1) find a fabulous lentil soup recipe

2) Keep dinner prep to under 20 minutes

For the first, I love the lentil soup at http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2006/12/french_lentil_soup

For the second, I think I did pretty well on average.  Some days I would spend lot more than 20 minutes, but those days I would often have leftovers which cut the time the next day.

Nothing extraordinary, but sometimes having simple goals when you are starting a fresh new year makes it easier to make those little changes that make life better.  When making nutrition-related resolutions, it is important to remember that not only is it true that you are what you eat, but it’s also true that you eat what you are.

For example, a stay at home mom on a tight budget will eat differently than a CEO who frequents fancy restaurants for business lunches.  If your goal this year is to run a marathon, your nutrition needs and eating habits are different from those of someone who is going back to school and working full-time.

I would love to start a recipe club this year and share recipes with other women who love to cook.

I would love to make or at least try every food on the “100 Foods to Eat Before You Die” food list challenge that’s been going around Facebook.

I would like to run 2-3 5ks.

And I would love to try one new gourmet recipe a week.

Realistically, I might get to one of those, possibly all of those sometime this year, but certainly not this month.  For now, I just have two simple resolutions for 2012.

1) plan my menus weekly (and stick to them as much as possible!).  In order to eat nutritiously and deliciously, I have found that I have to plan menus.  I love grocery shopping (call me weird), but I know that it will be much more difficult toting three lovely children and I’ll have to limit my shopping trips.

2) Eat veggies twice a day (we did well in 2010, but slacked off last year when my morning sickness disallowed most veggies and salads).

What life changes are you looking at this year?  What are your nutrition goals or plans to support those goals and changes?

a recent post on “the happiness project” blog

reminded me that one program doesn’t work for everyone.  This blog poses the question “are you an abstainer or a moderator?”  It may make the difference between success and failure, or be the deciding factor in which health program you choose.

I like to expand our “diet personality test” with the following questions:

Are you motivated by groups or do you like go it alone?  (would you rather go for a walk alone or meet up with a group for zumba?)

Do you like to track numbers, or do you like to keep it simple? (e.g., would you rather count calories and points and pounds lost, or just eat veggies twice a day and limit portions until your jeans are one size smaller?)

Hamlet’s words “to thine own self be true” ring just as true today as they did back then.  Have you dropped your new year’s nutrition resolution?  Given up on dieting all together?  Try a program that fits your personality this year and let me know how it works for you.

1) find a fabulous lentil soup recipe

2) Keep dinner prep to under 20 minutes

For the first, I love the lentil soup at http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2006/12/french_lentil_soup

For the second, I think I did pretty well on average.  Some days I would spend lot more than 20 minutes, but those days I would often have leftovers which cut the time the next day.  

Nothing extraordinary, but sometimes having simple goals when you are starting a fresh new year makes it easier to make those little changes that make life better.  When making nutrition-related resolutions, it is important to remember that not only is it true that you are what you eat, but it’s also true that you eat what you are.

For example, a stay at home mom on a tight budget will eat differently than a CEO who frequents fancy restaurants for business lunches.  If your goal this year is to run a marathon, your nutrition needs and eating habits are different from those of someone who is going back to school and working full-time.

I would love to start a recipe club this year and share recipes with other women who love to cook.

 I would love to make or at least try every food on the “100 Foods to Eat Before You Die” food list challenge that’s been going around Facebook.   

I would like to run 2-3 5ks.

And I would love to try one new gourmet recipe a week.

Realistically, I might get to one of those, possibly all of those sometime this year, but certainly not this month.  For now, I just have two simple resolutions for 2012.

1) plan my menus weekly (and stick to them as much as possible!).  In order to eat nutritiously and deliciously, I have found that I have to plan menus.  I love grocery shopping (call me weird), but I know that it will be much more difficult toting three lovely children and I’ll have to limit my shopping trips.

2) Eat veggies twice a day (we did well in 2010, but slacked off last year when my morning sickness disallowed most veggies and salads).  

What life changes are you looking at this year?  What are your nutrition goals or plans to support those goals and changes?

