Stocking the Back-to-School Pantry

As summer winds down, it's time to start thinking about what you're going to be packing in those lunch boxes and snack bags and what you'll be feeding the kiddos when they come bounding off the bus. First and foremost is to feed them a nutritious, protein-packed breakfast to start their day. And, no, a Pop-Tart doesn't count. Those tasty pastries are essentially a giant candy bar filled with sugar, HFCS, trans fats, artificial colors and sodium. Don't get me wrong, I loved them growing up, but the over 50 ingredients inside can lead to a myriad of health problems down the road and sugar crashes before they even finish first period.
A great start to the day could include a scrambled egg with whole grain toast, whole grain waffle with peanut butter, oatmeal with berries, or a protein smoothie (blend berries, whey protein powder, nut butter, spinach, yogurt, milk or milk alternative).

There are many prepackaged options out there for lunches, but be careful of dangerous preservatives, trans fats, excessive amounts of sodium and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) that are often laden in those foods. The worst offenders are Lunchables, 100-calorie snacks, packages of chips, cheez-its and juice boxes. The winner for worst offender is the Uncrustable sandwich. It contains 38 ridiculous ingredients (5 of which are sugar and more than a dozen are chemicals) like HFCS, transfats, sorbates, sulfates, and phosphates. A simple PB & jelly takes 1 minute to make - please make them from scratch. I'm disgusted that my children's school offers these as alternatives to a hot lunch.

So, here's my shopping list for the Back-to-School Pantry:

• Lots of whole fruits - bananas, organic apples, organic peaches, pears, watermelon slices, organic grapes, organic berries or melon balls/cubes, orange slices, small boxes of organic raisins.  Make a fun fruit kebab! Whole fruits provide fiber, potassium, antioxidants and tons of vitamins that they need for fuel during the day. (I suggest the organic option of those fruits listed on the Dirty Dozen.) Remember to shop/eat seasonally - some of these fruits won't be available this fall and winter.
• Trail mix - make your own with raw, unsalted nuts, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, raisins, dried cranberries, chopped pitted dates, small amount of chocolate chips & dried apricots. (NO M&M's!!)
• Wraps - I like whole grain options to wrap up turkey slices, PB& jelly, cream cheese and veggies, chicken salad, tuna salad
• Whole grain english muffins (make mini-pizzas or slather w/ PB & jelly)
• Organic string cheese
• Newman's Own High Protein Pretzels
• Gluten-free? Buy large lettuce leafs and wrap over creamy chicken salad, tuna salad with lots of crunchy pickles, turkey slices (not deli meat)
• Make extra for dinner. Leftovers make for a great school lunch. Pack hot items in stainless steel or a thermos to retain their heat. My kids' faves are homemade chicken strips, leftover quinoa spaghetti and ravioli.
• Unsweetened organic apple sauce
• Plain organic yogurt - place in a blender with berries, kale, nut or sunflower butter, process and freeze in a flexible popsicle mold
• Organic ham and cheese roll ups
• Veggies - sliced cucumbers with hummus, organic celery with nut butter and raisins, carrots with hummus or ranch dip, red & yellow pepper slices with hummus or dip, kale chips
• Whole grain crackers, like Triscuits or Multi-Seed (Goldfish don't make the cut)
• Brown rice cakes, real popcorn (not microwaved in a chemical-filled bag)
• Hard-boiled eggs
• Roasted chickpeas with honey & cinnamon
• Whole grain waffles (great for after school snacks topped with PB
• Reusable bottle of ice cold water - no sugary juice needed

It's important that lunch contain a lean protein item, a whole grain carb option, fruit and lots of water. Kids don't need a sugary treat or cookie for lunch. Between all the treats and birthday parties at school, they get enough sugar! They need a highly nutritious meal that can carry them through the rest of the day for optimal learning.

Some of my favorite containers for lunch

Easy Summer Berry Popsicles

The one thing that annoys me about summer is the peculiar ice cream truck, driven by an old man wearing a white tank top, playing Christmas music in July. Paints a pretty picture doesn’t it? Gone are the innocent days of the 25 cent push-up and sharing a drumstick with your sister. Plus, those icy treats are laden with chemicals, artificial colors, dyes, high fructose corn syrup and who knows what else! Enter the homemade popsicle. I just received my new Tovolo Popsicle Molds and can’t wait to get started! http://astore.amazon.com/processedlivi-20/detail/B00395HIOO

I figured if my girls like the smoothies I make them, they will love these popsicles. Today I used organic strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries from the farmer’s market. But you can use any fresh or frozen fruit you have on hand. Then, I topped it off with a handful of organic baby spinach, about ¾ cup unsweetened coconut milk and 1 tbsp. raw honey. Yes, you read that right – SPINACH – in our popsicles! The tiny leaves get blasted in the blender and they never know it’s there! Talk about one super-powered popsicle! Take that plain ole pushup!

