I received a comment to the Chicken Stock post a couple weeks ago, with a question about bullion cubes. Chicken and vegetable broths are chock full of sodium, but what about those little cubes of flavor that dissolve into hot water to make soup? Those must be better, right? After all, they are so small. Well, the short answer is no. The censored, passionate answer is…well, let’s leave that one to the imagination. (more…)
How many times do you find yourself cleaning out the produce drawer of your fridge and kicking yourself for not actually using those veggies you were certain you’d use, “this time”? It happens to me a lot. I overbuy the beautiful produce I see at the farmer’s market, use only half a bunch of celery or undoubtedly leave half an onion sitting wistfully softening in the drawer. Don’t beat yourself up. You can use those leftover veggies to replace something you’d normally buy at the market, but without all the added sodium. Something you can use to make soup, risotto, mashed potatoes, sauces…the possibilities are endless. Vegetable broth. (more…)
I can’t tell you how many of the recipes I make call for chicken stock or broth. It’s an ingredient I use more often than I can keep track of, yet I was unaware what I was actually adding to my dishes every time I cracked open a can or poured generously from a carton. Sodium. And lots of it. The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends that individuals consume less than 1500mg of sodium per day (that is just over 1/2 tsp of salt). Yet some varieties of packaged chicken stock and broth contain more than 850mg sodium per serving! (more…)
An article came out this week in the Chicago Tribune telling the story of drastic changes made to the Chicago Public Schools’ hot lunch program and the less than stellar response to the changes. The article entitled, “You can lead kids to broccoli, but you can’t make them eat“, reaffirmed the importance of what we do at Out of the Box Food: make fresh food palatable to kids. Now, I am a believer of kids eating real food, not just kid food like macaroni and cheese and chicken nuggets (even if they are made from scratch or without added chemicals). But realistically, as this Chicago Tribune article states, we need a middle ground. A transition. We have to reach those kids who think they only like macaroni and cheese or chicken nuggets. Since the goal is to get them to actually learn to like fresh, I’d rather see a child tuck into a bowl of fresh macaroni and cheese made with fiber-full macaroni, fresh cheese and milk then have them stare blankly into a bowl of Quinoa and Kale. At least to begin with. Let them first learn to like fresh. (more…)
My kids have ALWAYS wanted Lunchables. They have no idea what they taste like, but they think the little compartmentalized container with the little squares of processed food product are enticing…I’m sure that’s what the company was hoping for. I’ll admit, I have tried to create homemade versions of the Lunchable by cutting deli meats and cheeses into little squares, buying individual containers and organizing the bite size morsels into their lunch boxes. But I have yet to get approval from the under seven set. They’re just “not cool, mom”. So therein lay my dilemma. I couldn’t possibly make a cool homemade Lunchable, and I sure wasn’t going to buy the prepackaged Lunchables. So there we were, my kids and I in a Lunchable stare down. Who’d blink first? (more…)
Cookies are such an easy treat. They can be packed in a lunch box, stuffed in a mouth or held in even the tiniest of hands. But why fill those little hands and mouths with hydrogenated oil and high fructose corn syrup when you can bake an easy, fresh, and delicious treat which, by the way, tastes even better warm with a tall glass of milk!
Packaged cookies are a convenience that I’d guess most (if not all) of us have purchased at one time or another. They must be a viable money maker based on the number of brands and varieties that fill nearly an entire supermarket aisle. Yet, when I compared the ingredients on packaged cookies to those we can make fresh…well, there is no comparison. (more…)
We know how important it is to read labels on snack foods, boxed dinners and cereals but do we actually need to read the labels on yogurt? YES. If I’m learning anything during this journey it’s that you have to read the labels on everything. Yogurt should contain only milk, live yogurt cultures and any natural fruit they might add. Should. But many of the fruit flavored yogurts on the market contain a lot more than that. I’ve seen some that contain carrageenan, others that contain high fructose corn syrup and artificial colors, and some fruit yogurts that contain no fruit whatsoever. So how do you find yogurt that contains simply fruit, milk and yogurt cultures? Two ways: read the labels or mix up your own. (more…)
I’m not suggesting that what your about to read is about health food. It doesn’t follow a raw diet, vegetarian or vegan diet, or even a fresh-fruit-and-veggie diet. But we all know kids like fun food and I’m a believer that “Fun Food” does not have to be synonymous with “Junk Food”. If we make smart choices about the ingredients we use, we can make fun “kid food” without all the chemicals, food dyes, refined sugars and well…junk. (more…)
Granola bars stir up quite the controversy at our house. My kids want to bring them to school for snack, but a nut-free school means no granola bars with nuts of any sort. That rules out a lot of the granola bars on the market. Then when we look at what’s left and examine what ingredients are actually in the remaining granola bars things really start to get interesting. Let’s just say we’re left with…well, not much. (more…)
Last week I mentioned that we’d delve into a couple of well-known holiday marshmallow traditions. Rice Crispy Treats are definitely up there on the list of the go-to recipes for cookie exchanges, school holiday parties, and as a treat for Santa after he’s made it down a few chimneys. But I’d bet that if Santa knew those treats contained a chemical banned in eleven countries and an additive suspected to cause abnormalities in the brain, hyperactivity in children and cancer, he’d probably pass. Just a hunch. (more…)