Bountiful Bite: The Sugar Craving Monster

I work part-time in a bookstore. For the past two months I've watched dozens of diet books practically fly themselves out the door, along with carb counters, vegan cookbooks, and exercise manuals promising to give women flat tummies and guys six-pack abs. It's hard not to be a cynic and wonder how many new year's resolutions to be thinner and more robust will blow away with the first spring breeze.

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"Thousands of Resolutions, Killed by Junk Food Cravings
and Lack of Consistent Dietary Advice"...news at 10.

On Valentine's Day I plan to eat a cupcake (with a glass of soymilk and no guilt). Yep folks, it's a cruel world out there. My housemate is Chinese. She rarely wants to eat desserts or sweet treats. She has a dislike for cheese. Is she "dieting"? Nope. Is she thin and healthy? You bet. Cruel world? Maybe not.

Maybe there's a perfectly good explanation for her lack of cravings, and it's not that "she's Asian." What happens to make us crave chocolate and other sugary snacks? Basically, our insulin or serotonin levels drop, or we are thirsty or fatigued, or our hormones go wacky (out of balance). According to one dietitian, when we crave sugar we're actually craving the micro nutrients found in fruit!**

So, why doesn't my Chinese housemate have these cravings? She usually gets a good night's rest. At every meal, she has rice or noodles, a protein or two, and a vegetable or two. Occasionally she'll have toast for breakfast, with unsweetened peanut butter. In between she "snacks" mostly on green tea, water, fruit and a few nuts. Are we going to eat exactly like her this year? Probably not. But there are some hints we can take... I've snooped around on the net for "stop sugar cravings" and found suggestions, that fit in with her way of eating. Guess what, she follows the first four suggestions without thinking about it. I think I might be having an "Aha! moment".

Craving Sugar? Here are some of the more popular suggestions.

1. Drink water or unsweetened tea. You might actually be a bit dehydrated.
2. Have a little protein with breakfast, and every snack. (Egg, fish, or milk, soy milk, nuts or cheese, or even a couple oz. of meat)
3. Don't start your day with something sugary. Read the nutrition labels on ALL your breakfast choices!
4. Eat enough. It may seem obvious, but if you short-change yourself with doll-size portions of pasta or broccoli, you'll just feel hungry before the next meal-time.
5. Take a walk or run. (Raises serotonin levels).
6. Distract yourself. Helloooo ' Angry Birds'!
7. Wait 15 minutes, the craving might pass.
8. Go public. Tell your coworkers you're laying off baked goods and candy because you feel better when you do. If you eat the cupcake, you'll have to eat your words.
   

I'm resolved to stick to these habits. Really. ... At least until Spring.


** http://www.sheerbalance.com/nutrition/3-reasons-you-crave-sugar-that-have-nothing-to-do-with-food/

Bountiful Bite: Squirrelly Situation

Burrowhampton, MA - This picturesque New England college down is being called the "unhealthiest town for squirrels" after a group of sophomores recovering from a post-midterm party, observed an inordinate number of fat, er, "borderline obese" squirrels outside the dorm.

It appears that the prevalence of park side fast-nut restaurants is contributing to the obesity problem. The acorns in these establishments are injected with salt water, which these hungry rodents digest faster than normal, causing them to eat more of it. The high salt content is being called "the Silent Squirrel Killer". As the numbers of obese squirrels rises, the number of their lithe, furry brothers able to climb large oak trees is rapidly declining.

Dr. McGregor, DVM, of the Center for Squirrel Disease Control (and formerly Peter Rabbit's nemesis), told the Bountiful Bite "Squirrel obesity is a serious threat and could cost our public health system millions of dollars as the boomer squirrels age."

Although the furry climbers' optimal diet includes plenty of fresh apple and mushrooms, the average squirrel today eats only one serving per week! Mothers are decrying cashew vending machines in local squirrel schools. They say these high-fat nuts have little nutritional value (where squirrels are concerned) and are a poor substitute for good, healthy, hand-picked acorns.

Is there hope on the horizon? Tom and Jerry's, Inc. has just announced a nationwide initiative to give free hamster wheels to the first hundred squirrel councils that apply. A combination of more exercise and better nutritional information could "crack the shell" on the nation's latest public health concern.

Don't Haunt your kids with Veggies

This just in: American kids are getting fat. Alright, that's not going to come as a surprise to most of you.

But a new study gives me another reason to open the discussion, moms and dads, about what your children eat for lunch, dinner and after-school snacks. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) reports that among children and adolescents, an average of 40% of their calories comes from eating what we call junk, i.e.- food items which carry little or no nutritional value per calorie.

True story: My great-aunt Estelle, a bohemian from Greenwich Village, was once a clever little child, who's mother boiled spinach until it turned grey and served it to her with no seasoning. Forced to eat everything on her plate before being allowed to leave the table, she sat for hours one day, staring at anything but the soggy grey lump left on her dinner plate. After several hours, Estelle's mother came back to find her child's plate scraped clean, and no spinach in the girl's lap.

