Here is a sample page from our newest book, Salad Secrets.

It shows the best way to save calories – by using a lot of veggies. This Pasta Primavera Salad contains 6 cups of veggies to 1 cup of pasta by volume. The photos allow you to view just how to make all of the ingredients and how to serve them.

We know you will love serving this salad for lunch or dinner when you want to make something really healthy and low in calories and sodium.

Find out about the Salad Secrets book here:

http://www.nutritioneducationstore.com/products/Salad_Secrets_eCookbook-377-38.html

And while you are there in our store, watch our free show on how to present 20 different salads – this is great to use at home or for foodservice –  we promise these pix will inspire you to make your salads more healthy and beautiful!

And now we have a way for you to get the 40 best recipes with photos on your iPhone/iTouch (and coming soon for iPad):

Salad Secrets App for iPhone

It costs just .99 and you can use it to email as many recipes as you want to friends, clients, colleagues and yourself!

And here is the link to the PDF file for the handout:

Pasta Primavera Salad Handout

Salad Secrets: Creative Healthy Recipes

Description:

Learn 40 different ways to make delicious healthy salads right on your iPhone with these recipes.

FEATURES

- Spot on – always have the right recipe – Quick, Masterpiece, Meal or Dessert salads

- Easy – Step by step directions

- Fast – Most salads can be made in 15 minutes or less

- Versatile – use them for every day meals or entertaining

- Chef’s secrets – Learn tips on how to modify your own recipes, too from Judy Doherty, PCII

- More secrets – see great presentations from a professional chef – now you will have all the secrets for beautiful salads every time

- Salad and weight control – what does the research say? Find out!

- How to – keep your favorite salad recipes healthy – tips from Hollis Bass, MEd, RD

- Support – you can email us for help

- Share and send – email our recipes to yourself, family, friends, clients colleagues

- Photos – creative, appetizing photos show you what your salad will look like

- YOU – it’s all about you – once installed no internet connection needed

These salads include:

-       complete nutrition analysis, low in fat and sodium

-       beautiful innovative design never before seen with salad

-       salads that can be appetizers, meals or desserts

-       special masterpiece salads will stun any audience

-       tested and developed over 15 years by award winning newsletter publisher

-       easy-to-follow step by step directions

Screenshots:

Just .99 in the app store now – click here to buy and use immediately

Quotes from our readers:

“Great, simple, and easy to follow ideas to make salads more appealing, cost effective and delicious!”

“Fresh, beautiful and inspirational.”

“The simple technique of displaying healthy food more attractively will increase consumption”

Food and Health Communications Web Site http://foodandhealth.com

Food and Health Communications Recipe Support http://foodandhealth.com/contact.php

Category: Lifestyle

Updated: August 12, 2010

Current Version: 1.0

1.0 (iOS 4.0 Tested)

10.0 MG

Language: English

Seller: Food and Health Communications

Developer: Nicholas Doherty

© 2010 Food and Health Communications, Inc.

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later.

Photo from our new book, Salad Secrets

Did you know that today, August 3rd, is Watermelon Day?

Here are 5 things you should know about melons in general – we want to celebrate all melons because we like them so much:

1. Melon is a better value than value meals.

- Melon is probably one of the best values when it comes to food selections. Why? First of all, melon is cheap – right now in the store a melon in season (cantaloupe or watermelon) is around .02 to .05 per ounce. Second of all, it is low in calories and full of water and fiber which helps you feel fuller on fewer calories.

If you ate a pound of melon, it would cost, on average, about .50 cents. Better still, it would only contain about 144 calories and barely any fat or sodium. Compare that to the “value item” double burger from McDonalds right now. One double burger is $1. But it is only 5.3 ounces – so you would have to eat 3 of them to equal one pound – that is $3 and about  1170 calories, 2760 mg of sodium and almost 60 g of fat.

You might laugh because you would not eat a whole pound of anything at any one sitting. But over the course of the day you probably eat several pounds of food – our question:  is that mostly burgers or mostly fruits and veggies? When you want value, think of your health and not the fast food board offerings.

2. Melon is a great “shopper stretcher”

Melon does sit at room temperature for a few days. So, while you eat all of the produce that perishes faster, like peaches and berries, the melon is getting riper. After a few days you can slice it and have fruit for the rest of the week. It is like you went shopping again! Hint: if you are buying several kinds of melons, it is best to use up the watermelon first, within three days. Cut melon should always be stored in the refrigerator.

3. Melon is the best multi-vitamin food

It contains A 2-cup serving of watermelon is an excellent source of Vitamins A, B6 and C plus a healthy amount of potassium – 270 mg.

4. You can be an artist with your melon:

http://www.watermelon.org/watermelon_carving.asp

5. But it is also great just to keep it on hand and serve it cool and crisp on a platter –

For best results, follow the SEE principle for melon preparation: Slice, Eat, Enjoy!

Here is our favorite melon recipe that is wonderful when made with fresh summer fruit:

Tutti Fruiti

3 cups diced watermelon 1 cup halved strawberries 1 cup diced papaya 1 cup diced pineapple 2 oranges, peeled, seeded and diced juice of 2 limes Dice all the fruit and place in a large mixing bowl. Add lime juice and mix well. Refrigerate until ready to serve. This recipe looks very nice if served in a half watermelon shell or tall glasses as we have above. Servings: Serves 6. 1 cups per serving. Diabetic Exchanges: Bread Starch:1.0 Fruit:1.0 Total Preparation & Cooking Time: 10 Min (10 For Prep,0 For Cook ) Per Serving: Calories:74, Total Fat:0.6g, Saturated Fat:0g, Trans Fat:0g, Cholesterol:0mg, Sodium:2mg, Carbohydrates: 17.9g, Dietary Fiber:2.7g, Sugars:16.7g, Protein:1.3g,

This wonderful post is brought to you by: http://nutritioneducationstore.com

Click here for all of our new and wonderful things – we have a lot going on. Can’t wait to show you more!

We have just finished with one of our best PowerPoint shows to date. This one is very simple. We believe most consumers do not know what healthy is. They are trying acai juice, vitamins, Sensa diets and more. They do not know what a dietitian is. And to be fair most are so busy with work, this economy and taking care of loved ones, they do not know where their next meal is coming from.

So this show starts with breakfast, or the lack of it which leads many to the coffee shop where they start with a creamy drink and big piece of cake. Then it proceeds to sugary beverages and packaged snacks, followed by typical American fare for lunch and dinner, most of which might not be eaten at home.

We ran around to more than 8 fast food restaurants and bought over $100 worth of food to produce these pictures. And they were sitting in a folder, waiting to be made into a portion distortion show when Victoria Shanta Retelny, RD, one of our favorite dietitians and writers, wrote to us and said, I have a presentation in 1.5 days – can you help? They want Eat This Not That. And this show was born.

At the very least we know you will enjoy the photos. And of course the new product is here on sale where you can watch the entire show in a flash file at the top of the page.

Take advantage of my plating skills honed from over 20 years in the foodservice industry including 2 Hyatt Hotels, many food shows, work with photographers plus my CIA and Switzerland education. A top plated presentation is always necessary in all facets foodservice. Presentation skills carried me through the rigorous tests of ProChef II, where I really learned the concept of the useful versus frivolous garnish.

My favorite chef, Hans Hickel, always said, “People eat with their eyes.”

• HOW: Study our tips below and bookmark or subscribe to this blog. If you want to make your presentations better, you can practice every day as you cook. There are countless cookbooks, blogs and magazines to give you ideas, too. If it looks good to you, try it!  And if you have an idea to share let us know below.

DON’T:

• rely on ingredients that do NOT add to or go with the food you are serving – examples include: a strawberry with a stem, a cutesy carved flower radish, big sprig of parsley, too-thick tomato slice or big piece of lettuce. Usually these add color but are not eaten. These are the easy way out. They are often an afterthought. BETTER IDEAS: chopped herbs, sprinkles of spices, drizzled sauces, dots of flavored oil, vegetable puree, thinly sliced fruits or vegetables that get eaten and add a crisp texture.
• serve a plate full of bland-colored food. BETTER IDEAS: shredded colorful veggies like carrots, red peppers, tomatoes, beets, etc. Try to mix up the colors so that you have an even spread of color on the plate.

As Master Chef Rudy Specklcamp said to me on my final ProChef II test day, “The craft of a chef is to make food that looks and tastes delicious.” He was talking about slicing everything neatly, choosing the right garnishes and finding accompaniments that make sense. This part is hard – it makes you think!

DO:

• Keep it simple and fresh.
• Cut in a uniform manner whenever possible – diced items should be square.
• Use lots of white plates – food always looks better on white. Solid plates are better than patterns. The food should be the pattern and focus.
• When using colors, consider complimentary colors and a variety of color.

TEST: Does the food really say, “eat me!”?

Here are 12 ways to present a delicious, healthy salad:

1) Tall – when making a salad, think tall. Tall could mean piling leafy greens in a high, airy pile. It can also mean a ramekin or bowl that is taller than it is wide. It can also include putting a wonderful Apple Waldorf Salad in a tall glass. Tall is tall!

2) WIDE – With salads, using a big plate helps them spread out wide so you get a lot of “goodies” on the top. This can be good for a platter that you are serving at a party – and also for a fun presentation, too. In this particular arrangement for our Spring Salad, we chose a large clear platter and topped our salad with fruits and nuts.

3) Patterns – in this Fruit Yogurt Salad, we have used a spiral pattern. But you can also line things up diagonally, horizontally or even in a scattered fashion.

4) Framed – it is good to frame your salad with chips, lettuce, tomatoes, etc. In this Taco Crunch Salad, just 5 chips (less than half of  a serving) make the taco salad more appetizing.

5) Fans – if you fan veggies over the top you get an interesting look as we did with this Asian Slaw.

6) Cups, bowls, plates, platters – you can use a variety of interesting bowls, dishes and ramekins to create visual interest and to complement the food. We LOVE white plates – you can never go wrong with a white plate. Plates that are too busy (think old fashioned flowered china) detract from the food. Here is our Asian Broccoli Sesame Salad in a cup:

This pile of dishes is on my microwave, ready to go!

7) Cascade – this Pasta Shrimp Salad, made with whole wheat penne, cascades off the greens – the greens are shredded finely.

8) Citrus – I believe that a small wedge of lemon, lime or an orange that is squeezed over a salad adds a lot of flavor without adding sodium and fat. See the salad above – the tiny squeezable bits of lemon are meant to go with the Shrimp Pasta Salad.

9) Drizzle – this technique is used over and over in cooking and desserts – you drizzle the sauce over the top in a fine stream as we have done with the Spinach Walnut Salad.

10) Molds – this is always fun with rice or Lemon Couscous Salad – you mold them in a scoop or bowl and put them on the plate.

11) Color – fruits and vegetables add the most wonderful colors.

12) Spritz and shine – normally chefs add a brush of butter or a spray of oil to foods to make them shiny. We like to use an Italian dressing spritzer. We are able to add a very light mist of a wonderful dressing – I bet we can dress a whole salad with less than a half teaspoon and it is shiny and fresh, never drowned!

NOW – YOU CAN BUY our new Salad Secrets eCookbook so you can make all of these and more at home.
As always the salad recipes we create are healthy. It is our hope that you will enjoy them as much as we do. Every salad is special and unique. This is the culmination of over 15 years of publishing

Best of all our salad recipes are updated for today’s time and budget pressed cook.

You will find delight in high-fiber, low-fat, low-sodium recipes that utilize a big variety of vegetables, greens, nuts, seeds, fruits, lean protein, fish and beans.

These are the most creative, healthy salads in the world.

In many cases you won’t need a recipe because we show the prepped ingredients and then the finished dish – in one glance you know just what to do.

PLUS you will enjoy salad handouts and articles -how to make flavored vinegar, what is a healthy salad, use salad for weight loss – and much more.

We have the eCookbook Salad Secrets available for sale in our store now.

Get INSPIRED for healthy salad!

Some of the features that will inspire and educate:

• 100 of the most creative, healthy salads!
• Pictures show HOW in easy steps
• Learn 9 different ways to make a salad
• 20 great presentation secrets – look like a professional chef
• Salad and weight control – what does the research say?
• How to keep your salad healthy – from Hollis Bass, MEd, RD
• Includes nutrition facts analysis for recipes – they are all low in fat and sodium
• Buying tips for ingredients

(Pictured above – our featured salad ready to go to work with you)

We have been chopping, arranging and photographing at least one hundred salads. Not done yet. But getting there – over 1000 photos in the folder now. I can’t thank my crew enough.

I have noticed a few things -

• The more you make salad, the faster you get. This applies to everyone, no matter their kitchen experience.
• It is really fun to have all kinds of crazy dishes and plates, even if they don’t match. You can be an artist with a few veggies and a plate.
• You can eat 5 or 6 salads in a day. This is particularly easy to do when they are already prepared!
• The most salads you can make in one day is probably 15.
• After you make 15 salads in a day, one or two seem very easy.
• Having all ingredients measured and or cut FIRST makes assembly VERY fast and fun.

