Don't be a mindless zombie! Know what's in your food and make a conscious decision about whether or not to eat it.
Do you have food intelligence to share? Let us know and you can post it on CTF!
LIKE MANY OF YOU, I’M A COMPULSIVE READER OF INGREDIENTS LABELS. But I have a confession: the “healthier” I perceive a product to be, the less likely I am to check the ingredients. As a result, I’m often unpleasantly surprised to discover when I get home, that, say, my frozen peas have added salt or my maple yogurt has caramel coloring.
Now I try to check every label every time. I might still buy the “salt free” canned tomatoes even though the ingredients say “sodium chloride” (a salt – I’m talking to you, Trader Joe’s) but at least I know what I’m eating.
Last time I was in the cereal aisle, I saw one of my (no longer) favorite cereals on sale: Quaker Oat Squares. “Oh,” I thought, “Lucky me. Maybe I’ll buy it.” But then I checked the ingredients….
QUAKER OAT SQUARES
What the label touts:
- “heart healthy”
- “96% of your minimum whole grain needs”
- “Good source of fiber and calcium”
What else you’ll find:
- Yellow 5
- BHT
Yellow dye? What the what? I decided to check some other “healthy” choices.
KELLOGG’S FIBERPLUS® BERRY YOGURT CRUNCH CEREAL
What the label touts:
- “Heart Healthy Selection”
- “Antioxidants”
- high in fiber
- whole grain
What else you’ll find:
- red 40
- blue 2
- green 3
- blue 1
- red 40 lake
- blue 2 lake
- BHT
KELLOGG’S SMARTSTART® STRONG HEART ANTIOXIDANTS CEREAL:
What the label touts:
- “Good source of fiber”
- “made with whole grain”
- “Strong Heart”
- “Antioxidants”
What else you’ll find:
- Yellow #5
- BHT
I’M NOT DISPUTING THE LABEL CLAIMS (although I do find label claims to be a bunch of hooey), but I do question whether the health benefits outweigh the negative impact of eating dyes and chemicals for breakfast each day.
The safety of food dyes has been in question for years. Great Britain has outlawed them and US manufacturers have found other ways to color foods for consumption there. Food producers in the U.S. are starting to get the picture, too, and have started to switch to fruit and vegetable based colorings – most notably, Pepperidge Farm Goldfish.
BHT is used as a preservative and an antioxidant. When food producers use BHT as a preservative, they can also promote an antioxidant claim,even if the antioxidants come solely from the man-made BHT, not from any berries or other food ingredients. The FDA considers it safe, but I avoid it when I can because, from what I can find out (for example, here), it’s safety isn’t 100% clear. There are alternative preservatives for food producers to use, such as mixed tocopherols (vitamin E) — also an antioxidant. Many of the more “natural” brands of cereal contain it, as do all of the brands of dog food I have ever purchased for my dog over the past 13 years. Why wouldn’t I hold the food for my children to the same standard?
THE BOTTOM LINE: Read the ingredients. Even “healthy” foods can contain substances you might not want to consume. If you don’t know what it is, think hard about whether you want to eat it and feed it to your family.
AFTER READING BRUCE BRADLEY’S POST ABOUT tricks of the food industry trade, I promptly freaked out over the fact that I’d been eating calf stomach – rennet – in my cheese. After maniacally checking the labels of all the cheese in the house, I calmed down enough to turn to my best defense when I’m faced with a food crisis – looking for answers.
WHAT IS RENNET?
Rennet is a complex of enzymes found in the stomach of baby mammals that allows them to process mother’s milk. According to Wikipedia, the active enzyme in rennet is called chymosin or rennin but there are also other important enzymes in it such as pepsin and lipase.
Rennet is a complex of enzymes found in the stomach of baby mammals that allows them to process mother’s milk. According to Wikipedia, the active enzyme in rennet is called chymosin or rennin but there are also other important enzymes in it such as pepsin and lipase.
It is used in cheese making to speed coagulation and separate the curds and whey after the starter culture is added to the milk.
WHERE DOES RENNET COME FROM?
There are different types of rennet:
Animal rennet comes from the stomach of newborn calves, lambs, and kids (the baby goat kind, people, don’t freak out.) The enzymes needed are only found in the fourth stomach of the ruminants before they are weaned. For cheese making, rennet from the animal providing the milk is used (calf rennet for cow’s milk cheese for example.)
There is a traditional way to get animal rennet, which involves combining the stomach of the animal with salt water or whey along with wine or vinegar. Some traditional cheese makers in Europe still use this method.
Then there is the modern way to get animal rennet involving deep frozen stomachs, enzyme-extracting solutions, and stomach acid. Interestingly, there could be trace amounts of Sodium Benzoate in rennet produced this way.
Animal rennet can also be genetically engineered by inserting cow DNA into certain bacteria, fungi, and yeasts – no baby animals harmed. According to Wikipedia, genetically engineered rennet has about 80% of the market share and as of 2008 “approximately 80% to 90% of commercially made cheeses in the US and Britain were made using GM-based rennet.”
Vegetable rennet can be made from a variety of plant sources such as fig, thistle, safflower, and dried caper leaves. It can also be made from genetically modified soybeans. Since there is no worldwide industrial production of vegetable rennet, it is often made from microbial sources..
Microbial rennet is made from molds (although there is no mold in it.)
SHOULD I EAT IT?
Well, that all depends on what your concerns are.
If you are vegetarian, then avoid any cheese with rennet, animal rennet, or enzymes (which typically means animal rennet, although not always, but there’s no easy way to know) listed in the ingredients. Vegetable rennet will be listed as such, same with microbial rennet.
If you try to avoid GMOs, well, it’s a little tougher. Organic cheeses won’t have GMOs. But since genetically engineered rennet doesn’t have to be labelled, you have no way of knowing whether the rennet is genetically engineered or if the vegetable rennet comes from GMO soybeans. Stick with microbial rennet cheeses, traditionally produced cheeses, or organic cheeses.
With regard to GMOs: the cows, sheep, or goats are being fed GMO corn or grain will also have an impact on the overall GMO-ness of the cheese. There is just no good way to know unless you buy organic.
If you are concerned about baby animals being killed for rennet, stick with cheeses using vegetable or microbial rennet sources. Although remember, 80% of the rennet is genetically engineered without the use of baby animals.
If you are lucky enough to live near a Trader Joes, they have thoughtfully provided this informative web page detailing which of their cheeses contain which kind of rennet. (Remember, it doesn’t tell you anything about GMOs.)
Using vegetable or microbial rennet could effect the flavor of cheese, so if you are a cheese purist or aficionado, you’ll want to take that into consideration.
THE BOTTOM LINE: Decide what’s important to you with regard to rennet and purchase accordingly. Read the ingredients!
NO OFFENSE, BREAKFAST, you’re important too, but for kids in school Lunch has it all going on. Sure breakfast gets kids through the morning, but without a healthy lunch, kids just can’t function in the afternoon.
Recently, I spent some time in my son’s preschool lunch program and while it’s been interesting on a number of levels, what’s in kids lunch boxes has completely intrigued me — mostly in a good way.
But in one case, not so good. One kid consistently had – there’s no delicate way to put this — a crappy lunch. One week it was two Nutrigrain bars, a box of raisins, and a Capri Sun fruit punch. The next it was a Nutrigrain bar, Keebler PB&J crackers, and a Capri Sun fruit punch. The next week… well, you get the idea.
Let me be clear: this is not a socio-economic issue — this family is upper-middle class with two working professional parents. Nor is this a “picky eater” issue — I’ve seen this child eat lots of other things for snack in class, like fruit, yogurt, cheese, and turkey.
