So Easy, a Kid Could Do It

As soon as your child can sit up and talk, it's time to get them thinking about food preparation. Young children love to help and it's a great way to get them involved in making a variety of foods, that they are sure to eat, once they have "made it" themselves.

My Bug made most of this cake above. It's a much less sweet version of a recipe for sweet potato cake I found on a great but now defunct food blog.

Okay, so I helped by reading the steps, measuring the amounts, placing the pan in the oven and doing most of the cleanup. But she did quite a lot, right down to mixing the icing and drizzling it over top of the cake. And she had a great time!

If you try the recipe, know that I doubled it to make it fit into a Bundt pan, and I used only half the sugar it calls for, then added three sachets of Stevia powder.

Beat Boredom with Online Inspiration

I'm determined that my addiction to the Internet will make my life better, not merely waste all of my spare time. I'm always on the lookout for articles, websites, apps that will help me cook better meals for my family, and this Recipes for Health mini-site fit the bill.

Here you'll find a collection of healthy recipes which are beautifully photographed. You can search for recipes in a variety of ways but my favourite is to click on the photo of the food you're planning to cook. Scroll down to the left-hand side of the page to choose by ingredient or theme (e.g. burger alternatives, Lunchbox fixes).

Simply smart, healthy and delicious.

Big Salt Wants You!

It's been while since I've gotten on the blog soapbox. It's easier at times to just write about ways to incorporate healthy food into your diet. But whenever I hear that a multinational company is going on an offensive to maintain its false appearance of caring about consumers' health, I need to write a rant.

You've probably been hearing bad things about salt; in the media, from your doctor. But if we buy less salt, then the "poor" companies who produce salt will lose profits. That's why one of the latest grocery trends is to sell you "exotic salts", to make sure you keep buying their product. Even members of my own family, with whom we've discussed the perils of too much sodium in the diet, once again have salt on the table. "It's sea salt! Good for you!"

No salt - other than a very tiny amount each day - is good for you. We don't eat it in nature, it poisons our palate and keeps us coming back for more, and it's everywhere. Unless you make your own food from morning 'til night, do not put salt in your food. I can assure you, it's already there in dangerous amounts. You should consume less than 1 teaspoon total salt each day. All processed foods contain salt, so check your labels. You may be eating far above the recommended total of 1800 mg each day.

But do take a look at this article which exposes the manipulative Cargill company for trying to win back our salty loyalties. Or rather, our pocketbooks. You may recall, this is the same Cargill that tried to defend its honourable reputation after its tainted frozen burgers killed people.

The NYTimes.com article really exposes how the food companies care most about making large profits, and having low expenses: "Making deep cuts in salt can require more expensive ingredients that can hurt sales. ".

The food manufacturers also want to hook you on their products and make sure you cannot ever do without them: “Once a preference is acquired,” a top scientist at Frito-Lay wrote in a 1979 internal memorandum, “most people do not change it, but simply obey it.”

Examples like this one are terrifying; the manufacturer explains how when they remove salt from their food, it turns out to taste horrible: “Salt really changes the way that your tongue will taste the product,” Mr. Kepplinger [V.P. of Kellogg] said. “You make one little change and something that was a complementary flavor now starts to stand out and become objectionable.” Makes you wonder what they are feeding us in those shiny boxes. In my nutrition schooling, we read of lab rats who lived longer off the boxes which processed cereal came in, than actually eating the cereal, where they died within weeks.

Read and be forewarned. I see a not-too-distant future where we are all cultivating our own gardens, and by extension our own true health.

Portion Control: What's a proper serving look like?

Big cinnamon bun,

By now, most people know that they should be eating at least five servings of fruits and vegetables per day. But what does that actually look like? And what is a portion of protein? Is it different if it's animal or vegetable protein? How much should we eat at each meal?

Here's a website that clearly shows you what these items need to look like on your plate, and gives many examples of proper portion sizes. When we read labels at the grocery store, we see serving sizes but don't often know what those sizes would look like.

If you look around on WebMD's Portion Control Plate, you will see examples of typical serving sizes. Sure that cake looks none too evil according to the label, but that's only if you eat a piece of cake the size of a deck of cards. I usually take bites that are the size of a deck of cards. And especially look at the Grains section for a visual on what a typical serving of pasta looks like. It's a baseball, not a football. This means that when you have a large dinner plate of pasta, you are exceeding the recommended serving size by about 300%.