Just blend and pour into the molds. It takes about 1-2 hours for them to freeze.

                                                                

Celebrity Sighting!!

I met a real live superstar this weekend! Ok, it wasn't Brad Pitt or Beyonce, but to me, he is just as big as any Hollywood star. I traveled to Baltimore to hear David Wolfe speak. Who, you ask? David is the rock star of the raw food, superfoods, health and nutrition world. He has written many books on the subject and has almost 20 years experience in the fields of nutrition, superherbs - bizarre ones that you'll never hear of unless you meet him - and chocolate! To hear him speak is sort of an evangelical experience. You got "hopped up" on his vibe and don't come down for hours. When I got home, I shared with my husband all of the info I learned and I think I rambled on for two hours. He was ready to get on the superfood bus with me by the time I was done.

I learned some amazing things yesterday. I learned that eating raw chocolate can cut your heart disease risk in half and that it breaks down calcification in arteries and prevents plaque formation. It's the #1 longevity food. Who doesn't love chocolate??!! Of course, he's not talking about the Hershey bar in your kitchen. We're talking real, 69% or more dark organic chocolate. I sampled some and it was the smoothest, yummiest stuff I've ever eaten. He has his own brand called Sacred Chocolate and grows his own cacao trees.
I also learned about seaweeds, durian, mangosteen, medicinal mushrooms, protocols that can help women get pregnant, protocols to help children with autism or ADHD, how to get things "going" in the bedroom, how to reduce EMF's around you and basically just about how to cure anything that ails you with proper, enhanced nutrition.

And do I believe everything I heard? Abso-freaking-lutely! Why? Because I just went through this transformation myself. Since I have been eating clean, whole foods (which began in September 2010), I have lost 45 pounds, don't suffer from headaches, migraines, allergies, hip pain, high cholesterol, or any of the other crap that used to bog me down. I was a whopping size 16 and now my new size 8 clothes are falling off my hips! I used to take 4 prescriptions and now I take NONE! I had hypothyroidism and now I barely need to take any medicine. I feel AMAZING and have abundant energy. I wake up every day looking forward to my morning workout and can't wait to attack the weights and dance away my troubles. I look forward to this September when I can start working with clients and help them achieve the same success. I am enrolled at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition - the world's largest nutrition school - and it's really an amazing experience to learn the things that are being presented to me. I can't wait to be a Health Coach!

If you ever get the opportunity to hear David Wolfe speak, I would definitely go with an open mind and a notebook - because you will want to write down what he says!

Losing the Holiday Weekend Weight

If you're like the millions of Americans who gathered together with family and friends this weekend to celebrate Memorial Day, you most likely overate, indulged in high-calorie foods and fell out of your healthy eating routine. I know I did! It's not hard to get back into your routine and shake off the extra 2-3 pounds most people gain over a long weekend of indulgence.
The key is to act quickly before those extra pounds become permanent and you add to them when the next holiday rolls around. Here's some simple tips to shed the extra weight:
1. Start off your morning with a tall glass of water with the juice of 1/2 lemon. The lemon cleanses and detoxes, balances your Ph and helps move fructose out of your liver.
2. Make exercise a priority in the morning. Just 30 min a day is all you need. Exercising in the morning gives you a metabolic boost for the entire day. Take a walk outside, head to the gym, pop in a video, dust off the Wii - anything to get you moving for 30 minutes. It doesn't have to be all-out sweatfest - just get moving!
3. Up the water intake! Get most of your water intake in the morning and through lunchtime, then, taper off towards the end of the day. But always drink if you're thirsty. Listen to your body and monitor how you feel.
4. Fill up on fiber-rich and protein-filled foods such as:
              oatmeal with berries and nuts, small drizzle of honey
              spinach salad with grilled chicken, sunflower seeds
              apple slices with almond or peanut butter for snack
              Omelette with spinach, zucchini, or peppers, topped with avocado
              Hummus with veggies
              Fish or chicken for dinner, with 2 veggies, and quinoa
5. Sleep! Usually we either stay up late or sleep in over a long weekend. Try to get back into your regular sleep schedule as soon as possible. Getting 8-9 hours a night can actually help you lose weight! Try to go to bed and rise at the same time every day.
6. Two habits that help to cleanse and detox: rebounding and dry skin brushing. I know it sounds strange, but these are my two new favorite habits. After my morning workout, I hop on my mini-trampoline or rebounder and bounce away for 5-10 minutes. Research has proven that doing so can detox the lymph glands, enhance digestion and the elimination process, and many more wonderful benefits. After my workouts, I do a quick dry skin body brushing with a natural bristle brush. Dry skin brushing increases circulation to skin, encouraging your body’s discharge of metabolic wastes, which greatly aids the lymphatic drainage of the entire body. When the body rids itself of toxins, it is able to run more efficiently in all areas. It also tightens the skin and helps to evenly distribute fat deposits.