So what happened after this child had this lunch? The rest of the afternoon in class, this child was whiny, weepy, uncooperative, and/or tired.
Poor kid.
I experienced something similar with my own kid (a first-grader). He would ask for a bagel for breakfast and want the same thing in his lunch. Even though he was also eating lots of fresh fruit, he was having some rough days at school and coming home cranky. After a couple times I (finally) made the connection – no protein. Once I got some protein back in his lunch box, things straightened out.
There is a link between what kids eat and how they act. Every kid is different and as parents we can see how our kids react to different foods and ingredients then make adjustments. Some kids need more protein, some react more negatively to dyes or sugar. But one thing is true for all kids: a lunch full of additives, dyes, and refined sugars and carbs are a recipe for a bad day at school.
So, back to my preschool friend. Processed snack foods aren’t lunch. Kids need a healthy, balanced lunch that includes fruit and protein to make it through the day successfully. I’m 100% certain this child would have had a lot more fun at school after a healthier lunch.
THE BOTTOM LINE: A healthy lunch is very important for kids. Crappy food in, crappy behavior out.
SERIOUSLY PEOPLE, I FEEL LIKE I DON’T EVEN NEED A BLOG POST TO EXPLAIN THIS, that just the name of this product sums it up. Goldfish Bread? Come on.
Pepperidge Farm touts this bread as having “3g of fiber plus essential vitamins and minerals” and “No high fructose corn syrup.” Plus it lists a myriad of health benefit buzz words like “zero trans fat” and “cholesterol free.”
So with all these great health benefits, why am I labeling it as a Worst Food? I’m glad you asked.
Because it’s an overpriced luxury food that Pepperidge Farms would like us to believe is a pantry staple. Each pack contains 8 slices, which, if you are looking to make a sandwich that actually looks like a goldfish, is 4 sandwiches. Not even one week of school lunches. One pack costs around $2 – $3+ depending on where you shop. On the low end, that’s $.25 a slice, $.50 a sandwich. Whhhaaaaatttt?! Come on. Let’s save our money for true necessities (more fresh fruits and veggies, anyone?)
Because it’s just one more novelty food for your kids to neg you about. This product expands the Goldfish franchise. Kids love Goldfish crackers, and by expanding the brand to soup, bread, etc. Pepperidge Farms hopes we’ll keep buying to keep our kids happy. Ever hear of the nag factor? This is one way companies leverage it.
Because kids don’t need goldfish-shaped bread to eat lunch. Somewhere out there I know there’s a parent who is saying “Oh, but my child won’t eat a sandwich unless I make it in a shape!” Bummer. Then don’t try to get your kid to eat sandwiches. Or cut the bread into the shape of a fish. Or – did I say this? – don’t try to get your kid to eat sandwiches.
THE BOTTOM LINE: Someday, if you want to give your kid a special treat of a Goldfish-shaped sandwich, then own this purchase as a one-time treat. Otherwise, save yourself some money and save your sanity — skip the Goldfish bread.
RECENTLY, FAST FOOD RESTAURANTS LIKE McDonald’s and Burger King have made news by offering healthier kids meals. But will it really make a difference in the fight against obesity?
Eating fast food is a lifestyle.
Families who eat fast food on a regular basis do it as a part of their lifestyle and weekly meal plan. A family who eats McD’s or BK weekly or more probably isn’t eating the healthiest options the rest of the time. Even the home-cooked meals probably contain a lot of heat-and-eat and processed foods and few fresh fruits and vegetables. Eating fast food on a frequent basis sets a food culture for kids to follow. A few apple slices aren’t going to change the idea that it’s okay to include foods high in fat and sodium as a part of a regular diet.
Families who only rarely eat fast food set the example that it’s a special treat, not something to be consumed as a part of the weekly menu. These families likely have more fresh fruit and vegetables in their regular diet so while they might be happy to see apples and milk as options, it doesn’t make a huge impact since the meal was a treat.
A healthy option won’t offset all the other crap.
Offering some apple slices with fries and nuggets is like plugging a hole in a dam with your finger. Just like having a Diet Coke with your fries isn’t making you thinner, apples with your fries isn’t making you healthy. Sure, chocolate milk may be more wholesome than soda, depending on the ingredients, but there’s 29 grams of sugar in about 12 oz of Coke and 25 grams of sugar in one container of the McD’s chocolate milk, plus it has high fructose corn syrup, carrageenan, and artificial flavor. How much of a difference is it making?
When I think about it this way, the apples and milk are, well, kind of pointless. At least, that’s my opinion.
Give your opinion below.
Here’s what some other people are saying:
Summer’s here and if you have kids that means ice pops for every special occasion. And in the summer, special occasions abound: Memorial Day weekend, end of school parties, July fourth, every weekend with friends, family vacation, and “What the hell, it’s really hot out.”
Here’s my run down of conventional ice pops, from Worst to Don’t Fool Yourself to Marginally Better. But I’m not a complete killjoy: I finish up with The Best Ice Pop Ever.
The Worst
Any conventional ice pop from Popsicles to Fla-Vor-Ice fall into this category. They are all just water, sugar (or HFCS), artificial flavors, and dyes. The only thing these pops have going for them is honesty: they certainly don’t pretend to be anything they aren’t.
Don’t Fool Yourself – Part 1
Ever find yourself thinking “Oh look, it’s made with real fruit” as you put the pops in your cart? Time for a reality check. Edy’s, 365 Brand, and Breyer’s Pure Fruit all fall into this category. Yeah, yeah, they’re made with real fruit. But the fruit is so highly processed that flavors and colors have to be added back in to make the pops palatable. Vitamins and nutrients are long gone — processed out. The ingredients list is shorter than The Worst, but still includes the ubiquitous “gums” found in most processed foods. While you might feel better about your kids eating these because of the fruit and lack of dyes, don’t fool yourself into thinking they are remotely healthy.
Ingredients
Water, Strawberries, Sugar, Carob Bean Gum, Natural Flavors, Guar Gum, Citric Acid, Color (Beet Juice Extract, Turmeric Color), Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C).
I shiver to think what these “all fruit” pops looked like before they added the color back, but now I know that beet juice mixed with turmeric makes a nice strawberry color, which will come in handy when I make this cake.
Don’t Fool Yourself – Part 2
I fell for this once and I bet I’m not alone. Sugar-free doesn’t mean sweetened with fruit juice; it’s just food industry code for artificial sweetener. Every brand now seems to have a sugar-free version and unless there’s have a dietary need, kids (or adults) shouldn’t be eating artificial sweeteners. Here’s a little food math: crappy thing about ice pop brand + crappy things about artificial sweeteners = a whole lotta crappy.
Ingredients:
Strawberry: Water, Strawberries, Sorbitol (Sensitive Individuals May Experience a Laxative Effect from Excess Consumption of This Ingredient), White Grape Juice from Concentrate (Water, White Grape Juice Concentrate), Maltodextrin, Glycerin, Polydextrose, Natural Flavors, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Beet Juice Concentrate (Color), Citric Acid, Sucralose (Splenda Brand), Acesulfame Potassium, Guar Gum, Turmeric Color, Carob Bean Gum.
Oh boy! It’s an ice pop AND a laxative!
Marginally Better
When it comes to store-bought ice pops, I like Smooze Pops. They have a short ingredients list that includes fruit juice, cane sugar, and coconut milk with minimal additives (and no gums). My kids love these – I only wish they offered a variety pack of flavors so I could hear my kids argue over who gets the last mango pop. I would love to find some other options in this category. If you know of anything, please share in the comments.Ingredients: mango fruit juice 48%, coconut milk 40%, natural cane sugar, pectin, citric acid, natural fruit flavors, ascorbic acid.
