Alex Jamieson was the nutritional consultant on the movie Super Size Me. She will be participating in a free webinar today! I am very excited to hear her talk about the book she wrote, The Great American Detox Diet: Feel Better, Look Better, and Lose Weight. Learn how to detox your body of excess fats and artificial, low quality junk foods and about her career as a nutritional consultant.

How often do you have the convenience of participating in a seminar, ask questions and get tips right from a convenient place?

And it is free.

If you haven’t signed up, there is still time. The seminar does not start until 3pm, today. Check out this interactive webinar from 3:00 to 3:30! November 18, 2009.

Click here to log in and sign up.

For more information, go to Integrative Nutrition School.

I was contacted by Cool Cups to try their kids gel snack pack. What caught my eye was the fact that it was made with all natural ingredients. It is difficult to find healthy pre-packaged snacks that don’t have chemicals, preservatives and other unnatural ingredients.

I am not getting any kick back for sharing this snack with you. When I find a snack that I think might help moms and dads in their struggle to find healthy but fun and tasty foods for their kids, I want to share that.

I did think the sugar was a little high, but they are working on a version that has less sugar.

I contacted the company to see if I could get a coupon for you but they don’t have a system in place yet. However, they are participating in the Whole Foods “Back to School” program where parents can get 20% off during the first two weeks of September.

So here is the top ten features that make this a healthy and tasty snack

1. GELATIN FREE

2. ★VEGAN

3. ★LESS THAN 95 CALORIES

4. ★GLUTEN FREE

5. ★FAT FREE

6. ★DAIRY FREE

7. ★GMO FREE

8. ★HIGH IN VITAMIN C

9. ★NO ARTIFICIAL COLORS

10. ★ NO ARTIFICIAL PRESERVATIVES

Visit Cool Cups to learn more about their healthy and tasty snacks for kids!

‘Healthy snacking’ resources from Nourish Interactive- our healthy family nutrition website:

20 Healthy Snack Food Ideas for Kids -Printable pdf list to put on fridge ‘new healthy snack food ideas!’

Healthy Snack Foods for Kids – A healthy nutrition tips articles from our Nourish Healthy Kids library.

Healthy Snacks Ideas for Half Time

Kids’ Healthy Snacking Printable Goal Agreement- set healthy goals together as a family

Healthy Snacks Kid-Friendly Printable Food Tracking Sheet-Weekly snack food diary to encourage healthier food choices.

We all love some sweets. My husband loves his chocolate. My kids love their apple pie! I love my lemon.. lemon anything, I am not picky.

But sometimes, combining sweets and healthy in the same sentence can seem a bit challenging. If it is healthy, it might not be sweet enough to compete with the brownies and cookies the kids are asking for. With summer just around the corner and school out, kids will be looking in the cabinets and refrigerator for something to snack on, and their sweet tooth might be acting up.

I ran across this snack food and was surprised at how good it tasted. I am a stickler with food labels so right away looked to see how much sugar was in a muffin. Only 5 gms of sugar and only 2.5gms of fat. Now compare that with your average muffin which has 10 gms or more of sugar and 10gms or more of fat.

I wanted to share this with you because I was excited to find a sweet tasty snack food. Of course, portions are important, so if you eat 4 or 5 of them, like anything else, the calories and everything else (sugar, fat) add up.

I contacted the manufacturer of the snack food Matisse and Jacks Snacks and explained to them about our website and how we are helping parents who are teaching their children to eat healthy. They agreed to give all Nourish Interactive visitors a 15% discount in the month of May. Just enter the code: CSolus09

I am not their spokesperson for this company but if I find something that I think is great to pass along, then I will. I believe in healthy but tasty snacks and I really like the idea of kids and mom/dad/grandmother/or other wonderful caring adult role model baking in the kitchen with the kids. I have some nice memories from my own childhood and as a mom baking with my kids.

The four baking snacks they offer: cocoa, cranberry, granola and chocolate chip

Additional resources for healthy snacking food ideas for kids and tips to encourage healthier snack choices:

Nourish Healthy Kids – Healthy Snacks for Kids article and tips

Nourish Interactive’s Healthy Tips- Printable Healthy Tip Sheets 
Printable healthy family tips, eating healthy, picky eater tips, and more!

ADA list of some other ideas for healthy snacks And they go well with milk!-read more about calcium and kids.

I was thinking about the value of juicing and thought I would add some other beneficial ideas to consider.

What is great about juicing is can be a “get kids involved” food activity. It can really be a fun little activity kids will enjoy:

• Let them go with you to store and pick veggies and fruits to make a new juice recipe. A fun way to discover new fruits and vegetables ! Add a little counting activity/ game where you have kids count berries or fruits placed in the basket or weigh them to see how many makes a pound.
• You can also increase learning- by discussing the vitamins and minerals in each fruit and how these help their bodies be healthy and strong, here is link to a site that lists these facts
• Have kids check off their fruit and vegetables using our kid friendly printable ‘meal tracker’ food charts (look for the sheet titled “More Fruits and Veggies Please”)
• Kids can write down ingredients for their new juice recipe on an index card.
• Have your child put stars or smileys on their favorite juice recipes.
• Have your kids help in the kitchen and watch the juice being created- ( kids love to help and hear sound of juice being made, then watch the colors come out)
• Try making a new juice every week- can be a fun activity and something kids look forward to.
• Keep it simple and fun.
• You can even select a “special” juice cup to take out on juicing day!
• You can lower sugar content of any fruits you juice, by adding water or sparkling water
• Juice only stays fresh a few days in fridge as it has no preservatives!

