Miscellany Monday...

Who are we kidding, many of my posts have a "Miscellany Monday" vibe to them. At least now I have an excuse! 

1. We have traded the Naked drinks for real vegetable/fruit smoothies. We realized once we bought the Naked drinks, they were heavy on the fruit and not so much with the vegetables. K is trying to talk me into getting a Blendtec. He went so far as to show me several YouTube videos demonstrating the greatness that is the Blendtec. Men have a way of taking the simplest kitchen appliance and turning it into a 3 million horse power machine...it's actually pretty impressive.

Bonus: J LOVES the smoothies. Where did this child come from? I'm not sure, but I like her.

2a. J's toddler-isms are increasing in number at a remarkable rate. She's a pretty funny and quirky kid...I like it! Sometimes when we say it's time for bed, she starts grabbing random objects and running for her bed. This particular night, the objects of choice were every. single. couch pillow. She throws them in there and asks to be put into bed.

2b. Sometimes I go to put on my shoes and find little surprises.

Anyone know a good remedy for cleaning those suede-like shoes? I tried the Nuskin shoe cleaner on a different pair and it made it look bad. These are my favorite shoes ever, so I'm afraid to ruin them.

2c. Even little lambs need to be buckled in when they eat. Side note: My late Grandma Cora collected stuffed animal lambs because she grew up on a sheep ranch. When she died, each grandchild received one of her lambs. She died when I was pregnant with J and I've always felt they had some sort of connection with each other, like they met before J came to earth...or J sort of took her place? That sounds a bit hippie-ish, but I think you catch my drift. J has always taken a special interest in her lamb "Lola" and it has slept in her crib every nights since we brought her home from the hospital.

2d. This kid can get down like no one else I've ever known. Sorry for my mom-singing-voice. She likes to combine these two songs--a little remix, if you will. Also, at the end she comes to blow raspberries (they're called Philburts (Filburts?) in our house. Just realizing I've never actually typed that word out!) on my face--as is custom at the end of any song..?

3. I can usually stay pretty strong at Costco. I eat the samples and move along. Today, they got me! Not only did they get me, they got J too. We were loving these things. Not healthy in anyway, but a wonderful blend of sweet and spicy.

 Of course, if you're anything like me, you'll eat them like this. 

I'm such a wimp with spicy food. These were too spicy for me!

Pretty much all my link-ups I find from my friend, Whitney's blog. Go check her out, she's the bomb dot com. <---I felt a need to use this saying since we've been friends since high school...throwing it way back!

Since yesterday, simple changes

My friend, Megan, told me about this awesome website called 100 Days of Real Food. It goes right along with what I'm trying to do, so I thought I'd share for anyone else that might be interested. What I particularly loved were her rules. Like I said yesterday, this can be so overwhelming! But her rules really help break down the process and make it seem less scary. I wish we lived in a warmer place where we had Farmer's Markets year round. I did have a friend tell me that between our town and the surrounding towns, there is a different Farmer's Market just about everyday in the summer! Just one more reason for me to look forward to the summer time!!

This is all a process for me, trying to decide what changes will work for our family and what changes won't. I liked the way 100 Days talks about eating locally. As I've been researching more and more about what exactly are 'organic' foods, I've found some interesting information. This first one is from the FDA's website.

Confusing Claims

The terms "natural," "healthy," and "organic" often cause confusion. "Consumers seem to think that 'natural' and 'organic' imply 'healthy,'" says Schneeman. "But these terms have different meanings from a regulatory point of view."

According to FDA policy, "natural" means the product does not contain synthetic or artificial ingredients. "Healthy," which is defined by regulation, means the product must meet certain criteria that limit the amounts of fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium, and require specific minimum amounts of vitamins, minerals, or other beneficial nutrients.

Food labeled "organic" must meet the standards set by the Department of Agriculture (USDA). Organic food differs from conventionally produced food in the way it is grown or produced. But USDA makes no claims that organically produced food is safer or more nutritious than conventionally produced food.

For example, says Schneeman, "A premium ice cream could be 'natural' or 'organic' and still be high in fat or saturated fat, so would not meet the criteria for 'healthy.'"

I followed up to find this from the USDA's website because a friend had told me that not all foods that are labeled 'organic' are actually organic. To me it seems like they need to be unless the farmer sells less than $5,000 worth of product. Anyone else ever heard of this claim?