I confess, I have a sweet tooth.  I also know that too much sugar makes me feel sluggish, and when our family enjoys too many sweet treats we are much more susceptible to the germs around us.  While we have certainly been enjoying our fair share of holiday cookies, I can tell we will all benefit from enjoying just a little less sweet this next month.  Here are my favorite strategies for cutting the sugar while keeping the flavor.

1)      Watch the drinks – it’s easy to drink 500 calories in one holiday latte or a super large soda from the gas station.  Try unsweetened tea, coffee with skim milk, or one of my favorites – mineral water with a splash of pomegranate juice instead.

2)      Read the label.  If that breakfast cereal or snack has more than twice as much sugar as fiber in it, just leave it on the shelf.  If the first ingredient is sugar,

3)      Make it, don’t buy it.   If cookies are in our pantry or ice cream is in our freezer, we tend to eat that rather than wholesome fruits and veggies for snacks.  Our rule of thumb is to either make treats from scratch or buy something fun if we have a plan to share with guests or entertaining.

4)      Change the recipe.  I can usually cut the sugar by up to 1/3 before it really affects the taste and texture.

5)      Still have that craving?  Try eating more protein early on in the day (like eggs for breakfast, meat and a sandwich for lunch, or a greek yogurt for snack) to cut the mid-afternoon munchies.  Adding more veggies and nuts for snacks can also help.

6)      Lastly, are you really craving sugar?  Sometimes we are just struggling with one of the 3 Ts:  tired, tense or thirsty, when we think we need sugar.  I have the hardest time resisting sugar when I haven’t had enough sleep.  That doesn’t mean I need it though, and I find I feel much better after a 10 minute walk outside and a glass of water than I do after munching on something sweet.

What do you do to lower your sugar intake?

To make it even richer in flavor and antioxidants, substitute 1-2 Tbsps cocoa powder for the cinnamon.

Another fun, healthy treat to add to my “healthy” dessert list.

Last week I decided to do a little freezer meal session before baby number 3 arrives in December. Black beans are a rich source of protein, fiber, folate, and immune-boosting anthocyanins, besides adding flavor and color to any dish. I am looking forward to heating up some of this soup in those fun but foggy days with a newborn.

Black Bean Soup:
1/2 pound of dried black beans, rinsed, sorted, soaked, and cooked according to directions on bag.
3 cans of diced tomatoes
1 Tbsp cumin
2 Tbsps chicken base
2 tsps onion powder or 1 chopped onion
2 tsps diced garlic

Mix and freeze.  I like to use cleaned, sterilized spaghetti sauce jars filled almost to the top.

To serve: add one quart water, heat, and serve with salsa, spinach, cilantro, goat cheese (or shredded cheese of your choice), and tortilla chips. This also works well as a dip (add half the water and blend) or on top of taco salad.

So what’s a mother-to-be to do?  In 2008 a nice review of the scientific literature concluded with the recommendations that we eat up to 12oz of low-mercury fish, consume high-quality vegetable oils, and take omega-3 supplements.  It also gave an EPA/DHA target: “During pregnancy, the dietary goal for omega-3 fatty acids is 650 mg, of which 300 is DHA.“

One decade after my internship, it appears that the debate over fish safety has gone by the wayside and we are focusing on fish oil supplements as the safer way consume DHA, EPA and other healthy fats.  Now the debate is over which form (triglyceride or ethyl ester), how much EPA and DHA, and what are the health benefits and risks of taking these supplements.  Now that supplement and pharmaceutical companies are footing the bill for research, we know much more about the healthful impact of EPA in preventing pre-eclampsia, of DHA on baby’s neurodevelopment,  and how  they reduce mothers’ risk of postpartum depression.  Just this month another study on DHA supplements claimed that taking DHA supplements during pregnancy could ward off babies’ colds!  And the research continues, not just for pregnancy but how omega 3′s help everything from cancer to heart disease to joint pain.

The DHA-EPA Omega-3 Institute has summarized the current recommendations for various life ages and stages, indicating that moms-to-be should consume at least 1.4g/day of omega 3′s and at least 300mg of that should be DHA.

In the real world, what does this look like?

