New Beginnings

We are well into January and most of us have probably made some kind of resolve to change some habits and eat healthier. The Whole Foods, Plant Based Living for Kids blog wants to help you along the way. I have to confess that recently I have been allowing myself too many "treats."

True Confessions:

• I recently bought donut holes AND ate them.
• My sweet spot is "Hint of Lime" chips with salsa. The salsa is good....but the chips are LOADED with fat and not whole grain. Yes, I've indulged.
• M&Ms. Need I say more.

One site I look to over and over again for good recipes is "Whole Foods." They have a series of Health Starts Here recipes that are a surefire way to get back up on the horse. Check them out here.
I recommend the "Grain Stuffed Red Peppers." Share some new recipes you've tried that are keeping you on the straight and narrow.

Sugar

I’ve been wanting to give my daughters a chance to guest-blog here; Nelia is game (post will be forthcoming), Lourdes is not. She did, however, give me permission to share one of her recent revelations concerning sugar. I was such a proud WFPB-Mama that day.

We were sitting around the dinner table, tummies full from wholesome whole grains and vegetables, talking about making healthy choices. Then, Lourdes says, “Mom, you know, whenever I eat sugar now my tongue feels funny.” I could hear the lightbulb click on in her head.

Why is that? Well, sugar and white carbs create a cycle of addiction in your body. Sugar, for example, rushes through the digestive process, much like a race car, spiking blood sugar and reaching the finish line before you’ve taken your last bite (this is my rough translation of what happens). Then, you quickly find yourself hungry again. This is why whole grains are better; they act more like a turtle on a racetrack. 

I’ve seen evidence of the race car in our girls. I would inevitably find them eating out of a cracker box in the family room, happily entranced in front of the TV. Soon, the box would be empty. A short time later, they wander into the kitchen claiming hunger. What? You just ate a box of crackers! 

(Nelia and her cousin, Serena, preparing to indulge in a baked good, loaded with sugar, at a really great bakery in Queens, NY.)

This was the simple carbs cycle working at its best. I’ve already shared our Outback experience and my Blizzard addiction. Yesterday, I had lunch with my dad at a Chinese buffet, his favorite. I tried to make good choices: sushi, noodles and veggies, all of which tasted really good. But I could feel a layer of sodium just covering my mouth and insides. My mouth was extremely dry the rest of the day. When I got home, I immediately downed 32 oz of water and had an apple. Sometimes it’s worth it; sometimes it’s not. But I wouldn’t trade a lunch with my dad for anything. Next time, I might just have the sushi without any soy sauce and skip the noodles and veggies.

That’s what the learning process is all about. If my children can have epiphanies about how food is working, they will (eventually) begin to make healthy choices on their own, and when I’m not in the picture (like at school or a friend’s house).

David Zinczenko, from Men’s Health and coauthor of the books “Eat This, Not That,” wrote an article recently entitled “15 Shocking Food Industry Secrets.” He offers interesting insight into healthy foods, as well as the sugar-addiction phenomenon. Check out his article, and, whether you think there’s a conspiracy on the part of the food companies or not, consider what you can use from his list to make healthier choices for you and your family.

Leafy Greens...You Know You Want to Read This Post!

If you watch TV, read the news or access information from the internet in any fashion, then you've probably heard about the benefits of leafy greens. This sounds interesting, but what exactly are leafy greens? Do you currently eat any? Spinach counts. But you might think leafy greens is part of the lettuce family.

Not exactly, although eating different lettuces is a good thing. Leafy greens include things like Swiss Chard, Spinach Beet, Collard Greens, Kale and Bok Choy. What? Don't be intimidated by these names. They don't quite capture the heart like the names of some desserts, do they? My personal favorite: Sweet Chocolate Bread Pudding. Ahhh. They are worth getting to know, however.

Why is that? Well, leafy greens contain valuable phytochemicals that are like cancer-fighting ninjas. They play "a crucial role in fighting disease by stimulating the body's enzymes defenses against cancer-inducing substances" (The Cook's Guide to Healthy Whole Foods).  It's believed that a diet high in leafy greens (as well as cruciferous veggies) may halve the risks of certain cancers. Meet your new best friends.

