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Making the Most of Your Farmers' Market Experience

Do you have trouble navigating your local farmers' market?

Additional Info

Segment Number 2
Audio File eat_right/1525nd3b.mp3
Featured Speaker Sara Haas, RDN, LDN
Organization Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
Guest Bio Sara Haas works as a freelance writer, recipe developer, and as a consultant dietitian/chef for marketing firms as well as for Roche Dietitians and the Centered Chef. A former culinary and nutrition instructor at Kendall College, Haas received formal training in culinary arts. She has led numerous live cooking demonstrations on television and at the Taste of Chicago. She has written articles for Eating Well Magazine and the sports-centered website Stack.com. She has created recipes for organizations including Kids Eat Right, the Hass Avocado Board and for the advertising company Leo Burnett. Haas is the voice of the daily “Eating Right” one-minute nutrition messages on Chicago’s WBBM AM 780 and 105.9 FM. Haas is a graduate of Indiana University. She attended Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Chicago.
Transcription Melanie Cole (Host): Do you sometimes have trouble navigating your local farmer's market? You know, from the myriad of vendors that you can see there can sometimes be a little intimidating. There is ever changing produce and some of it doesn't always look that great and you are not sure whether or not you should buy it and how to even talk to these vendors. Should you haggle for the price? What should you do? My guest today is Sara Haas. She is a registered dietitian nutritionist. Welcome to the show, Sara. So, farmer's markets are popping up everywhere. They are great. It's a great, sustainable way to stay local. Tell us about the farmer's market and give us your best advice on how to navigate that.

Sara Haas (Guest): Right and thanks so much for having me, Melanie. It's really a pleasure for me to be here today. I guess I have a few tips that might make it a little less intimidating for people that maybe have a little hesitancy of going to a farmer's market in their area. My first tip would be to walk the whole market first. A lot of people sort of walk in and they start buying stuff right away. They don't know what they are doing but my recommendation is to get to know what's there and what's in season. The best tip is to just take a stroll around and see what's laying on the tables. That way, you get a good picture of what's fresh, what's in season in your area and this gives you an idea kind of where you want to spend your money first.

Melanie: That's great advice. It's something I like to do, too, is to walk around and see what's there first. And when you are walking around, do you take special notice of the guy with the beets or the guy with the cherries and the guy two doors down with the beets and the cherries and how much they are costing differently?

Sara: Right. Well, I don't know about in your area but I am in Chicago and for the most part, I have noticed that a lot of people, they price their things similarly and I don't know if that is out of respect for each other so that there is not a lot of price comparison. It's just sort of maybe this person has better relationship with this farmer or something like that. So, in my area that's actually not an issue. The price of things seems pretty comparable from table to table. But that kind of brings me to my other tip, which is talking to the farmers. I think a lot of people do themselves a disservice by just sort of hanging back and waiting for their turn to go buy something instead of getting in there and really talking to the resource because the farmers are the ones who grew the food and, from my experience, they want to talk to you about their food. They are excited about their food and they want to tell you all about it. They are the best resource at the farmer's market, as far as I am concerned.

Melanie: Well, I like talking to them, too, and it is always so interesting. Sometimes they'll even get into their stories with you and I am in the Chicago area as well, so we have that in common.

Sara: Oh! Great!

Melanie: So, now what about trusting what you are getting? Sometimes people are willing to pay a little bit more to get that fresh, sustainable produce and things but sometimes you are not sure if you are really getting what they say; like the guy with the meat and the eggs and the bacon. Sometimes you see those guys at the farmer's market and you are just not really sure if they are overcharging or if it's because it's fresh that it's charged that much.

Sara: Right. I would say that's a really great point, Melanie, too. I would say it behooves you to do a good bit of research before you enter farmer's market, too. Or, if you are feeling kind of apprehensive about the person, go with your gut, but I would say do some research. We are lucky in Chicago here we have some great markets where their information is readily available. So, we can go online or we can even at the farmer's market see signs that sort of give us information about that vendor--that farmer--so that we can take a closer look into their business and how they run their business. So, I think that's a great tip and that's kind of along lines of getting to know the farmers because once you feel comfortable maybe with the egg guy at the farmer’s market, you'll feel better about purchasing those eggs and okay with paying a little bit more for them because you know that they just came from maybe a town away.

Melanie: Sometimes the produce looks wilted and we know that there is preservatives and things added to the produce we get a Jewel or even at Whole Foods. You know they do things. They package them differently but some of these farmers, Sara, actually just take the produce, stick it in a box and go to the farmer's market. Do we pay attention to the wilted beet leaves or to the way things sometimes look a little bit damaged.

Sara: Yes. Oh, my gosh. That's a great point, Melanie, because you wouldn't buy that at your local grocery store, so why would you buy that at the farmer's market? Be smart, use the same mindset you would when you are at the grocery store. Pick things that look fresh; that are firm if they are supposed to be firm; pick them if they are firm. If they looking brown and ragged and bumpy and they shouldn't be, then absolutely don't pay top dollar for things like that. In fact, I have often asked the person, the farmer or whoever behind the table, is this out of season now? It's kind of looking a little bit tired. Most of the times, they are honest with me and they say, “Yes. This is last of the crop and we just figured we'd bring it because we got a few people that really love it.” So, maybe some of them aren't trying to con you, they are just bringing it because maybe there are two or three people that really don't mind eating it that way. But, yes, be a proponent for picking the best stuff when it's in season.

Melanie: You certainly, as a registered dietitian nutritionist, know about the foods that we are buying and certainly it feels like you are buying healthier foods. Do they not last as long when they are fresh like that as they would? Like right now, peas are in season and so people are selling shelled peas but do those last for as long as if you are getting peas? Or, how do you know how long this produce lasts?

Sara: Right. That’s another good question that you should ask your farmer. Ask them when they were picked. A lot of times, the farmers will tell you that they were picked that morning. If they're picked that morning, there is a good chance that those are going to last you a lot longer than the things you would buy at the grocery store. I’ve bought mixed lettuce greens at the farmer's market and they have lasted me at least two weeks whereas the greens I have bought at the grocery store have only lasted me maybe a couple of days. So, in my experience, the things at the farmer's market -- because I feel that and I have reached out to my farmers – they’re honest with me and have expressed to me about how fresh their products are, I have experienced that freshness by not having the food waste because their ingredients last much longer. So, really, it's a benefit for you. Maybe you are spending a few more dollars at the farmer's market but you're going to have a few more days to enjoy it. So, you can look at it that way too.

Melanie: Do you think that the farmers and the merchants there get insulted if you were to ask them, “Is this organic? Do you use pesticides?” Should you be asking questions like that or does that insult them in some way?

Sara: I think that for the most part -- I'm going to I generalize -- I would say farmers are really happy to talk to you and they really want to tell you all about what they are growing. If they want to sell their product. They want you to come back. They are going to be honest with you and give you the full story. Yes. You should always ask questions. Always ask if it’s organic, if that's important to you and you should always ask what kind of pesticides they are using. The more questions, the better. That just makes you an informed purchaser and that looks well upon you and I think it actually gets the farmers excited when you show so much interest in what they are doing. So, I think it only works in your favor to ask more questions. Be kind of like the nerdy student in the class who's always asking the questions.

Melanie: Well, sure but it’s such an important thing to do to know your local produce vendors and to get to know these guys selling the fresh eggs because there is nothing—nothing--that tastes better than fresh eggs compared to the ones that you get at Jewel. In just the last 30 seconds or minute, Sara, please give your best advice for shopping at the farmer's market. What a great topic this is.

Sara: Oh, fun! I know. I could talk forever. I guess I would say, don't be afraid. Step up to the table. Talk to the farmer, Pick up the produce. Smell it, touch it, ask all your questions and just enjoy it. And ask them how to use it and really take the time to spend with the farmers and looking at all the produce and taste it, too. Ask them to taste it. If the sample is out, make sure to ask to taste it.

Melanie: What great advice. There are usually samples so don't be intimidated to try those samples because you are buying their product and they want you to come back. As Sara Hass says, don't be afraid to ask questions. Ask when it was picked. Ask how long it will last after that. Ask what pesticides and if it’s organic and what they use. Go ahead and ask all these questions because those vendors want you to come back. It may cost a little bit more but it is local and sustainable and certainly a healthier choice than getting some of the vegetables and things that you see at your local grocery stores that you don't know where they came from, what's being used on them. They look like plastic and taste like that too. So, shop at your local farmer's markets because it is certainly a great way to support your local community. You are listening to Eat Right Radio with our good friends form the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. For more information go to eatright.org. That's eatright.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening and stay well.
Length (mins) 10
Waiver Received No
Host Melanie Cole, MS

Orthorexia: What Is It & What Can You Do About It?

Orthorexia is an unhealthy fixation on eating only healthy or "pure" foods.

Additional Info

Segment Number 1
Audio File eat_right/1525nd3a.mp3
Featured Speaker Marjorie Nolan Cohn, MS, RDN
Organization Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
Guest Bio Marjorie Nolan Cohn is a registered dietitian nutritionist and Spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, with a specialty in eating disorders, behavior modification and is a certified personal trainer. Marjorie is co-author of Overcoming Binge Eating For Dummies.

Learn more about Marjorie Nolan Cohn.
Transcription Melanie Cole (Host): Those who have an unhealthy obsession with otherwise healthy eating may be suffering from orthorexia, which literally means fixation on righteous eating. Orthorexia can be a serious eating disorder. It often starts out as an innocent attempt to eat more healthfully, as we’d all like to do, but orthorexics become fixated on food quality and purity. My guest today is Marjorie Nolan Cone. She’s a registered dietician-nutritionist and spokesman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Welcome to the show, Marjorie. So, tell us a little bit about orthorexia. In this day and age, we all hear about so many the benefits of eating healthy. When does it cross over into that unhealthy line?