Here is a really fun Tuna Brown Bag salad I created for CFFH Member/Newsletter a few years back. It is a  ”take your salad to work” creation.

Dear Mom or Dad,

I am so thrilled you would take me to work. Now I know you can have something healthy to eat and you can get it fast so you can walk a little during lunch. I am really proud you would take me out and show me to your friends.

Love,

Your Salad!

Okay – so we are getting carried away – but this was a fun project. Here is the mis en place – meaning “everything in its place” – this shows you how to prepare and measure everything:

This delicious recipe can be made ahead of time and assembled at your desk.

Tuna Brown Bag Salad
4 low-sodium whole-grain crackers

Salad ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoon flavored vinegar
4 cups dark leafy lettuce
4 cups sliced cucumber
4 cups baby carrots

Tuna salad ingredients:
1 6-oz can albacore tuna packed in water, drained
1 tomato, cored and diced small
1/4 cup fat-free mayonnaise
2 tablespoon red onion, minced
1 stalk celery, diced small
black pepper to taste

Divide the tossed salad ingredients among 4 individual plastic bags, keeping the oil and vinegar in the bottom, and refrigerate until ready to serve. Mix all ingredients for tuna salad together in medium-sized mixing bowl. Pack in 4 individual bags and refrigerate until ready to serve.

To serve: Toss salad ingredients in bag and place onto plate. Top with tuna salad and a cracker.

Servings:
Serves 4. Each serving: 2 cups.

Diabetic Exchanges:
Bread & Starch: 1.0
Lean Meat: 0.5
Vegetable: 2.0

Total Preparation & Cooking Time: 15 min. (15 Prep, 0 Cook)

Per Serving:
Calories: 215, Total Fat: 4.8g, Saturated Fat: 0.6g, Trans Fat: 0g, Cholesterol: 22mg, Sodium: 302mg, Carbohydrates: 31.3g, Dietary Fiber: 6.8g, Sugars: 13.9g, Protein: 15.6g, Vitamin A: 9999.9iu (199%), Vitamin C: 35.6mg (59%), Calcium: 72mg (7%), Iron: 2.7mg (15%)

This is just 200 calories so you should probably add a baked yam or potato to your menu. We love baked yams for lunch! We did not use whole grain crackers, but these are no-salt-added toppers that are also low in fat. WASA crisps that are whole grain would be a great choice if you can find them and don’t mind adding more to your budget. We tried to keep this one more simple for the every day person to take to work.

So, if you make it at home or at your desk, we just know yours will look like this:

Tell us what you take to work for lunch – the top 5 comments receive a free Snack poster! (If you made comments on the other posts from last week we are getting in touch with you for the free poster.)

And, this post is made possible by our wonderful Premium CFFH Member Area http://communicatingfoodforhealth.com and http://nutritioneducationstore.com

Check out our new salad book:

We found 3 “B’s” that really drive this lesson about calories home to your clients, students and patients.

Bottles- many times, drinks with sugar are in bottles that look like one serving but are really more. And these are bought “on the go” so they are likely to be consumed all at once – you are not going to put it in your purse, car, or desk for tomorrow. Additionally, most bottles look really small when compared to fast food beverage cups. - Lesson: compare one measuring cup, one bottle, one fast food cup and see the differences in size. The Big Gulp and the fast food cups have desensitized everyone as to the real serving size of soda or other sugared drink. Be aware of the number of calories in a bottled soda or tea drink with sugar. How many extra calories per day and per week come from sugared beverages? What are the savings to switch to water and not worry about it?

1) 1 bottle chai tea = 640 calories

2) 1 bottle cola = 200 calories

3) 1 bottle water = 0 calories

Bars – this one gets us every time we check out in the grocery store. Our love: the Hershey Special Dark Chocolate bar. We love chocolate. It is tempting to throw in a bar for the hard work of the shopper, right? Well, a quick glance at the back of the package shows 200 calories but worse still is the fact that a bar is 4 servings so it brings in 800 calories!! Chocolate bars always ring in a lot of calories.
- Lesson: Bars of chocolate are always really high in calories for their size. Compare chocolate to fruit:
1) chocolate bar, 4 ounces = 800 calories
2) package of 6 chocolate bars = 1380 calories
3) 1 banana = 105 calories

Bags – our rabbits hear the crinkle of a plastic bag and they stop eating their lettuce and run to the door of the cage. How is it that all creatures just love calorie dense food? A plastic bag is a sure sign that something calorie dense is inside, unless you are talking about the ones filled with produce.
Lesson – limit the number of bags in your cart before you get to the bagging area
1) Chocolate chip cookies = 160 calories per ounce or 2080 for the whole bag
2) Chips = 150 calories per ounce or 1500 per bag
3) 1 apple, 4 ounces = 94 calories

Reading calories and portion sizes on these packaged/processed foods is important for the realization that they are high in calories and should not fill their whole cart.

Snapshot of our shopping cart in preparation for one of our salad photo shoots includes bags of carrots, apples and potatoes:

See what is new, including our label posters, in our store here:
http://www.nutritioneducationstore.com/catalog/New-38-1.html

Soon to come: photos, recipes and tips from our salad photo shoot – we are nearing 100 great salads to share – keep checking back for more.

Enjoy! Let me know if you need anything for the week, just click contact us at the top of the page.
Judy Doherty, PCII

For this Berry Spritzer Salad we spread the lettuce out on a big platter and spritzed with Italian dressing. Then we topped with berries and toasted nuts.

2. Heat and toss

Veggie Stir Fry Salad – We made a veggie stir fry and tossed with fresh spinach – it is served warm and was a staff favorite – even by teenagers!

3. Toss and top

Spinach Honey Mustard Yogurt Salad – We made dressing with yogurt, honey, mustard and vinegar, tossed it with spinach and then topped it with goodies that include: apples, oranges, red onion and toasted nuts.

4. Toss it all

Spring or Summer Tossed Salad – Here is a spring or summer salad – made with a variety of fresh ingredients and then tossed with a tiny drizzle of olive oil, lemon and fresh parsley.

5. Make it a dinner

Lentil Rice Garden Salad – This is one of my favorite recipes of all times – it has lentils and rice, fresh lettuce, olive oil, lemon, parsley, grated carrots and a string of balsamic glaze over the top.

You can buy the balsamic glaze ready made or it is easy to make it yourself: Take 2 cups of balsamic vinegar and simmer lightly for 20 minutes on the top of the stove until you have about 1/2-3/4 of a cup – less than half the amount left. The vinegar will be thick so it can lightly cover the back of a spoon. Cool and store covered at room temperature until ready to use. It is great on salads or in marinades.

Those are 5 of the ways we just finished making 25 salads in 2 days! And wow – when you want to be creative you can go miles beyond.

What is our secret?

MIS EN PLACE – everything it its place – when you prepare all ingredients ahead of time, the salad, or meal you are preparing, goes together quickly and easily. Cleanup is a snap.

And what are 3 Easy Ways to Keep Salad Healthy? Hint: think IN, OUT, OUT!

1. Put lots of healthy ingredients IN – vegetables, dark leafy greens, herbs, flavored vinegars,

2. Keep high-fat items OUT – these include high-fat dressings, cheese, croutons, deli meat and mayonnaise salads

3. Keep sodium OUT – high sodium items include dressing, cheese, croutons, deli meat and mayonnaise salads

BONUS: keep them interesting and varied so you eat more every day!

Which of these is your favorite? Vote in our poll below.

Which one do you like to make? Tell us in our comments section and win – the top 5 comments win a free Salad Poster from the NutritionEducationStore.com

Check out our new eCookbook on Salads – not only will you get great recipes but you will improve your culinary skills.

The best thing you can do is to read Nutrition Facts labels to find low-sodium choices of what you buy on a regular basis; additionally this also means you should cook more meals from home so you control what goes in your food. 5% or less of the daily value for sodium is ideal. If you also eat out less often, you will make a dent in your intake. We have more recipes here and we are going to be updating them with pictures and videos to make it easy for everyone.

Take a look at our chart from our video – you can see the difference between delivery pizza and one that is made at home. One large slice of pizza contains 2/3 of a day’s supply:

As you can see by our chart, you don’t have to give pizza up – you just have to make it smarter. Here is how we did it:

• Buy or make a crust that has no more than 5-10% of the daily value for sodium (read the Nutrition Facts Label). Of course home-made whole grain crust is always the best but a low-sodium crust is preferable either way.
• Go really light on the cheese – we used a combo of shredded reduced fat cheddar and parmesan – they have a nice strong flavor so you can get away with adding a lot less. We also like farmer’s cheese that is low in fat and sodium (you do have to hunt for it) or a light sprinkle of goat cheese, too.
• Use a low-sodium sauce – such as a tomato sauce without added salt. We chose pomodoro tomato sauce because it costs less than bottled pasta sauce, has great flavor, and no salt! Sometimes, too, we will forego the cheese and just use a sprinkle of extra virgin olive oil and basil.
• Add plenty of herbs and seasonings. We like garlic granules, dried oregano, black pepper and fresh basil/herbs.
• Use lots of fresh veggies for flavor and color. Mushrooms, tomatoes, zucchini and peppers are some favorites. But don’t be afraid to add even more or your favorites.

1. Watch the movie below and learn in 1.5 minutes how to make it yourself. (This is our first movie in high definition. I just finished a documentary film making class while at Stanford – with Digital Media Academy – and I plan to use my great new skills in the coming year to bring our kitchen to your screen.)
2. Take our poll for sodium – let’s see what everyone thinks is the greatest source according to the preliminary Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
3. Give us a tip for your favorite pizza below – we will publish the top 10 tips and give them a Whole Grain Poster from our store.

And here is a shameless plug for our products – since we don’t accept advertising because we want to be pro-healthy food (zucchini really doesn’t have an advertising budget anyway) and proconsumer – here is our Nutrition Education Store: http://nutritioneducationstore.com – check out our new 8 Applications of Health which is bound to entertain any kid – it has a smart phone theme and teaches them to work on 8 real “applications” for health (move more, read labels, watch portions, choose wiser, more fruits/veggies, beverage better, etc) – better still it has a matching show for their parents – so you get 2 shows that have over 125 slides in 8 lessons – for a total of more than 250 slides PLUS 2 sets of handouts PLUS a new poster. This one is actually being taught to the employees of Apple very soon by one of our dietitian customers and it was written by Hollis Bass, MEd, RD, Food and Health Communications and a collection of artists and photographers!!

Here is a fun video about portion control for lunch. Most people think “sandwich.” But if you don’t pack it yourself, you can get in a lot of trouble. Portion distortion for lunch is practiced in almost every restaurant and deli every day. If you skipped breakfast and make the wrong decision for lunch it can result in a lot of calories, sodium and fat consumed.

The next time you think you have a great sandwich – perform a dissection – what do you have? Usually a whole plate of bread that is probably 4-8 servings, a pile of fatty deli meat that is laced with sodium, some cheese and a tiny pile of lettuce that probably doesn’t count all that much toward your daily vegetable intake that is recommended by the good folks at MyPyramid and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

The video below shows a better recipe for lunch for far fewer calories and the same volume of food.

Here is what we did:

This video comes in a 2 disc set – where you get the DVD PLUS a PowerPoint show with speaker’s notes and handouts here:

Or just the PowerPoint here:

And all of our portion control items here:

List your favorite portion control mistake for lunch in the comment section below and the top 5 comments will receive a free Portion Control Poster.

We are excited to present 2 new posters on label reading.

The 5 Mistakes of Label Reading

This poster and matching handout set sum up the 5 most common mistakes made when shopping for packaged foods in the grocery store. How many times do people ignore Nutrition Facts Labels, choose packages and bottles that look like one serving but are really more, buy items that contain way too much sodium, or imagine they can munch all day on lowfat or sugar free items? Here are these 5 mistakes as featured in the fun illustrations on the posters:

1. Ignore the label

2. More than one serving in a package that looks like a single serving

3. Too high in sodium

4. Sugar free or fat free is not calorie free

5. Package sounds healthier than the facts

These mistakes are based on many new food reports over a period of 15 years in our newsletter Communicating Food for Health, plus a survey of hundreds of foods for a game we made for nutrition facts label reading. If you have tips on teaching label reading add them below and we will give the top 5 responses a free set of posters.

Examine the Facts
Examine the Facts teaches 3 basic steps to evaluate a product quickly based on its nutrient analysis. Label reading is as easy as 1-2-3. AND an example is given that shows why it is better to compare a label – you save a lot of fat by choosing skim milk. PLUS handy reminders show the total nutrients needed for a day.

1. Calories – what is the total number of calories in this package? What is a serving size? How many servings in this package?

2. Heart healthy – how much saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol and sodium does this package contain?

3. Nutritional value – how much fiber? How many other nutrients?

Label Reading 2 Poster Set – you can get both posters and save over 20%

• Examine the Facts
• The 5 Mistakes of Label Reading

These two posters, by Food and Health Communications are designed to really teach everyone just what they need to know about label reading and the Nutrition Facts Panel.

