dietary fiber because too many of us eat too little of it.  Too little fiber is a major contributor to our obesity epidemic.  When we are overweight or obese, our hearts have to work harder. 

Here are some facts and tips for parents:

• Fiber is what fills us up and prevents us from overeating. 
• Fiber is the GOOD kind of carbohydrate.
• It is only found in plant foods.
•  It is NOT found in foods that come from animals. 
• Every day we need 14 grams of fiber per 1,000 calories  consumed (around 28 grams of fiber based on 2,000 calories a day).
• As you increase your dietary fiber, increase the amount of water you drink.
• Read food labels of the foods your kids eat most often to check for grams of dietary fiber.
• Use �THE NANCY RULE� for buying breads and pastas:

1. Choose products with 4 OR MORE grams of dietary fiber per slice or per serving AND
2. The first ingredient includes the word �WHOLE�.

Here are links to great resources on fiber, heart health, and weight loss parents can use: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/high-fiber-foods/NU00582 and http://www.webmd.com/diet/fiber-health-benefits-11/fiber-weight-control

In gratitude,

Nancy Heinrich

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids

TIPS FOR PREVENTING HEART DISEASE

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS

February is American Heart Month.  This is the month when we raise awareness about the signs and symptoms of heart disease and steps we can take (like walking every day) to prevent heart disease.

The human heart - the engine for human life.  Take care of your engine so it can take care of you.

If you have heart disease, such as high blood pressure and/or high cholesterol in your family, AND you are overweight, did you know that losing as little as 5 to 10% of your weight can have a substantial impact on lowering your blood pressure and improving your cholesterol?  It's true.  One of the primary reasons why I started the Growing Healthy Kids movement and focus on solutions to childhood obesity was because of the results I saw among adults in my wellness classes who became educated about how they could get to a healthier weight and come off insulin and blood pressure medicines. When I worked with older adults taking ten or twelve medications and a couple of months later they started coming off their medications as their weight came down, I knew we had to take bold action to educate parents. 

Children who are overweight and obese are being diagnosed with high blood pressure and high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes.  Children are being medicated with drugs that have never been tested on children.  Children who are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes as teenagers will live about 17 years less than normal.  

We know that children who are not at healthy weights will have shorter lifespans than our lifespans - UNLESS WE BECOME EDUCATED AND COMMIT TO HALT, REVERSE, AND PREVENT CHILDHOOD OBESITY...one child at a time. 

The best prescription we can write is one for education.  Education for parents about how to cut back the saturated fats in foods, like switching from whole milk to 2% or 1% milk.  Cutting back on trips to McDonald's for 10 piece orders of McNuggets and burgers and fries loaded with 3 days worth of sodium - and a guaranteed case of high blood pressure sooner, not later.  Education for teachers, principals and cafeteria managers, so that they will do whatever it takes - no matter what - to bring in locally grown fruits and vegetables to their school cafeterias.  Education for our business leaders so they will invest in the health of America's children through their employees' own health literacy.  

Being overweight is one of the leading risk factors for heart disease.  It ranks up at the top, just like smoking.  American Heart Month, in my opinion, should be all about America�s problem with eating the wrong kinds of foods and not exercising enough.  Too much of the wrong foods and not enough of the right foods.  Too much salt will raise your blood pressure.  Eating more calories than you need will cause you to gain weight.  Eating too much fat - mainly too much of the bad fats (saturated and trans) - leads to heart disease.

Obesity and heart disease are connected, just like heart disease and diabetes are connected.  If you have diabetes, for example, you are at 2-4 times higher risk for a heart attack or a stroke than someone without diabetes.   Heart attacks are the number one cause of death in the United States.  

Everything is connected.  �When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.�  (quote by John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club)

If you have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and/or diabetes in your family, take a few minutes to watch this clip from THE WEIGHT OF THE NATION.  It might just change your life by motivating you to start making small changes that will lead to big results.

Click here to watch a clip from the HBO special, THE WEIGHT OF THE NATION:

http://theweightofthenation.hbo.com/watch/bonus-shorts/obesity-research-and-the-national-institutes-of-health

In gratitude,

Nancy Heinrich

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids

PS - Growing Healthy Kids will be hosting screenings of THE WEIGHT OF THE NATION in 2013 as part of our Wellness Wednesdays series.  If your organization would like to collaborate with us on a screening, please contact me at growinghealthykidsnow@gmail.com.  I look forward to hearing from you!

TIPS FOR GREAT BREAKFASTS

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS

Great health begins with a great breakfast.  So what exactly is a great breakfast?  It is the meal that sets the tone for your day, breaks the fast after not eating all night, and gives your brain and body the energy, focus, and power for a day of learning and activity. 

Great Breakfast Idea: Toast that meets THE NANCY RULE topped with peanut or almond butter and sliced strawberries.

Planning great breakfasts for your kids means learning the basics about carbohydrates, protein, and fats.  Loading the kids up with bowls of refined sugar, found in most breakfast cereals, will doom them to a day of hyperactivity followed by blood sugar crashes and the inability to concentrate.   Whenever I see kids on their way to middle and high school in the morning stopping by the 7-11 convenient store to purchase one of those monster energy drinks or an Arizona Southern Style iced tea, I wonder why the parents of those kids let them out of the house without their most valuable meal of the day. All sugar = empty calories and no nutritional value.