Marjorie Nolan Cone (Guest): Hi! Thanks for having me. It’s such a great question, because that line is really just a big old gray area. I think the main things that we have to take into consideration when evaluating if someone has crossed the line from trying to be a healthier person engaged in a healthier lifestyle versus orthorexia or otherwise an eating disorder is, one, they medically compromise—have they lost too much weight, is there something else going on, is there some sort of injury because of over exercising, and/or they malnourish because now they’ve cut out so many different foods and food groups. The other thing that we have to evaluate for—and usually these happen at the same time—is are they missing out on a quality of their life that they once were able to engage in, like going out to restaurants with friends and family or otherwise socializing, but instead now they have to go the gym or they’re so obsessed with food and the quality of their food that they can’t eat anything other than if they’ve made it themselves.

Melanie: Are we looking at this a sort of an OCD? Because the quality, the purity of the food, the intensity of reading those labels, making sure or being completely so vegan that nothing else is allowed to enter in, is that along the lines of OCD, or is it more along the lines of disordered eating, or both?

Marjorie: It can be both. What we do see -- and I personally see with a lot of my clients is that the obsession with an eating disorder and the types of food very much does take on an OCD type quality. Now, some clients that I have are diagnosed with OCD, and that’s part of their medical history and something that needs to be dealt with in a therapeutic manner, with their therapist as well as in nutrition counseling. However, the obsession with the food, if that’s the only obsession in their life—let’s say they’re not obsessed with cleaning their house or keeping paperwork in order or other areas—then we wouldn’t diagnose that person with OCD. But the eating disorder itself does take on OCD qualities for most people, at least to some degree.

Melanie: Now, some people think when they have somebody who is a vegan or who really likes to eat healthy, they get a lot of crap from people. “Oh don’t be so sanctimonious. You’re so holier than thou about your eating habits.” But when do you actually notice that the person, that it has crossed the line? And what you do about it? If you suggest it to that person, wouldn’t it seem like they would just right away say, “Oh, well you just are jealous at the way I eat so healthy”? It’s got a different tone to it, Marjorie.

Marjorie: It does, because orthorexia, in terms of eating disorders, is a really convenient way to mask an eating disorder. In fact, the person who struggles with orthorexia quite often may not even realize that this has gone beyond healthy eating into a dangerous place. And so, really looking at other variables or factors in that person’s life in terms of has this gone too far may not be about the food in particular but, like I said earlier, are they missing out on social engagements. Is there that sort of righteous attitude about food, or does the person have severe anxiety or stress from eating something outside of their comfort zone? To not be able to have ice cream with your friends on a hot summer day, even though you want to eat it but because you’re worried about the quality of the food, those are just some examples of ways that you can sort of detect if this has gone too far. Because the reality is it can go unnoticed for a very long time, and it is because of the general perspective and way that Americans are eating now and putting more of a focus on health. It is deemed and looked at as sometimes a positive thing.

Melanie: Well, it certainly is, and that’s why it’s got such an unusual quality about it. What’s the road to recovery like Marjorie? How do you get somebody -- you don’t want them start on junk but maybe move them into a little bit more animal proteins, get them to eat just a little bit of multi-grain bread or things that they’ve really completely cut out of their diet because of this fixation on perfect food?

Marjorie: Well, as a dietician, this is definitely my area of specialty. The way I work with clients is I really take a specific list of what they are not eating any longer. What have they eated and enjoyed in the past that they aren’t allowing themselves now? And we literally do this by day. We put it in order of foods that they initially started restricting or cutting out to the most recent, and it’s basically working backward, starting from those foods that they’ve cut out the most recently and then progressing to the foods that they initially cut out. So maybe someone recently cut out, I don’t know, eggs or egg whites or organic fish, but one of the first foods they cut out is pizza. So it makes sense to me to start to add those foods that have been the most recent back in, and it really goes one at a time, slowly and doing it in a controlled environment. I often have meals and snacks with my clients and work through the emotional experience they have when they’re eating that food, and sometimes it’s really powerful and anxiety-provoking and upsetting. And sometimes it’s a lot easier than they realize. But we have to start with those initial foods first and kind of work from there.

Melanie: Well, and that’s the hardest part about any disordered eating is, unlike alcohol addiction or of any these others, you have to eat. And so, when you’re working with somebody like this, is it similar to anorexia in that they’ve got those fears, that uncomfortable feeling from eating things they feel that they’re not supposed to? Does it lend itself to bulimia once they start getting recovered?

Marjorie: It can. That’s a very interesting thing with eating disorders which is similar to other addictions in that it can cross lines. Someone who started out with anorexia who’s starting to try recover and working on becoming healthier might then phase to orthorexia and be eating more and be eating enough calories but have a fixation on the quality of them, and/or vice versa as well, as binge eating and bulimia. I’ve had clients who have gone through anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating over the course of their eating disorder. So it’s really nondiscriminating in that way, and it can go in many different directions.

Melanie: In just the last 30 seconds, if you would, Marjorie, give your best advice for people suffering with orthorexia or someone they love they’re may be sensing some of those red flags.

Marjorie: The first thing to do is call a therapist, look online, look on your insurance company, and see if you can find someone who has a background in eating disorders and get an assessment. That person should have the resources to refer you to a doctor, a dietician, a psychopharmacologist who can help build a treatment team for you to really get over this disorder.

Melanie: Thank you so much. That’s great information. You’re listening to Eat Right Radio with our great friends from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. For more information, you can go to eatright.org. That’s eatright.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.
Length (mins) 10
Waiver Received No
Host Melanie Cole, MS

Psychology of Breakfast: Facts & Anecdotes Behind the Most Important Meal of the Day

Choosing the right breakfast foods can help control cravings and reduce snacking the rest of the day.

Additional Info

Segment Number 2
Audio File eat_right/1521nd2b.mp3
Featured Speaker Torey Armul, MS
Organization Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
Guest Bio Torey Armul, MS, is a board-certified specialist in sports dietetics and award-winning nutrition communications expert. She counsels active adults on food and fitness, weight loss, gastrointestinal disorders, prenatal nutrition and emotional eating. Armul also works as a health coach consultant for an employee wellness company and a mobile health app. She is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis and earned a master's degree in Human Nutrition from University of Illinois at Chicago.
Transcription Melanie Cole (Host): Do you know the power of breakfast? It’s often considered the most important meal of the day by health experts. But can choosing the right breakfast foods help control cravings and reduce snacking for the rest of the day? My guest today is Torey Armul. She’s a board certified specialist in sports dietetics, an award-winning nutrition communications expert. Welcome to the show, Torey. So, breakfast. We’ve always heard “the most important meal of the day.” Is it really the most important meal, and can it help us with the rest of our day’s eating cravings?

Torey Armul (Guest): Hi, Melanie. Yes, it really is just about the most important meal of the day, and there’s two big areas to consider with breakfast. The first is the research behind breakfast, so what these studies are actually showing breakfast can do for us. There’s some pretty strong research that eating breakfast, especially something with protein, is linked to increased fullness, fewer cravings, and even reduced snacking later on at night.

Melanie: Okay. So what do you think makes the components of a healthy breakfast but one that’s enough to fill us up and keep us going through the day?

Torey: The best components for a healthy breakfast are going to be protein, especially because, again, that has been linked to increased fullness, fewer cravings, but also fiber. So you really have those two buckets you want to fill. And some good protein options. That may be greek yogurt, other low-fat dairy, eggs, nuts, nut butters, and then some great fiber is going to come from fruits and vegetables. Also, whole grains. So maybe whole wheat toast, wheat pancakes, or oatmeal.

Melanie: Okay. So, eggs. I’m just going to start there because eggs have gotten a bad rap over the years. It’s something I love to feed my children almost every morning, along with their smoothie and a bowl of fruit. Eggs: good, bad? Can we do that?

Torey: I am a fan of eggs. And as with everything you’ll hear dietitians say often, everything in moderation. So if you’re having a few eggs a week, that is perfectly fine. That’s perfectly healthy. And I even like keeping the yolk in. A lot of people think they need to do egg whites only to stay healthy, but the yolk actually has a lot of important nutrients, vitamins, minerals, and even healthy fats that are so good for us and can also help keep us full throughout the day.

Melanie: How can we make breakfast more entertaining, a little bit more varying? Because it seems to be sometimes to be the same thing every day. You’ve got a bowl of fruit; you do something with the yoghurt. How can we make it more interesting?

Torey: The best way to make breakfast more interesting is to have fun with it. Try new fruits and vegetables. Let your kids have a hand in the grocery store what new produce to pick. And also, planning ahead can really help. Some people start their breakfast the night before by making overnight oats, where you kind of simmer some raw oats with some milk and some fruit. So you can really play ahead of time even if you don't have much time in the morning to get ready. Advance planning with breakfast can be very important and actually kind of keep you excited about it and really allot some time for your breakfast.

Melanie: What about on-the-go breakfasts? You see granola bars and now these protein bars. There’s so many on the market, Torey. What do you think about those and when people have no time for breakfast, they grab one of those?

Torey: I usually say when you have a choice between something for breakfast and nothing for breakfast, always go for the something. Now, of course, you want the something to be moderately healthy, so check the ingredients labels. Try to find something where you can recognize each ingredient in that nutrition facts label. You’re going to see all sorts of products with the granola bars, and they really vary, so it’s hard to pinpoint one brand that does it best. So you really need to compare your nutrition facts labels and your ingredient list and see which ones are the most wholesome natural food.

Melanie: Do you have any recipes you’d like to share for smoothies or things you like to get us going in the day, something that you yourself would want to serve?