Order now and we will offer priority shipping once the posters hit our door – they are being printed right now and will ship within 2 weeks.

Add a tip about teaching label reading below and we will award the top 5 tips with a free poster set plus 3 months membership to Communicating Food for Health newsletter and resource service.

I made this wonderful cheesecake for my son’s graduation. It provided us with a very elegant dessert that is light and creamy . And it was very easy to make.

You save 100 calories and 11 grams of fat per slice with this treat compared to regular cheesecake. And even MORE compared to regular cake with frosting.

16 ounces neufchatel cream cheese

16 ounces lowfat or fat-free sour cream

1 lemon – zest and juice

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup splenda (or sugar)

4 eggs

8 lemon cookies (lowfat)

1. Place lemon cookies in food processor and pulse until the crumbs are fine.

2. Lightly spray a deep dish glass baking pan with vegetable cooking oil spray and sprinkle the cookie crumbs on the bottom and sides.

3. Place the neufchatel cheese, sugar, splenda and lemon in a food processor and pulse until it is smooth and creamy. Add the sour cream slowly, scraping the bowl between each addition to avoid lumps. Add the eggs one by one and mix smooth.

4. Pour the cream cheese mixture to the pan and heat your oven to 325 degrees F.

Bake the cheesecake for one hour or until it is firm in the center and a knife inserted in to the center comes out clean. Refrigerate the cheesecake until completely cool, about 4 or 6 hours. Sprinkle with sugar on top and invert twice so it comes out of the pan but is served top side up.

5. Serve with berries.

Compare cake options, 122 grams (4.3 ounce slice):

• sorbet/yogurt pie: 220 calories, 5 g fat
• this double lemon light cheesecake: 236 calories, 11 g fat
• regular cheesecake: 350 calories, 22 g fat
• cake with frosting: 450 calories, 20 g fat

Our graduate placed in the top five of his class with three academic awards – so we were very proud and glad to be ready for his special celebration!!

Visit our NutritionEducationStore.com for more great nutrition education and presentation ideas and products.

Breakfast is not a meal that should be skipped. Consider these stats:

• Less than half of Americans are eating breakfast every day (foodinsight.org)
• Whole grains, fat-free milk products, fruits and vegetables are food groups to encourage (Dietary Guidelines). Breakfast eaters are more likely to have these items in their diets and research shows that people who skip breakfast are unlikely to make up for missed nutrients later in the day. (nutrition.gov, mypyramid.gov)
• Almost 80% of successful dieters polled in the National Weight Control Registry eat breakfast every day. (nwcr.ws)
• Breakfast improves SAT scores and intellectual results in students who regularly consume adequate breakfasts.(nature.com)

Many choose to eat out for breakfast each day. Early morning lines are always long at coffee cafes, fast food restaurants, donut shops and kiosks. The beautiful display of rather large bakery items beckon for a splurge of a mouth-watering treat: bagels, croissants, Danishes, pound cake, scones, donuts and large meat/egg/cheese sandwiches. Starbucks alone serves over 20 million customers in one week (perfectcoffees.com)

We did some research for the nutritional stats of popular breakfast items offered in coffee houses and bakeries. The numbers are not pretty. Most of the large bakery items you see in our chart top 500 calories and this does not include the coffee drink that comes with them. We came to one conclusion: Big + Baked = Diet Mistake. If a pastry is the size of your hand or larger it is going to be roughly 500 calories.

A better option? Watch our video to see a healthy breakfast plate that offers more food, more fiber and more color for just 250 calories. Most people could make one in 2 minutes.

Watch our show for a simple demonstration about portion control for breakfast. Then hurry on over to our store for our new Portion Control by the Meal DVD or CD – you can have a choice of PowerPoint, DVD or both! Let us know if you want to put this video on your site.

What is your favorite breakfast? Please use our poll and add comments below.

In the video you can see where we make a fun platter of fruits, vegetables and a few whole grain crackers. This gives you a fun variety and a whole plate of nutritious food for just 120-150 calories. Compare at the end where you can see a pile of chips versus a whole plate of food for the same amount – which do you think would make you feel more full?

There is truth to the Ruffles potato chip commercial – you can’t eat just one!

There is more info on this video here:

Welcome to portion control! Here is the first video, snacking, in our series for Portion Control by the Meal

Here is what we found in our DVD/Video research:

Snacks come in all sized packages and bags. Don’t let the food manufacturer decide your serving. Many packages and bags look like one serving but they are many more. Most of these packaged foods are very high in calorie density. A single one ounce serving of most items is around 140 calories. To put this in perspective, a one ounce piece of fruit would be around 20 calories.

We did find that a simple way to eyeball a one ounce serving is not to count potato chips – who would do that – but the one ounce serving most of the time is about a handful. Don’t eat out of a bag – put a handful on a small plate.

In the video you can see where we make a fun platter of fruits, vegetables and a few whole grain crackers. This gives you a fun variety and a whole plate of nutritious food for just 120-150 calories. Compare at the end where you can see a pile of chips versus a whole plate of food for the same amount – which do you think would make you feel more full?

There is truth to the Ruffles potato chip commercial – you can’t eat just one!

There is more info on this video here:

Here is a spring market basket from the produce section of our local store. When I am looking for ideas for what to cook I usually start shopping in the produce section because it inspires me. Left to right: baby romaine, red pepper, ugly tomato, golden beet, Easter Egg radishes, asparagus and an artichoke.

I decided to make a vegetarian dinner :

• Spring root vegetable salad
• Boiled artichoke with lemon
• Roasted vegetables over whole grain couscous

First, I started the artichoke since it takes the longest to cook:

Trim the spikes with scissors and cut the artichoke in half. Remove the center:

Place in boiling water and cook until tender, about 10-15 minutes. They tend to float so you should flip them half way:

Here are the finished artichoke halves – they are served on a white platter with fresh lemon.

The eggplant, asparagus and red peppers were cut in thin sticks. I lightly brushed them with olive oil and finely minced garlic:

And then broiled them in the oven for 10 minutes – look how wonderfully golden they came out:

Whole grain couscous is perhaps the easiest whole grain to prepare. It involves 2 ingredients and a minute of time:

1 cup water – bring to boil in a large measuring cup in the microwave

1 cup whole grain couscous – pour it into the boiling water, sit one minute, fluff with a fork. You can toss with lemon and herbs or a light dressing. It can go into salads or be a side dish. In this case it was the main entree with roasted vegetables on top:

When the vegetables were golden brown, they were removed from the oven and placed atop the fluffy whole grain couscous:

Meanwhile, while the veggies were cooking I prepared the spring root salad. Here are the Easter Egg radishes and the golden beet:

I shredded the beet with the grater and finely sliced the radishes atop the baby romaine. They were presented on a flat platter :

• 1 cup warm water (about 100 degrees F)
• 1 packet dry yeast
• 3 cups white whole wheat flour (I order this from King Arthur Flour or get it from Whole Foods)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• pinch brown sugar
• dash garlic powder
• vegetable oil spray

1. Mix the warm water and yeast until the yeast dissolves. Add the flour, oil and sugar and kneed well by hand or on a mixing machine until the dough is very elastic. I like the paddle of a mixing machine because I think the hook is too thin on a home version and it tends to tear the dough apart. You may want to add a bit more flour if necessary in case it is too wet.
2. Cover the dough and allow it to rise for about one hour.
3. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured board and divide into 12 small sections. Roll each section until it is the size of a large thumb. Arrange on a baking pan. Lightly spray the tops with the vegetable oil cooking spray and sprinkle with garlic powder and a little parmesan cheese.
4. Bake for 10 minutes at 400F. When finished you can serve warm with salt-free tomato/pasta sauce or keep at room temperature until ready to serve. You can also wrap and freeze them for later use. We like them for after school snacks or weekend socializing, too.

This recipe goes great with soup, salad, pasta, stew or anything else you want to serve. Here is a preview of an Italian dinner that is easy using Celentano’s Light Cheese Raviolis – one of the few frozen foods that are low in fat AND sodium:

We used Celentano Light Cheese Ravioli, no-salt-added Pomodoro tomato puree and fresh steamed broccoli. This dinner cooks in 12 minutes or less. Having the whole grain breadsticks on hand made it very festive.

Answer our poll and post comments below – we want to hear how you are cooking and baking with whole grains – the first 10 people to make a useful comment for how they use whole grains in the box below get a free whole grain poster from our store (make sure you include your email address so we can tell you that you won -we don’t share it with anyone and it won’t show here). What we are looking for is a unique way to use them that is useful for others – maybe it is something inexpensive, or easy. You can mention a product or insert a recipe or just general cooking or shopping tips.

Go for the Whole Grain Poster

Whole Grain Shopper Express

Easter Rabbit Salad

Easter Rabbit Salad
Here is our latest creation with fresh fruit ready to share!
The criteria:

• Can’t cost too much money (the pineapple was on sale at Walmart for $2.50 and the strawberries were just $1.50 per pint)
• Common fruits
• Anyone can make it
• Everyone wants to eat it
• Has to be shaped like a rabbit
• No candy – a healthy fun fruit salad

So, here you go! Our Easter Rabbit Salad.

• 1 pineapple
• 1 quart of strawberries
• 1 apple, grated
• 1 banana
• dark raisins or dried blueberries for the eyes

1. Peel the pineapple then cut 2/3 lengthwise – you want the body to be bigger than 1/2.
2. Remove the core with a serrated knife.
3. Slice the 2/3 part which is the body and set in bowl in bed of strawberries.
4. Carve the remaining 1/3 into a head – making ears and a shaped face. Set up against the body.
5. Carve out a hole for the eyes and fill with raisins.
6. Use the pineapple to make fringes for the bowl and whiskers.
7. Use the grated apple for the tail – you can use fresh lemon to keep it white
8. Use a banana for the legs and nose.
9. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Here is the recipe for our first edition:

Easter Bunny Salad

4 romaine lettuce leaves, washed and dried
4 pear halves, fresh or canned, blotted dry
12 dark seedless raisins
4 miniature marshmallows
8 apple slices
1 teaspoon fat-free cream cheese

Place a lettuce leaf on each of 4 plates. Use the pear half as the bunny’s body. Add raisins for the eyes and nose, using the cream cheese as glue to hold them in place. Use the apple slices to form ears. Add a miniature marshmallow for the tail, again using cream cheese to hold it in place.

Servings:
4. Serving: 1 bunny

Diabetic Exchanges:
Bread & Starch: 1.0

Total Preparation & Cooking Time: 10 min. (10 Prep, 0 Cook)

Enjoy and Happy Easter and Happy Passover or just Happy Spring.

Sugar Rabbit

We are going to be posting lots of new items in our store – check out some of them now:

This roasted chicken dinner turned out really good! The roasted beets with the cranberry sauce were a nice touch and the chicken was very moist. I used frozen chicken tenderloins that went into the oven frozen. I found out that they take the same time to cook as potatoes, winter squash, beets, carrots, etc. so they are a great choice for another roasted dinner – where I throw everything in the oven for 45-60 minutes and have a wonderful meal with no attended cooking time when it is done. Here are the ingredients:

• 8 frozen chicken tenderloins (about 12 ounces)
• 1 cup mushrooms + 1 tsp olive oil
• 4 beets, unpeeled + a little water
• 1 bag cranberries + 1/2 cup sugar + 1/2 cup water
• 4 small baking potatoes (Yukon Gold), rinsed
• 1 pound broccoli
• 6 cups butter lettuce, arrugula + olive oil + lemon

1. Turn oven on to 375F.
2. Place frozen chicken tenderloins (or boneless skinless frozen chicken breasts) into a casserole dish and cover with foil. Place them in the oven.
3. Place the potatoes on a rack in the oven.
4. Place the beets in a casserole dish in the oven.
5. Place the cranberries, sugar and water in a casserole or glass bowl and cover and place those in the oven.
6. Prepare the broccoli and salad and refrigerate until ready to serve. Slice the mushrooms.
7. Bake everything in the oven for 50-60 minutes. The chicken should be firm and white in the center. The potatoes and beets should be fork tender.
8. When the roasted dinner is done you can microwave the broccoli and set the salad on the table.
9. Cut the beets in quarters (you may need to microwave them for a few more minutes if they are not soft enough).
10. Cut the potatoes in quarters.
11. Saute the mushrooms in olive oil and pour over the chicken tenders.
12. Serve as pictured above – the chicken is served with mushrooms on top, the potatoes are quartered and they stand on end. The cranberries top the beets. The broccoli is steamed at the last minute and served on the side.

This recipe serves about 4 people. Use 2 tenderloins per person.

Find more cooking instruction materials in our NutritionEducationStore.com

Do you want to serve a creative birthday cake made from sorbet and berries? This one doesn’t need batter, baking time, frosting or hours of preparation. It is colorful – made “a la minute” (at the last minute) right at the table. We used chocolate and strawberry sorbet, fresh berries, fresh whipped fat-free cream and vanilla frozen yogurt. The whimsical candles made a nice topping.

Start with some fresh berries that are rinsed and cut in quarters – one quart to be exact.

