A Healthy New Year from Out of the Box Food and Nature Made
Kids Food

A Healthy New Year from Out of the Box Food and Nature Made

Happy National Vitamin Day!  Yes,  January 29th is National Vitamin Day and as we head into the second month of the year I want to invite you to join me on a two week journey to explore the value of vitamins and healthy living.  A few weeks ago I was invited to join Nature Made to reflect on healthy resolutions made for the new year, and consider how vitamins may play a role in those resolutions.   Many of us may have resolve to living healthier ourselves and providing a healthier life for our children.  Perhaps we resolved to attend our local farmers market, or buy only food from the perimeter of the grocery store and avoid the center aisles containing processed food.  Maybe we resolved to feed our families brains and hearts with healthy omega threes, or fight off winter colds with vitamin C and zinc.  Maybe we just resolved to offer our families a healthier year and are still not entirely sure how to do that. (more…)

2 Comments
01/28/2013
The “Corn Dog” Days of Summer
Dinner Table / Kids Food / Lunch Box / On the Go

The “Corn Dog” Days of Summer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s summer!  Across the country, state and county fairs are offering loads of delicious processed foods on sticks.  Foods that kids love (and I hate to admit, some of us adults too).  Today as my boys and I strolled through the brightly colored booths at the Ventura County Fair, we inhaled the decadence of fried fair treats, creating memories of summer.  These are the memories we will eventually go back to on cold November afternoons, encouraging us to take out a box of frozen corn dogs in order to recapture the experience.  Hey, why not?   Frozen corn dogs are easy, inexpensive, delicious, and some brands are even made with healthy turkey dogs, right?  But it’s what lies within the box, underneath the list of thirty seven, no thirty eight ingredients that should snap us back from our sweet memories of summer and encourage us to look for food outside of the box.

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81 Comments
06/30/2011
Dessert Turned Main Dish – Whole Wheat Strawberry Cake
Kids Food / Lunch Box / Snacks / Sweet Treats

Dessert Turned Main Dish – Whole Wheat Strawberry Cake

One of the not-so-guilty pleasures of being a food blogger is the ability (and necessity) to set aside time to peruse many of the fabulous food blogs out there.  Today I happened upon Fork Spoon Knife and Smitten Kitchen.  What beautiful sites filled with mouth-watering food photography and delicious recipes.  Both sites had photos of similar desserts that caught my eye.  Fork Spoon Knife had one for a Strawberry Buttermilk Cake while Smitten Kitchen had photos of their Summer Strawberry Cake.  In both sets of photos the strawberries peeked out of golden brown puffed cakes, just begging to be eaten.  I knew then and there, that we would be the ones to eat them.  I had strawberries and buttermilk just waiting in my fridge for a good use.  But there was only one problem – we didn’t need dessert, we needed dinner.  So what’s a mom to do?  I upped the nutrition ante of course! (more…)

2 Comments
05/29/2011
“Secret” Ingredient Guacamole for Cinco de Mayo
Dinner Table / Kids Food / Lunch Box / Snacks

“Secret” Ingredient Guacamole for Cinco de Mayo

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that a a lot of kids out there like avocados.  They are a healthy, nutrient rich fruit (yes they are a fruit) that are often passed off as a vegetable in sandwiches, salads, and of course, guacamole.  Seeing as Cinco de Mayo is right around the corner, I realized those easy prepackaged containers of guacamole would soon be flying off the supermarket shelf.  (more…)

3 Comments
05/01/2011
Farmer’s Markets for Kids – A Magical Introduction to Fruits and Vegetables
Dinner Table / Kids Food / Lunch Box

Farmer’s Markets for Kids – A Magical Introduction to Fruits and Vegetables

Spring Break.  For many of us those two words are synonymous with freedom:  freedom from school, freedom from responsibility,  freedom from winter, and freedom from the captive grasp of supermarket produce.  That’s right, Farmers Markets are opening in towns across the country, and for those of us here on the west coast lucky enough to have year-round farmers markets, we are now able to enjoy the bounty of spring produce. (more…)

9 Comments
04/24/2011
Dinner and Dye – No More Red 3 or Red 40
Dinner Table / Kids Food / Lunch Box

Dinner and Dye – No More Red 3 or Red 40

Food dye.  Well there’s the big red-blue-yellow and pink elephant in the room.  Artificial food dyes are currently headliners on our food related news. A couple weeks ago Frito Lay announced they plan to give a more natural makeover to some of their snack products like Lay’s flavored Potato Chips, Tostitos, Multigrain SunChips and Rold Gold Pretzels.  And a week later the FDA held hearings to evaluate a request to post warning labels on the labels of products containing these artificial colors.  You can read three pertinent news articles on these topics here: (more…)

10 Comments
04/10/2011
The Scary Seven: Foods the Experts Avoid
Kids Food

The Scary Seven: Foods the Experts Avoid

Some of you may have seen this article before.  It has floated around Facebook and been passed along in emails.  But in case you haven’t, it’s an article that needs to be read.  According to an article in PREVENTION magazine, there are seven foods that individuals at the forefront of food safety avoid eating.  These foods are as follows: (more…)

4 Comments
04/03/2011
Let’s Talk Turkey: Does Deli Turkey Need Nitrites?
Dinner Table / Kids Food / Lunch Box

Let’s Talk Turkey: Does Deli Turkey Need Nitrites?

The answer is NO.  Repeat after me, No nitrites, no nitrites, NO NITRITES!!!  Okay, I just had a flash back to my old cheerleading days.

Turkey deli meat is one of those things that I never really thought too much about.  It’s always been the lean deli protein that came sliced, smoked, honeyed or roasted and when piled on whole wheat bread with mustard and veggies became my healthy lunch.  Or was it?  During this Out of the Box Food journey I’ve been looking more carefully at everything, and that needed to include turkey.  I tended to choose turkey over ham because it was supposed to be healthier, right?  Well, I’m learning that it’s not just about the product itself, but how the product is cured and what might be added to it that makes the difference. (more…)

5 Comments
03/27/2011
Soup’s Still On…Skip the Bull(ion)
Dinner Table / Kids Food / Lunch Box

Soup’s Still On…Skip the Bull(ion)

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…)

4 Comments
03/20/2011
Clean-Out-The-Fridge Vegetable Broth
Dinner Table / Kids Food / Lunch Box

Clean-Out-The-Fridge Vegetable Broth

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…)

1 Comment
03/13/2011