End of story? Nope. Two weeks later a wad of old spinach fell from the ceiling! Hooray for Estelle, I wouldn't have touched it either.

Don't make vegetables the villain!

Did your parents say things like "You can't have any cookies until you finish your lima beans"? How did that make you feel about lima beans? Like they were the villain, right? ...obstructing the path to cookie eating. Cookies are sugary, but they are also fun. They have bright colors, hidden surprises like raisins and chocolate chips, and you can line them up, or cut them into shapes before baking.

Why can't vegetables be fun, too? Have a choice of dips or sauces for the cooked vegetables, let children help make the salad, cut cucumber slices into star shapes. Try a little cheese sauce on the broccoli (made with 1% milk), a little cinnamon in the mashed sweet potatoes... and, gasp, a drop of honey.

By the way, what are YOU eating, Mom? "When parents eat more fruits and vegetables, so do their children. When parents eat and give their children high fat snacks or soft drinks, children learn these eating patterns instead." says Debra Haire-Joshu, Ph.D., a professor at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work. The 5-year study she refers to, done in Missouri, advocates reaching for a banana for a snack, instead of potato chips. For yourself, as well.

Sometimes we unwittingly "haunt" our kids by making healthy food out to be a necessary evil, the "bitter pill" before the soda or cookie reward. Making veggies into childhood villains doesn't bode well for vegetable public relations! This time of year, many families make one vegetable... pumpkins, into scary jack-o-lanterns. But that's FUN, and anyway, a month later we make pumpkin pie.

Enjoy the Bountiful BITEs (Bwahahaaa!!) of October! And if you make a great pumpkin soup, please post your recipe in the comments.

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One of the first questions parents have about vegetables is how many do their kids actually need to eat each day.

Following the food pyramid, some general recommendations include that:

• 2- to 3-year-old children eat 1 cup of vegetables each day
• 4- to 8-year-old children eat 1 1/2 cups of vegetables each day
• 9- to 13-year-old girls eat 2 cups of vegetables each day
• 14- to 18-year-old girls eat 2 1/2 cups of vegetables each day
• 9- to 13-year-old boys eat 2 1/2 cups of vegetables each day
• 14- to 18-year-old boys eat 3 cups of vegetables each day

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posted from: http://pediatrics.about.com/od/nutrition/a/0308_vegetables.htm


references:
http://www.fooducate.com/blog/2010/10/21/40-of-kids-calories-are-from-junk-food/
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080811200425.htm

The Bountiful Bite: Nugget Free Zone

I spent the last year in rural Vermont, where a blueberry bush will fight with you for its green or even pink berries, but as soon as they turn blue, the berry will fall into your hand with the gentlest touch. You are given the berry when it's just perfect for you to enjoy and digest. This, small farmers know in their bones. Wait, pick, eat, can and freeze.

Yet most American kids think "blueberry" is a pop-tart flavor. The connection between "farm" and "table" is not taught at home or in the supermarket, and rarely in school.

Let's get this straight. I'm not a dietitian. I'm not even a so-called "certified nutritionist". I love food and I hate for people to impede their lives or health with serious weight issues. I can't tell you what the most scientifically nutritious diets are, or even the safest ways to lose weight. But I read the experts, and ask a lot of questions about what we eat, where it comes from, and what it does for us (or to us). You could call it my obsession.

I do know that our bodies were designed to be lean, mean, metabolizing machines. From right after a child's 2nd birthday until old age, you can feed a healthy person a wide variety of minimally or non-processed foods, from milk to pear nectar, from steak to edamame, and his or her body will break down the food, glean all the energy and useful nutrients from it, and eliminate whatever it can't use. It's a very ingenious system! (Aside from food allergies.) But, from what doctors have told me, this amazing metabolic system we carry around in our guts (and liver, etc.) can, like indoor plumbing, become sluggish, clogged up, or cease to function well if you repeatedly spill junk down the drain. And there's plenty of "junk" out there masquerading as food.

Why is America so food-dysfunctional? We need to have an ongoing dialog with agribusiness, food processors, doctors and dietitians, politicians and school "lunch ladies", with chicken - and egg! - farmers and the FDA. I want to be part of a conversation about the ways we eat, the foods we prepare, and most of all, when we go home to our kids or our single lives, our large house in the mountains or our apartment in the city, when we look in the mirror or stroll down the cereal aisle in the supermarket... what are we thinking, hoping,or doing differently today?

How can we find the time, energy, motivation, and resources to make our daily eating habits more healthy, more family-friendly or social, and more rewarding? And who's butt do we have to kick to lower our nation's diabetes numbers?

So yea, I don't have a magic diet to share. Just come try this new bruschetta I made, clear your head, play in the "chikkin-nugget free" zone.
Eat, drink and be healthy.