Companies have been making ever larger portions while only posting rather modest serving sizes on their labels. Look at this gigantic cinnamon bun above. I just had to snap a photo of it; it was ginormous! I am a tall woman with fairly large hands and this bun was about the size of my head. Whomever bought that bun likely did not eat it in several modest portions. It would be eaten at one sitting, just like all those enormous muffins folks buy at Starbucks, McDonald's and everywhere else nowadays.

This means that even if we're reading labels, we are probably getting fatter by consuming far more calories than we think we are. It pays to eat a moderate amount of food: better for your digestion, better for your fat cells, and better on your pocketbook. Unless you're an athlete, you don't need enormous amounts of food at one sitting. And if you're reading this blog, it's pretty likely that you know where your next meal is coming from, so it's very unnecessary to stuff oneself at each meal. Make sure that you read your labels and understand how much food they refer to, before putting it on your plate.

Eating for Heart Health; Are You Up for the Challenge?

One of yesterday's health headlines caught my attention: "Heart Strategy Could Save Canada Billions". The article goes on to explain that the Conference Board of Canada and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada have released a Heart Health strategy that demonstrates how to reduce the incidence of stroke and heart disease between now and the year 2020.

What are their recommendations? They seem ridiculously obvious:

- reduce smoking

- Increase the number of Canadian children and adults eating at least five servings of fruit and vegetables

- Increase the number of Canadian children and adults who are physically active each day

- decrease obesity rates

If March's federal budget approves money for this strategy which was proposed last year, I hope we will see a lot of healthy changes, such as new food labelling laws which show what's actually inside processed foods so that people ca nmake informed decisions. But real change starts at home, doesn't it? When we go to the grocery store, we have to read what's on the labels of any processed food (i.e. anything besides meat, fruit or fruits and vegetables). We also have to get better at eating 5 to 10 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. This is tough! I thought I did a good job, and consider myself to have a pretty good appetite. But I took inventory of what I ate yesterday which was only:

2 servings of whole grains

2 servings of fruit

3 servings of vegetables

2 servings of dairy

2 servings of protein

This is actually not very much food for someone my height, age and level of activity, which explains why I am often snacking before bed. Most importantly, this is not enough fruits and veggies; it falls just on the edge of the recommended 5-10 servings. I can do better; I just need to put my mind to it. We all can!

I challenge you to take stock of what you're eating for a couple of days to see what you're taking in. Check out the Canada Food Guide for more information on what constitutes a serving of each type of food. I'm not a huge fan of the Food Guide, which considers apple juice (boiled, processed, sugary syrup separated from its natural fibres) to be a serving of fruit. I also don't like that they still recommend a diet that's mostly starches and complex carbohydrates. However, it's a good place to go to get a clear picture of what "eating 5 to 10 servings of fruits and vegetables per day" really means.

Organic Groceries Deliver Inspiration

We've finally signed up for Spud, a home delivery grocery company which features a lot of local organic foods. This means that each week we will have fresh, organic produce delivered to our home, and I'll need to come up with ways to cook with it.

Tonight I took a prepared Asiago and Artichoke dip and added half a bag of fresh spinach which I'd boiled for a minute, then chopped and squeezed to get rid of the water. I popped it in the microwave for 30 seconds and we ate this with sliced red peppers, carrots and tortilla chips.

The main involved a shrimp ring I found on sale at our regular grocery store. With tails removed I added them to a frypan full of chopped green onions, garlic, red pepper and fresh crimini mushrooms, in a little olive oil.

I can't argue that we'll be saving the planet with home delivery of groceries; after all, I usually walk to the grocery store. But it's nice to have fresh food just appear on your doorstep, without having to lug it home, or stand in line to pay. Most of all, the weekly harvest box of assorted fresh, seasonal vegetables are ones I wouldn't normally choose, so I'll get a chance to try out some new and different dishes. This little tub of food is going to give me a whole lotta inspiration!

Eat Your Peas, like Mom and Dad

Frank Bruni, the New York Times restaurant critic who recently came out of the closet about being a child bulimic writes a good article in today's paper about children modelling their parents' eating habits.