Yes, it still has added flavors, which is why this is called “marginally better” and not “the best thing ever”.
The Best Ice Pops Ever
No surprise here: make your own. Before you get your panties in a bunch over not having time to make ice pops, take a breath. It doesn’t have to be time consuming or complicated. I detest pulling out my food processor and I don’t even own a blender. My kids love yogurt pops and orange juice pops. I bought ice pop molds, but you can make pops in paper cups or any freezable container. If you do enjoy a blender experience, you can make pops from blended fruit with honey. Or Google to find one of the thousands of ice pop recipes out there.
The Bottom Line
Summer brings lots of ice pop opportunities, and most store bought ice pops are less than healthy. Having some homemade pops on hand for more frequent consumption means your kids will eat less crap and more good stuff like fruit. Then that (truly) occasional conventional pop won’t seem so bad.
A guest post from Pat McVeigh. Pat is a super-healthy lawyer-type who is obsessed with Crossfit and eating like a caveman.
AFTER READING ABOUT THE PALEO DIET, I WAS CURIOUS HOW I COULD incorporate some of the principles into my eating habits without giving up some of my favorite grains (namely barley and hops). So I contacted my friend Pat, who follows a Paleo diet, to answer a few questions for me. Thanks, Pat!
1. What is a Paleo diet? How is it different than a raw diet?
When you follow a Paleo diet approach you pretty much eat lean meats, vegetables, some fruit, and healthy fats from nuts, olive oil, coconut oil, etc. The quality of the food you eat matters, so many people eating the Paleo way try to eat grass fed meat, free range chicken/eggs, and wild caught fish (as opposed to farm-raised). You avoid grains, dairy, and legumes as well as processed foods and sugary food.
Robb Wolf, one of the Paleo lifestyle authorities, has a ton of great information on his website and in his book.
I am not too familiar with the Raw Diet, but from what I have seen you don’t eat meat and you eat a bunch of vegetables. I like vegetables, but could not do without meat!
2. How long have you been following a Paleo diet and why did you start?
I started trying to try to dial in my eating about two years ago after I read “The Primal Blueprint” by Mark Sisson. I got nice results following his method (which is similar to the Paleo Diet), but decided to get more serious with the Paleo approach at the end of last summer.
I started to see more people involved in CrossFit giving it a shot and getting great results (better body composition, more energy, better mood, better performance in the gym) so I wanted to give it a try. My gym (CrossFit Generation) had a 30 Day “Paleo Challenge” and after that went really well, I was convinced it was the answer for me. I got lean, had more energy, and just generally felt great.
3. What is an example of a day of meals for you?
Breakfast is usually a few eggs and some sausage or bacon (but not every day) and black coffee or espresso. Other days I might just eat some leftover chicken or steak. No more Kashi or puffed wheat for me!
For lunch I have a “big salad” with spinach, lettuce, chicken, onions, carrots, hard-boiled eggs, etc. with olive oil and some balsamic vinegar.
Dinner is usually some meat and vegetables.
After workouts I have some coconut water and a piece of meat.
Before I used to snack much more but now I eat around three meals a day and don’t need to snack since I am not as hungry as I was when I had grains in my diet.
4. I don’t know if I could commit completely to this diet, but are there small changes I could make in this direction to improve my eating habits?
Absolutely. The best thing you could do, or anyone for that matter, is to eliminate gluten or grains from your diet. If you cannot eliminate them, then try to limit them the best you can. Gluten has been linked to so many autoimmune diseases and other health problems.
It is amazing how much better people feel when they eliminate or reduce grains from their diet. I know that my health has improved significantly (e.g. I don’t get colds like I used to, I rarely have stomach aches, feel more energetic all day long, etc.).
Another thing you can do more generally is to reduce the amount of carbohydrates you take in. A lot of people take in way too many carbohydrates from sugar, grains and other processed foods and this contributes to weight gain and its related health issues.
The bottom line: Really, following a Paleo approach is not all that difficult. You are pretty much eating some meat, eggs, vegetables and a bit of fruit and nuts. If you can kick the bread and grains and focus on eating real food you might just be “Paleo” before you know it!
LAST WEEK CTF READER NICK SENT me an email asking
I was wondering what you guys think of Canola Oil. From what I’ve read, it is a genetically engineered oil that comes from the rapeseed. If by canola is by definition genetically engineered, how can some products clame to have “organic canola oil”? Do you guys think Canola oil is really healthy?
I have to admit I was stumped. I only use olive oil (and occasionally sesame oil) — mostly out of sheer laziness, but also because it’s what I know about and so I’m comfortable with it.
But I was also curious. Whole Foods sells canola oil and uses it for a lot of prepared foods. This is a subtle, but maybe not accurate, nod of approval in a way. I thought I should find out a little more.
The first thing I found out is that canola oil doesn’t come from “canola”. Instead, canola oil is an oil made from a cultivar of rapeseed. Rapeseed oil was used in cooking hundreds of years ago in Asia and Europe, but didn’t catch on in more modern times because of its high erucic acid content. In 1968, selective breeding produced a variety low in erucic acid. This happened in Canada, hence, the name “Canola” — Canadian oil, low acid.
Erucic acid is a known toxin. Canola oil has less than 2% erucic acid and is considered by the FDA to be safe for human consumption.
CTF friend and food scientist, Corey, shared with me that only about 80% of rapeseed is genetically modified, so it is possible to have organic canola oil. If avoiding GMOs is important to you, stick with organic.
(As a side note, the rapeseed blossom is a major nectar source for honeybees. I wonder if the GMO nectar of the GMO plants is different or has any effect on the bees?)
Fooducate also has a very informative post about canola oil which points out “With only 7% saturated fat and omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids in a ratio of 2:1, canola is considered a heart healthy oil.”
The Bottom Line: As with anything, moderation is key. Too much of any oil isn’t healthy. Canola is probably better than some oils and worse than others. We all have to decide what’s important to us — is it organic, GMOs, price, taste, fat content? — then make an informed choice.
I DETEST KIDS FOODS — at least on a regular basis. Everyone likes to buy something special sometimes, but kids foods shouldn’t be an every day or every meal occurrence. Why? Because kids foods
- prevent kids from eating and enjoying regular food
- give kids the idea that they need special food
- cost more
- are often unhealthy, highly processed, and additive-filled. (Although you don’t need to buy that super expensive pureed mango for your baby, either. Just buy a darn mango!)
But food companies love kids foods because the profits are huge — people pay more for smaller portions in cool packaging. All they have to do is make us all feel like we need to buy it or our kids won’t fit in, we won’t be the cool parent, or our kids won’t eat.
Sigh, alas, and woe… how my kids will be mocked if they don’t have gummy snacks in their lunches or only eat yogurt with a spoon! (No worries with that one: Grandpa got the kids Crush Cups on our last visit, saving my kids from years of ridicule over not knowing how to squeeze yogurt directly from cup to mouth. But I think the Wellness Bitch covered that already.)
Here are some other completely ridiculous kids foods with completely ridiculous marketing strategies:
Jolie Ravioli
In assorted fun shapes! Because ravioli isn’t tasty enough? Sure regular ravioli comes in boring squares and circles, but I think kids can manage, plus it can be a wholesome meal the whole family can eat and enjoy together. Why do we need to buy fun-shaped ravioli in flavors like “pizza-roli” and “mac and cheezy”? Answer: we don’t.