Here are three great breakfast ideas:

1.       Steel cut oats with blueberries, cinnamon, and agave nectar plus almond, rice, or soy milk

2.       Toast made from whole grain bread that meets THE NANCY RULE* plus a hard-boiled egg or a fried egg plus half an orange, peach, or pear.

3.       Whole grain waffles (try the Van's brand in the freezer section to make this an easy choice) topped with fresh strawberries, blueberries, and/or bananas and yogurt.

*THE NANCY RULE is something I created to make it easy to remember what kind of bread to buy: 

• (1) 4 or more grams of dietary fiber per slice AND 
• (2) the first ingredient includes the word �WHOLE�.  

Set the example and make sure YOU are having breakfast, too.  It may mean getting up 10 minutes earlier in the morning but it will pay great dividends - today and the rest of your life!  Why?  Because preventing obesity means not skipping meals.  Losing weight means not skipping meals.  

For more great healthy breakfast ideas for kids, go to: http://www.cookinglight.com/food/recipe-finder/kids-breakfast-recipes-00412000072277/

In gratitude,

Nancy Heinrich

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids, Inc. 

METABOLIC SYNDROME

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS 2013

New Year�s Resolutions usually include something about exercise.   As parents, you know that exercise is essential for maintaining a healthy weight.  It is essential for helping kids get to a healthier weight.  The fact is that you can lose weight by just eating less calories but to keep off the weight you have to move more.

The tip for parents from Growing Healthy Kids  is this:  take responsibility for your kids� fitness by taking family walks together several days a week.  

Exercise as simple as taking regular walks can assist your kids (and you) to get to (and stay at) a healthy weight.  What kind of exercise is best?

A recent Danish study of 10,000 adults revealed that taking a short, fast walk was more beneficial than a long, slow walk in improving the risk factors for metabolic syndrome.  According to a January 2013 article in USA Weekend, �Researchers found fast walking and jogging every day can cut the risk of heart disease and stroke by up to 50%, but walking an hour a day makes little difference.  Another study found that people who lift weights are less prone to metabolic syndrome.�  The metabolic syndrome is present when you have three or more of these five signs:

• Elevated blood pressure
• Elevated blood sugars
• Large waist circumference
• Low HDL cholesterol
• Elevated triglycerides

For a quick lesson on metabolic syndrome BY THE NUMBERS, read the section below:

Metabolic syndrome is present if you have three or more of 

the following signs:

�         Blood pressure equal to or higher than 130/85 mmHg

�         Fasting blood sugar (glucose) equal to or higher than 100 mg/dL

�         Large waist circumference (length around the waist):

o    Men - 40 inches or more

o    Women - 35 inches or more

�         Low HDL cholesterol:

o    Men - under 40 mg/dL

o    Women - under 50 mg/dL

�         Triglycerides equal to or higher than 150 mg/dL

For more information about the metabolic syndrome, click here:  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0004546/

Walking can lower your blood pressure, lower your blood sugars, improve your waist circumference, help you to lose weight, help keep off weight, and raise your good cholesterol (HDL).  

Ready to walk your way to wellness?  As parents, we can choose to be positive role models for our children - OR NOT.  Let�s get moving, America, because we can walk our way to wellness!  I commit to MOVE MORE in 2013.  

Now, the question is, will you?

In gratitude,

Nancy L. Heinrich, MPH

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS FOR HEALTHY FAMILIES

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS 2013

JANUARY IS A GREAT MONTH to set your intentions to be healthier.  Some people do this by making New Year's resolutions.  Some people buy a new journal to write in every day.  Some people join a fitness club in hopes of losing 10 pounds.  Some commit to eating less junk foods.  What is your intention? 

AS PARENTS, we set our intentions to help our kids have better lives.  To live better, we need to focus on our health.  Something is wrong with our country when 17% of America's kids are already categorized as "obese".  Many parents think they cannot afford to feed their kids healthy foods, something I hear all the time when I speak at schools.  Can you afford to "eat healthy"?  Of course you can, once you know can define it.   

Growing Healthy Kids Rule #1:  EAT RAINBOWS

EATING HEALTHY MEANS:

• lots of vegetables and fruits (these should be half of what you eat, hence, my "eat rainbows" rule)
• if you drink fruit juice, limit it (rule of thumb is no more than 1/2 cup - 4 ounces - a couple of days a week)
• plenty of grains (such as barley, oats, wheat, rye, and quinoa) - more than half should be WHOLE grains, not refined
• most of your fats should be unsaturated fats (like nuts, fish, avocados, flax seeds, and liquid vegetable oils such as extra virgin olive and canola oils)
• include cold water fish (such as salmon or tuna) at least twice a week as part of your low-fat protein choices 
• drink plenty of water every day (AND cut back/eliminate sodas, including diet sodas) 

FOR NEW IDEAS to help your kids and you eat more fruits and vegetables, check out this great resource:




In gratitude,
Nancy L. Heinrich 
Founder, Growing Healthy Kids, Inc.

Get your "Eat Rainbows" T-shirt or apron at http://www.cafepress.com/growinghealthykids.