The company I work for is headquartered in Boston, and as a Minnesotan, I take a lot of flak from my coworkers about where I live.  In July, they’ll ask me if it’s snowing.  I get questions about wild life and farming (despite the fact that I live in the city).  All the stereotypes there are about Minnesota – I hear about them. 

But today, I get to give them a little flak, as my hometown (the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis) was named the healthiest, fittest city in the U.S. followed by Washington, D.C. in the number two spot and Boston in the number three spot.

The ranking of the healthiest cities is done by the American College of Sports Medicine.  The determination was made using the annual American Fitness Index, which looks at the percentage of residents who smoke and who exercise regularly, obesity rates, and the availability of parks, walking trails and farmers’ markets.  In the Twin Cities, we have a lower-than-average obesity rate, an above-average percentage of residents who exercise, a relatively low smoking rate and moderate-to-low rates of chronic health problems such as asthma, heart disease and diabetes.  Minneapolis was one of the first cities in the nation to have organized bike trails and to ban smoking in public places.  We have more land dedicated to parks than the national average. 

The beauty of this is that living somewhere where health and fitness are a priority makes it simpler to live a healthier life.  If trails are easily accessible, people are more likely to walk, run, blade, and bike.  If smoking is banned in public places, people are less likely to smoke or will smoke less often.  If healthy food is readily available, people are more likely to choose it.  Living in a healthy city perpetuates health.

What is your home town doing today to make it easier for you to live a healthier life?

Visit www.nuval.com to learn about a nutrition guidance system available at Coborn’s Stores in the Minnesota that helps keep all us residents healthy.

Weighing In – Stress Eating

I have a brother-in-law undergoing treatment for cancer.  I am in the midst of a master bathroom remodel.  My 9-year-old bulldog Diesel was recently diagnosed with a heart valve defect, and I now have a cardiac patient in my house.  It’s May, when every teacher at Jack’s school tries to cram in one more major project in addition to all the band concerts and end-of-year programs.

Needless to say, my stress level is a bit high these days.

I don’t know about you, but when stressed, I waver between being too sick to my stomach to eat to eating any form of junk food that is in my house.  Unless it goes on for days and weeks, the former isn’t really detrimental to my health.  But the later, again if left unchecked, definitely can negatively impact my health.

So what to do?

One of the biggest helps I’ve found to manage stress eating is actually borrowed from the Alcoholics Anonymous program.  It’s the acronym HALT, which stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. The point is to identify the real emotion and deal with that instead of using food as the answer for all stress.  If you’re Angry, find a support person to talk to, journal, or exercise it away.  Lonely, find a friend to hit a comedy movie, go to lunch with coworkers, ask your spouse for a hug. Tired, sleep, read a book. And finally, if you’re Hungry, eat. I’ve found that dealing with the feeling I have is the only help, and that food doesn’t feed the real craving all these emotions bring.

How do you manage stress eating?

Visit www.nuval.com to find the healthiest foods to help you manage through stressful times.

My husband, Dan, is definitely much hipper than I.  He’s always up-to-date on pop culture, the latest buzz, trendy text language, and all the rest.  When it comes to nutrition, though, I can hold my own with the best of them as to the latest buzz words.  Here’s a list of what’s trending right now in the food and nutrition world:

Local:  Buying local.  Thinking about the miles that are on your food before you buy it, and the cost of all those miles and the impact on the planet of all those miles.  Farmers’ Markets and CSAs drive against this trend, too.

Eco-friendly: Foods (and other products, too) which claim to inflict little or no harm on the environment.  It’s not legally defined, so food companies can define it however they choose, and most often it is used as a marketing claim. 

Meatless Meals/Meatless Mondays:  Anything Oprah does gets noticed, and Meatless Mondays is one she is driving.  After her segment on veganism , she recommended Meatless Mondays as a “vegan light” option for those who enjoy meat too much to give it up.  Going meatless one or two nights a week can sometimes save money, sometimes be more nutritious. 