Scoop a variety of frozen yogurt and fruit and chocolate sorbet into a frozen shallow bowl or cake dish. Decorate with whipped cream and candles. We like to scoop the sorbet so it is arranged by color.

Watch it disappear fast!

Dinner was courtesy of my mom, who is celebrating her 74th birthday. After reading all of my newsletters and nutrition information over the years, she has taken the messages to heart and cooks healthy – no more high blood pressure medicine, no more cholesterol medicine – she keeps these numbers looking good with diet and exercise and we are all blessed with another healthy and happy birthday.

As you can see, dinner was simple but healthful – salad, 3 kinds of veggies, and her famous pasta. Her sauce is so delicious I asked her to share – I think the secret is the thickness from the salt-free crushed tomatoes and the lively flavor of the fennel seeds that make you think she put sausage in it!

Here is her recipe:

1/4 cup olive oil

2 onions, diced

1 gallon of crushed tomatoes – no salt added

2 tablespoons of Badia ground garlic & parsley,

3 tablespoons sugar,

1 tablespoon chopped fennel seeds,

1 tablespoon of dried basil,

1/4 cup dried onion flakes,

ground pepper

Saute onions in olive oil until tender, about 3 minutes, Add the tomatoes and the rest of the ingredients and cook on a low simmer for about a half of an hour. Refrigerate until ready to serve – freeze extra if needed. This makes a little more than a gallon of sauce which would equal about 5 jars of sauce.

You can use whole tomatoes that are salt-free too – just crush them with a hand blender.

Visit our nutrition education store for more cooking instruction materials

PLUS – now you can get a 7 day trial for our membership area – visit http://communicatingfoodforhealth.com

I found these graffiti eggplant in the market today and immediately thought of making ratatouille and a vegetarian roasted dinner. Roasted dinners are my favorites – you put everything in the oven and then serve when done. The house smells great and there is little attendance time. Plus you are more efficient with energy use because everything goes in the oven.

Here are the main ingredients:

2 eggplant, cubed

1 yellow squash

1 zucchini

1 onion

garlic – minced – 2 cloves

1 shallot

1 cup mushrooms

1 bell pepper

2 cans no-salt-added diced tomatoes

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tsp parsley

1 cup water or broth

Place all ingredients in a large covered casserole:

Bake for 1-1/2 hours.

We also added a steak potato and a fancy yam:

And a spaghetti squash:

It is easy to make this delightful squash -you cut it in half, remove the seeds and place it cut side down in a covered baking casserole. A microwave can cook it in 10 minutes, but we chose to throw it in the oven with the ratatouille and the yams.

And in the mean time, while these items baked, we made an heirloom tomato salad and the snack bowl for the week.

This is celeriac – it is a root that has a distinct celery flavor. It is delicious when put in soups and when shaved or minced finely for salads.

These are heirloom tomatoes. They are non-hybrid, open pollinated tomatoes that are very intriguing in the number of colors and shapes they are available. Generally they are interesting and very flavorful. It was our best choice for the winter market and since we were going vegetarian there is more room in the budget for fun items like these.

The salads, we decided, should be individuals – diners have their choice of red or yellow heirloom tomatoes, complete with julienne (thin strips) of celeriac and shaved organic carrots. We topped these with olive oil and balsamic vinegar glaze and black pepper:

I also bought huge pears and honey crisp apples – so those got washed and put in a bowl in the refrigerator – waiting to be snacks for the week. I noticed they disappear faster when put in a bowl:

It took about 1-1/2 hours for the ratatouille, potato, yam and spaghetti squash to cook until perfect. (The oven was 375-400 degrees):

Here is a shameless plug for our new store:

http://nutritioneducationstore.com

We have a new Apple Poster.

The apple poster is a great visual of a healthy choice! It positively reinforces a nutrient dense food over junk food choices and the savings! Using this visual will help clients make a daily healthy choice.

We were featured on http://www.usapple.org/educators/applestore/index.cfm as a great apple resource!

You are not alone. The obesity levels among children are alarming. Type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure are now more common in adolescents and teenagers than in decades past and we are actually getting requests for these materials. TV and video games converge with high-calorie density palatable foods and busy parents to make the struggle of healthy for kids tougher.

We wanted to share 7 of our No Battles Better Eating Lessons to help you help parents, teachers and childcare providers to help kids make better choices and love the right foods. Our engaging activities are designed to make fun quality time for all, rather than a battle. We believe everyone should enjoy their food.

1. Smell It
Fresh herbs engage many people. How fun to take a leaf, rub it between your fingers, or chop on a block, and have a wonderful aromatic smell. Best bet? MINT! It is in their favorite candy and can go in home made tea, on top of fruits, in salads and tabouleh. Start learning about herbs together – smell them in the store, buy a new one each week, grow them in the summer.
Mint Tea, Salad

2. Bake It
Banana Mini Muffins
Chocolate Chip Cookies for Kids
A great icebreaker, and snack maker, is to bake muffins. They can be a snack on the go, breakfast, dessert. Of course you don’t want to eat 12 in one day. But you get the idea. We find they love to bake, and then take to school. We have also included a cookie recipe. Reason: if you want them, don’t buy them; make them! It cuts down on cookie snacking and baking is a fun and positive way for all kids to help in the kitchen.

3. Make It
The end goal should be in mind. Do you really want them going into the world without knowing how to cook a decent dinner? No one has time for cooking lessons. But they do have to make dinner and it is great to make it a family affair when you can.

• A 2 year old can help set the table or stir lettuce in a bowl.
• A 5 year old can make fruit plates.
• A 10 year old can be responsible for packing their own lunch every day – do it the night before.
• A 13 year old can make dinner. After they learn to cook, let them plan and execute a great dinner.

If you start cooking more at home and teaching them to help – you get a built in helper, a healthier kid, more quality time, less money and running around and better meals for all. And here is a really fun idea – eat dinner in their room! One night my son had a chef’s table in his room for my birthday. On nights that he has a lot of homework we eat in his room while he works at his desk.
Tortilla Pizza for Kids to Make
Beware of Kid’s Restaurant Meals – Calories Given

4. Buffet It
We had a huge turn in better eating when I began making a buffet. While an all-you-can-eat buffet in a restaurant is usually a recipe for disaster, it is a great idea at home! Why? Because you can cook a variety of healthy dishes to eat over a few days. Everyone loves to come to the kitchen and fill their plate with their favorite healthy food. And you can serve “just healthy stuff” so they eat more of that. Pasta, lean chicken, many veggies, salad, fruit. It is festive, it is fun, and they might surprise you with what they start putting on their plates when it is their idea.
Here is a Roasted Buffet Dinner

5. Assemble It
Tacos, burritos, baked potatoes, salads – put out the healthy ingredients to make these and let them make their own. Everyone loves to be creative – even the picky eaters. And a comment like, “wow yours looks the tastiest” goes a long way in positive reinforcement.
Make Your Own Fajitas

6. Ready It
Slowly but surely the donuts, crackers and cookies can disappear. The baby carrots, diced peaches, apples, watermelon, yogurt, nut butter sandwiches and more can be ready in the refrigerator. A beautiful bowl of bananas is on the table. Change them up so you don’t get bored! If it is ready, it will get eaten – the path of least resistance is the surest way to better habits.
Fruit Ready Now in Pictures
More Healthy Snacks for Familes

7. Earn It
The most surefire way to a better appetite is to burn more calories – run, walk, play – limit screen time.
More Activity Ideas for Families

We hope you have found these useful. If you have a fun way to keep your kids engaged let us know and we will share.

Judy

A recent trip to our favorite farmer’s market in Homestead (Robert is Here) yielded many prizes. We know it is not so warm everywhere as here so we thought we would share some tropic love and particularly to get ready for Nutrition Month – back to basics – why not develop a love of fruit and learn about new ones!?

Here are the names:

The Caneel fruit is most exquisite and easy to use. You let it sit out until it gets very soft and then you scoop it with a spoon. We decided to use an ice cream scoop to display its beautiful golden flesh in neat round balls. It tastes like an egg custard and it has a texture like velvet.

The Black Sapote is equally rich in its flavor and texture. It looks and tastes like chocolate. We were quite struck with it when we sliced it in half after allowing it to soften. Look at how beautiful the color is!

We could envision serving it with a little whipped cream and chocolate shavings but we never quite got that far because it was swooped from the platter. The texture is like avocado but the flavor has a distinct cocoa flavor.

The mango is so lovely – inside and out – look at its color:

Here is part of our platter:

• The sapodilla is on the left front – it tastes like a sweet pear steeped in cloves. Directions: peel the skin off, remove core and cut in cubes.
• The passion fruit is so colorful and aromatic – truly exotic. Directions: cut them in half and loosened the seeds, which are the edible part.
• Next to the passion fruit you will see the black sapote (chocolate fruit). Directions: cut in half, scoop out pulp away from seeds and peel; we like to cut it in chunks like cookie dough.
• The mango is sliced and on the right. Directions: peel away the skin, slice the fruit in thin strips from the pit.

And here is the other half of the platter:

• Apple bananas, far right. Directions: peel and quarter lengthwise. Sprinkle with Key lime juice for flavor and to keep them from turning brown.
• Ugli fruit, wedges in the center. Directions: remove the peel like a tangerine; separate the sections which come apart easily.
• The scooped Caneel is on the middle left and looks like pumpkin ice cream. Directions: cut in half and use ice cream scoop to form the soft flesh into balls.
• Mango is on the left here again.

Here is the whole platter:

The Ugli fruit was a great surprise. We have seen them in the grocery store but never paid them much attention. But it was obvious from their abundance and the reputation of Robert’s that these fruits were very fresh so we had to try one.

Ugli fruit tastes like lemonade candy! And look at the sections – they are large but they come apart very easily. We love these and would buy them again and again!

Here is a photo of the Ugli fruit, the pomelo and the grapefruit just for comparison:

Here are the sections from the Red Indian River Grapefruit and the Pomelo – they were so sweet and juicy and this plate was gobbled for breakfast! Directions: peel the fruit, remove the core and seeds, cut into wedges – removing any more seeds that appear.

This citrus plate made a lovely centerpiece and we enjoyed using these in our meals all week long:

The orange platter kept in the refrigerator and these were wedged and peeled for dessert and lunchboxes:

One good idea was to peel and wrap the tangerines so they could be “on the go” with us or ready for lunch boxes – less messy for the person eating them on the go:

The star fruit were very plentiful and their playful shape can come in handy for fruit salad or as a tart garnish for fish. I was able to snap a photo of them growing on the trees in the nearby Fruit and Spice Park in Homestead. Directions: slice them thin – no peeling needed.

We do have more cooking instruction materials here:

Cooking Demo Volume 1 and 2

MyPyramid Cooking Demo Kit

25 ingredients 15 different meals

Here is a fun steak dinner – but without the steak! It was made in 20 minutes flat – and all we had to do was cut the potato. On the plate: steak oven fries, steak roasted mushrooms, salmon steak and steamed green beans.

Heat oven to 450 degrees.

1 cup whole mushrooms, washed

1 bag green beans

1 salmon steak – 3 ounces

2 teaspoons barbecue sauce

1 potato

vegetable oil spray

garlic parsley powder

black pepper

no-salt-added ketchup

balsamic vinegar or glaze

Cut 1 potato in wedges and place on cookie tray that is lightly sprayed with vegetable spray. Sprinkle potatoes with garlic-parsley mix and black pepper. Place in oven for 15 minutes and turn over for the last 5 minutes. Potatoes are done when crispy on the outside but tender on the inside.

Place salmon in baking dish and spread the top with the barbecue sauce. Put in the oven and bake 15 minutes.

Place mushrooms in a baking dish and bake 15 minutes.

When potatoes, mushrooms and fish are almost done, microwave the green beans until tender, about 3 minutes.

Serve all together. We garnished the potatoes with a drizzle of ketchup and the mushrooms with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar glaze (you can also use balsamic vinegar).

Enjoy!

February is heart month – here are more popular topics for hearth healthy cooking:

What to do with a can of beans – because beans help lower cholesterol but what does someone do with a can of beans? Here is a great dinner that would be a good cooking demo topic

http://lighterspoon.com/2008/09/what-to-do-with-a-can-of-beans/

The art of working with ground turkey breast – because many people substitute turkey breast for beef but it is tricky to do:
http://lighterspoon.com/2007/03/penne-pasta-and-the-art-of-working-with-ground-turkey-breast/

Pasta With Fresh Veggies:
http://lighterspoon.com/2008/05/pasta-with-fresh-veggies/

Super Tapas – for more appetizers and snacks and veggies:
http://lighterspoon.com/2010/01/super-tapas/

Stir Fry – more veggies – would maybe pair this one with the pasta:
http://lighterspoon.com/2009/05/stir-stir-stir-fry/

Mediterranean Pizza – because everyone loves pizza – but this one is much better for your heart – and tastes great!
http://lighterspoon.com/2009/05/mediterranean-pizza/

And here is one more fun theme – 25 heart healthy ingredients turned into 15 different inexpensive meals:
http://lighterspoon.com/2009/11/watch-our-show-25-ingredients-for-15-delicious-meals-what-we-bought-for-63/

UPDATE: USAT featured this recipe in their Spring 2010 Inside Triathlon magazine!