Torey: Well, when I do smoothies, the biggest consideration is you want to make sure is you have some protein in there. So of course, it’s super easy to make a smoothie at home with some frozen fruits, Greek yoghurt, water, milk, chia seeds. There’s a lot of fun things you can do with smoothies. But the number one consideration is, again, to make sure you add that bit of protein. So that may be some skim milk with the smoothie, some Greek yoghurt, cottage cheese. Sometimes you can even add some peanut butters for more of a savory smoothie. So making sure you’re really kind of adding that protein to the smoothie is important. And that goes with all sorts of breakfast foods, too.

Melanie: Now, if someone is really trying to lose weight, the first impulse is to skip breakfast and then try and make it up at lunch or dinner or snacking throughout the day. If you really want to have that willpower and success in losing weight, what might a good, healthy breakfast look like?

Torey: A good, healthy breakfast is going to have a few different components. First, always make sure you’re having some kind of fruit or vegetable with your meal. We really should be eating about 50 percent of our foods from fruits and vegetables, but of course, very few people actually do that. But it’s really a good idea to have. So making sure that you’re really loading up on the fruits and vegetables, because that’s that important fiber that really helps to fill you up and keep you full throughout the day. You also want to make sure you have that protein again, and then ideally some healthy fats, too. So you can find that in olive oil, in avocado, in nuts and seeds, so those are the three big points that it would be great to hit. And one other thing about breakfast, too, they found that people who eat breakfast are more likely to exercise more often, and it may actually increase the amount of calories burned during exercise. So the importance of breakfast even goes beyond what you’re eating. It can actually translate into how you’re acting and exercising the rest of the day.

Melanie: Torey, people hear avocado, oatmeal, foods that you and I both know are so good for us, but they also worry that those are high in calories, so then they would contribute to weight gain or not help us to lose weight. Clear that up for us.

Torey: Some of the really healthy foods you hear of, like avocado and nuts, can be higher in calories. And part of the reason for that is because they’re chockfull of healthy fats, which tend to be higher in calories gram for gram than protein or carbohydrates. It’s one of those food groups that you want to watch, so keep in moderation. But I'm a fan of healthy fats because they can really fill you up. So I would rather a client eat something with some good, solid healthy fats and maybe 200 or 300 calories and get really full from that than try to snack the rest of the day trying to get full. It’s a really a question of which would you rather, and I would rather a client eat the real food and really go for something that they want and get full from that than keep chasing the satiety with more hundreds and hundreds of calories.

Melanie: What about the sugar levels to keep a stable blood sugar level during the day? Does fruit hurt that? Because it’s pretty high in sugar, vegetables maybe being lower. But people tend to think of fruit with breakfast. Does that mess with our sugar levels in the day?

Torey: I am a big fan of fruits. And even though it does have some sugar, they’re natural sugars. So one thing I say to clients who are looking to lose weight is no one ever gained weight on eating too much fruit. I really have truly never seen that. So I believe that fruit is such an important part of a healthy diet because it’s full of fiber, and that can help fill us up and keep you feeling full and satisfied until your next meal. So it’s not akin to eating half a cup of sugar or eating some candies. Fruit is much richer in nutrients and fiber, so I believe it’s actually a critical part of a healthy weight loss diet.

Melanie: In just the last few minutes, Torey, if you would, give us your best advice for a good, healthy breakfast to keep those craving for snacks down a little bit throughout the day and even possibly help us lose weight.

Torey: My best advice for a healthy breakfast is to, first, make sure you’re having something every day. And that requires some planning ahead. We may not always have 5, 10, or 15 minutes in the morning to make breakfast, so make sure you’re thinking about breakfast when you’re at the grocery store, the night before. You always want to have a plan for a healthy breakfast. That’s first. Second, just make sure your breakfast has some protein and fiber because we know that research shows that helps to fill you up and control cravings the rest of the day. And then ultimately, routine is good when it comes to breakfast, because we talk about willpower and we know willpower is a finite resource. And you don't want to use up all your willpower at breakfast. You have a full day of food choices and other decisions ahead of you. So I'm a fan of finding three or four solid healthy breakfasts and getting them in a rotation so it’s something you don't have to think about, something you don't have to dwell on every morning. It can become very automatic for you.

Melanie: Thank you so much. It’s great information. You’re listening to Eat Right Radio with our good friends from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. For more information, you can go to eatright.org. This is Melanie Cole.
Length (mins) 10
Waiver Received No
Host Melanie Cole, MS

Smart Snacking at Work: Are You a Squirrel, Gopher or Vulture?

You’re at work and hunger hits. What kind of "snack animal" are you?

Additional Info

Segment Number 1
Audio File eat_right/1521nd2a.mp3
Featured Speaker Isabel Maples, MEd, RD
Organization Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
Guest Bio Isabel Maples, MEd, RD, is a food and nutrition expert skilled at translating nutrition science into easy-to-understand language—and into the meals, snacks and drinks people enjoy. By focusing on what Americans can eat instead of what they shouldn’t, Maples helps make food fun again. Her nutrition advice is realistic, affordable and grounded in research.
Transcription Melanie Cole (Host): You’re at work and hunger hits, what do you do? What kind of snack animal are you? My guest today is a registered dietitian/nutritionist, Isabel Maples. Welcome to the show, Isabel. Tell us about snack animals. What does that even mean?

Isabel Maples (Guest): Well, most people at work fall into three categories. Nine out of 10 people say that there’s safesnack at work, but some of them are squirrel and they stash food. Some of them are gophers; they go out and gather food. Some of them are vultures and they feed on food that’s left over in the office.

Melanie: The people that feed on food left over in the office, are they feeding on other people’s food?

Isabel: [Laughs] They do sometimes. Nobody admits that. People don’t like to admit to being vultures. One out of ten will tell you that “yeah, I’m a vulture.” About one in three says that they’re a squirrel. Actually, there are advantages and disadvantages to each of the snacking styles. By knowing that, you can figure out what the pitfalls are and plan accordingly.

Melanie: Then let’s start with squirrels. If we’re looking at pitfalls, what would be a pitfall and then what’s the advantage? If we’re going to be squirreling away our food, what should we be squirreling away? What sits well on a desk?

Isabel: All right. A squirrel obviously does plan ahead a little bit. Some people are naturally planners and some people aren’t. If you look at what your food goals are, so maybe you’re interested in losing weight or maybe you’re interested in trying to get more vegetables in or eat more fiber, so your snack should go along with that. A squirrel, for instance, that’s interested in increasing the fiber might plan some nuts. They might have some fruits for a snack. They might have dried raisins or they might have some carrots, little baby carrots, in the snack refrigerator at work. So, it’s thinking ahead. The problem or disadvantage with a squirrel is, having all that snacks around, you might get distracted. For instance, you’ve got an open candy container on your desk. That could be really distractive, so putting that candy container farther away, or even better, hiding it so it’s not in plain view. The squirrel can plan ahead and that’s a good thing when hunger strikes. But control it by keeping it out of sight if you tend to nibble all day, if you’re a grazer, and by thinking what your goals are and plan and snack accordingly.

Melanie: Plan those healthy snacks, so if you are a nibbler, you’re going to be able to do less damage than if it’s that big bowl of candy on your desk. Tell us about the other types.

Isabel: Well, a gopher might go out and get food. That might be to the vending machine, it might be to the drive-thru, it might be to a corner store or something that’s in your building. Obviously, a gopher doesn’t have a plan-and-play for when snacks hit or at least it’s not right accessible. Sometimes you don’t have time to stop or the vending machine – I mean, there is a big trend towards healthier vending machines but maybe your office didn’t hear about it. When you think of it, there are really not that many good choices on the vending machine. I find that one of the best choices is just a pack of peanuts. You might also look for peanut butter cracker or granola or something like that. Some vending machines will have sandwiches and yoghurt and cereal, but most vending machines don’t. So, a gopher can still make some really good choices like, for instance, you could pop in to a fast food restaurant and you can pick up yoghurt, for instance. Probably eight out of 10 Americans don’t get enough dairy food. That’s an excellent source of potassium, calcium, vitamin D. These are three of the four nutrients that Americans are most likely to miss out on. If you got yoghurt, whether you pick it up in the fast food line or at the corner store or something in your building or whether you bring it from home, stashed in the refrigerator, that’s an easy choice. It’s easy to eat that in a meeting even or at your desk. If you do have a refrigerator at work and you’re used to hitting the vending machine, like gophers like to do, then go for a candy bar in the middle of the afternoon when you get in that slump.Another choice might be get that chocolate craze and to have chocolate milk. So, stash some chocolate milk in your refrigerator at work. Now if you are a vulture, then you don’t plan anything. There’s no plan. It’s sort of just whatever shows up in the lunchroom then it’s what you’re going to eat. That’s not always a bad thing. I mean, you can still, you know, if there’s social at work to share food, that’s a good thing. The problem is some people sort of have that role as a vulture. For instance, I used to work in an office setting where it was all female except one guy. All the females went, “Oh, Scott, come finish off this food, we wrapped it, we brought that,” and so Scott sort of had that role that he was supposed to finish off the food. Guess what? Sometimes Scott was like, “You know, I need to lose a few pounds, but I feel like I’ll hurt people’s feelings.”
A vulture can control that sense of having to eat everything that’s in there and have no control over it by planning… well, maybe not planning, but let’s say avoiding and prioritizing. What I mean by avoiding is so maybe you don’t circle around, looking for… maybe not look if they have left overs as often, so you’re not going to be going through the break room every hour and checking out what’s in there to see what the ladies eat. Avoid that area so then you don’t have to say, “Well, I didn’t really want it, but I just ate it because it was there.”
And then prioritize it. Maybe you got somebody in your office that bakes the best cheesecakes. When she has cheesecake, you want a slice of it. But maybe, you know, some of the donuts that come in almost day to day, quite often they’re not even really that good. So, you could prioritize so that you get the most satisfaction from the snack, because really isn’t that what we want? Some foods taste better than others, but we really want to enjoy the foods that do taste good and that do make us satisfied, helps fill us up and gives us that brain boost throughout the afternoon so we can get more done.