Ancient grains:  It’s not just about wheat, corn and rye anymore, but food products with fascinating and interesting grains are available on supermarket shelves everywhere.  Amaranth, quinoa, buckwheat, millet and teff are gluten free, which might be part of the reason they are showing up more frequently in products.  Spelt, kamut, einkorn, triticale, and emmer are also considered ancient grains, defined as having been around for thousands of years.  While some believe these grains are more nutritious (think omega-3s, protein, antioxidants), the nutrition of each grain varies just as the various fruits and vegetables vary in nutrition content.  Choosing whole grains is what’s most important.

Nutrient Rich:  Finally we are moving beyond just talking about the negatives in food (think saturated fat, sodium, added sugar), and looking at all the positives foods supply.  We’re also choosing foods that are more packed with nutrients for their calories (think fiber, omega-3, calcium, vitamin D), and working to navigate away from foods that have calories only, and no beneficial nutrients. 

SoFAS.  This acronym stands for Solid Fats (think saturated and trans fat) and Added Sugars, and is a key theme in the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.  This buzz word draws attention to these nutrients that are leading to the major diseases in our country (think obesity and heart disease), and are nutrients that absolutely need to be limited in our daily eating habits.

Minimally processed/Whole Foods/Close to nature:  Chose the phrase you prefer, but it’s all about choosing foods more often that are less processed, closer to their original food state. The belief is that driving in this direction leads to healthier eating habits overall.

What other food and nutrition buzz words are a part of your conversations?

Visit www.nuval.com to view scores that penalize SoFAS, honors nutrient rich foods and those closest to nature, and helps you make the most nutritious choices on Meatless Mondays.

As the spring weather struggles to make its way to summer warmth and sun here in Minnesota, I get the itch to clean – clean out the garage, putting away the cross country skis and taking out the bikes, clean up the yard, clean through Jack’s clothes to donate what he has outgrown.  I also get a spring “itch” to clean out the pantry and reassess what staples I am keeping in my house these days. 

• Pastas.  At my house, I love Dreamfields brand pastas as they are higher in fiber, and have low digestible carbs.  I also sometimes buy the whole wheat option with flax added for an omega-3 kick.  However, if my husband happens to grocery shop, he’ll buy the white regular pasta.  So it’s a good time to see what’s in the pantry, and provide a gentle reminder on future grocery lists.
• Peanut butter.  The best advice here is to choose the peanut butters that are typically in the refrigerated section, where you can see the oil separated from the peanut part.  Another healthy option, which I have now acclimated to the taste of, is almond butters.  Almonds have a better nutrition profile than peanuts, and unless a lot of sodium is added, so does the butter.
• Cereal.  While we’re all used to looking at the sugar content of cereals, we should also be looking at the sodium content as cereals can be a hidden source of sodium.  Jack tends to eat middle of the road cereals, so I may try and work on this one with him, getting him to try some options with more fiber and less sugar. 
• Fruits and vegetables.  If strawberries or blueberries start to go bad, I catch them just before they do.  I wash them and slice them (in the case of the strawberries) and toss them in the freezer.  Then I add them to oatmeal later on.  It’s an easy way to add a fruit to breakfast without wasting food that is just about to go bad.

Assessing the options that you stock your pantry (or your refrigerator or freezer for that matter) with can be a great way to consider if household staples are in line with your definition of a healthy lifestyle.  Keeping nutritious foods in the house is one of the best tricks for building healthier eating habits. 

What’s in your pantry that you think is worth trading up to a more nutritious option?

Visit www.nuval.com to assess nutrition quality scores on your pantry staples.

I have found in my nearly 13 years as a parent that establishing what I call “Food Rules” can be helpful in establishing healthy eating habits for my son, but for the adults in the house, too.  Here are some of the Food Rules that exist in my house:

• Always serve milk with meals.
• At least one fruit or vegetables is served at every meal. 
• The television is turned off while we eat (we do, however, sometimes have popcorn while watching a movie).
• Pop is a treat, allowed on special occasions.
• We eat in the kitchen or dining room only (I once had a neighbor girl wander my house with a bag of Cheetos she had walked in with.  It wasn’t pretty).
• No gadgets or phones while eating.
• When Jack has sport practice or a game (he plays soccer and basketball), water is the beverage of choice. 
• We eat out no more than two meals a week (except my husband, who eats lunch in his worksite cafeteria every day). 

What food rules do you have to help you maintain healthy eating habits?

Visit www.nuval.com and create a new grocery shopping rule to trade up for health.