Organic Letter of the Day Cookies
Okay, let’s be realistic: kids don’t learn their letters from eating cookies, don’t care if Cookie Monster is on the box, and — most importantly — don’t need fun shapes and characters to be convinced to eat cookies. So let’s all save ourselves some money and buy regular cookies from the cookie aisle (or better yet home bake) rather than toddler cookies from the baby food aisle.
Monkey Bars
“Crazy Healthy!”? Seriously? There are a few things my kids eat that I’d call “crazy healthy” but none of them come in a box. Chances are, if a food product is trying to convince you it’s healthy, it’s not. This box also says “100% Natural”, which means 100% nothing. It’s a non-regulated term. Sure, this product might be healthier for a kid than an Oreo cookie but if we start to think of it as anything other than a glorified cookie, we’re fooling ourselves.
Organic Jammy Sammy
As busy as I sometimes get, I hope I never get to the point where I think I have to buy pre-made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at $12.40/pound. In fact, I bet I could just about make a PB&J in the same time it takes to get one of these out of the package. This is just a dressed-up Uncrustable and is just as ridiculous.
Pop-Tarts Mini Crisps
I’m about 110% sure the world doesn’t need another way to consume Pop-Tarts, which are pretty darn portable and snackable to begin with. So what’s the point of making them small, except to charge more and/or try to convince us we need two two types this of highly-processed quasi-food for our kids. Puhleeze.
Lunchables – Now with Fruit
Oh, I love this one! You may already know how I feel about Lunchables (spoiler: I don’t like them), but now they come with fruit! “Wait,” you might be saying to yourself, “they didn’t come with fruit before?” Apparently, no. The powers that be over in Lunchables HQ didn’t think kids needed fruit with lunch… until now! But before you get all excited thinking Lunchables comes with fresh apple slices or some grapes, bring yourself back to reality. It’s just some processed tasteless fruit in a cup.
Capri Sun Roarin’ Waters Fruit Punch
“A fun way for kids to hydrate”? What the…? Since when did hydrating have to be fun and since when did fruit punch become a legitimate way to hydrate? I’m really very certain our kids will thank us from their non-diabetic and non-obese futures for teaching them to hydrate with water and save the sugar for dessert.
The Bottom Line:
It’s fun to splurge on fun-looking kids food, but when we find ourselves doing it all the time or without thinking, well, then it’s time to step back, readjust our bullshit spectacles, and remember that kids can and should be eating the same food as grown-ups.
By Randy Rabney
 Buy now at Lulu |
In Delicious for Life, Randy Rabney of The Conscious Plate speaks to all of us regular people who want to cook real food from real ingredients, but aren’t quite sure where to start. She takes this complex subject matter and breaks it down into easily digestible (pardon the pun) morsels of information. When you are done reading this book, you’ll know how to stock and outfit your pantry with ingredients and tools that make sense for you and you’ll have a starting point for creating your own “signature dishes” — that is, easy meals that you and your family enjoy and that are easy to whip up. Randy also gives you the stepping stones to take those dishes to new places to avoid boredom, and shares several simple, delicious recipes as jumping-off points.
Whether you are completely new to cooking from scratch or have already gotten your apron dirty you’ll find wisdom in this well-written book.
Why it changed my eating habits: I love Randy’s approach of skipping recipes in favor of cooking with flavors you like. Following recipes is great for special dishes, but for everyday cooking, it’s important to be able to cook with what’s in my kitchen. Focusing on what flavors I (and my family) enjoy is a great way to do that.
A FEW DAYS AGO, A CTF FACEBOOK FOLLOWER ASKED A REALLY GOOD QUESTION: WHAT IS A REALLY GOOD PRETZEL?
Well, I don’t have the answer to that.
But I can explain how I choose a pretzel and share what brands I buy. It is hard to find a good pretzel. There are a lot of brands to sort through which means lots of ingredients labels to read. So where to start?
While I don’t make homemade pretzels, I look for a pretzel with a short list of ingredients of only things I would have in my kitchen. I have to admit, I haven’t found anything I’m wildly crazy about, but here are the two I typically buy:
Snyders
In a conventional food store, I buy Snyders pretzels, but only the sticks or waffles. The twists have additional ingredients for some reason. The ingredients are:
Unbleached wheat flour, water, canola oil, malt, salt, yeast, soda.
These are all things I either have in my house or would be able and willing to purchase for baking.
365 Brand
In Whole Foods, I buy the 365 Brand. Typically I buy the non-organic (GASP!) to save money. We don’t eat so many pretzels, so I feel okay about that decision. The ingredients are:
Unbleached enriched wheat flour, malted barley, salt, soybean oil, yeast.
I wouldn’t buy or cook with soybean oil, and I try to be aware of how much soy we eat through additives, so I don’t like these as much as the Snyder’s.
Annies Organic Honey Wheat Pretzel Bunnies
I don’t buy these.
The ingredients are:
Organic wheat flour, organic expeller pressed vegetable oil, organic honey, organic cane sugar, sea salt, organic barley malt.
Because they have honey and sugar, they have three times the sugar as the other two brands. It’s only three grams, but my kids get enough sugar from things they can recognize as treats without getting extra in their afternoon snack. I’d rather have my kids get sugar in something where they can taste it, like a cookie or ice cream, than as an additive in something they don’t recognize as sweet.
Also, if you know me you know I don’t care for kid-specific products on a regular basis. Seriously, who is saying “Oh, I have such a terrible time getting my kids to eat pretzels. Maybe if I spend extra to buy these bunny-shaped ones they will finally eat them.”
I think there are better organic pretzel options, such as 365 Brand or Newman’s Own. (I like Newman’s Own but I don’t buy them because they cost more than I’m willing to pay.)
The bottom line:
No processed snack food is perfect. It’s a processed snack food, for goodness sake! Decide what you can live with, read the ingredients, and enjoy occasionally.
MY KIDS LOVE WAFFLES. If they could, they would eat waffles for every meal. I was buying Van’s frozen waffles at 6 to a box and my kids were eating 2 at a sitting, so the box lasted three meals. Conventional frozen waffles come 10 to a box, which would have given us a couple extra meals, which might seem like a bargain. But is it?
Not That: Conventional Frozen Waffles
Kellogg’s Eggo Waffles Homestyle in a 10 count box go for $2.99 on Peapod.com. Here are the ingredients:
Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate [Vitamin B1], Riboflavin [Vitamin B2], Folic Acid), Water, Vegetable Oil (Soybean Oil, Palm Oil and Palm Kernel Oil with TBHQ and Citric Acid for Freshness), Eggs, Leavening (Baking Soda, Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, Monocalcium Phosphate), Sugar, Contains 2% or Less of Salt, Calcium Carbonate, Whey, Soy Lecithin, Vitamin A Palmitate, Niacinamide Reduced Iron, Yellow 5, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Thiamin, Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Yellow 6, Vitamin B12
There are a few different reasons why I dislike this product:
1. I don’t like some of the ingredients. I try not to buy foods with dyes because some studies show they are potentially harmful. I try to avoid soy lecithin when I can because it’s in so many things and some studies indicate that too much soy can be problematic. There is also soybean oil – more soy. Because the waffles aren’t organic, they could contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs) which I also try to limit since there is no way to know the long term effects. I can’t avoid all these things all the time, so I go for moderation.
Maybe you’re rolling your eyes and thinking “This is BS. The FDA says this stuff is safe so why wouldn’t I eat it?” Okay, but keep reading.
2. These waffles aren’t filling or satisfying. They are the Chinese food of frozen waffles: eat them and you’ll be hungry a half hour later. A serving size is two, and has four grams of protein and one gram of fiber – two things I think it’s important for my kids to eat, especially at breakfast to give them energy for the day. My older son could probably chomp his way through at least three waffles at a sitting, which also makes them not very good for the grocery budget.