There are so many studies being done now to try and determine how today's kids are ending up with so many eating disorders. This article suggests that the best predictors for your child having a healthy relationship to food are:

- regularly having family dinners (we see the importance of this lauded everywhere from nutrition papers to child-rearing tomes),

- going grocery-shopping and cooking with your kids, and

- being good role models by exercising and eating well yourselves

It's not rocket science. A little bit of "monkey see, monkey do", and a dash of common sense. My little monkeys have had a fun summer - which definitely included ice cream - but we've always made time for being active, and eating our peas.

Getting Greens Back on your Dinner Menu

A friend sent me an interesting link to a story about Washington State chef Sabrina Tinsley who "sneaks vegetables" into her picky daughter's meals. It's not so sneaky; she does get her son and daughter involved in the process of making a vegetable soup with pasta stars. They help shell peas for example which we know is fun and piques kids' interest. But the key step is she purees the soup right before serving so that most of the vegetables' texture is made very bland, but all the delicious flavour is still there. And of course, then she adds in the cute pasta stars.

I think this is a fine idea. My stepmother served me delicious cream of cauliflower soup for years before I clued in to what it was; and was subsequently horrified. But it never gave me an appreciation for vegetables, because it had the boring consistency of all my favourite foods of the time, like rice pudding. It wasn't until I started eating out at nice restaurants during university that I developed an appreciation for vegetables in their natural, un-pureed state.

But I think a better strategy than disguising veggies, is to serve them unapologetically, and routinely at every meal. Tonight we had penne pasta that boiled along with shredded kale. The kale tasted yummy in the tomato-basil sauce and went well with the shredded cheese topping. We also had cucumber slices on the side. Vegetables are all over at plates in this house, and we don't try to disguise them or apologise for their fibrous texture. We like to dip them in dressings, mix them in salads, add them to soups or stews, eat them drizzled in butter. Even a canned soup can get jazzed up by adding spinach, kale, chard or broccoli. It's simple to cook and that's just what we do.

Many people I've talked to whose children "don't like vegetables" often reveal that they are not eating vegetables at lunch and dinner, or they do so rarely. The vegtable choices are often standard: carrots, peas, broccoli, and often are served in a bland way each time. Boring! No wonder kids don't like them. Kids learn by example and if Mom and Dad are uninspired by their veggie portions, then kids are not going to make the effort to like them either.

Go to the grocery store and find a new vegetable you don't typically eat. Serve it with a favourite, tried-and-true sauce or dip. Make it a bit of an adventure: "I wonder what this will taste like!" Or don't even mention it unless somebody asks "oh yeah, that's broccoli rabe with your favourite Naam Miso Gravy". Enjoy it and make it something you look forward to when it makes its way back to your dinner menu every other week or so. Vegetables are just another form of food: neither intrinsically good nor bad. It all depends on how they're prepared and served. Preferably with passion!

Let's All Cook! Our Lives Depend on It.

Once again, the amazing Michael Pollan has written a highly compelling piece about how our relationship to food must change. The article, titled "Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch" ponders how it is that most Americans spend less than 27 minutes per day on food preparation, and instead spend hours watching cooking shows on TV. As he puts it: "What this suggests is that a great many Americans are spending considerably more time watching images of cooking on television than they are cooking themselves — an increasingly archaic activity they will tell you they no longer have the time for."

Another shocking tidbit from his lengthy article is "the more time a nation devotes to food preparation at home, the lower it's rate of obesity....the amount of time spent cooking predicts obesity rates more reliably than female participation in the labor force...income levels or class." This is the kind of stuff that makes my blood boil, when I think of all the McDonald's or KFC advertising targetted to low income families. Their malevolent promise is: "we'll save you time and money so you can give your family delicious comfort food." Meanwhile, these fast food companies are serving up empty calories while leading small children down the path to obesity.

Here at BEYG we make no apologies for being lazy - and not terribly talented - in the kitchen. We won't win any awards when it comes to style or diligence in the kitchen. But our message is always the same: if you want to be healthy, you need to eat meals made from fresh, whole ingredients, as opposed to pre-packaged, convenience foods. You don't need to spend hours in the kitchen to serve up a healthy meal; but you do need start with real food, and some effort will be required.

