Headlines this week included one about Ben and Jerrys.  Under pressure from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy organization, Ben and Jerry’s announced they will pull the “natural” claim off their products.  I’ve also heard that several food companies have received letters from the USDA indicating they can no longer make claims about the amount of positive food groups in their product (think soups that tell you the can includes a serving of vegetables) unless the product meets the definition of “healthy.”  The point here is that companies can’t tout positives about their products if there are a bunch of negatives lurking in the background.  Soup or vegetables juices, for example, may have a serving of fruits and vegetables, but they also give you a hit of sodium.  This, then, is the USDA’s point.

While your health and my health and the health of our kids and parents has always been of concern to public policy agencies, the government, and health professionals, it has become an even more serious concern today.  Rising health care costs, rising obesity rates, kids with obesity, kids with heart disease and diabetes – it’s top of mind everywhere you go. 

The reality, then, for those who make the food that is sold in our grocery stores and which we buy is that they have to get serious about the nutrition value of their foods.  It’s not enough to include vegetables in the soup, but not address the sodium.  It’s not enough to make the yogurt fat free, but pump it full of sugar.  It’s not enough to make it organic, but not manage the saturated fat nor add fiber and other positive nutrients.  It’s time for a paradigm shift to a new order of nutrition where products have great – not good, not average – nutrition profiles.

And then it’s up to us as consumers to buy them, to trade up, to acknowledge what manufacturers have done with our health in mind.  It’s then time for us all to walk the talk.

Visit www.nuval.com to see a system that gives credit to food products with great nutrition profiles.

Sometimes I like to gauge the reaction of non-health professional parents to information I find startling as a combined parent/health professional.

Case in point:  Last Monday night I was passing time reading a nutrition journal while sitting with other basketball parents while our kids were in tryouts.  I read part of the article out loud to Parent A (dad of 7^th grade boy) and Parent B (mom of 8^th grade boy, 5^th grade girl).  Here’s what I read:

Children ages 14 to 18 years consume the highest amounts of added sugar, at

approximately 34 teaspoons  or the equivalent of 549 calories per day.

I was expecting a reaction of shock and horror from these parents, maybe a “No way, my kid doesn’t get that much sugar.”  Instead, I got these responses:  “Seems about right to me.”  “My son is higher than that so someone must be dragging him down for that to be the average.”

I was floored.

Thirty-four teaspoons of sugar is equal to:

A 12 oz. can of Coke (10 teaspoons)

A bag of skittles (12 teaspoons)

9 Oreo cookies (11 teaspoons)

Thirty-four teaspoons of sugar is equal to about ¾ cup sugar (well beyond a spoonful!).

While it’s likely that kids are getting added sugar from foods like breakfast foods, yogurts, breads, pasta sauces, and flavored milks and not just the junk foods I’ve listed here, it’s still amazing that this is, on average, the level of sugar our kids are getting every day.   Maybe Parent A and Parent B didn’t react more strongly because their kids participate in a variety of sports and are normal weight.  But part of our job as parents is to build healthy eating habits in kids, so that when they hit adulthood and aren’t as active and don’t need all those calories for growth spurts, they have established healthy eating habits and can manage weight and health easily and successfully.

Hopefully, the visuals above it will encourage all parents to consider the amount of sugar and empty calorie foods (those with calories but no positive nutrients) their kids are getting every day.

Visit www.nuval.com to see a system where added sugar lowers a food’s nutrition score.

Like many parents of young children, I have been required to do my fair share of time selling hot dogs, pickles, popcorn, candy and soda in concession stands at sporting events.  It’s required volunteer time to help defray the costs of these programs.

During these experiences, I have come to loathe a food product.  Yes, loathe it.  Despise it.  Wish it could be wiped from the face of this planet.  See absolutely no role for it.  Working concession stands has forced me to put my dietitian hat on in an environment when I’m usually wearing my mom hat. 

The product?  Sports drinks. 

Why? Nutritionally, sports drinks aren’t really any different than soda pop.  All the calories – yes, all of them – come from sugar.  Pop?  Same thing, 100% of calories from sugar. 

Why?  Sports drinks like Gatorade do such a fabulous job advertising that every young, impressionable boy and girl think it’s cool to drink Gatorade.  Pro athletes drink it, so I’m going to drink it, too.

Why?  Again, the advertising, which leads kids and their parents to believe that electrolytes (sodium is an electrolyte!) need to be replaced in kids who play sports.  Trust me (again, dietitian hat on here), I’ve read the research, and two hours of football practice or one hour of gymnastics does not require electrolyte replacement from sports drinks. 

I don’t buy sports drinks or keep it in my house, so I was floored the first time I worked concessions and saw the number of kids who will cough up $2 of their parents’ money to buy Gatorade.  Really, and can the color possibly matter all that much?

So today, if you decide to do something for your health and the health of your family, stop buying sports drinks, and drink water instead.