Melanie: Well, I know about healthy vending machines. They’re trying now. Some companies are even putting like hardboiled eggs in the vending machine and people look at them and they’re not sure if they can trust them. What do you think about some of those healthier, fresher choices in the vending machine for those gophers?

Isabel: Well, those vending machines are refrigerated. The yoghurt or the hardboiled egg, or a turkey sandwich, yeah, those are good choices. If you get them and you find that they’re not cold, then you could question it. They probably have a number on the vending machine that you can get your money back. I would say trust those that they are going to be cold and they are okay to have.

Melanie: What about the fast food? If you’re going to go to a fast food place, again with the gophers, if you go to a fast food place, you want to choose healthy but you walk in and the first thing you smell is French fries. How do you get rid of that all-of-a-sudden craving? We only have about a half-a-minute left, so give us really your best advice for making those healthy choices.

Isabel: Think about it ahead of time. What are you going to give priority? What are your pitfalls? What really is your downfall? What gives you the most satisfaction and will help boost your energy and attention span so you can work through the rest of the afternoon?

Melanie: It’s great advice on whether you’re a squirrel or a gopher or a vulture. What kind of snack animal are you? Then you can plan accordingly and make those good, healthy choices for snacks, which we all snack all the time. Decide which kind you are and make those healthy choices. You’re listening to Eat Right Radio with our great friends from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. For more information, you can go to eatright.org. That’s eatright.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening and stay well.
Length (mins) 10
Waiver Received No
Host Melanie Cole, MS

Are Saturated Fat & Cholesterol Back in Fashion?

Butter is back and bacon is being heralded. Well, not so fast.

Additional Info

Segment Number 2
Audio File eat_right/1518nd1b.mp3
Featured Speaker Sonya Angelone, MS, RDN
Organization Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
Guest Bio Sonya Angelone, MS, RDN, is the owner of a nutrition consulting firm, providing individual consultations, group programs and corporate workshops. She is a certified LEAP therapist and certified lifestyle counselor. Her clients include food and biotechnology companies. An expert in the management of people with cardiovascular diseases, Angelone specializes in the clinical management of inflammatory conditions related to non-IgE food sensitivities such as IBS, migraine, fibromyalgia and arthritis. Angelone is a member of several Academy dietetic practice groups, including Sports, Cardiovascular and Wellness Nutrition; Dietitians in Functional Medicine; Dietitians in Business and Communications; Nutrition Entrepreneurs; and Women's Health. Angelone chaired the nutrition committee of the American Heart Association (San Francisco Division) and was a spokesperson for the organization as well. She earned bachelor’s and master's degrees in Clinical Nutrition from California State University, San Jose.
Transcription Melanie Cole (Host): Well, you’ve heard there’s so much controversy lately and in the media. Butter is back. You can have as much bacon as you want. Well, not so fast, because there’ve been some flawed studies that get a lot of media attention but they don’t change most of the science behind nutrition recommendations. What are some of the facts behind fats in particular? Is butter okay to have now? What about cholesterol and saturated fats? It can be a very confusing world. My guest is Sonia Angelone. She is the owner of a nutrition consulting firm providing individual consultations, group programs, and corporate workshops. Welcome to the show, Sonia. Tell us a little bit about the fat controversy, cholesterol, saturated fat. What’s going on in the world of nutrition today?

Sonia Angelone (Guest): Well, good morning. There is always a lot going on in the world of nutrition, especially in the world of saturated fats. We’ve gotten, it seems, mixed messages. I want to clarify it a little because what’s often confusing is really not explained. We can explain why it’s confusing. I think what we need to do is go back to the mid ‘80s when it was looking like the research was suggesting that very low-fat diets were best for heart health. Now, low-fat diet can be good for heart health, especially for some people. There’s certainly research that supports that. But what happened was the food industry sort of grabbed hold of that information and turned it into low-fat treats, like low-fat, high-sugar foods are good for you, and that really wasn’t the message that was intended to be conveyed at all. What happened is everybody sort of gleaned on to as long as it’s low-fat, then it’s good for me, it’s healthy. So people started eating about 300 calories more of sugar a day, and what happened was that we started saying, “Hey, people on this low-fat diets aren’t doing better. It looks like their LDL and possibly their risk for heart disease is going up. It looks like low-fat diets aren’t good after all. What got translated from just the low-fat, heart-healthy diet of fruits and vegetables and beans and whole grains got translated to well, just low-fat in general of being a high-sugar diet. What happened was we abandoned the low-fat mantra to, well, now fat is good and if low fat is bad, then high fat must be good. Bottom line is you have to look at not only what you’re eating, but if you’re going to compare population and groups of people, you have to look at what you’re substituting. If you have people that are eating fat and then you put them on a low-fat diet, if you’re substituting that fat with sugar, they’re not going to do better. But if you’re substituting it with heart-healthy fat and fiber and protein, then most likely they will be better. But everybody is individual and unique, and the best diet for one person isn’t necessarily the best diet for the next person.

Melanie: Well, there’s been so much talk. For a while, there was the Atkins diet and that was all fat and no sugars at all, not even the healthy good carbohydrates. A tomato was off limit. A carrot was off limit. Nobody ever got fatty in those things. There was that. Then we’ve come to the point where some people are saying, “You know, it might not be quite as bad for you as we originally thought.” People have been eating eggs for a thousand years. What is the deal now, Sonia, with inflammation being the predictor of heart disease versus cholesterol levels? Are we still concerned with that?

Sonia: Well, in terms of cholesterol levels, there are years and years of good data that suggest that if your cholesterol level goes up, your risk for heart disease goes up. But it all depends on where you start. I think the assumption was made long ago that cholesterol in your blood was directly related to cholesterol in your diet. The more cholesterol you ate in your diet, the more cholesterol went up in your blood. Then what we learned, as technology advanced and science advanced, we realized that it’s not an equal increase, that your body has about a liter’s worth of cholesterol. If you eat a half a liter, your liver will make the other half a liter. Because cholesterol is important. It’s important for nerve transmission and conduction. It’s important to make hormones. What we know is that if you increase your dietary cholesterol that your liver will make a little less to compensate. Not everybody does that, but most people do. The newest dietary guidelines that will be coming out in 2015, it looks like they’re abandoning the recommendation to just decrease cholesterol, because for the average person, eating cholesterol is really not a factor that’s going to increase their risk for heart disease. Really, it’s more about what they’re eating and not just what they’re not eating.

Melanie: We can have the occasional egg. I love eggs. I feed my kids egg. Now, what about even things like shrimp? It’s very healthy. It’s a lean fish, but it does have cholesterol in it.

Sonia: Shrimp does have cholesterol. I’m not concerned about shrimp, first of all. We’re not eating shrimp on a regular basis, but the only thing is shrimp is really low in saturated fats. The problem with saturated fat is still an issue. But it decreases your LDL receptors, and what happen is the more saturated fat you have, it decreases LDL receptors, which means the LDL can’t be cleared from your blood. And the longer it stays in there, the more likely it is to get oxidized, and oxidized cholesterol leads to inflammation, which goes back to your question. What we’re learning is that inflammation seems to be at the root of so many diseases—heart disease, even osteoporosis, possibly cancer, diabetes. Really, the goal of eating a healthy diet is to really eat a diet that will decrease inflammation.

Melanie: What does decrease inflammation, Sonia? People ask me that question all the time. If someone were to come right to you and say, “What foods can I eat to decrease inflammation?” We’re not just talking about arthritis. We’re talking about inflammation inside your body—plaques in arteries. Yes, what foods are you talking about? Give us some foods.

Sonia: Well, in general, we’re looking at kind of a Mediterranean-style diet. Although there are some guidelines that pertain to everybody, we can’t say that everybody should eat higher fat, Mediterranean-style diet because there are some people that have a particular genetic predisposition if they’re APOE genotype. But they have to have a lower fat diet. But the average person probably would do very well, would decrease their inflammation if they eat a Mediterranean-style diet, which is really based on eating fresh fruits and vegetables that are minimally processed, eating wholesome foods in general—eggs, lean dairy, lean meats, poultry, and plenty of fish. If you look at how we eat in general in this country, we’re going more towards processed foods. We’re not eating much fish. If we do, it’s fish sticks that don’t really have the benefit. In general, everybody can benefit from eating more produce, and I do recommend eating fish, especially fatty fish, at least twice a week.

Melanie: Are there certain foods that you just say, yeah, beets, pineapple, something, those are really great. So you said fish, for sure, they’ve got those omega-3s. That’s really great for us. What other foods?

Sonia: I would start with produce, because in general, we’re edging out produce partly because we think it needs to be prepared, it needs to be cooked. As you mentioned before, carrot, I don’t know anybody who’s gotten sick or increased their inflammation or gotten overweight because of eating carrots. I do recommend carrots. Ideally, I like getting from the farmers’ market. They’re easy. They’re not very big. They’re really flavorful. Again, people eat because food needs to taste good, and if you get real wholesome, fresh foods, they taste good, you’re going to eat them. Just have produce front and center, at least half your plate of produce, whether it be snap peas, carrots, broccoli, steamed or raw, any kind. Go for colors because we know that colors are really healthy. Sweet potatoes, the starchy vegetable. It gives you good energy for your exercise. It’s not something that’s going to get converted to sugar right away in your bloodstream. I recommend eating nuts, especially almonds and walnuts. Walnuts are certainly anti-inflammatory. They have good alpha-linolenic acid, which is a type of omega-3 fat, which is found in fish. Almonds are really high in calcium. There are so many studies that show that people who eat about an ounce or ounce and a half of nuts per day certainly get anti-inflammatory benefits and they don’t gain weight. We don’t know exactly that’s because nuts are satisfying because of the higher fat content and maybe they’re not snacking as often, we’re not sure why, but we know that nuts and seeds are a good thing to add.

