Thursday, August 27, 2009 at 08:31 AM
First of all, I must say that I am boycotting Back-To-School this year. With all the rain and cold weather we had in June, this summer seems shorter than ever. I’ve enjoyed some time with a little less structure, a few less weekly activities, and sleeping in on Sundays. Since the kids will wear summer clothes until the weather turns cooler, I don’t see the need to go out and buy a boatload of fall clothes until later in September. I’ll hit the sale racks then. And as the mother of a preschooler and a child entering first grade, I really don’t need to go out and buy much in the way of school supplies. I think that this country’s Back to School season is now longer than our Christmas season, with the first Back-to-School flyers arriving before the 4th of July. Can we please have a little summer?
While some parents can’t wait for school to begin again (I think of that office supply store commercial from a few years back that used The Most Wonderful Time of the Year for background music), I am dreading the return of bus schedules, gymnastics, swim lessons, ballet, and sport-du-jour for my son. Probably the thing I dread the most is Lunch Box and Snack Preparation. Because you see, in our house, we need an excel spreadsheet to keep this task organized.
My two children attend a total of 3 schools all with different rules around heat-ups, cold packs and peanuts (or any nuts, really). My son needs 1 lunch (peanuts OK), a morning snack (no cold pack because there is no room in the back pack), and an afternoon snack (no cold pack, must be something that won’t be all wilted by 2 pm). My daughter attends a Nut-Free pre-school 3 days a week, for which she needs a snack with no allergens, and daycare 2 days a week, for which she needs a lunch that can be reheated. Now you see why we need the spreadsheet – and containers that we mark with the child’s name and whether it is lunch or snack. Good thing I don’t have 8 kids. I can barely handle 2. And my heart goes out to children with food allergies and their parents. We have friends and relatives who deal with food allergies, and it is very difficult for them.
When my son attended aforementioned Nut-Free Preschool (that would be a funny name for a school actually), he was there all day, so lunch had to be nut-free and the teachers do not have time to heat up your kids’ food in the microwave. And that is why my kids eat hummus and cheese sandwiches. You see, my son was not a big fan of ham-and-cheese or turkey-and-cheese. And peanut-butter-and-jelly (his favorite) was not an option. So, I started making hummus and cheese. It was a great way to give him some protein in the middle of the day. Hummus scores in the 40s and there are some great whole grain breads that score very well:
Nature’s Own 100% Whole Wheat Bread – 81
Arnold Natural Flax and Fiber Bread – 48
Pepperidge Farm Natural Whole Grain 9 Grain Bread – 40
And that is about all I’d like to say about Back to School, because I am going to enjoy these last days of summer, this luxuriously late Labor Day this year, and just a couple more Sundays to sleep in. Oh, and I’ll get right on making this year’s lunch/snack spreadsheet.
For more tips from people who want to talk about Back-To-School, like NuVal’s Communications Director, please check out our Back-To-School Press Release. It really does have some great ideas – and cool scores. I’m just not ready to think about them.
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: back-to-school
Tags: back-to-school
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 07:33 AM
Today, I’m guest-posting over on www.yumyucky.com, a site devoted to trying to find balance between fitness and your greedy side. Josie, is a mom of 4 (gasp!) and she is fuh-ney! She eats food and then she talks about it – and she doesn’t hold back. Check it out!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: peanut butter
Tags: peanut butter, yumyucky
Tuesday, August 25, 2009 at 09:09 AM
As I’ve mentioned in the past, I work for this amazing company called NuVal. We are analyzing thousands of foods and scoring them on a scale of 1-100, with 100 being highest. This process is eye-opening, to say the least, and there have been many “Ah-ha!” moments along the way. One of the most interesting categories so far has been yogurt. Considered by many to be one of those universally healthy foods (It’s yogurt, it must be good for you!), yogurt actually has a huge range of scores, from 14 – 99.