So try some or all of these methods and let me know how the post-holiday weight loss is going. Keep in mind it takes a couple of days for your stomach to shrink back to a normal size after over-eating. A small amount of food isn't going to fill you up today. Try eating 4-5 smaller meals throughout the day and ease back into your normal pattern of eating.

Everything in Moderation?

Recently a friend of mine posted a question to our Meetup message board. She wondered what natural products other moms used for their baby's hair. She only uses chemical-free products and needed something for detangling messy curls. The responses she received provoked me to do some digging around. A lot of moms recommended Johnson & Johnson products. One mom even suggested that even if the products contained chemicals, it was OK because it was occasional and only used in moderation. But what is moderation? We are bombarded by chemicals in our food, our water, our soil, our personal care products, and the air we breathe. Nothing is moderate.

Today I decided to investigate personal care products. Johnson & Johnson products may be nostalgic , but they are also laden with chemicals.
In the regular formula of Johnson's Baby Shampoo it lists water, cocamidopropyl betaine, PEG-80 sorbitan laurate and sodium trideceth sulfate. Citric acid, PEG-150 distearate, polyquaternium-10, fragrance and tetrasodium EDTA are also ingredients. The last three ingredients are quaternium-15, yellow 10 and orange 4.

Johnson's Baby Shampoo with Lavender
The newer formula of Johnson's Baby Shampoo adds chamomile and lavender to the mix for a soothing aromatic fragrance to lull a baby to sleep. It lists as its ingredients water, cocamidopropyl betaine and PEG-80 sorbitan laurate. Sodium trideceth sulfate, fragrance, PEG-150 distearate and polyquaternium-10 are also ingredients. The last four ingredients are tetrasodium EDTA, citric acid, violet 2 and quarternium-15.
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics came out with the news two years ago that Johnson & Johnson’s iconic baby shampoo contained the formaldehyde-releasing preservative quaternium-15, as well as the chemical byproduct 1,4-dioxane. Formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane are known carcinogens. The federal Consumer Product Safety Commission has reported that “the presence of 1,4-dioxane, even as a trace contaminant, is cause for concern,” and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services added formaldehyde to its list of known human carcinogens in June 2011.

This is just one product that we slather on our newborns. Think of the myriad products we use on a daily basis and the compounding chemical onslaught our skin receives. We brush our teeth with sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) and flouride (which is a heavy metal); we shampoo with SLS, rub lotions on our skin that contain parabens (which may increase the risk of breast cancer and cause endocrine disruption); we use makeup that contains various chemicals that cause cardiovascular, respiratory, kidney, liver and neurotoxicity; hairspray and nail polish that contain toulene, sunscreens with PABA, Padimate A & O which are suspected carcinogens and may increase breast cancer cell division and disrupt endocrine function. Then there's perfume, lipstick, hair dyes, bath wash, soaps, deodorant, shaving creams, insect repellent, self-tanners, and more all containing chemicals that are known to cause some sort of toxicity, skin irritations, allergic reactions, hormone disruption, and cancer.

Some of these chemicals are even banned in other countries, but not in the U.S. Daily use of these products results in a progressive build up of chemicals in our system that results in a cumulative poisoning.

So if you have begun your journey into clean eating and have removed processed food from your life, it's now time to remove the chemicals your skin ingests. Read the labels on your personal care and beauty products. The next time you go shopping, compare the labels and look for "natural" ingredients. Go to your favorite products' website and read the ingredients.  There are so many new options out there and more and more companies are producing products without harmful chemicals. It's up to us to make a conscious effort to purchase wisely.