One of our subscribers called and requested healthy appetizers for the Super Bowl. We got to work right away on the project and decided to have a little fun with a tapas theme. Tapas means little plates and these dishes originate from many Mediterranean countries. So, we started making many small plates of vegetables and fruit and stored them away.

We had some people over the next day and exclaimed that they were getting our Super Bowl fare. The end result? Empty plates! That is always good.

Now, these are very simple. Simple enough for kids to make. And they are healthy.

Veggies with Cucumber Yogurt Dill Dip

1 cup strained non-fat yogurt (you can buy this in the dairy section of your grocery store or strain nonfat plain yogurt over night in a strainer with a paper towel on the bottom)

1/2 cup diced cucumber

1 tsp fresh chopped dill

dash garlic powder

Mix the dip and place in a small serving bowl. Surround with cucumber sticks, baby carrots and bell pepper rings.

Chips with Low-Salt Salsa

We figure everyone loves chips so we know we will not get away with leaving them out. We picked tortilla chips and salsa because the salsa is made from veggies. And the blue corn chips have plenty of anthocyanin which is good.

We made the salsa quickly from low-sodium canned tomatoes.

1 14 ounce can no-salt-added diced tomatoes

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp garlic powder

dash hot pepper sauce

Place in food processor and pulse until the salsa is chunky. Pour into serving dish and surround with white and blue corn chips.

Tomato Pinwheels

Tomato Pinwheels look impressive but they are very easy to make.

1 whole wheat tortilla (we tried to find one that is lower than 300 mg of sodium)

2 tablespoons prepared hummus (we tried to find one that is not too high in sodium – the varieties in our deli varied so it paid to read the label – this one was less than 100 mg of sodium per serving)

1 chopped plum tomato

1 cup grape or cherry tomatoes

Spread the whole wheat tortilla with the hummus. Place the diced tomatoes on one end and roll tightly. Cut in 1 inch pieces and arrange in a circle on a plate. Place the grape/cherry tomatoes in the center.

Veggies With Hummus

Here is another small veggie plate that is not the standard stale veggie platter you find in most grocery stores – and it is a way to use up the hummus from the pinwheels.

1 cup hummus
1 cup celery sticks
1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes
1 cup broccoli florets (tops)
Arrange the veggies on a plate surrounding the hummus. If you want a little red color on the hummus you can add a little tomato paste.

Fruit Tapas

Dried fruit is popular in the Mediterranean. We made a platter with figs (cut them in half so they look better), dried cranberries, dried plums (this is a sneaky word for prunes), and apple wedges. We cheated and used the apple wedges that are already cut and in bags in the grocery store.

By making these 5 small plates and arranging them around the room you have a nice appetizer spread or great snack plates in your refrigerator. Use them for the Super Bowl or for any time of year – for parties or after school snacks. Everyone loves the variety!

Here is a rosemary plant that is shaped like a holiday tree – to add wonderful smells to your kitchen – and flavor to many dishes including potatoes and poultry. We used fresh chopped rosemary on a delicious casserole of low-fat scalloped potatoes for a video series for healthy potato dishes. This “tree” makes a lovely decoration and every cook loves fresh herbs. Rosemary tastes wonderful when it is minced finely and added to dishes near the end of the cooking process.  It adds a flavor that is reminiscent of pine.

And a gingerbread house – for families on the go – decorating our pre-fabricated house became a fun family project that allowed us to bond without stress  - everyone could help and there was not much mess. (Not to mention that we have something to admire instead of too many calories to tempt us.)

I bought the gingerbread house from Whole Foods as a sort of last minute purchase because it was peanut safe (my son has a peanut allergy) and I thought it would be a great way to have something fun for us to make together without the work and calories of cookies this year.

Here is how I made the royal icing (which does dry pretty hard and it makes a great non-fat icing to hold the candies on the house):

1 pound powdered sugar

1 tablespoon egg white powder (I like this because it is pasteurized and it is a great staple for baking for when you run out of eggs – look for it in the baking section of the store)

1 tablespoon water (more or less)

Mix and add the water slowly until the consistency is thick like paste. The amount of water is always a variable based on the sugar and the temperature of the ingredients.

We used peanut-safe candies and had a great time decorating – we did it side by side until we had all four sides complete.

An extra house was a hit as a gift to my sister and her family – she and her kids were decorating it today and they will probably take it to an elderly relative to enjoy. As for ours – we have begun to eat it – but just a few pieces of the roof. I guess that is the other thing about a house – you just don’t gorge on it like you do a platter of cookies!

And here is a batch of calorie-free Holiday Tea that went together in minutes and made a lovely table centerpiece:

3 quarts water

6 red tea bags (we chose red fruit tea and red rooibos tea – there are many choices in the grocery store you just have to pick your favorite), caffeine free

1 orange, cut in quarters

1 lemon, cut in quarters

1/2 cup cranberries

We mixed everything and let it stand at room temperature until our guests arrived. Serve with ice and enjoy! It was great for kids or adults.

For our party goods – we served a wonderful array of healthy tapas – these small plates held various combinations of raw veggies with healthy dips, chips with home made salsa, and fruits that were a mix of dried and fresh.

Our guests were delighted that they were sampling our “super bowl snack fare” – and much to our delight all of the veggies disappeared! We will be showing that soon – we have more video recipes to come to get you ready for Super Bowl Dipper Parties.

Thanks to a wonderful reader and member who called to request Super Bowl recipes – we are happy to oblige and will have something to post soon!

Merry Christmas to all!

Cranberry-Poached Pears:

Watch this video and learn to make a stunning dessert with a pear, some cranberries, water, sugar and spices – all in about a minute and a half!

Here is the recipe:

4 pears, peeled, halved, cored

1 cup cranberries

1 cup water

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup Splenda (use brown sugar as a substitute)

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Place all in microwave container and cover and cook on full power for 6 minutes. Pears are done when tender. Serve warm on a plate – as shown – or cover and refrigerate for later use.

Citrus Pummelo Cup

Here is the recipe for the Citrus Pummelo Cup:

1 large pummelo or grapefruit

1 tsp warm honey (we warmed it briefly in the microwave)

zest and juice of 1 lime

segments of 1 tangerine

Peel, core and deseed pummelo or grapefruit as shown in the video.  Cut into segments and remove seeds and core again as needed. Stack the segments on a plate.

Drizzle with warm honey, lime zest and juice. Garnish with tangerine segments. Cover and chill until ready to serve. Serve in glasses or dessert dishes.

The pummello is a fruit that resembles a grapefruit – we have found them to be somewhat of a conversation piece – they are very large! They are juicy and very sweet – we liken them to grapefruit candy!

Apple Ambrosia

We made this recipe using Ambrosia Apples – the title of those gave us the idea. The pineapple is tasty and the acid in it keeps the apples white for a few days!

Victoria Shanta Retelny, RD, LDN, exclaimed, “The videos look great, Judy.  They are so sleek and simple.  I love it!  I am going to make the apple ambrosia tonight with my kids” when she got to preview our videos (our authors do have priveleges).

We love this dessert, too!

2 apples, cored and diced

1/4 cup crushed pineapple in juice, with juice

1 cup light nonfat vanilla yogurt

1 squirt of whipped cream – about 2 tablespoons

1 tablespoon toasted almonds, chopped

Mix all together. Cover and chill until ready to use. Serve in glass bowl and top with more crushed pineapple and toasted almonds. MMMMMMMMMMMMM!

Members get to embed these videos – PLUS they are receiving a holiday issue of CFFH:

December

• December ’09 Full Newsletter (PDF)
• For Consumers:
• Does Mammography Prevent Breast Cancer?
• Food News You Can Use – Winter Shopping
• Recipes: Winter Fruits: More Fruit, Fewer Calories
• Handout: Reduce Breast Cancer Risk
• Handout: Cook at Home and Save
• For Professionals:
• Presentation Ideas: Social Media Tips
• Breast Cancer Reduction: Research Update
• Bonus Handout: 2010 Recipe Calendar
• December ’09 Full Newsletter (Word)
• Become a member today!

Here are more fruit and veggie educational items from our new store:

PLUS  - here is one more reason to visit our store – sign up to be on our mailing list and receive a Word file for a  2010 Recipe Calendar from Food and Health Communications!

http://foodandhealth.com/shop/pages/FreeHandouts.html

Do you need a simple shopping list that can help you make more meals at home? You are in luck! Here is our new video that is now available – it is called 25 Ingredients, 15 Delicious Meals – Stock Your Kitchen to Make Fast and Healthy Meals All Week.

The premise of our show and lesson is that you only have to buy 25 common inexpensive ingredients and you can make many simple easy to make meals all week. Our neighbors, family and friends have all loved this video and they have been cooking at home a lot more.  Here are a few highlights from this segment – and then you get to watch at the end!

First of all – this part astounded us the most. If you roast a chicken and then make a few meals with the leftovers you save a lot! Here is what we saved for 6 different chicken meals – $63 and almost 2000 calories:

More than half the cart was produce:

You can see we made our list by 3 simple categories: 1) fruits and vegetables, 2) whole grains, 3) fat-free/skim dairy products

And here are a few of our secrets for keeping the cost down:

a) there was no soda, candy, cookies, packaged cereals or chips – just produce, whole grains, lean protein and nonfat dairy products – we shopped the perimeter

b) the only items we bought were “on the list”

c) we did rely on some staple seasonings – like dried oregano, bay leaves, thyme, rosemary, garlic powder, pepper, olive oil, vinegar, sugar and cinnamon (we believe the cost was more than offset by items leftover)

d) we bought bulk produce and kept the protein lean and easy on the budget

Here is the first segment of our show that discusses what we bought at the store:

And now for our special offer – you see, we worked very hard on planning the meals and menu, shopping for the food, preparing it and shooting it many times, and we don’t accept advertising dollars (we don’t want our editorial and helpfulness to customers tainted by a handout from a food manufacturer) PLUS we know you all are very busy – and times are tough – and people are stressed so they really want to see something new and compelling to help them eat better and with less effort and expense. Here is our offer:

Buy our new DVD/CD bundle which includes a 20 minute video on DVD with all 5 segments:

1) What to buy

2) Roast it once, serve it many times (how to roast a chicken and prepare 6 yummy meals from it all week)

3) Make meals with pizza, potatoes

4) Include fish, wraps and vegetarian items

5) Buy healthful items for tasty snacks and desserts

The DVD is 20 minutes long and moves fast with music and simple to follow directions. It comes with handouts and a leader guide so you have all the recipes, the shopping list, tips and more. AND it comes with a PowerPoint show with over 50 slides and speaker’s notes so you can show it again and again and use our many charts in more of your programs. PLUS you get the photos of the meals! How cool is that?!

But wait – there is more:

All orders come with our 100% satisfaction guarantee – you are completely 100% satisfied or we refund your money. PLUS you receive free phone support, lifetime updates and extra little perks as needed – like an extra photo, handout, or clipart to promote our program at your site.
We have 1000’s of satisfied customers and we love what we do! Why spend the money on the food and all of your time taking, editing and sorting photos or hours and hours on a PowerPoint show? PLUS our dietitian, photographer, videographer, writer and graphic artist will make you look professional and allow you to give a compelling presentation that will have clients and attendees asking you for more! Don’t miss out!
PLUS if you buy the DVD/CD set, you will get all of our photos from the slides and the photoshoot – there are well over 50of them – some that were not even featured in the show.  Take a look at our slide show!

Buy this DVD/CD set now and get a your items shipped to you with the the 20 minute DVD on how to shop, the PDF file for the recipes and leader guide and kitchen tips, PowerPoint with over 50 slides plus over 50 compelling high-quality photos plus , plan menus and prepare 15 tasty meals  (PLUS we will add a free download account that has over 8 free handouts and all the time access to unlimited updates PLUS you receive our free toll-free phone support with our materials). Why spend hundreds of dollars and over 30 hours to shop, photograph, research and edit for a Video and PowerPoint show when you can spend just $59 and give your audience something relevant, compelling and useful for their health.

Premier Communicating Food for Health members are allowed to embed this video – to find out more about this membership which helps you do more with less for less than $6 per month, click here.

The photo above shows how much sugar is in 2 breakfast pastries.

They say a picture speaks 1,000 words.  While we read labels more than the average person and investigate all sorts of items in the grocery store or fast food outlet, nothing prepared us for this photo shoot. It is not because we spent over $200 on food, or that the studio was congested and busy for days while we discussed, reshot and reshot to get the look just right or the message across; and it is not because there are scribbled notes, empty boxes and piles of papers printed from fast food sites on my desk. It is more because while it is one thing to WRITE about what is in processed food, it is quite another to SEE what is in the processed food! In the end we have a PowerPoint show that is now over 70 slides!!  You can see it in its entirety in a flash file above this paragraph.