I'll defer to Michael Pollan's words: "the path to a diet of fresher, unprocessed food...passes straight through the home kitchen." This message is becoming urgent now and we at BEYG want to shout it from the rooftops. Eat food, real food, as much as you require. Take the time to prepare it in a way that is enjoyable, and digestible, for you and your family. But make sure that food came straight from a tree, from out of the ground, from the sea, from a real chicken. That's how we were designed to eat, and eating that way is the only way we will survive.

Aspartame - is that a vegetable?

This is a link to a good Q. and A. column in the Globe and Mail focussed on answering the public's health questions. The answer to the question "Is Aspartame Harmful?" is measured. One the one hand, two researchers with ties to the artificial sweetener industry have recently published studies saying there's nothing wrong with it. On the other, a doctor's recent study (he has no ties to the sweetener industry) did find links between aspartame consumption and neurological disorders.

Common sense should make us naturally skeptical of consuming items that are not foods we'd consume in the wild; for example: sugar and other sweeteners, salt, alcohol, manufactured fats like margarine, drugs, or tobacco. Yet because we like, even crave, these non-foods, we keep finding ways to rationalise that they are, in fact, safe. It's very important to be curious and cautious about consuming non-foods and to continue to study them, while acknowledging that food studies are very hard to quantify. Subjects are not locked in rooms for months on end and fed a strict diet, and most of the facts gleaned from these studies come from the subjects self-reporting most of what they ate and drank throughout the study period.

Roll the dice if you like, but I'm not gambling on my health or my that of my family. We are given only one body for our entire lifetime and I'd like to keep mine in optimal condition, by avoiding potential impurities as much as possible.

Spring Cleaning for the Body: Part 2

Although they are often talked about interchangeably, there's a big difference between a cleanse and a fast. A fast involves reducing the intake of calories so that your body goes into starvation mode and starts breaking down its fat stores to turn them into glucose, or fuel. A cleanse is typically eliminating items from the diet that are "unhealthy", undesirable, or non-food, and focussing on nutrient-rich foods, for the purpose of improving one's health.

Two common misconceptions about cleanses are that they are rigid, difficult or expensive to maintain, or that a cleanse or fast will medically purge or purify parts of the body (e.g. liver or digestive tract). Regarding the first, you can design your own cleanse in a way to make it pleasant and easy to follow. Regarding the second, more realistic outcomes of doing a cleanse are to break oneself from poor eating habits, to bring greater awareness to one's eating behaviours, and to have intense dedication to optimal nutrition for a short period of time.

How do you design a cleanse that you can stick to for 3 days or more? Choose first what you want to eliminate from your diet. Do you believe that you are having difficulty digesting dairy products? Are you eating too many desserts? Want to cut down on refined flours and coffee? Make a list of what you'd like to not eat or drink and decide on how long a period you'll try to stick to this.

Some ideas for cleanses:
- no sugar for a week
- no coffee from Friday to Sunday then back to just one on Monday morning
- eliminate all dairy products for a whole week
- no flours or starchy foods or sugar for an entire weekend
- go without meat products from Monday to Friday
- do a juice fast over the weekend; that's consuming only fresh or purchased juices and is best with a focus on vegetable juices and fresh juice (i.e. not store-bought)
- go macrobiotic for one week (fish, vegetables, brown rice and fermented foods)

What you might see during a cleanse:
- any change to what you take into your body will affect what comes out. Expect to see a change in bowel movements. Watch out for red-coloured urine if you drink beet juice. It's shocking to see but perfectly normal.
- bodily changes such as skin, nails or hair that is less dry or brittle
- a smaller tummy. If you're eating less or different food, you may find that your stomach is smaller and flatter. This is due to either having less in it or less gas production from the elimination of problem foods for you.
- a bigger tummy from more gas. This can be an unpleasant side-effect of eating more vegetables or raw foods in your diet. If you continue to have problems with gas, this means you are having difficulty digesting these foods, due to not chewing your food enough, or you may be lacking in sufficient enzymes or gut bacteria to break down your food properly.
- weight loss. If you greatly reduce your caloric intake, you may see a loss of a few pounds. Unless you continue to eat in the same way, it's likely that all but one or two pounds will return when your diet normalises.