12 Ways to Get More Veggies into Your Diet!

We've all been told to "eat more veggies," but it can be a daunting task, especially for families with young children or picky eaters. Vegetables give us fiber, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, they're low in fat and calories and some even protect us from certain cancers. So, here's twelve ways to increase your veggie count each and every day!
1. Add some baby spinach, bell peppers, mushrooms and/or onions to your morning omelette. Top with fresh salsa and diced avocado.

2. Tear some Romaine lettuce leaves into a large bowl, fill with sliced carrots, diced bell peppers, avocado, add a lean protein like tuna, grilled chicken breast, hard-boiled egg, or Organic turkey slices.

3. Try one new veggie for dinner every week. Don't know how to cook a beet, or are you perplexed by artichokes? Ask your farmer at the market or ask your grocer how to prepare a particular vegetable. You could "Google" Brussel Sprouts and get 3 million results (my fave way to eat those is roasted!). Check out You Tube for videos on how to cut and prepare almost anything!

4.  Shred them! Kids especially won't turn their nose up to Zucchini bread and fun veggie fritters. Play around with different veggies like shredded zucchini, squash, or potatoes and make little fritters.

5.  Don't forget snacking! Veggies make great snacks too. Set out a variety of carrots, cucumbers, snap peas, sweet bell pepper strips, broccoli, and celery and let your kids try them all. Serve with hummus or ranch dip.

6. Make a fun new chip - Kale Chips! Just tear the leaves onto a baking sheet, sprinkle with some EVOO, sea salt and pepper (or red pepper flakes for a kick) and bake on 350 degrees for 10-15 min.

7. Try juicing! Play around with different veggies to juice like, cucumber, spinach, kale, beet greens, apple, and carrots. Create new combos every day and have some juice for a great afternoon pick-me-up.

8.  Skip the fries at a restaurant and order an extra serving of veggies.

9.  When planning your dinner, skip the rice or potatoes and add an extra veggie. A nice filet of fish or chicken is great with a serving of broccoli and a kale salad.

10.  When making a sandwich, pile it high with lettuce, sliced cucumber, tomato, avocado, sprouts, and smaller portions of protein. The "crunch" is so satisfying!

11.  Make it easy for you to access your veggies. When you get home from your weekly shopping trip, wash and cut your veggies for your meals that week. That way they are ready for nights when you are rushed and don't have a lot of time to prep.

12.  Add them to soups, casseroles, lasagna, enchiladas, burritos and tacos.

Our Voices Are Being Heard!!

Last month, several grocery store chains agreed to pull the now infamous "pink slime" from their shelves. McDonald's also agreed to stop making their "burgers" with the ammonia-laden product as well as other fast food chains. For those who don't know, Pink Slime is ground beef containing what the meat industry calls "lean, finely textured beef." The low-cost filler is made from fatty meat scraps that are heated to remove most of the fat, then treated with ammonium hydroxide gas to kill bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella. Yum! And hopefully they will never be able to add it back in considering the company manufacturing the stuff, Beef Products Inc., is closing three of its four factories.
Campbell's Food also agreed to remove BPA (a hormone-disruptor) from the lining of their cans. I'm not sure what they are replacing it with, but it doesn't matter to me, I still won't buy their sodium-laden soups. I prefer the real thing!
Now General Mills has reformulated its Yoplait Trix yogurt to remove artificial colors, artificial flavors and high fructose corn syrup. It's a step in the right direction, but the product is still loaded with sugar, which is the contributing factor to 1/3 of children in the US being overweight. I just saw an ad in a magazine for All-Natural CoffeeMate Creamer. I don't know what's in this newer version, but the regular stuff is basically poison in a bottle. More and more companies are hearing our voices and seeing our choices in the form of reduced sales!! We are hitting them where it hurts and this makes me very happy. It's something I have been fighting for the past two years, since beginning this food journey. If our food is healthier, then we don't have to become expert label readers and scientists just to understand what's in our food.
Now, don't get me wrong, there's still a lot of work to be done. We still need to remove genetically-modified organisms, artificial colors and dyes (like the rest of Europe), MSG and chemical preservatives. We are working on removing trans-fats, but they still linger in the form of partially-hydrogenated oils.

We need to remove pthalates' and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals’ ubiquity in kids’ products like plastic toys and snack food packaging. If pink slime teaches us anything, it’s that Big Ag and its industrial food cronies don’t stand a chance against consumers wielding their forks—and their wallets—for good. Vote with your wallet!