Melanie: Well, these are all great foods. Nuts and seeds, produce. Fill your plate with the colors and the wonderful green leafy and carrots and produce and fish and lean meats, and yes, you can even eat eggs again. You’re listening to Eat Right Radio with our good friends from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. For more information, you can go to eatright.org. That’s eatright.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks for listening, and stay well.
Length (mins) 10
Waiver Received No
Host Melanie Cole, MS

Hunger in Your Community: Solving the Gap

In a country overloaded with food, did you know that 49 million individuals in America face hunger every day?

Additional Info

Segment Number 1
Audio File eat_right/1518nd1a.mp3
Featured Speaker Lauri Wright, PhD, RDN, LD
Organization Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
Guest Bio Lauri Wright is an assistant professor in Public Health at the University of South Florida. She teaches nutrition courses on Community Nutrition, Food and Culture and Lifespan Nutrition. Through her research, she works with food insecure individuals, obesity-prevention in children and the nutritional needs of people with AIDS. Wright has consulted with seniors in the Meals on Wheels program, providing nutrition education and counseling. She formerly worked as a clinical dietitian for the Veterans Administration, providing medical nutrition therapy for vets with chronic disease. Wright was the President of the Florida Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics in 2013 and currently serves on the board of the Accreditation Council for Dietetics Education. Wright earned an undergraduate degree from The Ohio State University, a master's degree from Case Western Reserve University and a doctorate from University of South Florida.
Transcription Melanie Cole (Host): Forty nine million individuals in America face hunger. That translates to one out of seven adults and one out of five children that don’t have enough food on a regular basis. My guest is Dr. Lauri Wright. She’s an assistant professor in public health at the University of South Florida. Welcome to the show, Dr. Wright. Tell us a little bit about what’s going on in this country that so such a wealth of food. Our grocery stores are packed. Our corner groceries and 7-Elevens are packed with food. Why is there hunger in this country?

Dr. Lauri Wright (Guest): Melanie, this is really an underrated problem that exists in our community. We traditionally think of hunger as the starving children in another country. Hunger is here in our backdoor. On average, about one in five children go to school every day experiencing some form of food insecurity or hunger. The word in and out, that there is a new face to food insecurity.

Melanie: If we think of those kids, as you say in Africa, what’s going on with our children? With all these food around, it’s shameful that we should have anyone go hungry in this country.

Dr. Wright: It is a shame, and it is a problem that can be fixed. It isn’t a lack of food. It’s just a distribution of food that is unequal. There are many individuals, and especially since the economic downturn in 2007, we just haven’t recovered from that ability to provide healthy and adequate food to everyone in our country.

Melanie: What about the school systems and the school lunches and the breakfasts? Are these waning off? Are they still going strong? Are these children able to go to school and have breakfast and lunch and then who knows what happens once they get home?

Dr. Wright: That’s exactly the problem. If the school programs are going strong, they’re a source of healthy, hot nutrition, but unfortunately, it often is the only meal or two meals that they will receive all day. When they go home, they and their family don’t have enough to eat or even anything to eat for a meal. Then you can imagine on the weekend and then the summer what happens to these young children with them having enough food to eat.

Melanie: What can we do about this problem, Dr. Wright? We hear about the food pantries in our local communities and we never quite know if they’re really distributing food to those who need it or schools that collect canned food, kids that use that as projects. What happens to the food that we donate?

Dr. Wright: Well, I think the first thing we need to recognize is there are food assistance programs through, for example, SNAP. But as many people are starting to find out, doing the SNAP challenge, like Gwyneth Paltrow, she only made it four days. SNAP’s food assistance programs aren’t enough. The burden has fallen on to many of these charitable and non-profit organizations to fill that gap. Feeding America is one example of an organization that’s working very hard to fill the gap. When individuals donate, have a food drive at a school or a service organization, what often happens is that goes to a central location to store that food, and then different food pantries like at your local church or at a clinic, like a health clinic, will come to Feeding America and get that stored food and provide it to individuals coming to the school or to the church. What I like to recommend to individuals though is think about what you’re donating. Don’t make it a pantry dump—dump everything out that you don’t want to eat. Think about the health for the individuals receiving that. Unfortunately, we see a great deal of health concerns in the food insecure. About half of all the individuals that come to food pantries have high blood pressure, and about a third of all the recipients that come to the food pantries have diabetes. What we donate really has an impact on their health and we see higher rates of obesity. What I’m really encouraging individuals is be aware of this new phase of food insecurity and donate healthy food for their health. Instead of just pulling out a can of cream of mushroom soup, think about a healthy soup that you can provide, a low-sodium, maybe a chicken noodle soup that has some protein in it. Think about some tuna packed in water or fruit that’s packed in its own juices. Think about what you would want to feed your family. And many grocery stores offer buy one, get one free. What I like people to think of is buy one, give one for help.

Melanie: That’s a great way to put it in is kind of an obesity paradox, Dr. Wright, that these people that are food insecure because whatever it is we’re donating is not healthy or that that cheapest food happens to be junk, or that this is what they’re getting so obesity is on the rise among those hungriest of us. What a paradox that is. When we’re donating, that’s great advice to look in our pantries and decide what we would feed our families, not just a pantry dump, as you say. What else would you like us to do? Is raising money better than donating food? Working at a food pantry? What would you like us to do to help?

Dr. Wright: There are so many ways to get involved and really spread the word and champion this cause. I really like people to go and spend half a day at Feeding America or at a food pantry, where you see the eyes of food insecurity. I will guarantee you the first time you volunteer, you’ll want to do it again and again. I really think getting involved at the pantries distributing food, helping them sort the food, is a great first step. And please, include children, because this is having a bigger impact on their generation. So we want to get them involved and really see how we can end this fight against hunger. Another great way is to have a food drive. And there is a great site, Healthy Food Hub, where you can go and look at food to donate in a food drive. I really encourage using those resources that are available. Have a food drive and include the list of foods that we want to encourage. Again, the vegetables that are low sodium, even fresh fruits and vegetables as much as possible.

Melanie: I was just going to ask you about that because we think of the pantry and the canned food and the boxed food, which we all know in this day of health and nutrition, we’re trying to steer clear of the boxed food with so many processed ingredients. Can we donate or grow or distribute fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh lean meats and fish? Are any of those donatable?

Dr. Wright: That has been a real paradigm shift for the food network because many of the food pantries, a small food pantry might not have the refrigeration to accept large donations. But more and more we’re working with a network of farmers and food assistance programs to get refrigeration and get that network out so that when -- I here live in Florida and when we have the extra strawberries that we just recently experienced, we can send the word out that we have all these extra strawberries and they need to be utilized quickly. But really building that network. That’s where as an individual, you can, if you go to farmers’ market, encourage your farmers’ market to donate food, like some of the ugly produce that they might normally throw away. I encourage them to donate those food to a Feeding America. That’s where some of the money donations might be helpful is getting that fresh fruits and vegetable out to the food pantry.

Melanie: Thank you so much. It’s great information. You’re listening to Eat Right Radio with our good friends from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Thanks so much for listening. This is Melanie Cole. You can go to eatright.org for more information. Stay well.
Length (mins) 10
Waiver Received No
Host Melanie Cole, MS

Breakfast of Champions: Parents' Guide to Fast & Healthy Breakfasts for Kids

When you're in a hurry, do you resort to a quick and easy breakfast for your kids? It may not be as healthy as they need to get them through the school day.

Additional Info

Segment Number 2
Audio File eat_right/1511nd2b.mp3
Featured Speaker Marina Chaparro, MPH, RDN
Organization Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
Guest Bio Marina Chaparro’s background includes clinical nutrition, outpatient counseling, public health and program planning, research, and public speaking. As a diabetes educator at the pediatric endocrinology department at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital, she provides comprehensive diabetes education and trains patients on the use of insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors. Chaparro is the founder of Nutrichicos, a bilingual children’s nutrition center that offers individual assessments and personalized programs. On her blog www.nutrichicos.com, Chaparro shares reliable, practical and science-driven recommendations to improve children’s eating habits in Spanish and English. She co-created a successful nutrition and physical activity program at Miami Children’s Hospital for Hispanic adolescents and their mothers called Healthy Chicas. Chaparro is a graduate of Boston University and earned a master’s degree in public health from Florida International University.
Transcription Melanie Cole (Host): Let’s face it. Mornings are often hectic and rushed, leaving breakfast as the last priority for families as many as 30 percent of school-aged kids report skipping breakfast. However, breakfast should be the first priority of the day as it can enhance a child’s development and academic success. My guest today is Marina Chaparro. She’s a diabetes educator at the Pediatric Endocrinology Department at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital. Welcome to the show, Marina. Tell us a little bit about how important breakfast is and why do you think so many Americans skip breakfast altogether.

Marina Chaparro (Guest): You named it—so happy to be here—but breakfast is the challenging meal because we’re all rushing. We’re all real people and breakfast sometimes is the last priority. However, we as parents, we want the best for our kids. Studies show time and time again that kids who eat breakfast tend to do better at school. They tend to have better math course. Their behavior is improved. They even are less tardy at school. If we want smart children, parents, we need to get that breakfast in the door.

Melanie: Okay, so what are good healthy breakfasts, Marina? Because parents run around, they think these cereals—the cereals are misleading on the box—they look at all these kinds of different juices. What is good? How much protein do you want our children to have? How much carbohydrate or grains in the morning? What’s going to keep them awake as they’re in school all day?