The photo below shows the amount of fat and sugar in a chocolate bar:

And this one is striking – more for its portion size – do you really think a hungry person is going to keep the portion of this pizza to just 1/6th of a slice?

And speaking of portions – our way of weighing things is on a postage scale – this big sandwich (from the deli of our store) weighed 18 ounces and we noted it would cost $6 to mail it – way too big!:

We did have a bit of good news – the oven fries we made from fresh potatoes come without added fat or salt – and tasty thanks to the oven crispiness and no-added-salt ketchup:

I think this next whole meal photo shocked us the most – it had over 50 grams of fat and over 3200 mg of sodium for the whole dinner. It didn’t look like all that much food yet it was more than 1000 calories – and all foods are common for what someone might choose if they didn’t watch our show – 1 crunchy-fried chicken breast, 1 biscuit, macaroni and cheese, and oven fries.

If you choose baked chicken, cole slaw, mashed potatoes and a biscuit you don’t fare that much better:

Take our poll and guess how much sodium is in this plate – it will be fun to see what our readers think:

We will post the answer in the comments next week.

Here is one more that is a good visual for sodium:

The left hand side shows the upper limit for almost 70% of the people in the US (>40 and at risk or having hypertension) or 1500 mg of sodium. The right side shows 4000 mg or what most Americans eat in a day. And while most of that DOES NOT come from a salt shaker, it is enough to fill one. We hoped that all of the foods we chose, which were boxed convenience meals, pickled foods and sauces and dressings, frozen dinners and fast food meals, gave a clear picture for where all of the excess salt and fat is coming in the diet.

After photographing all of the piles of sugar (the pastry and soda photos were compelling in our opinion), it was a bit underwhelming to shoot tiny piles of salt – it is just 1/4 of a teaspoon to add 590 mg of sodium. So, we opted to shoot them in teaspoons and tablespoons – we felt that made it more relevant because no one would add that much to their food.

And now for our plug and special offer  - you see, we work hard on these photos and buying the food, and we don’t accept advertising dollars (we don’t want our editorial and helpfulness to customers tainted by a handout from a food manufacturer, although we might take one from a produce maker such as the banana company! but we would let you know that!) PLUS we know you all are very busy – and times are tough – and people are stressed so they really want to see something new and compelling. Here is our offer:

Buy our new game which includes all 77 slides for our new game, Get the Nutrition Right for just $49!

But wait – there is more:

• All orders come with our 100% satisfaction guarantee – you are completely 100% satisfied or we refund your money. PLUS you receive free phone support, lifetime updates and extra little perks as needed – like an extra photo, handout, or clipart to promote our program at your site.
• We have 1000′s of satisfied customers and we love what we do! Why spend the money on the food and all of your time taking, editing and sorting photos or hours and hours on a PowerPoint show? PLUS our dietitian, photographer, writer and graphic artist will make you look professional and allow you to give a compelling presentation that will have clients and attendees asking you for more! Don’t miss out!
• PLUS if you buy the CD or the download, you will get all of our photos from the slides and the photoshoot – there are well over 100 of them – some that were not even featured in the show. Some that are good examples of what to eat and can be used anywhere, like this photo showing 4 pears with fewer than 2 small breakfast pastries:

Buy this game now and get a CD shipped to you with the PowerPoint with over 77 slides plus over 100 compelling high-quality photos  (PLUS we will add a free download account that has over 8 free handouts and all the time access to unlimited updates PLUS you receive our free toll-free phone support with our materials). Why spend hundreds of dollars and over 30 hours to shop, photograph, research and edit for a PowerPoint show when you can spend just $49 and give your audience something relevant, compelling and useful for their health. PLUS you get a Best Quick Meals handout package so they can prepare better meals on the run!

If you use a large serving bowl for dessert you will probably fill it. Does this mean the portion size is right? No. It probably means that the portion is going to be, on average according to our experiments, about three times LARGER than it should be. Over time, excess calories from over-sized portions can really add up.

For dessert dishes, it’s time to line up smaller options. Explore your cabinet or nearest dish outlet store. Look for small sauce dishes that can become petit dessert plates. Pictured here are sushi sauce dishes that doubled as dessert plates. We had fun mixing and matching with the dishes, berries, and sorbet flavors.

Members can receive a 2 page handout on this recipe and more – click here for more info

Here are the dishes:

Raspberry sorbet with fresh berries

Cabernet Sauvignon sorbet with fresh berries and shaved milk chocolate

Passion fruit sorbet and fresh raspberries

By serving the petite dishes on a small tray you allow the guests to pick and choose the flavors they like and it becomes a fun, gourmet style treat. This grand finale can help any home-cooked meal have a spectacular low-calorie finish that does not cost a lot. The portion control for the small container of sorbet helps us get many servings rather than a few big bowls.

Here are a variety of sauce dishes from our Crate and Barrel Outlet – from the bargain area – I decided to mix and match to make it fun.

And here is our #30 scoop that is one ounce. If you get used to using this scoop for fat-free ice cream and sorbet you will learn to use less and to judge portion sizes better. It also makes a gorgeous round ball. Our scoop was a little large so the serving size we used is about 1.5 ounces (volume). The package calls for 1/2 cup which is about 4 ounces (volume). We like to use a variety of fruits and we feel this was a fun and attractive way to manage portion control for dessert!

Members can receive a 2 page handout on this recipe and more – click here for more info

Holidays are just around the corner.  With so many stressors in life today, this is the time to take some time for yourself….and find out what truly relaxes you.  Whether you find it relaxing to read, write, garden or do yoga, the key to a healthy mind and body is alleviating the stress that can so easily cause both physical and mental breakdown.   The Mayo Clinic reports that practicing regular relaxation techniques can improve how you physically respond to stress by slowing your heart rate, lowering blood pressure, slowing your breathing rate, increasing blood flow to major muscles and reducing muscle tension.  Plus, adequate relaxation will alleviate emotional responses from anger and frustration.  In my work, I have seen how relaxation can thwart overeating.  Stress is a major factor in overeating and it’s certainly a big cause in today’s society.  So find your own quiet corner, where you can recharge your batteries and smell the flowers along the way!

LIVINGWELL LESSONS:

1. Start a daily relaxation ritual.   Have a “YOU-dulgence” once a day to relieve stress.  For example, your daily ritual could be visualizing you in your favorite vacation spot or enjoying a walk with your pet or listening to your favorite music with your eyes closed.  The best part is no one else has to know — there’s no planning, organizing or texting involved…..it’s about me-time, and that’s it.
2. Do not use food as a relaxation tool.  In his new book, The end of overeating, David Kessler, MD, highlights the fact that high-sugar, high-fat foods have been found to “relieve pain or stress and calm us down” – however the danger lies in the desire to want MORE.  When we eat foods that are “hyperpalatable” – aka yummy – it strikes a part of the brain that desires that taste over and over again.  Basically, that is why it is so difficult to stop at one scoop of Rocky Road ice cream or take only one homemade chocolate chip cookie – and the calories and fat grams can add up fast!

By Victoria Shanta Retelny, RD, LD (excerpted from her blog)

Pear Centerpiece

12 pears, preferably different colors (we used 3 different types: Comice, Bosc, Red Bartlett)

1 cup dried cranberries

large clear decorative bowl or vase

Place half of cranberries on the bottom of the bowl or vase. Layer pears on top in a decorative pattern. Sprinkle cranberries in the last layer.  Keep chilled until ready for use. Use as a centerpiece for dinner or just family time when it is great to snack on fresh fruit. You will be surprised at how fast they disappear!

Fall Pear Salad

8 cups mixed greens, washed and ready to serve

2 sliced Red Bartlett pears

1/4 cup sliced dried figs

1/4 cup mixed dried fruit: golden raisins, blueberries, cranberries

2 tablespoons toasted walnut pieces

Balsamic vinegar to taste

Place the greens in a large bowl and top with sliced pears, sliced figs, dried fruit and walnut pieces. Serve with the vinegar on the side. Olive oil and black pepper are welcome, too.

Fall Fruit Platter, Pear Platter

Here we have an arrangement of concord grapes and assorted pears. Keep this in mind for another table centerpiece, party dish or gift that you can give for the holidays!

Healthy Fruit and Cheese Platter

4 ounces lowfat, low-sodium farmer’s cheese, sliced thin

1 sliced Red Bartlett Pear (use lemon juice to keep it from turning brown)

1 cup mixed dried fruit: golden raisins, dried cranberries, dried blueberries, dried sliced figs

Arrange all items on a platter. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use. We like to serve these with fat-free, salt-free crackers.

Dried Fruit Gift Platter

This is a healthier alternative to cookies and easier, too!

This is a fun platter to make, especially with our spiral dish! But you can use any dish and make a fun pattern with a selection of dried fruits.

1/2 cup golden raisins

1/2 cup dried blueberries

1/2 cup dried cranberries

1/2 cup halved dried figs (cutting them in half makes them much prettier)

Enjoy!

We have great holiday nutrition education handouts and resources here!

Sophisticated Pear Recipe here

My poor neighbor – she had no idea who she was inviting to her tea party! You see, there is no way I can sit at something like this and not photograph it! But I am glad that I got to do so and to share the photos and story about tea.

We just finished an article about tea and its effects on aging for Communicating Food for Health Newsletter. Here is an excerpt:

Epidemiological studies have found regular tea drinkers usually have a reduced risk of lung, pancreatic, hematological [Naganuma T. et al. Am J Epidem 2009;170:730-8], colon, skin, and prostate cancers. There is evidence suggesting tea drinking may help protect against developing type 2 diabetes and possibly Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease as well. CVD, most cancers, type 2 diabetes, and serious brain diseases all increase with age.

It is nice to publish such good news about a beverage that so many enjoy!

The teas and goodies from China were quite interesting – first of all the platter of desserts or goodies was quite different from what you would find in Western societies. There were no fatty tea sandwiches or cookies or petit fours or cakes. Watermelon is served with tea and after all meals in China. My friend just returned from a 6 week trip to Shanghai and she was kind enough to bring all of this back and share her goodies and stories. The cookies were all based on fruit. The one that is wrapped was actually a small jelly candy that tasted like green tea.

The large brick of tea is compressed tea.

Jasmine tea, osmanthus tea and compressed tea appear in the plate above. The buds of jasmine were beautiful! And the jasmine tea was delicious as was the compressed green tea. Flowers play an important part in Chinese life. Osmanthus flowers are said to improve digestion and make the tea drinker live a longer and more healthy life.

You can use one of our postcards to send a friend a cup of green tea via email postcard – click here!

Foodandhealth.com has partnered with the USDA to help get MyPyramid‘s critical nutrition guidelines into the hands of families, teachers and health educators to help individuals shop and stock their kitchen with MyPyramid. Cooking and meal planning is easy when you have the right ingredients on hand with recipes, shopping lists, handouts and leader activity guides.

Stay tuned for a 3 part series on how to organize your kitchen, shop using MyPyramid and prepare quick and easy meals using the ingredients on hand. Handouts, recipes, quizzes, coloring sheets and video will be here, too!

We are excited because we have been working on MyPyramid educational products since its inception in 2005 and we believe that MyPyramid presents a number of wonderful teaching lessons for educators. And the time is right now for everyone in prevention and wellness to help individuals realize that the best healthcare starts in the grocery store.  Right now you can find a MyPyramid Salad recipe and demonstration guide and puzzle here for free download. And we will attend the meeting in Alexandria next week so we will be able to contribute and keep you posted on updates.

Comments and requests are appreciated!

I have been cooking at home a lot more. Usually I cook a lot but end up eating 2-3 meals out a week – like a bagel stop for breakfast and a favorite (healthy lowfat vegetarian but salty) Mexican meal for dinner. At the last checkup I noticed my blood pressure had risen – usually it is 90/60 but it had gone up to 112/80 on a few visits and that bothered me. The staff exclaimed it is good but I have read and edited Dr. Jay’s Salt Toxicity Article for more than 10 years and I know it should not rise at all with age if you eat right. I am now 47 and my mom has high blood pressure so I know I have to be careful.

Anyway, I decided we would not eat out for a while and every time someone in the house says eat out I say no. I have wonderful low-sodium pizza shells, low-fat/low-sodium ravioli, no-added-salt pasta sauce, salad, fruit, rice and many other speedy meal ingredients on hand so their request is met with a delicious meal idea that can be made faster than going out so they say okay. I have noticed that now that we are out of that habit there are fewer requests.  PLUS before dashing out the door, I take a snack with me – I always think ahead about the timing and where we are going.

I really do cook without salt.

But more importantly I buy no-added-salt EVERYTHING! I would say that most of the time if an item has more mg of sodium than calories then it doesn’t come in the door.

For grains I use bulk oatmeal, rice, pasta (NO salty box mixes!) and try to choose bread that is lower in sodium (bread is more of an emergency eating on the go item – not a daily staple). Pizza shells are Mama Mia found here in FL and they are low in sodium otherwise I would make them. I don’t buy tortillas unless they are low in sodium. Grain foods are a big contributor to sodium in the diet as are canned foods and frozen meals.