We used to be all into Activia in our household. I guess we thought we’d try the whole digestive health thing to see if it made our tummies happier. The Activia scores are all over the board, with Dannon Activia Light Fat Free Blueberry scoring an 89 and Dannon Activia Low Fat Mixed Berry scoring a 23. So, my DH and I ate our yogurts, but not with gusto. We just ate them because, you know, it’s yogurt and it’s good for you.
And then, on the advice of my super-healthy, Pilates-studio-owning sister, I tried Greek yogurt. Well, I just thought I had died and gone to heaven. Yum, yum, yum. I love it. It is smooth and creamy and filling. When I was growing up, we actually made our own yogurt. We bought a yogurt-maker with S&H Green Stamps (I am so dating myself here) and made delicious plain yogurt that we ate with strawberries. I think that experience gave me my taste for plain, thick yogurt, which I much prefer to thinner, fruity varieties. I love that Chobani Non-Fat Plain Greek yogurt scores a 94.
Here are some things I’m doing with my Chobani plain these days.
1. Mixing it with blueberries, strawberries and/or bits of nectarine
2. Serving it on baked potatoes in place of sour cream
3. Layering it in our Healthy Fajitas (we use a whole-grain tortilla, slices of lime grilled chicken, my famous Avocado salsa, and of course some Chobani plain)
A well-mannered foodie friend of mine mixes her plain Greek yogurt with cold boiled new potatoes and fresh dill for a delicious potato salad.
Another structured foodie friend makes a great salad dressing with plain (not Greek) yogurt, a little feta cheese and fresh or dried dill. It is my new favorite dip. I even had the kids fooled for a while until they demanded they get their Ranch back.
What fun things are you doing with yogurt these days? I’d love to hear your comments.
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Chobani, yogurt
Tags: Activia, Chobani, yogurt
Friday, August 21, 2009 at 06:54 AM
Check out Dina Rose, Ph. D. She is a sociologist (and a Mom!) who blogs about food, nutrition and kids. Today she takes on apples vs. apple sauce vs. apple juice with NuVal scores for each. Before you go out and stock up on apple juice boxes and individual cups of apple sauce for Back To School, read what she has to say in An Apple A Day.
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Apples
Tags: Apple Juice, Apple Sauce, Apples
Thursday, August 20, 2009 at 10:38 AM
After my blogpost about My Top Ten Favorite Foods, I thought it would be fun to blog about my kids’ Top Ten Foods. I wanted their list to really come from them, so I pulled out my flipchart from Staples that we sometimes use to draw big pictures, put it in the living room, and had a brainstorming session with my 6-year-old and 4-year-old. They thought that this was pretty cool. I took a picture to prove to my readers that this really is THEIR list. Notice the wrinkled paper and the kindergarten and pre-school penmanship. We were too tired to bring the easel up from the basement and we propped the flipchart up on the couch, so you can see that the the handwriting is quite slanted.
So, I asked my kids questions like, “If you could eat a food every day, what would it be?” I was surprised to see that their list was so healthy! I truly expected Cheetos, Kit Kats and cotton candy ice cream to make the list since they beg for these items at our Pool Club’s snack bar. Maybe they chose real foods because we were in our own house? Like most grown-ups, they tend to eat well at home and not so well when we are at a restaurant, vending machine, convenience store, etc. We took turns (of course!) with this list, so my six-year-old son chose the odd numbered items and my four-year-old daughter, the even.
1. Carrots
How excited was I that this healthy veggie which scores a 99 on the NuVal scale was the first thing out of my son’s mouth! I buy the smallest baby carrots I can find for the kids because they are not choking hazards. Sometimes, during the school year, I splurge on the small baby carrots that are pre-packaged.
2. Spaghetti
This was when I knew that my daughter was taking this exercise very seriously. Spaghetti is definitely her favorite food and she loves to eat it just like the dogs do in Lady and the Tramp. Now that I know the NuVal scores, we eat Barilla Plus Pasta Spaghetti Multi-Grain at home because it scores a 91. I had tried whole grain pastas years ago and did not like them, but this one tastes just like regular spaghetti. It’s a great alternative when you realize that Prince Spaghetti gets a 49.