Marina: Breakfast doesn’t need to be complicated or boring, right? We can go beyond that cereal-and-milk. Sometimes that cereal-and-milk is the fastest thing to do, but I’m going to share a couple of things that some of our parents can do to really make sure that breakfast is simple and it’s fast and nutritious, really like the breakfast of champions. One key thing that we got to remember is really how is that breakfast constructed, right? Breakfast quality is equally as important, so we need to talk about what do we serve our kids? If we can put in at least three food groups in breakfast, that’s a gold star breakfast. What do I mean by three food groups? If we can put in a protein, like some peanut butter, like some egg, like some turkey, if we could do a grain like a whole wheat grain, whether it’s a whole grain cereal, an English muffin, a mini whole wheat bagel. Dairy is extremely important; we can do calcium, which is high in protein as well, or we can also do a fruit. If we think about three of these nutrients, we’re talking about a gold star breakfast.

Melanie: What do we do, Marina, if our children tell us, first of all, they don’t have time for breakfast? Especially our teens, they’re running off to catch the bus, sometimes as early as 6:30 in the morning and they just want to either grab something. There’s granola bars on the market. There’s yoghurt granola bars on the market. Are any of these an adequate breakfast for them to just run out the door with or do we get them up earlier and make them sit there and have a scrambled egg and the gold star breakfast?

Marina: Both of these options do work, obviously if we prep the day before where you’re just going to have a better success at really having breakfast. Being prepared, number one, is key. As parents are always on the go, if we’re truly going to make a complicated meal, the morning time is not going to be the best time. Number two you just said is equally as important: Just because it’s on the go, that doesn’t mean it can’t be nutritious.
For example, always having some fruit product, making sure they can just grab and go a little container for the bus to take. Or even some high quality protein that we can have like Trail Mix. That’s just an easy, quick finger food that’s going to give them some protein, some healthy omega-6 and 3 from the fats and from the nuts. Or even yoghurt –yoghurt is something fast, something quick that they can eat at a later time. Just because it’s fast doesn’t mean it can’t be nutritious. Having both options on the go is going to be very important, and absolutely being prepared is going to be key.

Melanie: It is. And you know what? Kids feel like if you take that extra five minutes and you make them a bowl of fruit and you make them a little yoghurt parfait and throw some oats on top of that and mix it up a little bit, they really do feel well taken care of and then they actually start looking forward to that breakfast. When we’re feeding our kids these breakfasts, if we can get them to slow down long enough and eat some of them – give us some more of your best breakfast tips, things that we can do, maybe even prepping the night before to get them ready so that then it’s a much faster process in the morning.

Marina: You got to remember also, sometimes some kids might not be as hungry in the morning. A good strategy would be “let’s get dressed first” and then that will give them a little bit of more time to really get them hungry once they’re done dressing. At least we gain maybe five to 10 extra minutes. That way, again, they have a better breakfast and they feel they’re truly taken care of. Other simple ideas that I just really like to focus on would be types of breakfast, like you named it, the parfait that we could do with yoghurt the night before, either vanilla or plain because that way it’s going to have less sugar. Just putting a little bit of fresh fruit, either that same morning and a little granola or little nuts, that’s the perfect breakfast, three-star breakfast. Or even just doing a peanut butter and jelly on an English whole wheat muffin, we have that peanut butter which is going to be the protein and we’re going to get some of the whole grain bread which is going to last them throughout the day – again, three-star breakfast. If we have a little bit more time, then we can talk about maybe a quick and fast omelet or even like a burrito to go. Whole wheat tortilla, nice and hearty, a little egg scrambled with even some veggies in the morning, that way they got fiber and we’re starting the right way of breakfast and they could take it to go. They could even have it packed up with a little slice of fruit on the side, eat it on the way, eat it on the bus. Those are good tips.

Melanie: How much fiber? Because as we’re talking about like the egg wraps, I love doing that for my kids, but then I find if I put chia seeds into their smoothies or too much oats, then they feel like they have to use the bathroom and then they don’t have time necessarily for that or they don’t want to do that at school. You know what I mean? So how much fiber in the morning should be kind of included with some of these foods?

Marina: I always like to recommend really choosing products that have at least two to three grams of dietary fiber. Just really make sure that it’s a high fiber product. Depending on the age range that a kid is, they could range anything from 10 grams of fiber up to 25 grams of fiber for the adolescent. I guess it’s going to be more individualized. So if you notice that really your kid’s very sensitive to like you said, if you have a more high fiber morning breakfast, then that is going to be a little bit more sensitive in the stomach, then I would rather wait until having those snacks or those dinners and late night snacks while they’re at home if that’s a better strategy for your kids. It really just depends on each person because I know that some kids might have fiber every single morning and that might not necessarily mean that they’re going to go to the bathroom every time, but it definitely makes them have a more balanced and more regular digestive system, that’s why we like fiber so much.

Melanie: What do you think about the situation where people drive through McDonald’s and get their kids an Egg McMuffin to go on their way to school?

Marina: Why not make an egg McMuffin at home? We’re probably going to save about 200 to 300 calories. And let’s talk about sodium. The sodium that you’re going to get at McDonald’s is going to be tripled than what you would get at home. Really, it’s all about habits. Can they do that once in a while? Yeah, maybe we can find a lower calorie, lower sodium, lower fat choice like a turkey McMuffin type of thing, which could be a better strategy. But, again, it really starts at home. If we really want our kids to succeed and be smart kids and reach their full potential, it’s really going to be on what habits are we getting them. Are we teaching them from home and that way they can truly go to school having not a rush breakfast but a nice, balanced and even fast breakfast?

Melanie: That’s great advice. Thank you so much, Marina. You are listening to Eat Right Radio with our good friends from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. For more information, you can go to eatright.org. That’s eatright.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening and stay well.
Length (mins) 10
Waiver Received No
Host Melanie Cole, MS

Avoid Fad Diets when Biting into a Healthy Lifestyle

If a diet or product sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Additional Info

Segment Number 1
Audio File eat_right/1511nd2a.mp3
Featured Speaker Lisa Cimperman, MS, RD, LD
Organization Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
Guest Bio Lisa Cimperman is a clinical dietitian at University Hospitals Case Medical Center, where she works with physicians to provide specialized nutrition support to critically ill patients in the surgical intensive care unit. She also educates patients on dietary modifications after heart, esophageal and lung surgeries. Prior to specializing in critical care nutrition, Cimperman’s experience included adult and pediatric outpatient counseling. In addition to direct patient care responsibilities, Cimperman provides ongoing nutrition education for physicians and mentors dietetic interns. She has participated in the completion and publication of a pilot study to further discern the effects of antibiotic use and probiotic supplementation and has lectured on probiotics and other topics as a guest speaker in Case Western Reserve University undergraduate and graduate level nutrition courses. Cimperman has a special interest in helping individuals with functional and inflammatory gastrointestinal disorders and volunteers with the local and national chapters of the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America. Cimperman is a graduate of Case Western Reserve University, where she also earned a Master’s degree.
Transcription Melanie Cole (Host): With all the focus on weight in our society, it isn’t surprising that millions of people fall prey to fad diets and bogus weight loss products. Conflicting claims, testimonials, and hype by so-called experts can confuse even the most informed consumers. The bottom line is simple: If a diet or product sounds too good to be true, it probably is. My guest today is Lisa Cimperman. She’s a clinical dietitian at University Hospitals Case Medical Center. Welcome to the show, Lisa. Let’s talk about fad diets. There’s so many, you see them at late night – magic pills, magic diets, burn belly fat. Tell us a little bit about some of the most famous fad diets and whether or not they truly do work.

Lisa Cimperman (Guest): Options are ever expanding for people who want to follow the latest diet trend. For registered dietitians, a lot of these diet fads and trends are like nails on a chalkboard. It almost seems as if we’re always combatting these myths that are out there. Some of the most popular things going on right now, just to name a few, are the Paleo diet. Also beverages are huge right now, such as Bulletproof Coffee or bone broth. Again, those are simply a few of the things that are out there right now.

Melanie: Okay, so let’s just start with a few of them, right? Let’s talk about the Atkins diet. Let’s start with that one, the Atkins diet, really high protein, all that sort of thing. Tell us about the Atkins diet and why this diet really doesn’t work in the long term.

Lisa: The Atkins diet has been around for a really long time and it always seems to ebb and flow in popularity. The Atkins diet traditionally is very, very high in protein and saturated fats and low in carbohydrate. In fact, in the beginning of the diet, you are consuming little to none carbohydrates. The diet is not a healthy diet. It’s simply not balanced enough to provide individuals with enough nutrients that they need to fuel them adequately throughout the day. The other thing is that carbohydrates have been very much maligned, but we know that carbohydrates are the body’s preferred energy source. In fact, your brain needs at least 150 grams of carbohydrates per day to function optimally, so cutting carbohydrates out of your diet is actually detrimental. The key here is to choose the right kinds of carbohydrates, carbs that are full of fiber such as whole grains and fruits while cutting out carbohydrates that are high in sugar or refined grains. What we’re seeing now are sort of variations on this high protein, low carbohydrate trend such as the Paleo diet.

Melanie: Well, people don’t realize that a tomato is a carbohydrate and a carrot is a carbohydrate and nobody ever got fat eating a carrot and a tomato, but those are both off limits at the beginning of Atkins. Now, I want to try and get through as many of these as we can, Lisa. What about the raw food diet? People think “this is going to be great, this is going to be something that’s really going to help me get healthy,” but it’s really hard to do.