Visit www.nuval.com to see nutrition scores for your favorite beverages.

If you’re a People Magazine fan (I live in a household of them), you’re probably familiar with the “Where are they now?” segments that profile actors who were child stars 20 years ago.  Today, I thought it would be interesting to look at nutrition fads from days gone by and where they’re at today.

Bee Pollen.  Unbelievably this fad ingredient is still hot.  You may not see it in the press, but sales of bee pollen supplements are still high.  While it was touted in the 1980s as a superfood with the potential to prevent cancer, manage allergies and hay fever and help with weight loss, none of these have proven to be true.  Wasn’t true then, isn’t true today. 

My advice?  If you’re looking for a great superfood, stop by the grocery store and grabs some blueberries or broccoli.

Juicing.  Remember the infomercials?  They were shown practically 24/7, and the hotlines for purchasing them were ringing off the hook.  Instead of actually eating fruits and vegetables, the concept was to juice them – thought to be more tolerable in flavor while you still benefitted from all the nutrients.   I haven’t seen a juicer in anyone’s house lately, and my sense is this trend was absorbed into the smoothie trend. 

My advice?  Whole fruits and vegetables (vs. juice) are the best choice.  If you’ve moved onto the smoothie trend, use whole fruits and vegetables. 

The grapefruit diet, the cabbage soup diet.  I have a friend who ate nothing but cabbage soup for a week.  While she did lose 6 pounds, there’s obviously no way she could sustain this for long periods of time.  More importantly, she was getting very few of the nutrients her body needs to stay healthy, sustain her through the day, etc.    Common sense tells us all that these are unrealistic eating plans, but the allure of quick weight loss is appealing to many.

My advice?  Include foods like cabbage and grapefruit in your eating plan, but look for methods of weight management you can sustain for the long haul.

The Atkins Diet.  Yes, another diet fad.  But this is one that has come and gone, and come and gone.  While this diet recommends a very low carbohydrate eating plan that is unrealistic for many people to stick with, there has been some benefit from this diet cropping up every decade or so.  What we’ve all learned is to make better carbohydrate choices and that just because many high carb foods are fat free, it doesn’t mean we can eat them in unlimited portions.  Just like all food types, portions of carbohydrates and the type we eat need to be managed.  Research is emerging to suggest that some people can be effective at weight management and loss by managing their carbohydrates (which is different than eliminating them). 

My advice?  Focus on whole grains, high fiber carbohydrates, and limit starchy foods made from white, refined flour.  Limit portion sizes of carbs. 

Have a favorite nutrition fad from the 1980’s or 1990’s?  Send it in, and I’ll let you know where it’s at today.

Visit www.nuval.com to create your own fad of high scoring foods.

Many of you are probably working Moms. Busy life.  I am one of those too, and with school starting, am feeling the stress of getting 6-year-old twins up, dressed, fed, alert, and on the bus by 7:30am every day.  I definitely have some guilty feelings driving to work after “ordering” my kids around like Louis Gossett, Jr as Sergeant Emil Foley in “An Officer and a Gentleman.”  Although I might be effective in this role, I would never win an OSCAR.  Nor would I want to. 

Let’s start with the wakeup.   I have to sing, turn on lights, tickle, dance, make jokes just to get them to open their eyes.  WHEN (not if) that doesn’t work, I resort to “Come on!  The bus is going to be here soon!  You want to eat your breakfast and watch some TV before you leave, right?”  Hence, it’s all downhill from here.

Even as a dietitian, breakfast at our house is nothing fancy.  Usually a bowl of cereal, a banana, possibly yogurt.  But most mornings involve a granola bar.  Thanks to NuVal, I am able to justify buying our Kroger brand Chewy Granola Bars (Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip or Chocolate Chunk) which score 22 & 24.  Not hugely high, but much better than a few of the name brands that score an 8.  So, although it’s a quick, easy solution to our morning rush, it feels good to know I am at least doing the best I can for them in the yummy, chocolate granola bar category.

Then comes the run out the door to catch the bus.  “Hurry, Hurry.  Mr. Pat will be waiting for us!”  They both respond with “OK, MOM! We’re coming.  Stop yelling at us!”  I put their backpacks on them and tell them what their snack is for the day.  I pack them a snack each day with the help of our NuVal tags reinforcing my choices there as well.  And a note of “I (heart) U,” my clichèd “good Mom” move.  Fruit’s always included.  They seem to like to have it when it’s a planned snack, and they are hungry from all the learning they are doing at school. 

As I put them on the bus, I hug them, kiss them good-bye and wave to them as they ride off.  A small sigh of relief comes out.  Wait, is even THAT a “bad Mom” moment?  I am starting to wonder.