3. They need dyes to make them palatable. Even if you think dyes are safe, you have to wonder how bad these waffles looked that they needed dye to make them palatable. Plus they need TBHQ, a preservative, to keep them fresh in the freezer. How long are these boxes sitting around? It’s one of those things that makes me go “Hmm…” and keep moving down the aisle.
So I started buying…
Buy This? Van’s Organic Waffles
A six count box of Van’s Waffles goes for about $3.79 at Whole Foods. Here are the ingredients:
Water, Organic Whole Wheat Flour, Organic Unbleached Wheat Flour, Organic Soy Bean Oil, Organic Cane Syrup, Organic oat Fiber, Baking Powder (Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Sodium Bicarbonate, Monocalcium Phosphate), Organic Corn Starch, Organic Malt Extract, Sea Salt, Organic Soy Lecithin, Organic Guar Gum, Van’s Vitamin and Mineral Boost (Vitamin A (Palmitate), Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid), Zinc (Zinc Oxide), Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine Hydrochloride)), Organic Caramel Color.
I felt better about these because they have no dyes and are organic. They also have more protein (5g) and fiber (6g) per two waffle serving. But they still have the same soy products and they have caramel coloring, which, it turns out, may have it’s own set of issues.
On top of that, we were going through a couple boxes a week.
So now we…
Eat This: Homemade Waffles!
I started making up batches of homemade waffles for Waffle Sunday in our house. There is always some leftover for a few mornings during the week. Here are the ingredients I typically use:
Organic whole wheat flour, organic ground flax seeds, organic rolled oats, cinnamon, salt, baking powder, canola or olive oil, eggs.
This works for me because:
1. I control the ingredients. I know the quality of the ingredients and I can use what fits my food philosophy and budget. I can add or change the recipe whenever I want based on mood or what’s in the house. For example, sometimes I add fruit or veg (apples, bananas, blueberries, pumpkin, squash, carrots); sometimes I add chocolate chips; sometimes I make them into pancakes not waffles.
2. These waffles are hearty and filling, with a good amount of protein and fiber and no added sugar. I don’t know the exact protein and fiber counts, but based on the nutrition labels on the ingredients, I am certain it’s higher than Eggo and at least equal to Van’s. The recipe I use doesn’t call for added sugar. We don’t need it with the (real) maple syrup on top anyway.
3. Homemade fits in our time and money budgets. Since these are ingredients I use for other baking and cooking throughout the week, buying them works better in our grocery budget. And while it’s a very rare weekday morning that I have time to cook up waffles, I can make a big batch on the weekend to eat through the week – just pop’em in the toaster.
4. Having a family waffle breakfast one morning on the weekend gives us some really great time together and improves our food culture. The whole family participates in the meal preparation, we create rituals and traditions, and we get time to sit and talk as a family before the day gets busy. Plus we all look forward to it.
Sure, if you’re used to eating Eggo or Bisquick mix waffles, straight homemade will taste different, but once you go scratch, you never go back.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
Conventional frozen waffles are full of stuff we wouldn’t put in homemade waffles, so why eat it? Making homemade gives us control over the ingredients, tastes better, is healthier, and can provide some great family time.
Most people don’t want to think too much about where their meat comes from beyond the meat department in the grocery store. As a society, we spend a lot of time anthropomorphizing animals, which makes it hard to think about slaughtering and eating them. Who among us would eat Wilbur from Charlotte’s Web or the cows from Click, Clack, Moo?
Not That: Conventionally raised meat and poultry from conventional grocery stores.
But we do need to think about where our meat comes from – how it’s treated, what it’s fed. When we don’t, we give the meat industry implicit permission to do, well, pretty much whatever they can get away with – according to law, of course, but sometimes unnatural just the same – when it comes to feeding, housing, and modifying the animals we eat.
For example, feeding dairy cows waste from industrial bakeries and candy factories, something that the USDA allows and even brags about (PDF).
Or feeding cows parts of other cows because “protein is protein,” a practice which led to mad cow disease and which the FDA prohibited in 1997. But even today the FDA regulations on feeding don’t ban all products from ruminants in feed for other ruminants. So beef tallow, if it meets the standard for impurities, can be fed back to cows ( PDF). (This document also clears up the question about whether “recovered cooking oils from restaurants and food processors” can be fed to cows. Yes, they can.)
In a bizarre circle of life, products from poultry and pigs can be fed to cows (question 6). and parts of cows can then be fed back to chickens and pigs. Let’s face it folks, feeding meat to herbivores like cows is just plain wrong and unnatural.
Or pumping animals full of medications. Because of the way the animals are bred, raised, fed, and/or housed, they need to be given antibiotics, 80% of the antibiotics sold in the U.S. as a matter of fact. These antibiotics stay in the meat and milk and they are consumed by us. This small but consistent dose of antibiotics we consume in our food has been linked to antibiotic resistant “super-bugs.”
Or any of the multitude of physical alterations and poor housing conditions that are allowed by the FDA and USDA: chickens stacked in battery cages inside artificially lit “barns,” pigs with clipped tails, beak trimming, or chickens bred with breasts so large they can’t walk or breath properly.
When we don’t think too much about it, we end up eating meat that isn’t as healthy as it could be and compromising our own health. Just like reading the ingredients labels on the other food we eat, we need to know the ingredients that went into our meat and poultry.
Which leads to…
Buy This: Meat and poultry from stores and sources that demand standards and provide transparency with regard to animal feeding and welfare.
What does this mean? It means buying meat from a place where the employees can tell you where the meat came from, how it was cared for, and what it was fed. It means buying meat from a place that has published and public standards about the quality and welfare of the meat they sell.
Doing so not only provides healthier and tastier meat, but is much more ethical. And we do have an ethical responsibility to treat the animals we are going to eat with respect.
One such place to buy meat is direct from the farm. If you are able, this is a great option because you can visit and see the animals. You can talk to the farm workers about what the animals are fed, how they are raised, and where they are slaughtered. Direct, first-hand knowledge of your food is empowering and delicious.
Not everyone can go to a farm to buy meat and luckily, we don’t have to. We can go to a grocery store like Whole Foods Market (WFM). I’m going to talk a lot about Whole Foods right now, but I’m not paid by them nor am I saying everyone should only shop there. But I am holding them up as an example of a grocery store that is trying to do meat right. Here’s why:
1. Whole Foods publishes their meat standards on their web site. The company is transparent about what it sells in the stores and set the bar high for farms and suppliers. WFM won’t sell any meat that doesn’t meet their standards.
2. Recently, WFM launched a 5-Step Animal Welfare Rating™ system in its stores. The system was developed by The Global Animal Partnership rates how pigs, chickens and cattle are raised. Ratings for other species (turkeys, lamb, and others) are in development.
The ranking system goes from 1 to 5+. At Step 1 “farmers and ranchers must focus intently on the welfare of their animals and meet specific standards, including no antibiotics, no animal by-products in their feed, and no added growth hormones…. [and] most physical alterations widely used in animal production are prohibited.” The grass-fed beef I buy is a 5. The organic chicken I buy (either Rosie’s or WFM) is a 2. A chicken from Tyson or Purdue wouldn’t even make it onto the scale as a 1.
The web site gives a only brief overview of the system and I encourage everyone to download the PDF or pick up a brochure in the store to find out the details.
3. The WFM butchers are highly knowledgeable about where the meat comes from and are given the opportunity to visit the farms where the meat comes from. When asked if he bought into the meat standards of the company, one butcher told me “Absolutely. We visit the farms and see how the animals are treated and processed. It’s eye-opening.”