1) Eat some fish!  Low-mercury, low-PCB fish that is.  I prefer baked or poached wild-caught salmon, and sardines on crackers.  Fish is also a great source of protein, and sardines are a rich source of calcium too.

2) Eat vegetable sources of omega-3′s as well:  walnuts and flaxseed are great additions to granola or waffles to start your day out right.

3) Choose grass-fed beef and organic eggs to improve your omega 3 to omega 6 ratio in these animal products.

4) Consider a supplement with DHA.  Make sure it is certified by USP or another reputable organization to be free from mercury and other contaminants.  The jury is still out on whether the triglyceride form is truly better than the ethyl ester form, but it does appear to be slightly more bioavailable according to more recent studies.

other references

http://www.sciencebasedhealth.com/Fish-Oil-EE-vs-TG-omega-3s-which-is-better-W119.aspx

http://www.omega-research.com/researchview.php?ID=2190&catid=28

http://water.epa.gov/scitech/swguidance/fishshellfish/outreach/advice_index.cfm

http://www.nrdc.org/health/effects/mercury/walletcard.PDF

This year one of my goals is to cut prep time down to 10-20 minutes most evenings, and there a few things that I have found work and don’t work.

First what doesn’t work for me if I’m in a hurry:

• last-minute decisions about what to eat that night
• multi-tasking, especially talking on the phone
• teaching kids about kitchen safety, food prep, etc while I’m trying to get dinner together in a hurry
• experimenting with new recipes

What does work:

• frozen, pre-cut veggies (particularly onions and green peppers)
• familiar recipes with fewer than 5 ingredients
• a meal plan for the week so I’m not trying to make last-minute substitutions or shopping trips
• microwaveable leftovers – my all-time favorite trick for cutting prep and clean-up time in half
• prepping during naptime or a Veggie Tales
• 0ne child in the kitchen, watching and talking but not touching/helping

How do you handle the pre-dinner crazy time?  I’d love to hear other people’s advice and experiences!

So now those moms that have been dutifully dumping jars of baby food in their spaghetti sauce and reading cookbooks like Deceptively Delicious and Sneaky Chef have scientific evidence that it works!

But are we missing the point?  Are we as parents supposed to be training our children to eat their veggies and like them too?

As a dietitian, I wish people would learn to like veggies and eat them in normal dishes like salads, stir fries, and on the side.  But as a person who has never really been very fond of veggies myself, I see the benefit of the puree and sneak method.  I do it to myself all the time:  spinach in blueberry or chocolate smoothies, extra shredded carrot or zucchini in a casserole or lasagna, even adding beans to meatballs just to increase fiber and minerals while decreasing calories.

As a mom, I approve of both methods.  I firmly believe that offering veggies daily, even the veggies kids say they don’t like, normalizes eating them and will help even the finickiest eater learn to tolerate and sometimes even enjoy their veggies.  Other research shows it can take 17 tastes before a kid decides they like a food.  Serving veggies with a yogurt dip, in a smiley face shape, or serving myself a huge helping first then telling them “Mommy really likes this.  I want you to try one tiny bit and if you like it you can have more, but only if you like it because I want to eat yours if you don’t want more of this yummy ____.”  Then I serve them about a teaspoon of whatever I’m eating.

That said, kids often have texture issues, difficulty chewing foods like broccoli and carrots, and small appetites that make it hard for them to want to eat a whole piece of broccoli or some “slimy” zucchini.  These are the times that it can be helpful to get creative, puree it up, and sneak it in.

I do not believe in lying about it to my kids, and sometimes they’ll even help blend up the veggies to add to our sauces.  Anytime we can fortify a good meal with extra nutrients without sacrificing flavor I am all for it!  I also think it’s important to teach that cookies, brownies, and other dessert foods still have sugar and fat and are fun foods, not health foods, even if they have a quarter cup of cherry juice or apple sauce in them.  Lastly, if my children eat something like sweet potatoes or applesauce or tomatoes without pureeing and hiding, I serve it plain and save the sneaking for the tougher stuff – like spinach, cruciferous veggies, and carrots.

What sneaky recipes and methods do your kids find delicious?