Some important things to remember when doing a cleanse:
1. Take notice of all that you're feeling/thinking and keep a journal. This is the most important thing you can do. We spend so much time cooking/eating/thinking about/cleaning up after food. Often a cleanse means you are eating or preparing less food, and this often frees up lots of time for reflection. Being away from comfort foods also can create a lot of unexpected emotions and it's good to be able to capture this information, as it may tell you a lot about your relationship to food.
2. Have a buddy or a supporter. It's hard to make a dietary change on your won, especially if you make food for others who may not be as interested in doing a cleanse. Make sure you have people to talk to who support your idea.
3. Drink lots of water in between meals. This will help you feel more full if you're eating less than usual, but will also make sure you are staying hydrated, help to keep things moving in your system and flush out any toxins.
4. Eat slowly. If you're going to be eating a lot of vegetables for the first time, make sure you chew well to aid with digestion further down the line. If you're doing a juice cleanse, you will want to drink slowly so your meals don't end in less than 5 minutes.
5. Don't do a cleanse when you have a lot of social engagements. It's tough to restrict your diet at a party or when eating out, especially as others often see this as a time to indulge in rich foods.
6. When the cleanse is over, reincorporate the "forbidden foods" slowly into your diet. If you were doing a juice cleanse, slowly start back on eating solids with foods like cooked rice, cooked vegetables or crackers or toast. You may find that you don't want to bring some of the foods you eliminated back into your diet at all.

Dish of the Day: Lamb for the Whole Fam

For Mother's Day my wonderful husband cooked us a delicious lamb dinner, thanks to a great lamb chop recipe from Epicurious. I couldn't remember if the kids liked lamb or not since we often eat it out at restaurants, and don't often cook it at home. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the photo of the Bug with chop in hand above should give you a pretty good idea of her appreciation. Let's just say it was hard to separate the bone from my little carnivore's hand. My 7-year-old was heard to comment "I could eat this every day of the week!"

The other pic shows Bug's plate before it was attacked by toddler hands and a toddler fork. Our local Safeway has recently been offering organic broccolini , that yummy hybrid, and we're eating it three times a week now. And good old garlic-infused rice on the side.

We're a garlicky bunch this evening. But what a pleasure, to be able to enjoy a special grown-up meal and not have to cook something extra for the little ones. Eating foods in a natural way - without heavy sauces, without overly processing them - is a great way to win over kids' taste buds. Children are often skeptical of foods they cannot recognise, and many have problems with sauces that may contain ingredients they don't like. Also, many kids don't like foods touching or being combined with other foods, which is why stews and casseroles tend to elicit a "yuck!" But fresh foods, cooked plainly and served with maybe a bit of butter, are often a real hit. Try it and see what your family thinks!

Diet for a Recession? More Veggies, Please!

I don't know about you, but I'm certainly watching what we're spending at the grocery store lately. We are trying to keep an eye on our savings and so I'm afraid to be spending too much on food. Typically it's one of the bigger chunks of our weekly budget, because I always rationalise putting unnecessary items in the grocery basket with one word: yum.

When I go shopping just for vegetables, as I do sometimes at a nearby organic veggie-only store, I find that the total is usually pretty low. By contrast, when we buy meats or fish in a specialty shop, or when they are part of a big grocery bill, the total is a lot higher. Animal products tend to be more expensive. So if you're trying to save on your food bills, and you've always wanted to explore vegetarianism, this might be the perfect time to try it out.

An example of a low-cost, yet completely nutritious vegetarian meal I'll be making this week is Swiss chard with lentils. I paid $3 for the organic chard, $1 for a can of crushed tomatoes and I'll be using about a dollar's worth of brown rice and dried red lentils as well. That's about $6 for a meal for four.

Of course, it calls for garlic, onions, spices and olive oil and these add to the cost but they are staples in my kitchen so I don't factor them as an added expense for this meal. In fact, I often modify how I cook dishes according to what I have in the fridge so I don't have to shop for items I'll use only once or twice.