I’d like to think there are other grocery stores doing similar things, so please, if you know of one, talk about it in the comments below.
The Bottom Line:
Know about your food, even if it’s tough to think about. Buy your meat from a knowledgeable source that promotes transparency and has high quality standards. Animals that are well fed, housed, and treated provide the healthiest, tastiest, and most ethical meat.
I’M SURE SOME PEOPLE HAVE NATURAL COOKING ABILITIES. I’M NOT ONE OF THEM. But these four things can be made at home by anyone, no special cooking abilities needed. Homemade tastes better, is better for our bodies, and costs less. A triple win!
Food makers want – no NEED – us to buy their products. One way they hook us is by convincing us it’s cheaper and/or easier to buy something than make it. But it’s not always true.
These four things were among the first I started making rather than buying. Once I started and got into the groove of making things from ingredients, I made even more things from ingredients – because I had more ingredients sitting around the house to be used, because everything tasted so much better, and because it was so much more satisfying to eat a meal we spent some time preparing than one just heated up.
1. Pasta Sauce
Food companies want you to think homemade pasta sauce is something Italian grandmas slave over for a full day in the kitchen. But the fact is, if you have a slow cooker and 15 minutes, you can have homemade sauce for dinner.
Basically, pasta sauce is made of tomatoes, onion, garlic, and spices. If you can sauté onions and garlic then pop ‘em in a slow cooker with crushed tomatoes, salt, and pepper, you can make pasta sauce.
SAVINGS: The cheapest jar sauce I found* was $.10/oz. A can of crushed tomatoes, an onion, and a head of garlic made more sauce than the jar for about $.06/oz. That works out to a savings of about $1.00 when you don’t buy the jar.
Like most things made from scratch, the more you make, the more money you save. Making extra sauce and freezing it costs less than buying multiple jars.
WHAT YOU GIVE UP: One or more of: HFCS, sugar, soybean or corn oils, flavorings, mystery spices.
2. Cookie dough
That tube of slice and bake cookie dough seems like a quick cheap way to make some cookies and the commercials to make it seem just as good as homemade, but the fact is cookies from scratch aren’t hard to make, kids enjoy doing it, the recipe makes more cookies, and they taste better.
Sugar cookies are just flour, sugar, butter, vanilla, eggs, and baking powder – things you probably keep in the house anyway. And really, how often are we all eating cookies? They should be a treat, with the preparations and rituals that come with any special occasion food.
If you like to have dough around to slice and bake, make a batch of dough then form it into a roll and freeze it.
SAVINGS: A tube of slice and bake may seem cheap, but it doesn’t make as many cookies as a full batch from scratch. Plus, the cost to scale up homemade cookies is small compared to buying additional tubes.
A roll of sugar cookie dough is $3.49 and it makes 16 servings. Making sugar cookies from scratch costs about $1.64 a dozen (depending on the brands you buy – because YOU control the quality of the ingredients.) If a serving is considered one cookie, the savings works out to around $1.00 a dozen. If a serving size is two cookies, the cost is about the same.
But to make the same amount of cookies with rolls as from the homemade recipe (5 dozen), you’d need at least four rolls, which would cost $13.96 compared to $8.19 for the homemade cookies. That’s a difference of $5.77. Wow.
WHAT YOU GIVE UP: One or more of: Hydrogenated oils, artificial flavorings, margarine, Vegetable Mono- and Diglyceride, sodium benzoate.
3. Chicken soup
Making chicken soup was a revelation for me. For some reason I thought soup would be complicated, but it’s one of the easiest, cheapest, most satisfying meals you can make. Soup is surprisingly filling and can be made from simple ingredients you probably have in your kitchen all the time.
The best part about making chicken soup is that it uses the remains of one dinner to make another meal: chicken bones. You can use the carcass from a whole roasted chicken, or the bones and meat left from breasts. Either way, boil it up in wates for several hours, strain out the bones and bits, add veggies (I use carrots, celery, and onions) season with salt, pepper, and garlic, boil some more and – voila! – that’s soup.
One chicken carcass makes a lot of soup so this is another great thing to freeze.
SAVINGS: A can of Progresso chicken soup is $1.25 (on sale). It is 2 half cup servings (about $.62 a serving).
When you make chicken soup at home from your leftover roasted chicken, half a bag of carrots, half a bunch of celery, an onion, and spices you have on hand, you get a giant pot of soup for $2.54. How many half cup servings is it? I don’t really know, but I’m positive it’s more than the four you’d get for the Progresso price.
WHAT YOU GIVE UP: One or more of: modified food starch, corn and soy proteins (hydrolyzed), egg white, potassium chloride, yeast extract, sugar, soy protein isolate, natural flavor, sodium phosphate, egg yolk (dried), mystery spices, soy lecithin.
4. Salad dressing
Salad dressing is another one of those things that most people don’t think they can make at home. Sure, making up a batch of creamy Italian or blue cheese dressing is time consuming and probably costly – but maybe we should all be laying off the creamy dressings on a daily basis anyway.
Making a basic oil and vinegar dressing for daily use isn’t complicated or time consuming. And while there are almost as many variations on homemade dressings as there are pages on the Internet, I’m going to focus on a basic one.
On a daily basis, I dress my salad with a drizzle of olive oil, a couple shakes of salt, and a splash of vinegar. If I get ambitious, I whisk those ingredients together with a dab of mustard and some garlic powder. Let’s compare that to Wishbone Balsamic Vinegrette.
SAVINGS: My basic dressing above is made from things I always have in the kitchen. My best calculation of cost is about $.42 a serving.
The Wishbone dressing is $3.39 a bottle, $.21 a serving.
So, okay, this isn’t a money saver. But before you put that bottle of dressing in your shopping cart, check out what you give up. I think it’s worth the extra $.21 a serving.
WHAT YOU GIVE UP: In Wishbone Balsamic Vinegrette: soybean oil, sugar, mystery spices, caramel color, xanthan gum, sodium benzoate, sorbic acid, calcium disodium, citric acid, natural flavor, sulfur dioxide, annatto extract.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
The next time your getting ready to purchase one of these four things, stop and consider making it instead. It could save you money and it will definitely save you from some additives and chemicals.
Once you start buying and cooking from ingredients, you’ll have ingredients on hand to make even more food. Cooking at home – and getting the kids involved if you can – teaches kids just want we want them to learn: the best food comes from home, cooking isn’t hard, and making the time, even once in a while, to make a home cooked meal is an important family ritual.
Plus, you’ll get to hear your kids say “You make the best _____!”
*All my product prices and ingredients were researched using Stop and Shop’s Peapod.com
THERE ARE TWO REASONS YOGURT TUBES MAKE IT TO THE CTF WORST FOOD LIST. One: they contain additional ingredients not found in regular yogurt. Two: they are a huge rip-off.
Ingredients
In the best case (Stonyfield Farms Yokids Squeezers), you’re getting the addition of emulsifiers like tapioca starch, carob bean gum, and carrageenan.
In the worst case (Yoplait GoGurt), you’re getting the addition of high fructose corn syrup, potassium sorbate, carrageenan, red 40, and blue 1. Basically, GoGurt is Yoplait Trix yogurt in a tube, not Yoplait Kids Yogurt.
Some of these ingredients (like the emulsifiers) are generally considered safe, but some food dyes have been linked to health problems like hyperactivity, headaches, asthma, and tumor growth. And, of course, the debate rages on about high fructose corn syrup.
Whatever the tube of yogurt, it’s not the same yogurt that comes in the cup.