Protein items include beans, lentils, canned beans without added salt, chicken without salt (some is injected with brine and high in salt), tuna without added salt and fish. There is no sushi, breaded items or deli meat in our house.

Fruits and vegetables abound – our deli drawer is filled with fruits including apples, pears, raisins, dried cranberries, dried pineapple (for stir fry dishes and salads), apple/grape packs, oranges, grapefruits, lemons and limes.  The salad drawer always has lettuce and other salad fixings and the veggie drawer is filled with potatoes, sweet potatoes and more veggies in season.

For dairy the only items I use are low in fat or sodium. They often include: lowfat, light yogurt, soymilk, fat free half and half and low sodium farmer’s cheese for the pizza. Sometimes we use Parmesan very sparingly.  Cheese is very salty and high in saturated fat.

I also keep nuts on hand to top salads and fruits.

The result for this week?  BP = 90/60

We recently finished a DVD called 25 Ingredients, 15 Different Meals and the savings on 6 of the chicken meals were amazing!

Restaurant per person for 6 meals: $69.95 and 3340 calories (that is roughly $11.65 and 556 calories each)

Home per person for 6 meals:  $6.05 and 1488 calories (that is roughly $1.01 and 256 calories each)

So, for 6 meals per person at home you save 63.90 and 1852 calories in one week! Not to mention the nutrient quality – you get a lot more benefits for a lot less money when you cook at home. Amazing!

October color handouts are all ready for you to download now – October Calendar Word Document, Healthy Heart Guide, 15 Ways to More Fruits and Veggies

http://foodandhealth.com/shop/catalog/New-38-1.html

October Health Calendar for Food, Nutrition and Health Observances:

http://www.foodandhealth.com/calendar/

Ready to print to PDF and with handy links for all events listed plus our handouts and clipart. Updated every week! September Calendar in Word

October clipart:

http://www.foodandhealth.com/clipart.php

Fun cholesterol education illustrations, a clip about eating together (look for the birds), and many fruits and veggies.

If you have food and professional meetings, use this form to get posters for raffles and auctions:

http://www.foodandhealth.com/poster.php

and find all of our posters here:

http://foodandhealth.com/shop/catalog/Posters-1-1.html

Get ahead:

with our Halloween Handout

http://foodandhealth.com/shop/pages/FreeHandouts.html

Comparison of McDonald’s McCafe Coffee choices by calories might surprise you:

http://foodandhealth.com/blog/2009/07/mcdonalds-coffee-best-bets/

Posters 10 for $75 plus free shipping

Visit our poster gallery with over 50 posters ready now. These are available in large 18X24 format and come with handouts, activities and leader guides plus there are packs of 100 color handouts.

http://foodandhealth.com/shop/catalog/Posters-1-1.html

Food and Health Communications is a private publisher that does not accept advertising. We love cooking and making science and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans a delicious opportunity for everyone!

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We did not have a washer or dryer. And while I am not actually saying one should give up a washer and dryer, this was more work to hand wash things and put them on and off the clothes line which was on a hill.

We had to make one big grocery shopping spree  and plan all of the meals before going to the little island – you simply cannot shop every day or go out to eat. We also made a few farmer’s market stops on the way and I enthusiastically bought a lot of produce.  So, the good news is that I prepared almost all of our meals for 2 weeks (we did eat at a friend’s house once.) Everything was cooked from scratch:

• Oatmeal, fruit and fat-free yogurt for breakfast
• Fruit for snacks
• Lunch was whole wheat soy nut butter sandwiches and fruit (my son has a peanut allergy) or leftover dinner items or salads – all low in fat
• Dinner was rice or potatoes, lots of veggies, salad and fish or something vegetarian – all low in fat;  dessert was fruit although one night I did make cookies

It is amazing how healthy you can eat when you have all of the right ingredients on hand, you are not eating convenience foods and you cannot go out to eat. I guess it does help that I love to cook but I made really basic stuff. (I will post more recipes and photos in the days to come and you can  see the Ontario dessert here.)

Another thing we did that was green was to compost all of our food scraps – there is no trash pickup on the island. It means a daily trip to the compost bin – we did have a lot of waste from the produce.  And we did not have internet service unless we took a boat somewhere far away so we managed to fill our days with active types of things – climbing stairs, watering plants, paddling a kayak or canoe, chasing the dogs, bathing the dogs, cleaning up after the dogs, cooking, swimming, taking the scope outside to see planets, cleaning, etc. All this added up to a couple of pounds lost each upon our return. Even our big dog lost weight from running around and swimming and chasing squirrels all day :-)

For more cooking tips and our products, see our Food and Cooking web page

Maggie Moon, MS, RD, is one of our advisors and she publishes a blog here: http://www.maggiemoon.com/

We saw a creative article that she published in Today’s Dietitian, where she asks what is in  your refrigerator. So, we decided to ask her the same thing and she published it in her blog and gave us permission to put it here, too.

Back in June, a feature article I wrote for Today’s Dietitian had it’s cover singing, Complex Times Call for Simple Foods.

Do I heed my own call? While my husband and I are (very gratefully) doing alright, this recession still pokes at us like the rain we’ve had this July (no fair and yet, no surprise).  Because I have the best husband ever, when it rains, we splash. You’ll find us just outside our brownstone apartment, playing with sticks, giggling (me), and enjoying the water.

Actually, it’s raining again tonight. But anyway. Getting back to it.. enjoying simple, affordable, delicious and healthy foods, like a rainy-day-turned-waterpark, is the hopeful response to a sort of crummy situation. So yes, not only did I write about embracing simple foods, I do it. Let’s take a look at some recent eats:

The strawberries speak for themselves: tasty goodness made affordable by the season. Same with the vitamin-packed blueberries (little bombs of juicy flavor).

The salad is one of my favorite new dishes to prepare. I make a big bowl (it takes about 10 minutes), and we eat it for a couple days (on its own, or with crackers). I simply mix together a handful of ingredients that happen to be affordable, nutritious, filling, and fresh.

So cheap & easy, you might call it ‘fast food’ (no? not where your mind went when I said cheap and easy?):

OK. So, go get a big bowl. Add coarsely chopped sweet summer onions. Squeeze the juice from a handful of limes. Use your hands, play with your food, and rip apart a chicken from a grocery store rotisseried bird (I like to use just the white meat for this salad… dark meat can be reserved for soup or something).

You washed your hands before and in-between foods, right? Thought so, good! Now, add about a pound of drained coleslaw from your grocer’s deli (about $1.99/lb), and make sure it’s looking crisp and lively — no goopy coleslaw allowed. If you happen to have fresh herbs on hand, give them a sloppy chop and add them to the mix. Enjoy right away or cover, refrigerate, and enjoy for days (the lime means it just keeps getting better and better).

There’s no reason to settle. Be healthy, eat well, and enjoy it. And don’t forget to tune in to my sermons.

I made a delicious dessert using the currants and berries. The currants are a beautiful color!

They are small in size – and you have to separate them from the little stems that they grow on – but it is all worth the work.

Here is the recipe:

Currant Syrup:

1 pint fresh red currants

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup sugar

Bring these to a boil for one minute. Remove from the heat and add blueberries and raspberries.

Lacy Oatmeal Cookies:

4 oz trans-free margarine

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 cup all purpose flour

1-1/2 cups rolled oats

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Cream the margarine and sugar together until fluffy. Add the egg and cream until smooth. Fold in the rest of the ingredients, scraping the bowl and mix until smooth. Bake in spoonfuls on an oiled piece of aluminum foil on a pan in a preheated 350 oven for 12 minutes. They will run very flat and be “lacy” in appearance.

Serve the Lacy Oatmeal Cookies on top of the berry compote.

Enjoy!

This was the question I just asked Dr. Kenney, PhD, RD, FACN, because I needed a side bar to his front page article for our upcoming August 2009 newsletter, Communicating Food for Health. He wrote a summary on a new article, Calorie Restriction Slows Aging, published in Science which shows that calorie restriction can have a very positive effect on maximizing life span and slowing the aging and disease process when it is significant enough and sustained. The amount and length of time is what  is the tricky part for most people in Westernized societies in my opinion. In this case they found that restricting calories by 20-40% over many years made an increase of  10- 30% for lifespan. He summarizes by saying this can give someone another 10 or 20 youthful years of life in most cases. I was quite shocked when I read that there were as many as three times the number of deaths in the group that could eat as much as they wanted versus the monkeys that were on the calorie-restricted diet. There was also a significant incidence of type 2 diabetes in the unmoderated versus almost none in the calorie-restricted group.

Here is his answer for my question:

How Do I Restrict Calories?

The guidelines for calorie restriction are the same as for weight loss:

• Reduce calorie density by restricting calorie dense foods that contain a lot of refined flour, sugar and fat in your diet; eating a lot of fruits and vegetables, legumes, and cooked whole grains helps lower the calorie density if your diet and it raises fiber and satiety. Think lowfat salad!

• Omit caloric beverages that have cream, fat, sugar and alcohol.

• Bump up fiber per calorie

• Eat only when hungry and don’t stuff yourself at meals

A person weighing 180 pounds and consuming 2,400 calories per day, would need to cut calorie intake to 1,680. They’d probably end up weighing about 130 pounds because there would be a modest drop in metabolic rate. In another study that we discussed, a group of Nigerian women weighed 127 compared to 184 for their African-American counterparts who had the same activity level but ate more calories from a high-fat, low-fiber diet. Giving up a modern diet and reverting to more low-calorie-dense, low-fat, and high-fiber foods can help reduce energy intake by 30%. A lot of the African-American women were developing type 2 diabetes. This was not the case with the Nigerian women who were not technically calorie restricted but eating the right foods ad libitum.   J.K.

By the way – that gorgeous apple clipart is part of our free nutrition and food clipart gallery – we are in the process of adding at least a dozen clips to each month – July is done and August is coming up soon – we will keep you posted as our artist gets them done.

And it was used to have everyone participate in a make-your-own chicken fajita burrito – complete with rice, beans, corn, chicken fajitas, blue corn chips and sundried tomato tortilla wraps.

You see, I like to be clever when serving guests. There is  no way I am going to abandon my healthy cooking strategies but I want to keep fantastic flavor and a fun factor when serving everyone who comes to eat at our house.

I had bought all of these ingredients while shopping in Walmart the other day and I was most inspired to come up with something Mexican/Southwestern when I saw the delicious tomatoes, ripe avocados and the great selection of tomatillos. Today I picked up key limes while riding our weekly 62 mile bike ride to Robert’s Produce Stand.

This meal did take a lot of chopping, if truth be told. But with a sharp knife it can be done fast. And I believe I can chop all of that faster than I can go to the store and buy the salt-laden stuff – the key was having it all on hand.

Platter:

Pica de Gallo:

• 4 ripe tomatoes, core, cut in half, squeeze out seeds and dice
• 1/3 poblano mild pepper, seeded and minced (can also use Tabasco sauce)
• 1/2 cup green onion, sliced thin
• 1/2 lime -fresh juice
• 1 tsp chopped fresh cilantro
• fresh squeezed lemon or lime juice to taste

Guacamole:

• 1 Florida avocado (light variety), cored, peeled, diced
• 1 Haas avocado, cored, peeled, diced
• 1/4 cup sliced green onion
• 1/2 lime – juice
• dash of dried oregano
• pinch of chopped poblano or mild chili pepper

Green salsa (grind all in food processor):

• 8 tomatillos, peel outer husk and core
• 1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
• juice of 1/2 lime
• dash hot sauce

1 bag romaine or butter lettuce, shredded

2 cups fat-free sour cream

Other Ingredients:

1 can pinto beans, no-added-salt

1 bag blue corn chips

1 bag tomato flavored tortillas (these were low in fat and salt)

4 ears of corn, cut in half and boiled until tender, about 3-5 minutes

6 cups cooked brown rice

8 ounces chicken breast tenderloins – sauteed with 1 red bell pepper and 1 sliced onion, seasoned with lime juice, oregano, garlic

You can chop all of the platter ingredients in advance, cover and refrigerate. Put tortillas and chips in bowls and set to the side. Cook corn, rice and chicken together and serve hot in separate bowls. Reheat beans and tortillas briefly in the microwave at the last minute. Serve all family style and watch the veggies disappear fast – this served 5 people and we have enough left over for me to have for lunch the next day.

I used the basil in a batch of delicious tomato basil risotto. But it was a big bunch – and I didn’t want it to wither in the produce drawer. So, I blended it in the food processor with a little olive oil. And then I froze it in a flat chunk in foil (see the picture below). A traditional pesto has more ingredients – like garlic, pine nuts, other herbs, etc. and you can certainly add all of those, but there is also nothing wrong with simply preserving an herb in olive oil and freezing it and using it like pesto.

Last night we made a low-fat, low-sodium tomato basil pizza –  this is thanks to a low-sodium crust called Mama Mia, salt-free Enrico’s pasta sauce, my frozen basil stash, fresh tomatoes and a very light 1 tablespoon sprinkling of grated Parmesan cheese. The basil was so delicious it more than made up for the lack of cheese that you would usually find on pizza – much less saturated fat and sodium too!