3. Apple Slices
These get a 96 and they make a great accompaniment to a sandwich. When you can get your kids to eat something that gets a 96, why would you ever give them chips?
4. Pancakes
Now my daughter must have been thinking that by putting something on this list, we could get is back in our household because we stopped buying Aunt Jemima Frozen Mini Pancakes when I found out that they score a 6! This same child loves Quaker Old Fashioned Oatmeal which scores a 57, so I make it in large quantities and reheat leftovers for a quick hot breakfast.
5. Cinnamon Toast Crunch
My son begged for this cereal last week because Ice Age 3 Return of the Dinosaurs was on the box. We were shopping in Roche Brothers at the time and they do not have NuVal yet (although I wish they would get it), so I wasn’t exactly sure of the score, but I was in no mood for a melt-down in the cereal aisle, so I relented. I got home and looked it up and found out that it gets a 27, which is not bad when you consider that the median score for cereal is a 25. The key would be to get my son to switch to Cinnamon Toast Crunch with 75% reduced sugar because it scores a 40. That is even better than Cheerios (one of the best scoring Children’s cereals at a 34). The question is: Does the 75% reduced sugar have Ice Age 3 on the box? I hope so.
6. Ice Cream Sandwiches
My daughter, who does not like chocolate (crazy!), loves Hood Ice Cream Sandwiches. They score a 2. She also loves plain vanilla ice cream. As I discussed in my I Scream post, Breyer’s Extra Creamy Vanilla ice cream scores a 45. I will work on migrating her over to that choice. “Sorry, honey. The store was all sold out of ice cream sandwiches.” That will only work when I get to go grocery shopping alone – which is like a vacation!
7. Pineapple
Another award-winning pick from my son. Fresh pineapple gets a 99. The canned versions only score a 25. So, while it is more expensive and a huge pain to cut up, I buy the fresh. I admit there are weeks that it sits on the counter and the leaves get all dried out and it starts to grow a little mold on the bottom and then I feel guilty that I blew $4 on a fresh pineapple. But actually that is usually when it tastes the best, so it works in our busy house.
8. Orange Juice
This surprisingly healthy shout-out came from my daughter, Miss Spaghetti-Pancakes-and-Ice Cream. As I mentioned in Keeping Kids Hydrated – Guiltfree, Tropicana 50 Pulp-Free with Calcium scores a fabulous 81. That is amazing when you compare it to Minute Maid Orange Juice Pulp-Free which scores a 30. Before I knew about Trop 50, we were buying our juice from our milk man because I’m on this glass bottle kick right now. Sorry Milk Man! As I mentioned in My Top Ten Favorite Foods, be sure to buy the one with added calcium and Vitamin D, because the other one scores much lower.
9. Plums
My son must have thought there was a prize at the end of this because his last choice scored a 99 also. My colleague and friend is a dad of 2 and he has a “fruit before anything else at breakfast” rule in his house. I liked that, so I started giving the kids cut up plums or peaches with little tiny seafood forks that came with my everyday flatware (what else are you going to do with those?) at breakfast time. It’s a great way to squeeze in another fruit. I put the plums in paper bags until they get nice and ripe.
10. Soup
And on the hottest day of the year, my daughter chooses soup! She has always been a big fan of this hot and salty favorite. We love to sing the old Tom Jones favorite, “She’s a Lady” when she drinks the remaining broth right out of the bowl. She’s such a class act, my four-year-old. Unfortunately, I don’t have any scores on soup as of yet because NuVal is scoring that this fall. It will be interesting to see how they do. It was also interesting to read this morning that Campbell’s will be removing 25% of sodium from soups. Maybe they heard about NuVal?
Try this with your kids and see what they choose. I’d love to see your lists in the comments!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Apples, Barilla Plus, Carrots, Ice Cream Sandwiches, Orange Juice, Pancakes, Soup
Tags: Apples, Barilla Plus, Breyer's Ice Cream, Carrots, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Ice Cream Sandwiches, Orange Juice, Pancakes, Pineapple, Plums, Quaker Oats, Spaghetti, Top Ten (Kids), Trop 50