Cost:
GoGurt comes in 2.5 ounce tubes, Stonyfield in 2 ounce tubes. That’s half the size of a kid sized yogurt cup and a third the size of a regular yogurt cup. Yet the tube price is $.05 or more per ounce.
If your child typically eats a regular sized yogurt cup at snack time, it will take three yogurt tubes to give the same satisfaction. Not very economical.
We pay a premium for the convenience of the tube, but then get less so our kids have to eat more to be satisfied. It’s a double win for the food makers, but where does that leave us?
The bottom line:
Maybe you care about the additional ingredients and maybe you don’t, but it’s important to know you aren’t getting the same product in a yogurt tube as in a regular yogurt so we can make conscious buying decisions.
From a budget standpoint, we are getting less and paying more for a product we don’t really need in the first place.
Maybe it’s time to leave the yogurt tubes on the shelf, put some money back in our wallets, and keep some additives out of our kids.
One question I hear over and over again when talking to people about eating fewer processed foods is “How do I start?” It got me thinking back to how I started changing my families eating habits, how overwhelming it seemed, and what small first steps I took. The result is this three-part series of posts about three simple things you can do to start eating healthier.
GOAL: Increase the amount of produce in your shopping cart by using the money saved from buying fewer snacks and soft drinks.
WHY: The obvious answer is because eating more fruits and veggies is healthier. But also because fruits and veggies are more filling than snack foods, sodas, or juices and eating more of the good stuff creates a habit that, hopefully, your kids will find hard to break when they are on their own.
My kids got in the habit of expecting fruit or veggies with every snack or meal. Once they even “tricked” me into giving them dessert by asking for apples. “Ha ha! The apples are dessert!” Oh, yes, they got me with that one.
HOW: The way you approach this one depends on how you handle your grocery budget. Some people follow a loose budget and some people count up every penny.
My approach was to remove any budget restrictions on produce. It became the one grocery store department where I bought whatever I wanted without looking at price – with one caveat: if I bought it, we had to eat it.
The result: Because I freed myself from thinking too much about cost, I bought whatever produce looked tasty and interesting. Because I bought it, we had to eat it or it went to waste. Because we had to eat it, I served more fruits and veg with every meal and snack. Because we ate more fruits and veg, we were more satisfied and less likely to munch on snack foods in between meals. And because we ate less snack foods, I could buy less snack foods and more produce.
If the no-budget plan doesn’t work for you, here are some easy substitutions to help you get started.
$3.99 = 17 oz bag of Doritos OR 2 lb bag of carrots
$3.99 = 6 pack of Gatorade OR ~6 bananas
$3.00 = 64 oz bottle of apple juice OR ~5 apples
$1.33 = 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke OR 1 bunch of celery
$8.49 = 33.5 oz box of Goldfish OR a box of clementines
$3.50 = 11oz bag of Lay’s Potato Chips OR ~1 lb of grapes.
$2.29 = 12 Pop-Tarts OR a container of strawberries (in season)
$2.00 = 10 Fruit Roll Ups OR 1 cantaloupe
(Price Source: Peapod.com and my grocery store receipt)
You get the idea. Start substituting one or two of these things each week and you’ll see how you can shift your budget. If you have older kids, you might be buying a few bags of chips or bottles of soda/juice/etc. every week. You can switch one or two out for easy to eat fruits like apples or clementines and not see a huge impact on your budget.
THE BOTTOM LINE: I’m not going to say it’s easy (it’s not), or that produce isn’t expensive (it is), but by substituting produce for some of the snack foods and soft drinks on your list you can up your family’s consumption of fruits and veggies without blowing your budget.
Remember: I’m not a health or medical professional and this is not meant to be medical advice. Speak to your physician if you have questions about diet and nutrition.
One question I hear over and over again when talking to people about eating fewer processed foods is “How do I start?” It got me thinking back to how I started changing my families eating habits, how overwhelming it seemed, and what small first steps I took. The result is this three-part series of posts about three simple things you can do to start eating healthier.
GOAL: Eat less “snack foods” and more food for snacks.
WHY: Making snack time into a mini meal is more satisfying, lessens consumption of processed snack foods, and passes on the skill of putting together food for a snack, rather than grabbing “snack food.”
“Snack is a time, not a food” Dr. Dina Rose
Most people, especially kids, need a little something to make it from one meal to the next. But snack time shouldn’t be just chips, crackers, fruit leathers, or cereal bars.
It’s time to break out of the box and redefine what a snack is.
The majority of traditional snack foods include additives, colors, high sodium but don’t pack very much of a nutritional punch. Even so-called healthy options (organic cereal bars, cheese sticks, pretzels, etc.) don’t make good stand alone snacks.
It’s better to make a mini-meal that includes at least two different things, one of them being a fruit or vegetable. It’s healthier and more filling with less food — and you don’t have to worry about kids “ruining” their appetite for the next real meal because the snack was a real meal.
HOW: Changing snack time can seem almost impossible, but it can be done! Here are some practical tips for making some real change in the way your kids snack, based on things that worked in my house.
- Think of each snack as a mini-meal, and always include fruits or vegetables.
- Stop buying the worst snack foods currently in your pantry. If they aren’t there, no one can eat them. I went cold turkey with the Goldfish crackers, and when they weren’t there, we found something else to eat instead.
- Serve snacks on plate. This gives kids a visual guide to what an appropriate amount of food is for a snack. This also limits mindless munching out of bags or boxes.
- Mix up the snack “menu.” Limit each type of traditional snack food (like chips or crackers) to once a week and make sure to serve fruit or veg with it.
- Keep fruits and vegetables handy and visible, a proven way to increase kids consumption of them.
- Be creative. Snack can be a peanut butter and banana sandwich, homemade cookies with milk, veggies and hummus, a yogurt and fruit parfait, or homemade smoothies – so much more than a bowl of chips or a bag of animal-shaped graham crackers.
- Don’t stress if your kids have a hard time at first. I always try to remember this gem from Michael Pollan’s Food Rules: “If you’re not hungry enough to eat an apple, you’re not hungry.” And remember, snack time is optional. If your kids don’t eat it, it’s okay.
THE BOTTOM LINE: Changing snacks into mini meals made up of food will lessen the amount of processed food your family eats and cut your spending in the chip and cracker aisle. Your kids will be healthier, feel better, and will learn how to snack – an important food skill.
Remember: I’m not a health or medical professional and this is not meant to be medical advice. Speak to your physician if you have questions about diet and nutrition.
One question I hear over and over again when talking to people about eating fewer processed foods is “How do I start?” It got me thinking back to how I started changing my families eating habits, how overwhelming it seemed, and what small first steps I took. The result is this three-part series of posts about three simple things you can do to start eating healthier.
GOAL: Have kids drink only water or milk for everyday consumption. Relegate juices, sodas, sweet teas, sports drinks to the realm of special occasions.
WHY: Juices, sodas, sweetened teas, sports drinks, any sweet drinks add extra calories – and extra sugar and/or additives – to kid’s diets. Training kid’s palates to prefer the ultra-sweet taste of sweetened drinks (especially artificially sweetened drinks) will make them averse to the less sweet taste of fruits and other “real” foods.
What about 100% juices? They’re healthy, right?
One hundred percent fruit juices can be fine in limited quantities, but most kids drink way too much. They are filling, meaning kids eat less actual food. Even if the package says the juice is equal to a serving of fruit, juice isn’t like eating fruit – it has less fiber, it’s less satisfying, and it packs less of a nutritional punch. Making juice an everyday drink teaches kids that juice is an acceptable substitute for fruit.
What about Gatorade for kids who play sports?