Here's how to make Swiss Chard Lentil Stew

- Put 1 Tbsp of olive oil in large pan on medium heat and saute 2 chopped garlic cloves and a small diced onion for 5 minutes
- Add in 1 cup of red lentils and 1 cup of water, 1/2 cup of broth (of your choice) and bring to a boil
- Meanwhile, wash and rip Swiss Chard leaves into pieces that are a couple of inches across
- Chop 2 inches off bottom of stems and the rest into one inch chunks
- Place large pot of water to boil on the stove and add in chard stems
- Once water is boiling, add in ripped leaves and boil for 5 minutes, then drain and set aside
- Back to those lentils.....boil until lentils are tender, about 10 minutes, then add in a small can of crushed tomatoes, 1 tso dijon mustard, a pinch of salt and pepper and the cooked, drained chard
- Stir, bring to a simmer and stir and simmer for 5 minutes until lentils are soft enough
- Adjust seasonings to taste: if you like tart, you can add in 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar; for spicy add 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper or Tabasco sauce; for savoury add in 1 Tbsp soya or tamari sauce
- Serve over brown rice for a vegetarian meal with complete protein

Dish of the Day: Healthy Breakfast

This one goes out to my mom friend Kim who commented how difficult it is to have a breakfast that is free of processed or refined foods. This is very true when we think of the traditional breakfast of cereal with milk, which so many of us opt for each morning. However, there are lots of other, better choices. WARNING: I'm going to veer off into serious holistic nutrition territory now, but I promise to return to reality.

Cold cereal as a typical breakfast choice is a modern invention thanks to the last century's focus on the mass production of foodstuffs. Before this, people would make breakfast from whatever raw materials they had at home. And in many parts of the world, this is still the case. In Asia, people often eat rice, fish and eggs for breakfast. But in North America we tend to eat processed cereal, like Cheerios, Rice Krispies, Special K, and so many more. These flakey cereals are made by taking refined flour and mixing it with sugar, salt and then vitamins and minerals are added. This paste is then heated up and shot through an extruder that squishes the batter into puffy, crunchy bits that are then dried and placed in a box and shipped off to grocery stores. Knowing this, it's easy to see that this might not be the most nutritious way to start off your day.

What it is, is a quick and easy way to eat before rushing of to work. Convenience and efficiency have defined our eating habits in the recent past, much to the detriment of our health. Since the the second World War when many women joined the workforce, industry found a highly profitable new market in selling fast foods to busy homemakers who still wanted to serve home-cooked meals to their families, but who had less time on their hands. This spawned the era of cakes in a box, TV dinners and canned, processed foods. Flash forward 60 years and now we don't even question buying foods in a box or a can. We rarely look at the long list of ingredients that help preserve this food in its container, nor do we think about the many things that were done to this food before it arrived on the grocery store's shelf.

We were designed to eat fresh food, not dead, dried foods, and I strongly believe in trying to eat foods that closely resemble the way they came off the plant or animal that produced them. Doing so can often stand in opposition to a fast-paced lifestyle but there are still many ways to eat fresh food and not spend hours in the kitchen.

In the morning, a better option than boxed cereal would be to eat whole grains or even non-grain foods for breakfast. Porridge made from grains such as millet, rice, oats, wheat can take a bit more time to make but will naturally have more nutrients. One way to speed up the process of making porridge is to soak it overnight and this can even include a bit of fermentation that occurs when leaving grains out and in contact with water and a bit of salt, vinegar or yogurt. The fermentation process will start to break down the food, making it faster to cook, but also unlocking more of the proteins, vitamins and minerals.

Most granolas are made from whole oats and dried fruits and eaten with yogurt and fresh or frozen fruit, this becomes a balanced start to the day. Those who like to bake can make nutritious muffins in advance which are convenient to eat in the morning but you'd need to have a glass of milk and a fruit to balance this out. I've blogged before about taking last night's starch and turning it into a yummy porridge which is a quick easy meal.

Of course, you could always cook up an egg, some wholemeal toast, have some meat on the side, if you like your animal proteins. This choice of meal - low in carbohydrates - will keep you from feeling hungry for many hours since it avoids a huge insulin rush to store away these sugars, and the subsequent blood sugar drop which revs up your hunger once again.

It turns out there are a number of options for a non-processed breakfast meal that may require a bit more work and a new way of thinking. But it's your health we're talking about. Aren't you worth it?