Lisa: It is. It’s hard to do, and my main issue with the raw food diet is that some of the health claims regarding the raw food diet are unfounded. The fact is that some nutrients are actually better absorbed when cooked. For example, you bring out something like carrot. The nutrient, the beta-carotene, in carrots is better absorbed when cooked. An excellent way to cook fruits and vegetables, vegetables in particular, without losing the nutrients, is to steam them or roast them. So eating raw foods isn’t necessarily always the best option for the healthiest diet, and as you mentioned, it’s hard to do. It’s very time-consuming and it may not be palatable to all individuals. So holding that raw foods diet to the highest standard is not really useful in getting people to eat the healthiest diet that they can.

Melanie: Now, what about things like the South Beach diet or even the Mediterranean diet, the Zone diet? They all have some things in common, those three diets. Some of them, like the Mediterranean diet, is a great way to eat. Kindly go over those and give us some of the advantages and disadvantages.

Lisa: Something like the South Beach diet or the Zone diet, they’re based on very strict rules. In some ways, they are similar to the Atkins diet in that they reduce the overall carbohydrate consumption. I will say though that those two diets are definitely not in the worst of the bunch, but again, they do apply a somewhat arbitrary set of rules to your eating pattern that may not be most useful in developing an overall healthy eating pattern for the long term. That truly is, again, one of the main problems with these things. People can follow any set of rules for a short period of time, but the true test of any diet is whether or not you can follow it long term and whether or not it supports your overall health and wellness goals long term, not just your weight loss goals. Any diet can produce weight loss. What we want to know is, can you do it long term and is it healthy long term?
Now, something like the Mediterranean diet is an excellent way to eat. What we’re looking at here is really a dietary pattern that comes from people living along the Mediterranean, so this isn’t so much as an arbitrary set of rules, but a cultural dietary pattern that individuals have followed for many, many years. What we know is that these people who have followed this diet live long, healthy lives. When we put the Mediterranean diet to the test in research studies, what we’re seeing is that it does have significant benefits in terms of reducing risk for heart disease and even in preventing chronic diseases like diabetes or in improving diabetes control.

Melanie: Now, what about things like some diet programs, Weight Watchers, NutriSystem? I myself did Weight Watchers and I thought that it really put me into a good place where I was accountable for my own actions. What do you think about following one of those rule-based plans?

Lisa: Well, one of the main advantages of something like that is the group support that those programs offer you. What we know, again, is that having someone to be accountable to, as you said, is one of the most important things to sticking with any healthy change, so being in a support group or having someone that you report to, even doing some of these things with a friend can make you more accountable and make you more likely to stick to these changes. Again, the programs that you mentioned all have different pros and cons. Something like Weight Watchers, for example, is excellent at teaching people portion control. I think that we’ve seen some positive changes in Weight Watchers, specifically, and that it’s guiding people towards healthy food choices rather than just sort of letting them pick whatever as long as they stay within a certain point.

Melanie: It does give you that good guide. Now, in just 30 seconds, Lisa, wrap it up for us, if you would, fad diets, the goods and the bads, 30 seconds.

Lisa: Good nutrition is simple. It’s all about making healthy choices: whole grains, a lot of fruits and vegetables, lean protein, and low-fat sources of calcium. Any healthy eating pattern needs to be combined with exercise. Stick with it and you will live a long and healthy life.

Melanie: Thank you so much. What great information. You are listening to Eat Right Radio with our good friends from the Academy of Nutrition and Diatetics. For more information, you can go to eatright.org. That’s eatright.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening and stay well.
Length (mins) 10
Waiver Received No
Host Melanie Cole, MS

Love Your Heart, Love Your Health

February is American Heart Month, so it's a good time to learn how to keep your heart healthy.

Additional Info

Segment Number 2
Audio File eat_right/1507nd1b.mp3
Featured Speaker Alissa Rumsey, RD
Organization Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
Guest Bio Alissa Rumsey is a New York City-based Registered Dietitian, Personal Trainer and Media Spokesperson. After six years of working at New York’s number-one hospital, she founded Alissa Rumsey Nutrition and Wellness Consulting, where she offers personalized nutrition, fitness, public speaking and consulting services. She specializes in weight loss, sports nutrition, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, worksite wellness and preventative nutrition. Her knowledge and expertise is regularly featured in television, online and in print, including CNN, ABC, BBC, Fox News, CBS, Time Magazine, New York Daily News, New York Post, and New York 1.

A graduate of the University of Delaware with duel Bachelor degrees in Dietetics and Exercise Physiology, she then completed her dietetic internship with the University of Connecticut. Alissa is currently pursuing a Masters of Science degree in Health Communications from Boston University.
Transcription Melanie Cole (Host): You may be treating your sweetheart this February, but don’t forget: this is also American Heart Month. Give your own heart some extra love. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in this country. My guest today is Alissa Rumsey. She’s a New York City based registered dietitian, personal trainer, and media spokesperson. Welcome to the show, Alissa. Why don’t you start by telling us a little bit about Heart Disease Month and why it’s so important that we pay attention to our hearts at this time?

Alissa Rumsey (Guest): Sure. February is National Heart Month, and it’s a time for everyone to really understand the importance of heart disease and to know the risk factors for it, to know what can prevent heart disease, what can improve heart disease, and to know what to check in with their doctor for. Some of the risk factors for heart disease are things that we can’t really feel, such as high blood pressure or diabetes. There are many people that have untreated and unknown high blood pressure and diabetes because you can’t really feel that they are a really big risk factor for heart disease. So February is a time where we do a lot of outreach and a lot of education about what heart disease is and what the risk factors are and what you should do to try to prevent it.

Melanie: Tell us a little bit about some of the risk factors that we can control.

Alissa: Sure. There are certain things that we can’t, but then there are a lot that we can. Many of those revolve around diet, around getting to a healthy weight, being active, also certain lifestyle things as smoking. Quitting smoking can really improve your risk for heart disease, as well as, like I mentioned before, knowing if you have high blood pressure, and if you do, making sure you’re controlling that; knowing your risk for diabetes, and if you do have diabetes, keeping your blood sugar under control; then also making sure you’re getting your cholesterol levels checked and under control as well.

Melanie: Tell us a little bit about cholesterol and its role in heart disease. When people get their cholesterol taken, Alissa, they don’t understand the numbers that they see. Tell us a little bit about cholesterol and where we might find cholesterol so we can steer clear of it.

Alissa: Sure. The cholesterol numbers that you get from your doctor are going to be made up of four different values. You have your total cholesterol, which ideally we want to have less than 200. Then you have what is called LDL, which we consider “bad cholesterol,” and that should be under 160. Then HDL is good cholesterol, and we actually want that number high. We want it over 40 and ideally much higher than that. Then the last number is triglycerides, which we want below 150. What happens with cholesterol is when you have too much cholesterol and, more importantly, too much of the bad cholesterol that’s circulating in your blood, it can slowly build up along the inner walls of your arteries, and especially those arteries that feed into your heart and into your brain. Together with some other substances, this cholesterol can form a deposit called plaque, which makes your arteries narrow and less flexible. If a clot forms and then blocks the artery, you can have a heart attack or stroke.

Melanie: Wow! So the food we eat is so, so important in our risk for heart disease as well as these lifestyles—smoking, keeping your blood pressure under control, making sure your blood sugars and diabetes, that sort of thing, is under control. Tell us about heart-healthy foods that might be in our diets, that we should have in our diets to help us.

Alissa: Sure. The biggest thing I really like to stress is, number one, eating more plant food, and then along with that, including more anti-inflammatory food. Many of those foods are plant foods. Plant foods are really powerful in helping to fight heart disease. You get a lot of nutrients, a lot of fiber, and lots of variety that you can cook many different ways. Brightly colored fruits and vegetables such as broccoli or sweet potatoes, chard, strawberries, blueberries, spinach, those are all really great plant foods to include. They all have anti-inflammatory properties. Along with that, there are other foods as well that I really stress to include in your diet. That includes fatty fish, such as salmon or tuna, legumes and beans and nuts, like white beans, walnuts, or flaxseed, as well as a lot of the heart-healthy fat. So that would be like olive oil. You find that in also avocado. Then there are certain spices that are anti-inflammatory, such as turmeric and cinnamon as well.

Melanie: That’s great advice. I love avocado and I love turmeric, too. Really wonderful anti-inflammatory foods, as you stressed. Now, speaking of stress, what role does stress play in heart disease risk, and what can we do to manage some of that?

Alissa: High levels of stress hormone can actually lead to release of pro-inflammatory chemicals. And that pro-inflammation increases your risk for heart disease. Everybody has stress. It’s normal to get angry now and then, but if stress or anger are happening a lot, that’s really a problem, and you can have consistent high levels of that pro-inflammatory chemicals, which is not good. It’s important to try to reduce stress as much as possible. I like to tell my clients try to practice techniques for managing stress such as muscle relaxation, deep breathing. A lot of my clients will do meditation, just anything to bring your mind down and help to control that stress.

Melanie: What about exercise? And what role does that play in preventing heart disease and/or keeping it under control if you have already been diagnosed?

Alissa: Exercise helps in a variety of ways. First of all, it’s going to help you achieve and maintain a healthy weight, which is important because being overweight increases your risk for heart disease. In addition, it can actually help control your diabetes. It can help bring blood sugar levels down. It can help control your cholesterol level. Then it can also help control your high blood pressure. Exercise really affects all those risk factors for heart disease in a positive way and can help you reduce your overall risk.

Melanie: How much is enough?

Alissa: Generally, I say as long as you get your doctor’s okay, especially if you have not been exercising, try to aim for at least 30 to 60 minutes of physical activity most days of the week. That number sometimes frightens people. It sounds like a lot, an hour of exercise every day. Now, that doesn’t mean you need to be in the gym for an hour every day. Every little bit counts. Now, the step counters are all the rage now. Our phones can count our steps for us. So I like to encourage everyone to try to get at least 10,000 steps a day because that’s really showing that you’re moving, that you’re getting enough physical activity in. And then if you can aim to get some more intentional physical activities and intentional exercise at least three or four days a week, that’s a pretty good start.