Anyways, once the Farmer's Markets start, I'm hoping to buy my produce there because the fresher the food the more nutrient dense the product is. Until then, I'll have to just trust the labels at the store!

Fun fact: a fact that always stuck with me from my Nutrition 100 class in college was how frozen fruit and vegetables are often more nutrient dense than fresh fruits and vegetables. This is because a lot of fresh produce must be picked before it is completely ripe in order to avoid spoiling before it gets to the store. Frozen produce has the opportunity to develop all the way without having to worry about spoiling since it will be frozen. So don't forget about your friends in the frozen section!

Another interesting tid bit from the 100 Days website. She talks about looking at the food ingredients a lot, not to be confused with the food's nutrition label. One thing that really stood out to me was when she talked about bread.

"...what I bought for my husband from the grocery store was what I thought was whole-wheat bread. When we finally checked the ingredients and found 40 different items on the list, including white flour and sugar, we decided it was time for a change. Why would there be so many on the list if it only takes a handful of ingredients to make bread? ... honey whole-wheat loaf only has five ingredients – whole-wheat flour, water, yeast, salt and honey."

Now I've never been a real "ace" in the kitchen (just ask my mom) so I've truthfully never made real bread before. For some reason, anything involving 'yeast' is just scary to me. But when she states the small amount of ingredients that you need to make bread, and what all actually comes in bread, I was floored! I had never even thought about it. So of course I went straight to our pantry to look at our bread.

I just so happened to have bought Costco's Organic bread this week! I had never even noticed the Organic Symbol until I read about it on the USDA's website, but there she blows in all her green and white organic glory. While everything seems pretty normal in the ingredients, I think I might try to make our own bread. K just about died when I told him that :). Anybody have any good tips for a first time bread maker?

So that's where we are today. I'm going to shoot for organic/natural/locally grown produce in the coming weeks and attempt to make bread at some point. It's hard because our pantry is stocked FULL of all the foods I'm trying to get away from. Being the cheap frugal people that we are, I'm going to have to just transition as I go.

I do want to throw this out there: if I was working, there is no way in heck I'd consider doing a lot of this. It's so important to remember to just do the best you can. When I worked, I never would have had enough time to read ingredients, let alone, to try and make bread. (Note: I will probably fail big time at this...the key word is TRY and make bread!) This blog is all about the process of having a more balanced and healthy life.

A lifestyle change

If you are friends with me on Facebook, than you might have seen that K and I are trying to make some pretty significant lifestyle changes. I want to start altering the types of foods we buy. I'm still trying to sift through how far I want to take this and my own personal feelings on the matter. Lucky for you, you get to read my thought process!

I've always thought eating organically was for the hippies (haha). I know, I'm an anomaly in the blogging world. (Don't even get me started on all the oils and stuff that people are putting on their new born babies.) My SIL asked the other day what got me started thinking about making the change and I couldn't put my finger on one specific incident. As I was reflecting on it more today I started to realize that this had been a long time coming, little tid bits I'd hear from different places all began to build up in my psyche. Then, a few days ago, I was watching one of my guilty pleasure reality TV shows. This girl was talking about infertility and how it seems like so many more women are dealing with infertility now days than ever before. She mentioned how she wondered if it had something to do with the food we eat and all of the chemicals and hormones that are injected into them. That really stuck with me. I've never had to deal with infertility, but from what I know about it...it just sucks! There's no other way to put it.  Who knows, maybe we hear more about infertility issues now because most people are starting to have children later on in life or because we are just a lot more open in our society to talk about feelings and deeper subjects now. Either way, you can't help but wonder if it does play some minor role in these types of cases.

As a Health teacher, I know what I should be eating. I would say, compared to the average American, we do a fine job. We eat red meat sparingly, we have a vegetable or fruit with every meal, we don't drink a ton of soda, when we have beef or bacon it is always turkey alternatives, we try to drink a lot of water each day, we eat low fat dairy products (except J who still drinks whole milk) and I don't buy a ton of candy or anything like that (sometimes your health benefits from being cheap). I even stopped buying chicken breasts awhile ago when I took a look at the chicken breasts we bought and realized I'd never seen a chicken that big in my life! We still eat a lot of chicken, but I like to stick to the tenderloins because it just seems more natural? That isn't scientific based in any way, but I felt better about it. It's certainly a lot less fatty than the breast we had been buying before.

As a Health teacher, I know the importance of quality selections from each food group. I'm not interested in any fad diets or trends. We aren't trying to lose weight, we are trying to make healthy, long-lasting, lifestyle changes. Several of my friends recommended the Paleo diet. I've only researched it a little bit because, from what I've seen, it just isn't practical for our family. There's no way I could cut out all dairy or wheat or beans. I could if we needed to, but I don't want to. There are many health benefits from dairy, wheat, and beans--as long as you're eating the right kinds. It's a great option for many people, but just doesn't meet all of our needs.

My SIL gave me some great advice about not trying to change everything right at once. It really is just so overwhelming! So we are going to start this week by buying organic fruits and vegetables. We've talked about getting a juicer, but I read they can be a pain to clean. Also, we still live in an apartment, I'm not sure we could fit another appliance in this joint! Right now we've just been buying the Naked smoothies and I really like them so far! I think our next step will be to find farm fed meat. I have no idea how expensive that is (Does anyone know?) or if you can even buy that in a local grocery store (Anyone? Anyone?), but I'll find out next week! I also want to start collecting healthier recipeces. I was noticing at the store this week that many of our recipes call for cheese---like, we eat a ton of cheese! I think there is a place for cheese, but not in almost every dinner--that seems a bit much!

Does anyone have any great sites, blogs, books, thoughts, or opinions on any of this? I really would like to stick to research based information because there is just too much propaganda and hoopla mixed in with this subject. Bahaha, hoopla, never thought I'd type that word out.

Serving Size

Today as my sister and I were on the treadmill, we started discussing some of our different teaching experiences (she taught Social Sciences for several years). I was reminded of a time when one of my students had an "Ah-ha" moment.

She was the Student Body President, a senior, AP Student, and was for some reason in my sophomore class. Usually, seniors were only in my sophomore class because they had failed health as a sophomore. Although I didn't know her, most people can pretty much figure out from Day 1 that the Student Body President probably didn't fail health. I asked her on the first day of school,
Me: Why are you taking this class?
Student: I don't know...it just kind of looked interesting
Me: Alright, but most of the health stuff will be a review for you
Student: Oh, it's okay!
This class was not just a regular health class, it also explored a variety of health careers...plus it was easy. I totally loaded my schedule senior year with easy classes, so while I liked to hope that she really did want to learn about health careers, I could read between the lines on that one.

Later on in the year we began our Nutrition Unit. One activity I would do with the kids was to (1) learn how to use the food labels on the back of food products (2) look at the food labels on foods that they actually eat to see how they were doing nutrition wise. One of the biggest mistakes people (not just teenagers, people of all ages) make is that they do not understand serving sizes. For example, most ice cream has a serving size of 1/2 cup...when was the last time you had only a 1/2 cup of ice cream? I can't help but throw this in...

So this was always a very eye-opening experience for the kids. (Side note: if you keep track of the sodium you intake, your mind = blown!). This same student came up to me a few weeks after we had this lesson,

Student: Nelson, I need to tell you something.

Not usually how teachers like to start conversations...I've had that turn into "I'm pregnant" one too many times!

Me: What's up?

Student: You know how we did that food label thing? Well I used to eat, like, two peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches a day, because, you know, that's not that bad right? Well since we did that activity I realized how much I was eating...and how much I wasn't using those calories. So I just stopped eating them so much. I've lost 10 lbs! 

Aww, to be young with crazy good metabolism :)

I can guarantee, my intent was never to have my students lose weight. However, I was all about CHOICES! Taking what I taught them and using it for their own good. Like I said before, this was definitely a well above average student, about to enter college. This concept escapes many of us! For many people, they work out non-stop and the weight still doesn't seem to come off. A lot of that comes down to your serving size. Like the video suggests, Fig Newtons are most definitely a health alternative to other cake and cookies, but eating them by the sleeve isn't going to get you anywhere! Serving sizes don't have to be a scary thing, either. It's one small adjustment you can make. It can take you from the feeling that you can "never eat what you want to," to eating what you want, just in moderation. 

Do you ever look at food labels? Do you like to? Or does it just depress you? :)

I don't do it all the time. I go through stages where I'm awesome about eating right and then when I'm not. Usually I do after a not so good binge to help me be where I want to be.

I do look at them for what J eats though!

What has helped you with your serving sizes?

Do you have questions about nutrition or eating right?