My Omega 3 Baby

I used to be the only one in this family who appreciates sardines but now the Bug is on my side. Thanks to my Dad's Italian background, I acquired a taste for sardines on toast. Today I decided to give some to the Bug to see if she'd like them and true to her carnivorous nature, she gobbled them down.

I served them to her on bits of dry whole wheat toast. If you'd like to get your kids to try this omega 3-rich fish, you may want to serve them on their own, or on toast, or you may want to add something to enliven their strong flavour a bit. Try making a toasted sandwich with mayonnaise and relish or mustard and putting some mashed sardines inside. I don't recommend ketchup - ever - as I believe it really smothers any food it contacts, whereas other condiments tend to add and enhance flavour.

Not every child is going to like sardines but it's definitely worth trying if only to broaden their palate with a variety of different tastes. And if someone else in the house (i.e. an adult) doesn't appreciate these lovely small fish, make sure to ask him or her to remove themselves from the table or remain poker-faced during any tasting. That way they won't negatively influence a young eater's experience.

Healthy Birthday Parties for Kids

Our Bug turned one this week and we threw her a birthday party today. Or rather, we had a bunch of friends and family over for lunch and we sang songs for and gave presents to her. I'm not sure she realised it was in her honour. Nevertheless, a good time was had by all.

I put a lot of thought into a cake recipe that would be tasty for adults and not too sugary for the babes. I decided to go with an old family standard for banana cake with some modifications. I doubled the recipe to make it a double layer cake and substituted orange juice concentrate for sugar. I also used spelt flour in place of white. See the recipe below.

We were also challenged by what to put in the pinata I bought. I stuffed with a few Organic Baby Mum-Mums (thank you Jen, yes they are a better option!) But then I couldn't put in lollipops or mini chocolate bars since there was no way I'd allow babies to eat that. I put in a couple of granola bars for my 6-year-old. I added in a couple of toys but it was a pretty empty pinata. Well, it was a nostalgic choice at best. And we didn't destroy it so we'll try again next year!

Recipe for Baby Banana Cake *see asterisk for modifications

- Oven to 350 F
- Cream 1/4 cup butter and 3/4 cup sugar* -->use 1/4 c whole cane sugar or Rapadura and 1/2 c orange juice concentrate)
- Add in 2 eggs, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 cup banana (is generally two), 1 tsp. orange rind
- In a separate bowl, mix together 2 cups flour, 2 tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. baking soda
- Add to wet, alternating with 1/2 cup buttermilk or yogurt* -->use regular, not low-fat sour cream to keep moisture levels low when substituting juice concentrate for sugar
- Bake in 9" greased pan for 30 - 40 minutes

NOTE: whole egg and milk products not recommended for children under 1

Getting Kids to Eat a Balanced Meal

I read this essay on the weekend and had to laugh. It's by a man who remembers being obsessed during his childhood by junk foods since he was forced by his healthy parents to eat a strictly nutritious diet. I wonder if my kids will be so desperate for these types of foods that they'll become junk food junkies. I tend to be strict about desserts for the children and we don't bring junk foods into the house. I don't feel like a Green Food Ogre, and I hope they won't look back as adults and see me that way.

However, it must be said that when the author of Forbidden Nonfruit grew up in the 1970s, schools and daycares did not drown kids in empty processed foods as much as they have recently. I feel like I must serve very healthy meals at home to balance out my first grader's "white foods" diet on weekdays.

But I digress. Many parents dread dinner time because it involves a lot of fighting to get kids to eat healthier choices like green vegetables. Many wonder "how can I be sure my children are eating the healthy choices I offer them at home?"

The first answer to this question is to make it a routine to serve a nutritious meal for the whole family: not just for kids, not just for parents, and not all of a sudden because "we're on a diet". Then you need to make sure that you're pressuring kids to eat any particular foods on offer. This prevailing wisdom, attributed to Dietitian Ellyn Satter 30 years back, means that parents get to control what food is offered to kids, and kids get to control which foods they eat and how much. No pressure means no power struggle. This presumes, of course that you're offering your kids a range of healthy options at mealtimes. After that, you need to sit back and allow your children to manage what goes into their mouths.