Juicing is becoming very popular as a way to get a healthy dose of nutrients from fresh fruits and vegetables. Juicing is the process of separating the the liquid from the fiber, consuming only the liquid from the fruit or vegetable.

There is no doubt that fruits and vegetables are full of necessary vitamins and minerals which help to promote health and fight off disease. It is also a known fact that most American adults and children do not consume the necessary amounts fruits and vegetables they need.

Juicing with a home juicer provides an easy way to help your family ingest more servings of fruits and vegetables in a single glass of juice. You can mix vegetables with fruits to create many different flavorful drinks. Juicing offers benefits to kids who won’t eat vegetables. You can use the juicer to make a vegetable and fruit combination that masks the taste of the vegetable behind the more prominent taste of the fruit. It’s a great alternative to soft drinks for both kids and adults.

Juicing:

• is easy on the digestion system. It is generally easier to digest natural fruits and vegetables juices than eating them.
• provides the natural enzymes found in fruits and vegetable that are frequently destroyed during the cooking process
• allows you to mix vegetables with fruits to give a concentration of nutrients
• provides endless combinations of fruits and vegetables for a wide variety of juices

The Lexen Electric Healthy Juicer is the new standard in juice extractors. It is a powerful masticating type juicer that ‘crushes’ fruits and vegetables, including hard vegetables such as carrots. The Lexen Juicer even does spinach which many juicers can not do. Since there is no heat generated as in other juicers, all of the enzymes are preserved for a fresh tasting juice.  For more information about this juicer you can find visit www.877myjuicer.com.

Here is just one simple juicing recipe that is delicious and nutritious.

Apple & Raspberry Juice:

Apple & raspberry is good too  ( 2 cups raspberries plus 2 apples)

Fruit and Carrots Juice:

2 Kiwi, 1 large Apple ( peeled and sliced ( no seeds),  plus 2 Carrots is another good one!

Pineapple – Blueberry – Ginger Juice Recipe

1/4 Pineapple
1 cup blueberries
1 piece fresh ginger (1/4 – 1/2 inch)
Blueberries are rich in antioxidants, which have been shown to fight certain types of cancer. The ginger aids digestion.

This makes 12 Ounces with the following Nutritional Facts:

• 80 Calories
• 0 Grams of Fat
• 16 Grams of Carbs
• 7 Grams of Protein

Click here to share your opinions in our survey about Nourish Interactive’s website features and our kids nutrition games and be entered to win a FREE Lexan Electric Juice Machine! (*value $149)

UCLA did a study and reported the top ten healthiest juices. After all, not all juice is created equal.

So here they are in order of healthiest:
1. Pomegranate juice
2. Red Wine (okay, this is NOT one for the kids)
3. Concord grape juice
4. Blueberry juice
5. Black cherry juice
6. Acai juice
7. Cranberry juice
8. Orange juice
9. Tea
10. Apple juice

So what makes pomegranate juice the best juice? Well according to the study, they took into account the vitamins and antioxidant levels (click here to get the definition), and pomegranate has the most different types of antioxidants to fight off cancer such as prostate cancer and heart disease.

As a good general rule, the more color, the more antioxidants it will have. So berries are another great fruit.

Burger King is going green and introducing a new healthier kids meal. Well, I am not a big supporter of fast foods but when they try to do something good, well you gotta give ‘em some props.

Burger King will be launching this month:

• a recycleable meal bag (..going green)
• a new snack food: sliced apples which will be packaged to look just like fries but when you take a bite, oh….it’s not fried it fresh sliced apples. It might a little nice surprise for you young ones.
• a Kraft macaroni and cheese dish that will be around 350 calories and less than 25% fat.

Not sure what they will be charging for sliced apples. let’s see if they put the marketing dollars behind it to make it fun and appealing to the kids…like they do with their other higher fat food items. I tried the sliced apples, and they were fresh and good.

If any of you have tried the new foods, let me know. Would love to hear how your kids are responding to it, how it is being marketed to the kids compared to their other food items.

To read, here is the article.

Safeway is expanding their Eating Right food line to reach out to children. Their new food line, called Eating Right Kids will feature the Warner Brother characters such as

• Bugs Bunny
• Tweetey
• Wile E. Coyote
• Daffy Ducks

The food will have over 100 food items to choose from. Some of the types of foods featured will be in the categories of:

• breakfast foods
• portable meals
• dairy
• snacks
• drinks

The food was formulated based on several agencies including the Department of Health.

The food line will be launched in 1700 Safeway stores across the US and Canada some time later this year.

Let’s see if we can begin to combine fast, convenience with the word nutrition.

(source: article from Business Week)