Posts Tagged ‘fruits and vegetables’

Weekly News Bites: May 13

Thursday, May 12th, 2011

It’s spring, the flowers are out, and the farmers’ markets are overflowing with the freshest new produce. If you haven’t been cooking with them already, it’s time to get to know your spring fruits and vegetables.

To get started, check out this great primer on spring fruits and veggies from Big Girls, Small Kitchen on the Huffington Post. Then if you don’t know much about Swiss chard, you might want to read this story and recipe ideas from Whole Foods Market. And if you aren’t sure how to cut an avocado, you need to see this great avocado tutorial from Valentina at Momtastic.

Next check out this beautiful guide to cleaning and cooking artichokes (along with a dip recipe) from Average Betty. Oh, and if you haven’t seen it, you must read Food Blogga’s story and recipe for Italian stuffed artichokes. Last but not least, we are seriously salivating over this recipe for quinoa salad with sauteed leeks and feta from the Family Kitchen over at Babble. If you feel like you’re in a winter vegetable rut, it’s time to break free!

Other news this week:

Juice – Bad or Good: If you’ve been serving juice to your kids, you should definitely read this story from Sweet Potato Chronicles about why it’s a good idea to cut down on your juice consumption. Want fruit? Eat some fruit.

“Calorie Camera”: Ever wonder how much your kids really eat at lunch? A childhood obesity research project at five San Antonio elementary schools will monitor how much food kids put on their trays – and how much they throw away – to track kids’ calorie consumption. (Parents gave permission for their kids’ trays to be photographed.)

School Food/Jail Food: How good are those school lunches, anyway? GOOD gives us an infographic on prison food versus school cafeteria food, in terms of nutrition and cost. One word: scary.

Healthy Tastes: Have your kids gotten in a junk-food rut? Check out this great story from ZisBoomBah on how to re-train your kids’ taste buds to enjoy healthier foods.

Gluten-Free Rice Krispies: Last but not least, Fooducate analyzes the new Gluten-Free Rice Krispies. And the verdict is…Surprise! They say the product (made with whole grain brown rice) is pretty decent, nutritionally speaking.

Happy weekend to all!

(Photos courtesy of Morguefile)

Posted Under: Childhood Obesity, Nutrition | Tags: , , , , , ,
This post was written by jollytomato on May 12th, 2011

Friday Food News Wrap: March 25

Friday, March 25th, 2011

Is it time for lunch yet? This week we’re thinking about school lunches, eating the right lunch, eating too much junk for lunch, and people who don’t have enough to eat at all.

Fresh Fruit: To start, the USDA has announced $158 million in funding for the Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Program, which brings fresh fruit and vegetables to schoolchildren at low-income elementary schools across the country. This program expansion is estimated to serve an additional 650,000 to 900,000 students in the coming school year.

School Lunch: Lots of interesting thoughts about school lunch this week, especially from The Lunch Tray, which takes a look at the Chicago school food “miracle” transformation and then asks how to know if your school can do what another school does. Concerned about what everyone’s packing for lunch these days? So is Mother Fitness, who notices how many kids are eating Lunchables or just chips, and decides that “School Lunch is a Joke.” Just plain concerned? Follow the lead of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution and send a comment to the USDA to prevent school lunch standards from being watered down.

Hungry Kids: Of course, there are still kids who simply don’t have enough to eat at all. In L.A. County, Share our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign kicked off with a goal to get more kids to eat breakfast at school. More than 300,000 L.A. County students who eat free or reduced-price school lunches don’t eat school breakfasts, the L.A. Times reports. Share our Strength also documents a Grab N Go school breakfast program in Omaha.

When School’s Out: The USDA has announced grants to help get nutritious foods to at-risk kids over the summer. The grants will be used to test innovative alternatives to help kids from low-income households get healthy food during the summer and will boost participation in the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), which provides meals to children from low-income households during summer months.

Overweight Kids: First the L.A. Times reports that overweight and obese mothers and children don’t quite realize how heavy they are. Then the Washington Post reports that parents of obese children often address the problem through tactics that are ineffective or damaging. Then the Post also reports that the rates of Type II diabetes among young people under age 20 are surging. Where does it end?

Let’s… Move?: Free Range Kids cries foul on this ad from the Let’s Move campaign that has a very odd approach – the mother makes her daughter run up and down the stairs and all around the house in pursuit of a dollar. Is that the best parenting or exercise strategy they can highlight?