So I ask my “early to bed, early to rise boyfriend” if I am so bad and should feel guilty for all the stern orchestrating I am doing in the morning.  And he puts it all in perspective (like he so eloquently does) by saying “Leigh, you are being a parent.  You are preparing them for life.  For their future.  You are laying the groundwork for them to be functioning adults in society.  When kids no longer need parental nudging, they can move out and take care of themselves.  They are learning the basics about responsibility and punctuality.  It’s your JOB.” 

Hmmm. 

I thought I was just now GOING to my JOB.  But it turns out, I was doing the most important JOB of all.  Being a “good Mom.”

Visit www.nuval.com to learn more about a system that can help you be more effective at your job of being a good mom.

Salt plays a key role in enhancing the taste of food.  Even in small amounts, it creates a better balance of flavors – changing people’s perception of other tastes, such as sweetness and bitterness, in a dish.  But our culture has become used to substantial amounts of sodium, a taste which is established through exposure to salt as early as age two. 

Yet the health effects of salt have been shaking up controversy since the beginning of the 20^th century.  Before the 1940s, doctors began using salt restriction to treat patients with hypertension – even though benefits of reducing salt were not entirely accepted.  In 1979, Jean Mayer, then the president of Tufts University, called salt “the most dangerous additive of all.” And now, high sodium intake has been shown to be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD), which is currently one of the leading causes of death in the United States.

In light of the strong-hold sodium has on health, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recently recommended reducing sodium intake gradually down from the current 2,300mg recommendation to 1,500mg.  Quite a drop.

Is it time to wean the United States off the salt lick?  Recommendations to accomplish this include a population-based approach, requiring the food industry to decrease sodium in their products across the board. 

Amazingly, a population-based change has already happened in Great Britain. Their Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) shook up society with its sodium recommendation in 2002, which required the cooperation of food manufacturers to reduce sodium on a national-level.  Of course, the industry wasn’t too pleased about this – but because the British population was vocal for change, the food industry conceded.

And guess what – the high sodium foods you eat here in the U.S.?  Well the same manufacturer makes the same product but many times with less sodium for the British population.  Interesting.  Could this ever happen in the United States?

Manufacturers are now beginning to reduce sodium in the American food supply – but resistance is high and change is slow.  Will our community demand change?

Do you worry about salt intake?  What are some of the things you do for your family to help reduce sodium in the diet? 

Visit www.nuval.com  to see a system that takes sodium into account.

My friend Joanna is a very balanced eater.  When we go out for lunch (I work out of my home and she works in physical therapy in and out of people’s homes), she often picks the “under 500 calorie” items or looks for more nutritious options on the menu.  She also can dig into a burger or good Mexican food like there’s no tomorrow.  Balanced all the way around.

While Joanna loves a wide variety of foods, her kids are another matter.  It especially gets tricky at this time of year when she has to start making school lunches.  Joanna’s kids attend a small school that doesn’t offer hot lunch, so it’s all on Joanna.  Her frustrations?  Dani (4^th grade, girl) doesn’t like sandwiches in any shape or form.  She doesn’t like lunch meat or the standard PB&J.  Jonathan (6^th grade, boy), on the other hand, isn’t all that fond of fruits and vegetables.  He got braces last spring, adding challenge to what he can eat.  Joanna also struggles with variety.  “Why is it that my kids would eat pizza rolls 5 days a week for lunch,” Joanna comments, “but they get bored with more nutritious foods?” Creativity, she admits, isn’t her thing.

We can all feel the pain, can’t we?  Packing school lunches day in and day out can definitely have its challenges, especially when kids have big differences in what they will eat. 

So for Joanna, I agreed to put a shout out to all my readers for suggestions on how she can get more nutritious foods into school lunches, keeping it interesting all year long.  A few of my suggestions are:

• Take Dani and Jonathan to the grocery store, and have them pick out foods for their school lunches based on the criteria you set (one fruit and vegetable for every day, no cookies or chips, etc).  It puts the pressure on them to find foods that will work. 
• My son Jack (who is plays basketball with Jonathan) loves hummus with pita chips.  He’ll even eat the no salt, whole wheat pita chips.  The mild flavor of hummus and the “dipping” part appeal to kids.  Veggies are also great dipped in hummus.
• On Sundays, make a big batch of smoothies (non-fat, plain Greek yogurt, any fruit you have around) and freeze it in portions appropriate for each day.  By the time lunch comes around, the smoothie will be the right temperature to enjoy, and in the meantime your kids are getting protein and calcium from the yogurt and one to two servings of fruit.  With smoothies you can often sneak in fruits they might not typically eat plain.
• Keep lunch interesting by throwing in a cartoon strip or joke or personal message (“good luck on your math test”).
• If leftovers are in the house, serve those for breakfast, and then send traditional breakfast foods (cereal, yogurt, fruit) for lunch. 

Other ideas for Joanna to test out on Jonathan and Dani?

Visit www.nuval.com to determine the nutrition quality of foods you’re packing in school lunches.