I'd say that we mostly follow this in our family. The Bug is easy because she loudly begs for anything and everything that's within sight and not nailed down. Her older sister, however, is a pickier child and so I try to stay within her comfort zone.

While I often ask her to try a new food (and she can spit it out if she hates it, but rarely does), I don't often serve her food I know she will dislike. Why do something that we know will set up a conflict? Thankfully she gives me a pretty wide range of approved vegetables. And she's come up with this amazing habit of eating her veggies first, all by herself! But when she say she's full, we usually don't push her to eat more; even if we think she's not really full but just not wanting to eat a particular food. As long as she has eaten some vegetables I'm pretty happy and that's it for her for the evening.

So if you haven't done so already, consider the possibility of letting go a bit at dinnertime. If you are offering healthy choices and a variety of colourful foods throughout the week, your kids should be getting the right amount of vitamins and nutrition, unless they are on a hunger strike.

Vegetarianism for Babies?

As a nutritionist, I've worked with all kinds of clients and worked with some very specific dietary needs. Some of my vegetarian clients have asked me about how to fulfill their babies' needs while adhering to a strict vegetarian diet. This sets up a conflict because most parents want to give their babies the best possible start nutritionally, but don't want to compromise their own dietary beliefs. At this point, I suggest that they plan to stick to their ideals when it comes to their choice of diet, but to hold off on asking their child to do the same until he or she is 3 years or older.

Why? Because being a vegetarian is a very personal choice, as well as an ethical one. Children are not capable of letting their parents know their feelings about such a complex topic until they are at least able to understand where their food comes from, to exhibit empathy and to modulate their own emotions (otherwise known as being able to "hold back" when they really want to do something).

Also, you have to consider that babies and toddlers traditionally get most of their nutrition from mother's milk for the first couple of years of life, and this was the norm until formula started being commercially produced in the 1960s. Mother's milk is the perfect nutrition for a baby and it is an animal by-product. A growing toddler needs a steady diet of fat and protein as well as the many vitamins and minerals available in fruits and vegetables. It's possible to get protein, as well as iron, calcium, and even zinc from plant food sources, but it requires a lot of cooking and balancing of food types (e.g. beans with rice) to ensure they are present in the diet each day. It's also impossible to get Vitamin D or B12 from a vegan diet without supplementation.

Unless their religion mandates it, most vegetarians choose this noble path because it feels right for them. Different people have different bodies which require different foods. I believe that some folks need a small amount of heavier, animal-sourced protein in their diets for their bodies to function well. There are many omnivores who are horrified by the ethical issues surrounding the modern treatment of livestock, but still feel compelled to eat animal products occasionally because they feel their bodies require it. Fortunately for these folks, the SPCA and others can show them which companies treat their livestock fairly resulting in kinder and healthier egg production and poultry, for example.

On the other side, in addition to the emotional effects of eating meat, many vegetarians simply find themselves feeling better, lighter, healthier on a meat-free in diet. To those vegetarian parents, I say "give your son or daughter the chance to make the same choice." Our children are their own persons and just as we should not impose our own dislikes and likes upon them, we should not dictate what they should eat, especially while still very young. I'm not suggesting that parents hold back on sharing their beliefs and the hard facts about how animals are treated in modern farming practices, but only when the children are able to truly understand and cope with these harsh realities.

I was very excited when my 6 year-old stepdaughter took an interest in vegetarianism, helped perhaps in part, by her vegan babysitter. We had several discussions about the sad way that animals are treated so that we can buy plastic-wrapped portions of meat at our grocery stores. I encouraged her to think about this and said that at any time if she wanted to stop eating meat we'd find her lots of yummy foods that were animal by-product-free. However, she realised that this meant giving up a lot of her favourite foods and decided that this wasn't her path right now. I sure wish that vegetarian product manufacturers made more kid-friendly foods (i.e. can we tone down the spices please?!) but that's a topic for another post altogether. And I'm already afraid my baby is a full-blown carnivore. Whenever we have meat at dinner it's the first thing she gobbles off her plate and grunts for more. But like the rest of the family, I can appease her with vegetarian alternatives each week. When it's time, she too will learn where her food comes from and she'll be encouraged to make up her own mind about what she puts on her plate.