Making Kids Sports Snacks Healthy!

It takes strong parents to try and buck the current sports snacks & drinks trend.  Every game and practice, kids are loading up on high-fructose corn syrup snacks and juice boxes.  And if it isn’t the snack, they are hitting the snack bar for donuts, hotdogs and candy.  Parents also report visits to fast-food outlets on days that their kids take part in sports, relying on convenient foods as they juggle busy schedules of games and practice.  “The food environment in youth sports exposes kids and their families to many unhealthy foods and beverages and few healthful options,” said Toben F. Nelson, ScD, of the University of Minnesota.  His team of researchers believes that youth sports programs offer a promising setting for promoting better nutrition.  They recommend collaboration between sports leagues, dietitians, and health professionals to create positive messages about nutrition that can be integrated into youth sports programs.  They also suggest that youth sports programs develop guidelines for which foods and beverages should be offered as snacks or sold at concession stands.

Fruit makes a great snack during breaks from sports, particularly bananas, apples, grapes, pears and oranges.  Skip the sugary drinks and encourage kids to bring their own water bottle!

Articleexcerpted & adapted from TasteforLife

GMO’s = FrankenFood! What you need to know!

It’s a mad scientist and greedy villains wildest dream come true… a crossbreed of a tomato with basically a car tire… a complete food monopoly and trillions of people ignorant to the mass damage done to the earth and themselves.  Are we talking about the latest box office sci-fi thriller?  No.  It’s Genetically Modified Organisms and it’s taken over the US and a home near you!

Does it scare you that over 75% of today’s produce are genetically modified?  What about the fact that GMO foods have been linked to liver, pancreas, kidney and heart damage in animals?¹  Or the fact that GMO foods use herbicides two, three & four times more than a traditional farmer that uses pesticides?  GMO foods cannot thrive without chemicals, herbicides and pesticides.  If that doesn’t frighten you, what about the fact that food companies do not have to label that their product contains GMO?  It should be illegal to NOT tell consumers what they are buying!  Unfortunately everything associated with GMO’s is horrific.

avoiding artificial colors

Neon pink yogurt, blue shark “fruit” snacks & green sport juices!  Food companies know that if you want to attract the kids (and their persuasive ways with purchases), you’ve got to make the product bright & shiny!

Food dyes are synthetic chemicals.  They provide zero nutritional value and have reportedly been linked to allergies, hyperactivity in children and, possibly, cancer.

Sometimes it’s hard for Mother Nature to compete against food coloring, such as Red Dye #3 (especially when it’s paired with Dora the Explorer). 

Here are some steps to eliminate food dyes:

1. Read the labels!  If you see a color next to a number, pass on the product. 
2. Buy organic.  By definition, organic food products can not contain any synthetic dyes in order to be defined as a USDA Organic product (among other criteria that they must follow).
3. Don’t be deceived by healthy sounding names.  “Natural”, “fruit”, “pure”.  Products can be very tricky with their product description.  Be sure to read the labels and know exactly what you are buying.
4. Seek natural food coloring.  Not expecting to see “beet juice” in children’s cereal?  There are lots of natural and unusual ingredients that can safely give a food product color.
5. Eat real food.  Buying and preparing dishes from fresh ingredients and avoiding processed foods allows you to have control over what is going in your families bodies. 

what do you do to avoid artificial coloring in foods?

photo courtesy of slashfood.com