The vast majority of kids do not need electrolyte replacement after exercise. Sports drinks just add extra sugar and calories (not to mention dyes and other chemical additives) to kid’s diets. Water hydrates best (link) and sports drinks should be for occasional consumption.
What about diet sodas? The have no sugar or calories.
It’s true that dies sodas have no sugar or calories but that doesn’t mean they should be offered in unlimited quantities. Artificial sweeteners and other chemicals in sodas such as benzoates are potentially harmful. Diet soda has also been linked to weight gain. If kids are sucking down the soda, they aren’t eating other healthier foods or drinking water, which bodies need for optimal health. Save the soda for special occasions.
Older kids who have their own money may still buy their own sweet drinks when they have the chance. But if these drinks aren’t readily available at home, then having an occasional soda, sweetened tea, etc. out won’t matter as much.
The thing with sweet drinks is they create a cycle. Once kids drink them, they want more of them. Reverse the cycle! Limited consumption of sweet drinks will retrain kids’ palates to prefer less sweet drinks.
HOW: It’s not always practical to cut out the juice, soda, or other beverages cold turkey. Here are some real life steps you can use.
- Decide how often you think sweet drinks should be consumed, such as once a day, once a week, only on weekends, or special occasions only. Maybe you will have different answers for different drinks (For example, a small glass of juice is okay each day, but soda is for special occasions only.)
- Stop buying beverages other than milk and water as regular shopping list items. Instead, buy them once in a while or just for special occasions. If they aren’t in the house, people can’t drink them.
- If needed, use a phase out strategy: limit to once a day, then once a week, then just special occasions.
- Explain to your kids what the plan is and why. They will be more open to it and they will be more likely to internalize the change. Learning to limit intake of sweet beverages is important. Older kids can understand about nutrition and that bodies need nutrients and vitamins to function properly. Even young kids can understand basics like “juice will fill you up too much to eat your dinner” and “soda is a treat.”
THE BOTTOM LINE: Getting kids to drink mostly water and milk is healthier for them. Learning to regulate consumption of sweet drinks is important. It sets kids up for making good choices when you aren’t around. Kids will appreciate sweet drinks more when they are offered as treats and – bonus! – you will save some money at the grocery store.
Remember: I’m not a health or medical professional and this is not meant to be medical advice. Speak to your physician if you have questions about diet and nutrition.
I NEVER LIKED THANKSGIVING WHEN I WAS A KID. I didn’t speak to me in the way that Christmas, Easter, or my birthday did, you know, with endless treats or piles of gifts.
Thanksgiving, although it did end with my Aunt Cindy’s scrumptious homemade pumpkin pie, was just a day of traveling, football, and adults; just a day spent on my best behavior endlessly answering the question “So, how’s school?”
THESE DAYS, THOUGH, I HAVE A RENEWED LOVE FOR THIS HOLIDAY. Setting aside the fact that it originated with Pilgrims sharing a feast with Native Americans before stealing their land and giving them small pox, Thanksgiving has a lot going for it.
It is the Grandmother of all Slow Food dinners (not Grandfather, because, let’s face it, most of the grandfathers — and fathers — are watching football games.) It’s a dinner that takes weeks of planning, days of preparation, and a full day to cook, with people traveling from distances to enjoy it in a most leisurely fashion. It’s a dinner filled with home-cooked food, tradition, family, friends, and conversation.
It’s a day when family recipes are shared and recreated, family stories are told and passed on to a new generation, a day when everyone gathers around the table and gives thanks.
THANKSGIVING EMBODIES ALL OF THE FOOD-RELATED RITUALS IMPORTANT for us to pass on to our children and all the things we should be doing more often with our families. But for now I’ll give thanks that, at least for one day out of the year, we embrace a strong, healthy food culture.
Maybe this year we can all carry some part of it back into our everyday lives.
DEAR EVERYONE: STOP GIVING KIDS FRUIT SNACKS AS IF THEY AREN’T GLORIFIED CANDY. The ingredients are so similar, the cost so much more, and these gummy globs of sugar are keeping kids from eating actual fruits. Think I’m overreacting? Read on.
The packaging of fruit snacks gives us with the impression that they are in some way healthy. It’s not true. Sure, some fruit snacks have fruit juice, some don’t but the amount of fruit juice isn’t enough to add justifiable nutritional value. Sure, some fruit snacks are fortified with vitamin C or calcium, some aren’t but eating fortified gelatinous sugar globs shouldn’t be the way our kids get vitamins or minerals.
In case you are thinking “My kids don’t eat a lot of fruit, so this is a way to get vitamin C into their diets”, take a step back and think about this: How will you ever get your kids to eat more fruit if you give them super-sweet, chewy, no-texture fruit snacks instead?
EATING FRUIT SNACKS BLURS THE LINE BETWEEN FRUIT AND CANDY FOR KIDS – something we definitely don’t want to do. Treat is treat, fruit is fruit. Just because something has fruit juice or fruit on the package doesn’t make it a substitute for fruit – or a good snack option. And we need to pass that knowledge on to our kids.
Plus, those gummy things stick to kids teeth. Can you say cavities?
Check out this comparison between popular fruit snacks and similar candy:
 Welch’s Fruit snacksJuice from Concentrates (Grape, Peach, Pear and Pineapple), Corn Syrup, Sugar, Modified Corn Starch, Fruit Puree (Grape, Apple, Strawberry and Raspberry), Gelatin, Citric Acid, Lactic Acid, Natural and Artificial Flavor, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Coconut Oil, Sodium Citrate, Carnauba Wax, Tocopherol Acetate (Vitamin E) Red 40 (Color), Yellow 5 (Color), Blue 1 (Color), Vitamin A (Vitamin A Palmitate and Beta Carotene). |
 Kellogg’s™ Clever Kids™ Letter Bites™ fruit flavored snacksCorn Syrup, Sugar, Apple Puree Concentrate, Water, Modified Corn Starch, Gelatin, Contains Two Percent Or Less Of Citric Acid, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Natural And Artificial Flavor, Color Added, Coconut Oil, Carnauba Wax, Yellow #5, Red #40, Sodium Citrate, Blue #1. |
 Haribo Gummi CandyCorn syrup, sugar, gelatin, dextrose, citric acid, starch, artificial and natural flavors, fractionated coconut oil, carnuba wax, beeswax coating,, artificial colors: FD & C yellow no. 5, red no. 40,blue no.1 |
All three contain artificial colors, and all three have corn syrup and sugar in the top three ingredients. If you think by going organic your doing better, think again:
 Annie’s Homegrown Organic Bunny Fruit SnacksOrganic Tapioca Syrup, Organic Cane Sugar, Organic Tapioca Syrup Solids, Organic White Grape Juice Concentrate, Pectin,Citric Acid, Ascorbic Acid, Color (Black Carrot Juice Concentrate), Natural Flavors, Sodium Citrate, Organic Sunflower Oil, Carnauba Wax (From Palm Leaves). |
 YummyEarth Organic Gummy BearsOrganic Rice syrup, organic cane sugar, gelatin, organic carrot juice, organic aronia juice, organic black currant, organic curcuma, natural flavor, citric acid, ascorbic acid, organic sunflower oil. |
Again, the ingredients are very similar. The candy costs quite a bit less, too — about $.40 less an ounce in the in the Annie’s vs. YummyEarth gummy bears case. Wow.
The bottom line:
No matter what the package says, let’s not be fooled. Fruit snacks are a treat food. They aren’t healthy, they aren’t fruit, and they won’t make our kids clever (ahem – Kellogg’s) If you want to give your kids fruit snacks, go for it, but as candy, not as a between meal snack. Or, hey, save yourself some money and just buy some gummy bears.