Tonight, as I write this blog post, I am steaming Collard Greens. I bought a bag of them at the store; it comes one size: 32 oz of Collard Greens! This doesn't intimidate me. I'm going to walk you through my process of preparing and storing Collard Greens. Maybe you'll be brave enough to try it.






 



First, I steam the greens in about four batches, due to the size of my pan.









Then, I let them cool in the sink in a collander. My bag of greens was already chopped up, but I still have to pick through them after they are cooked and rip out the "rib" that is the middle of the leaf.  You can safely eat this part, but it is very tough and probably isn't a wise choice for newbies -- or kids.

The leftover water at the bottom of my steaming pot will be used to water plants, after it cools off of course. They will love the nutrient rich liquid. It's their only treat from me, really, as I forget to water them on a regular basis. 

Then, I put the greens in ziploc snack baggies, freeze most and put a few baggies in the fridge. I now have steamed greens that I can add to any soup or sandwich, and I won't have to steam greens again for a while. I often have a baked sweet potato, with greens and beans on top. It's actually really good. I swear!

All the while, I am smelling the aroma of this really wonderful chili cooking in my big soup pot. I'll freeze at least half of this. First time making this recipe; I didn't know it would make so much. Who would complain about having extra chili? My husband will eat this all week long. The kids will probably complain about the food being mixed together, but we'll trudge through. (Recipe from The Engine 2 Diet book.)





I wanted to give you an idea, also, of the portion sizes I give our daughters. Whole Foods are very filling, especially beans and whole grains. Here's a pic of their two bowls:

This is one ladle full. We'll also eat a fresh, whole grain bread from the infamous breadmaker with this. One of the benefits of a whole foods diet is that you are consuming calories that count. They are not empty calories, like chips for example, that are extremely palatable but don't fill you up or provide any valuable nutrients. If the girls like it, they might eat more, but this should hold them until the bedtime snack.

I'm awaiting stories of how you incorporate leafy greens into your diet. No step is too small. Don't despise small beginnings. That's my motto lately.

The Power Plate

I’ve been reading lots about Whole Foods, Plant-Based (WFPB) eating and came across a great resource to share with you.

If you’re still wondering why Americans need to change their eating habits, this information should prove helpful to you. The USDA has recently changed their dietary recommendations to include more daily servings of whole grains and fruits and vegetables. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) website includes a graphic of the RDA (Recommended Daily Allowances). Eleven servings of grains. Nine servings of fruits and vegetables. That’s a lot of servings. I’m not even sure I accomplish this in a day.

It also shows how much government subsidies are allotted for meat/dairy farmers and fruit/vegetable farmers. The government recommends more grains, fruits and vegetables, but these farmers “receive less than 1 percent of government subsidies.” Wow. It doesn’t make sense that they do not put their money where their recommendations are.

Enough politics. I normally don’t like to go there. As a parent, it is up to me to gather the information and decide what’s best for my family. Hopefully, this website will help you. The PCRM website also has great recipes and a new guideline to help us out called the “Power Plate.” Check it out. Consider choosing one food group to work on this month. Why not try a new grain or two, instead of traditional white rice or pasta? I look forward to hearing about your new adventures in eating WFPB foods.

WFPB for Kids Blog: 21 Day Vegan Kickstart

Check out the 21-Day Vegan Kickstart website today. It is a great resource for Whole Foods, Plant-Based (WFPB) eaters, whether you are just starting your journey or already headlong into it.

The website is a wealth of information and they have an iPhone app. There’s a 21-day meal plan, great recipes, and several helpful videos (if you don’t like to read). They also offer celebrity tips and recipes, as well as a host of resources.

*Although the term vegan does not necessarily mean it is whole food, plant-based, this site does a good job of holding to the nutritional beliefs of the WFPB lifestyle: eating whole grains and a low oil intake, for example.

If you look at vegan baking cookbooks, they will often list white flour indiscriminately in the ingredients, as well as oil. With practice, you can learn what to substitute. I highly recommend “The Joy of Vegan Baking” by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. She lists many substitutes for eggs, for example, and the best occasion to use each (for breads, cakes, etc.).

Monitoring Nutrients

Before I share some other basic steps that got my family started, we have to talk about what makes a healthy diet. This is always a concern when one hears the words “vegetarian” or “vegan” or “Whole Foods Plant-Based” (WFPB); