Build A Better Lunch

Build A Better Lunch

by | Aug 23, 2011 | Uncategorized

We all know that packing lunches, whether it’s for work or for school, is a good idea. It saves money, it’s healthier than take-out or cafeteria food and hopefully we’re wasting less by using up leftovers. But bringing lunch every day seems to be one of those things that we all know we should do and plan on doing, but we make excuses when it actually comes down to doing it.

For those of us who do actually manage to pack lunches, we often get stuck in a rut and pack the exact same thing every day. I like to have a lunch that I can look forward to. A turkey sandwich on whole wheat and an apple just isn’t going to cut it for me. Plus if your lunch isn’t satisfying, you’re going to find yourself making a trip to the vending machine or the community candy jar anyways. Or if you’re a kid, you will just toss your lunch in the trash and try to convince your friend to share his cookies and chips with you.

So we came up with some creative and delicious ideas to help you start brown bagging it and get you thinking outside of the (lunch)box. (more…)

Build A Better Lunch

Disguising Veggies: Good or Bad?

by | Aug 19, 2011 | Uncategorized

I recently read an article that I would like to share with you about sneaking veggies into kids meals. The article, is opposed to the idea of hiding healthy foods. And I agree with all of her points. I, just like the author, have always disliked the idea of kid-specific foods or kid menus. Children are capable of eating whatever we, as adults, are eating. There is no reason for them to have to eat something separate. If you are cooking special things for your child then you are either: A) creating more work for yourself by making more than one version of a meal at mealtimes or B) you are eating “kid’s foods” because you don’t want to go through the hassel of making two different meals and you are also C) limiting your child’s variety of foods. None of these are good things. But I am not opposed to sneaking in healthy foods. I do think you should always offer real adult food to kids, but I don’t see anything wrong with adding extra veggies into the food you make. For example, mixing cauliflower into ground beef or shredding vegetables into baked goods.

The problem with sneaking in healthy foods is that often times parents will not offer a variety of foods and they use very unhealthy vessels.

My stance: always offer the veggies, but sneaking a little more in can’t hurt.

Please read the article here. And here are some more of my thoughts on healthy eating for kids. Because I just can’t help myself. (more…)

Build A Better Lunch

Cooking Class: Brown Bagging It

by | Aug 15, 2011 | Uncategorized

Sick of Ho-Hum lunches?  Tired of your kid tossing out half their meal?  Learn how to make your packed lunch have more flavor, nutrition and fun. We will make several lunch meals that work great for on the go. We will teach how to get ‘tricky’ and sneak in more veggies and help balance your meal so you have more energy throughout the day.  This class is hands on – Taught by Sarah Droege, Nutritionist and Sheila Robertson, program director of Optimal Body Balance.  Most of the recipes eliminate the seven most common food allergens while still remaining yummy and beautiful. Recipes, shopping lists, tips and menu plan included.

Join us at Whole Foods on Monday, August 22nd 6-7 PM! Register in person at Whole Foods or call 608.233.9566. Cost is $5.

Build A Better Lunch

Train your Brain to Crave Healthy Food

by | Aug 12, 2011 | Areas of Weight Loss Resistance, Uncategorized

Good Friday everyone! Here is a great article I just read and wanted to share with all of you from CNN news. If you have cravings you should definitely read this! Although they talk about a specific diet in this article, the “instinct diet”, this idea has been around for a long time.

Processed foods today have changed the way we taste things. Food science uses our inborn food preferences when making processed foods. Almost all processed foods are designed in a way to get you to eat more of them and then buy more of them. They do this by using the ingredients and tastes that humans are predisposed to love – sugar and fat. Processed foods play on your instincts; in nature, you would hardly ever encounter fat and sugar in the amounts you can find them in processed foods, and that is why we like processed foods so much. To quote Michael Pollan again, “You won’t find a fruit with anywhere near the amount of fructose in a soda, or a piece of animal flesh with quite as much fat as a chicken nugget”And there is another big problem with eating so much sugar and fat: we get used to it. We get used to eating a lot of fat and a lot of sugar; it seems normal. But it is not normal. The book The Pleasure Trap compares the this type of high-fat high-sugar diet to a drug addiction: “Food, like drugs, can stimulate dopamine cascades in the pleasure centers of the brain. But there is food—the bounty of nature that we were designed to eat, and then there is magic food—the stuff that we have created. And they are fundamentally different in their effect on health and happiness” The Pleasure Trap explains that the processed foods we eat today are designed to hyper-stimulate the brains pleasure centers. When we eat processed foods, we experience them as being more satisfying than real, whole foods. This is not surprising because they have been designed to be more satisfying. As a person eats more and more processed foods, his or her tastes adapt. He gets used to the rich taste of processed foods and they no longer taste as good as they once did. And yet we continue to eat more and more processed foods and we believe that we can no longer enjoy real, whole, healthful foods.
But the good new is that you can retrain your brain to enjoying real food again! And it may be tough at first, but it only takes about 30 days of abstaining from those bad foods. More details on the “instinct diet” and one woman’s story on how it worked for her in the article below.  (more…)