Obesity Solutions: Speaking of better ways, Slate announced the winners in its “Time to Trim“ Hive forum on combating childhood obesity. We were happy to see The Lunch Tray as well as many other familiar names on its list of winners.

Milk Allergies:  The L.A. Times reports on a new tactic in approaching milk allergies, based on a desensitization strategy (giving a person tiny amounts of the allergy-causing substance over time). Could it offer a sliver of hope for some kids with debilitating allergies?

Good News: After all that, can we please find something to be happy about? Mark Bittman helps us change our focus by highlighting a few things that have gone right in the past few years. Real food is spreading, farming is becoming hip, and changes in school lunches can pave the way for better nutrition. So cheer up, everyone – things can and will get better.

P.S. Don’t forget about the Bake Sale for Japan, coming up on April 2. Click on the link to find a location near you.

Happy Friday to all!

Posted Under: Childhood Obesity, Government Regulations, Nutrition, Parenting | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
This post was written by jollytomato on March 25th, 2011

Friday Food News Wrap: Feb. 18

Friday, February 18th, 2011

President Obama’s proposed budget was at the top of the news this week, and those who follow childhood nutrition were pleased to learn that all programs will retain their current level of funding, with $7.9 billion for discretionary nutrition program support (as per Obama Foodorama).

However, as The Slow Cook pointed out in Grist this week, school lunch will get more expensive under the new legislation, which isn’t necessarily a good thing for kids who pay “full price” for lunch.

For a contrarian view on whether President Obama is really helping on the kids’ nutrition front, check out “Froot Loops vs. Real Fruit: For Real Change, Don’t Look to Obama,” by Josh Viertel, president of Slow Food USA, writing in The Atlantic. His argument is that Obama is not going to take on the bigger issue: changing the rules that make food and farming practices so damaging to nutrition practices in this country.

Sugary Cereals: In other news, everyone seems to be taking on sugary cereals this week. First Fooducate breaks down the advertising hype on Froot Loops and Apple Jacks. Are they really as nutritious as the ads say they are? Uh…no. Then Andy Bellatti of Small Bites calls out Trix for what they really are: “Twizzlers + Flinstone Multi Vitamin + Corn Dust.” When you put it that way…

Calorie Counts: In other news, a new NYU study shows that posting calorie counts at fast-food restaurants did not seem to inspire teenagers and parents of young children to order healthier meals (via US News & World Report’s HealthDay News and Food Fun). What will it take?

The Default Choice: Marion Nestle of Food Politics highlights a new project by the Center for Science in the Public Interest on making healthy kids’ meals the default option at restaurants. As the theory goes, if you are presented with fresh fruit as the lunch, and you have to ask to change it to French fries, you’ll have more kids eating fresh fruit.

Energy Drinks?: A new study in Pediatrics (as reported by MSNBC) finds that energy drinks can be dangerous for teens. The potential harms, caused mostly by too much caffeine or similar ingredients, include heart palpitations, seizures,strokes and even sudden death.

Girl Scout Cookies?: How do you feel about Girl Scout cookies? We don’t want to be the bad guys attacking this long-revered institution, but Fooducate (via a guest post by Spoonfed) takes up the charge. Their issue is with the trans fats, refined sugars, and artificial colors and flavors.

Healthy Lunch: What did you pack in your child’s lunchbag today? Gina Rau of the Feed Our Families blog highlights a cool tool from Parenting.com that lets you calculate how healthy that lunch really is.

What Did They Really Eat?: Did your middle-schooler eat breakfast today? You may be surprised to learn that the answer is “no” for nearly a third of California 7th-graders, according to Kids Data. In related news, Fruit and Veggies: More Matters has statistics on how many fruit and vegetables kids eat, in comparison to the recommended intake for each age group.

Kids’ Cooking Contests: Last but not least, if you have a young chef in your house, he or she may want to enter one of two kids’ cooking contests. The Kids Can Cook contest by Sweet Potato Chronicles and The Kids Cook Monday is accepting recipe entries from all kids until April 1. There’s also a “Stirring Up Health” cooking contest from Healthy Kids Challenge, which is accepting recipe entries from 7th and 8th grade students until March 11. Cook on, kids!

Happy Friday to all!

Posted Under: Childhood Obesity, Government Regulations, Just For Fun, Nutrition | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
This post was written by jollytomato on February 18th, 2011
« Older Entries