Melanie: Now, let’s talk about losing weight, because maintaining a healthy weight is really so important in the prevention of heart disease and it’s Heart Disease Month, Alissa, but what about losing? That is so hard compared to maintaining.

Alissa: You’re right. It is really, really tough. Our bodies are sort of made to hold on to the calories that we’re eating. And as we get older and as we build muscle mass, our metabolism starts to drop, which means that you need to eat less calories just to maintain your weight, let alone lose weight. It is really difficult, but it’s not impossible. And as you mention, losing weight can really decrease the risk of heart disease. It can help you lower your blood pressure and control your diabetes as well. I think the important thing is to -- calories are important, calories in versus calories out. We’ve heard that before. You need to look at your overall portions that you’re eating, but I like to stress the foods we talked about before that you want to eat more of, so putting those fruits and vegetables on your plate first. Those have a lot of fiber. They’re going to fill you up and give you a lot of volume, but for not a lot of calories. Then trying to make sure you’re emphasizing the protein as well. Protein is also going to keep you full for a lot longer as well as the heart-healthy fats that I mentioned before—like the olive oil, for example. If you’re doing that and then having a little bit of carbohydrate on the side, and you’re doing that, you’re going to feel full with less food, and that’s going to help the weight come off.

Melanie: In just the last minute, Alissa, give your best advice if you had to tell everybody the most important things you want to tell them about Heart Disease Month and preventing heart disease.

Alissa: I would say make sure you’re eating a lot of plant food, get to a healthy weight, and really get active.

Melanie: That’s a great summary. It’s really great advice, and it certainly is the best way for people to really embrace this Heart Disease Month and actually embracing it all year round, really. As Alissa said, keep your weight at a healthy weight. Manage your stress and your anger. Follow that heart-healthy diet she discussed. Keep active. Know your numbers, your cholesterol numbers, your glucose levels. Those are all ways that you quit smoking. Those are all ways that you really can help your heart in this Heart Disease Month and all-year round. You are listening to Eat Right Radio with our good friends from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. For more information, you can go to eatright.org. That’s eatright.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening, and stay well.
Length (mins) 10
Waiver Received No
Host Melanie Cole, MS

Healthy Valentine’s Day Treats & Traditions

Chocolate, candy, and other sweets seem to be everywhere you look in the weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day.

Additional Info

Segment Number 1
Audio File eat_right/1507nd1a.mp3
Featured Speaker Lori Zanini, RD
Organization Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
Guest Bio Lori Zanini is a Registered Dietitian and Certified Diabetes Educator based in Los Angeles, California, where she owns a nutrition consulting firm. She has previously been honored as California’s Young Dietitian of the Year and currently serves as a National Media Spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
Transcription Melanie Cole (Host): Chocolate, candy, and other sweets seem to be everywhere we look during the month of February. And as Valentine’s Day approaches, are there any ways to make healthy treats for Valentine’s Day for our kids, for our loved ones, even for ourselves? My guest today is Lori Zanini. She’s a registered dietitian and certified diabetes educator based in Los Angeles, where she owns a nutrition consulting firm. Welcome to the show, Lori. Tell us a little bit about Valentine’s Day. What are we doing that’s so wrong, and what can we do to change it up a little and make it fun and sweet and a little decadent and yet healthy all at the same time?

Lori Zanini (Guest): Yes, Melanie, definitely. I’m here today to just talk about how we can make some of these really challenging Valentine’s Day traditions a little bit healthier. I should ask you first. How do you think most Americans celebrate Valentine’s Day every year?

Melanie: Steak and lobster, hollandaise sauce, I don’t know. Chocolates, roses, sitting around. Who knows? It’s something probably along those lines.

Lori: I think all of the above. If we think about whatever our kid’s doing, right? Usually, they’re passing notes, passing candies in their classes. And a lot of the adults, like you said, they’re going to restaurants. They are wining and dining each other and they’re giving chocolates. A lot of it centers around food, and what a lot of my patients ask me is how can I just create things that don’t completely revolve around food. My suggestion is that there’s really just three easy tips that you can do to help manage all of these parties and planning and different strategies. The first thing is to plan. The second is to portion the food. The third is to actually participate in the activity. What I should say first is go ahead and plan out what could you do differently this year around your Valentine’s Day. I always tell people if you plan in advance, you’re much more likely to follow what you’re thinking as opposed to just deciding that day what you’re going to do. A lot of times, people say, okay, well maybe this year, especially Valentine’s Day is going to be on a Saturday, you could go on a hike, you could go to a movie. I hear there’s a very popular movie coming out this Valentine’s Day. All kinds of different activities. But try and make it something that doesn’t revolve around food.

Melanie: That’s always good advice. Even when we’re rewarding our children for things they do well, we’re not supposed to reward them around food. Your first advice is to make a plan, really stick to that plan and try not to make it all revolving around food. What’s next for us?

Lori: Then next, I would say when you are indulging on some of these treats, then look at the portion sizes. You mentioned wine earlier, right? Red wine has actually been considered a heart-healthy thing to consume. But a lot of times, we don’t talk about the portion sizes actually being considered a healthy portion. When we talk about red wine, red wine does contain something called resveratrol, which is an antioxidant that’s found in red grapes. That’s actually very healthy for our heart, but don’t feel like only red wine is the only place where you can find these antioxidants, because they’re also found in peanuts, cranberries, blueberries, even 100 percent grape juice. Portion sizes though for the red wine should be kept to five ounces. I don’t know about you, but I know that my wine glasses hold much more than five ounces. You want to make sure that five ounces is actually how much you pour yourself. And according to the American Heart Association, they recommend, first of all, if you don’t drink, to not start. But if you do consume red wine, you want to do one glass a day for women and up to two glasses a day for men.

Melanie: Okay. The resveratrol in red wine is so good for us, but keep it to that five ounces or one glass a day, maybe make a bottle last for a good couple of days. Not always easy to do, but okay. So we’ve made our plan, we’re not revolving around food. You mentioned getting involved in the activity. What does that mean, Lori?

Lori: Yeah, basically once you plan it out, you really want to take an active stance in what you’re doing and participate. That could mean just really activating your plan and carrying it out. In the planning process, hopefully you know where you’re going, what you’re doing, who you’re going to do it with. Don’t feel like it has to be alone. Definitely, we have a lot of single people or married or with your loved ones. Just engage as many people as possible, because what we know is that when we are planning to do a healthy activity with someone else, we’re much more likely to carry it out. That’s what I mean by participating. It’s just make sure that you’re the one that’s in control, doing all of the activities.

Melanie: That’s really good advice. It’s good advice actually, Lori, for all the times of the year and not just this Valentine’s Day. Now, what do we say to our children or our loved ones when they say, “Well, I really like a box of chocolates. I really like those chocolates this time of the year”?

Lori: Well, I think that’s a great question. When it comes to chocolate, I also go back to the portion stance on it. Look at how much you’re having and what type of chocolate. We know that dark chocolate is preferred because of the health benefits. And actually, it’s been shown to help lower blood pressure and even prevent heart disease, which is the number one killer in our country, according to the Centers for Disease Control. So the right portion of dark chocolate would be about 1 to 3 ounces. And we look for dark chocolate that has only 70 percent cocoa because when it has at least 70 percent, then we know that’s the highest in what we call flavonoids that is also something that works as an antioxidant in our bodies.

Melanie: Okay, so we can have our chocolate. It’s just much better if we have dark chocolate as opposed to milk chocolate or even white chocolate, which is just really bad for us. We can have those. We have to moderate. We can have our little bit of wine. But again, moderation seems to be kind of where you’re going with all of this. We’re allowed to enjoy it, but yet we have to really be involved, make a plan, and moderate.

Lori: Yes, of course. You are exactly right. I think a lot of times, we all know that we should drink and eat in moderation, but oftentimes, when I’m talking to my clients, they don’t really know what moderation really means.So see toyourself, making a plan, portioning out exactly what you’re going to have. And if you have more than what you should have for the day, then like you said, save that wine or have some chocolate the next day. That’s totally fine.

Melanie: What about some creative traditions and things we can do with our children to make them feel special on Valentine’s Day? Because school is now, Lori … turning off the sweets thing, you’re not really allowed to be bringing sweets to school as much anymore. So what can we do for our kids to make them feel special?

Lori: I think one thing as parents that we can do is really just take into account spending quality time with your kids, because sometimes that’s much more valuable than any type of food or gift that we can give them. Taking them outside, going on a bike ride, and creating a special type of environment for them that day. A lot of kids really like just the decorations of Valentine’s Day, so trying to get out all of the decorations and put things together can really be, I think, helpful for creating new habits for the children as well.

Melanie: That’s a great idea is decorations, because that’s fun and colorful, and they can get involved and be creative. And as far as feeding our kids on Valentine’s Day, they don’t need the steak and lobster. Why don’t you give us your best advice in the last minute that we have left, Lori, for creating those healthy Valentine’s Day treats and traditions for our children and our loved ones?

Lori: Yes, Melanie. My best advice for the entire family is to make it a group activity. Like I said, whether it’s with kids, whether it’s with your loved ones, whether it’s with other family members, just know that small changes can really make a big impact, especially on your heart health during Valentine’s Day and every day of the year. Plan out a new tradition that you would like to try. Portion out the indulgencies that you might be looking to consume. Then really just participate as a family and with the other people in your life that you enjoy.

Melanie: That’s great information and great advice from our friends at the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. You are listening to Eat Right Radio. For more information, you can go to eatright.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening, and stay well.
Length (mins) 10
Waiver Received No
Host Melanie Cole, MS

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