I regret that there is not a picture of the finished pizza – we were scurrying to eat it while watching the Tour de France and forgot to photograph it!

They also show which items do and don’t make a huge calorie savings. Plus they show that if you make little changes every day you could maybe lose up to 54 pounds per year! You will also lower your risk for certain cancers and certainly improve your vascular health by using less refined fat and animal fat.

Here is what we learned:

• When it comes to meat and protein – lower fat really saves calories. By switching from regular ground beef to virtually fat-free ground turkey breast without skin you can save 16 grams of fat per 3 ounce serving and that can add up to a calorie savings of over 13,000 if you make this switch twice a week for a year. We do have great tips for working with ground turkey here.  A half cup of fat-free ricotta saves 16 grams of fat and 14,000 calories per year if you make that switch twice per week (or enough calories to lose about 4 pounds!)
• When it comes to dairy products – lower fat saves calories, but watching sugar is important, too.
• When it comes to cookies and brownies and other bakery products, fat doesn’t matter that much? Why? Because it is replaced with flour and sugar – both are equally calorie dense. In this instance, it is size that matters. We like to use the hand as a guide. If you are buying a baked good that is the size of your hand or larger, you are probably going to consume 500+ calories. But keep it the size of a finger and you can reduce it to around 100-150. Think “small biscotti” and you can usually imbibe without too much damage.

Get the Baking and Fat Saver Guides here. Look for Ingredient Substitution Guides.

Do you have a favorite substitute? Leave it in the comments below. Feel free to use our photos and articles with a link.

Do you do cooking demonstrations? If so did you know if you purchase Cooking Demo II you now get Cooking Demo I and Cooking Demo II in one big bound book plus a free MyPyramid Cooking Demo download?  PLUS ask our chef unlimited questions – we want to help you!! MyPyramid Cooking Demo has great fast recipes for people in a hurry while Cooking Demo I and Cooking Demo II (now combined in one big book with CDs) has our best recipes and will make any cook into a spectacular healthy chef with its carefully designed presentations. We know everyone is on a budget and we want them to succeed and have all of our recipes.

We are looking for simple games and puzzles to teach nutrition education and are buying those and assigning writing projects right now if you are looking for writing opportunities. Simply email me by clicking on our contact link. Or feel free to pass this article on to a colleague.

Also feel free to use any of our content here in your own blog or newsletter – just reciprocate with a link to the blog.

One day, I was visiting the CIA website. I am not sure why; maybe to find a picture of the school to show a friend. But I will never forget my reaction when I stumbled upon their ProChef Certification program. My reaction was nothing short of, “I want that!”

And so my ProChef journey at the CIA began.

Since graduation from the CIA along with my work experience gave me ProChef Level I status, I was able to commence the program at Level II. From the start, I was optimistic; of the four major culinary competencies listed, I already had two in my pocket: baking/pastry and healthy cooking. I was delighted to see that ProChef II required a command of Mediterranean cooking. Honestly, returning to school had begun as a fun idea. I felt that listing ProChef Level II certification on my FoodAndHealth.com website would be impressive. But now I realized that learning Mediterranean cooking methods would benefit my business.

So I printed out the study guide and bought some books and videos on the CIA list. I signed up for two CIA classes: 1) Mediterranean Cuisine: Ingredients and Techniques class and 2) Charcuterie. Then I picked a December 2005 test date for ProChef II.

I found a great resource in David Edens, a California-based chef who took the ProChef II exam and was listed on the CIA site as a success story. He gave me many helpful tips. But he also gave me a wake-up call: ProChef II involves taking 11 tests over four days. It sounded pretty tough. I even learned that ProChef II is a stepping stone to the Certified Master Chef test! (Only 61 chefs have passed that test in more than 20 years in the US!)

While I was at the CIA for the Mediterranean cooking class, I made good use of my time. Before each class, I spent the whole day in the library working on the study exam. I also studied the history and culture of the Mediterranean region. The Mediterranean class was taught by  Certified Master Chef Ken Arnone. I really enjoyed preparing and eating all of the tapas and many wonderful authentic foods from 7 of the main Mediterranean countries. I also ate at all the restaurants on campus daily for new ideas and great food. The Ristorante Caterina de’ Medici was a favorite! But not far behind were the Apple Pie Bakery Cafe, Escoffier, St. Andrew’s Cafe and the American Bounty Restaurant. I also went back up a second time to the CIA for the  Charcuterie, Smokehouse and Condiment Workshop with Chef Instructor David Kamen. Charcuterie proved to be a great decision since I had not made sausage, pate or ham since my days at the CIA. Now I was really working hard on my study guide. I talked to many instructors and was surprised at how readily they were willing to share information and tips.

Two weeks before the ProChef II test, I was cooking all day, every day to practice. I made pâté and fabricated meat and fish. I practiced making many dishes in Mediterranean cuisine style, and brushed up on skills for baking, healthy cooking and garde manger.

Test week was challenging. The mornings were packed with taking tests, preparing garde manger food items and making menus and prep lists. The evenings were spent on cooking exams, which didn’t get us out of the kitchen until 7 or 8 p.m. And after that I had to scurry back to the room for more study – I remember being hungry a few times because there just was not time to eat.

The first day was baking. I figured it would feel nice to “come out of the gate” on familiar ground. But even that test was challenging for a veteran baker like me. Why? First, you’re in a different kitchen from your own with different equipment, ingredients and conditions. Second, you have people watching you. You have to work quickly, neatly and efficiently while under pressure. You have to serve everything on time. And finally, you have to discuss your day’s performance: why and how you made your dishes and what you would do differently the next time.

At the end of each day, I would learn if I passed and was still in the running. I would be relieved when I passed. But I then I would worry about the next day and I would fall asleep studying for the next test!

By the last day of ProChef II, however, I came to really appreciate the grueling experience – I don’t think I had more than 3 or 4 hours sleep on any one night. The chefs cared so much about helping us. They went above and beyond to share their knowledge. They emphasized flavor and purpose and the craft of the kitchen that makes us chefs. I learned a lot from them and from my colleagues!

Our moderating chef told us on the first day that the ProChef II experience would make us much better chefs. He was right.

Honestly, I went into this ProChef Level II certification looking to get a snazzy little plug for my website. But I got so much more. It really wasn’t about the destination; it was about the journey. I acquired a much greater awareness for my cooking and a finer skill level. The CIA chef instructors treated us all as if we were all future candidates for the Certified Master Chef exam which was a lot of pressure but I like to be pushed to see what I can do. We even had a guest master chef address the class. He had so much wisdom and insight on how to make food taste good and look good and just make sense. He gave us a critique as though we were taking his test. I learned so much and am grateful for that.

I would like to someday travel in the Mediterranean and learn even more about the food. I want to visit the spice market of Istanbul. I will concentrate more on making my knife cuts more perfect instead of just going through the motions to chop everything quickly. I really love my trade all over again.

I want to go back to the CIA for more continuing education. And of course I want to take the ProChef Level III course. I look forward to learning Asian, Latin and classes for pairing wine with food and creating a chef’s market basket.

Here are some photo highlights:

Pix above include: a healthy cooking test – The salad is Fatoush – it is an Egyptian salad with chopped herbs, romaine, cucumbers, sundried tomatoes and feta cheese – complete with whole grain pita triangles. The entree in the middle contains:  Moujadra with Carmelized Onions, Spiced Winter Squash and Roasted Peppers for the vegetarian entree. I took an Egyptian theme and these are actually my favorite foods to make and eat – I was inspired from a Mediterranean restaurant in Miami that prepares them.  Dessert was delicious and light: Pears with Dried Fruit in a Spiced Vanilla Broth.

The rolls are from the baking test. And to the right of those are the chocolate eclairs, cream puffs and pastry cream. I also had to make pound cake, pie shells, more rolls and Parisian Breasts in the 4 hour time period.

The buffet on the left is from the Mediterranean test. We were given a grab bag of a country, cooking method and meat and we had to prepare authentic dishes. I was given Greece, grilling and lamb. YUMMY! So I created lamb kabobs with three dips: cucumber yogurt, hummus and eggplant dip. The buffet on the right is the final day’s work – the pate platter from the Garde Manger test. Complete with pork pate, cheddar walnut crackers, pickled grapes, ketchup from scratch and green bean salad. And no, it was NOT healthy! :-)

Special thanks to:

Rudy Speckamp, CMC – for all of his lessons during testing – he has a very sharp eye and a lot of knowledge

Ken Arnone, CMC – for a wonderful class on Mediterranean cooking complete with stories and pictures of his travels to the area and his stories of the CMC test

Mark Ainsworth, CHE – for his guidance to all of us during our tests

David Bruno, PCIII, CEC, CHE – CIA Chef Instructor who passed ProChef2 with flying colors – I learned a lot from watching him

David Kamen, PCCIII, CCE, CHE – great instructor who helped a lot with our Charcuterie Clas at the CIA and who helped me get ready for the test

Hinnerk von Bargen, CHE – for his enthusiasm and encouragement during our testing

David Edens, PCIII – for his advice as a PCII finisher

Tama Murphy – for her help with the management portions of the study guide

To my son and family for their countless hours of sacrifice to make sure I made it to the finish! Our best memory is the chocolate eclairs – my son insisted on eating those for breakfast and for putting them in his lunchbox – he still talks about them!

The official story is here  - it is from the CIA site.

Do you want to send your clients or students or family or friends a fun nutrition message? Perhaps they have done well on their diet? Or they need some encouragement? Or you just want to say hi? Or you want to promote your service?

Click here to find 8 different choices including Green Tea, Celebration, Weight Loss Balance, Eat to Excel, Have a FruitLicious Day and more!:

http://www.foodandhealth.com/postcard/

Here are ideas for your refrigerator to help make fruits and veggies more enticing! Make bowls of ready to eat fruits or veggies with a fun theme (keep them covered so they taste fresh):

• Salad bowl – Put together lettuce and vegetables in a bowl; refrigerate and cover until ready to serve. It lasts up to 2-3 days without dressing. Give it a theme – summer with peppers, halved cherries, crispy cucumbers; or tomato with various shapes and sizes of tomatoes; or garden carrot and cucumber.

• Tree fruit bowl – plums, peaches, cherries, nectarines – this is in our photo and was a favorite – it disappeared quick because it looked festive in the refrigerator

• Melon – cubed melon is always a favorite

• Berries – offer a variety for even more color

• Carrots – Baby carrots in a bowl get eaten fast!

For more cooking tips, see our food and cooking products – including ones to help you make cooking demos better!

Our July ePicks Newsletter has all the scoop and you can subscribe to it at the top of the page so you get the very first update each month.

And here is a sitemap for over 13 free nutrition education handouts we have now put up on our site – we have doubled the monthly capacity for free nutrition education handouts and they are now sorted by topic.

FREE Guide and Sitemap to Our 2009 Handouts:

• Blog entries you can use each month for healthy cooking and eating
• Cooking, Meal Planning, Food Handouts
• All free nutrition education items for the month
• Monthly Nutrition Education Handouts Organized Around the Health Calendar
• Official Nutrition Handout Page – find many classics here
• Puzzle and Quiz Handouts
• Shopping, Basic Nutrition Handouts
• Weight Loss Handouts

Our Food Nutrition and Health Observances Calendar has been updated PLUS it has a couple of new features:

• Links to clipart and handouts for the month
• Beautiful photos
• Save to PDF button so you can put it on a website or print it.

But best of all, our artist is creating 20 new clips for each month of the year – he is now done with July.

If you need something special, let us know! We love to hear from our readers.

Free Nutrition Posters Available for Nutrition Conferences for Professionals
WESTON, Florida, July 14, 2009 – Food & Health Communications is offering free posters for state dietetic meetings and other conferences for food, health and nutrition professionals. One poster can be given away or raffled off for every 100 attendees.

Poster Request Form:
http://www.foodandhealth.com/poster.php

Posters are 18″ by 24″ – perfect for a bulletin board or office and offer fun, positive nutrition messages.
50 posters are currently available:
http://foodandhealth.com/shop/catalog/Posters-1-1.html

The free poster program has been developed in response to numerous requests for free materials for state dietetic meetings and other conferences for nutrition professionals. The following restrictions apply:

• Meetings must be targeted to an audience for food and nutrition professionals such as dietitians, nurses, home economists, extension agents, WIC agents, etc.
• Meetings must have at least 30 attendees
• The conference committee must agree to pass out one Food & Health Communications catalog per attendee and read a short script about the poster
• One poster is provided for every 100 people
• While we do offer a choice of posters, we reserve the right to substitute a poster if necessary due to supply
• Allow 3 weeks for delivery. We do offer Rush delivery for a nominal charge to cover shipping and handling expenses.
• Offer is valid while supplies last

Food & Health Communications http://www.foodandhealth.com is a private organization dedicated to providing the highest quality nutrition education materials and CPE courses.

Posters are delivered via UPS or USPS. Allow 2-3 weeks for delivery. Rush delivery is available for nominal charge.

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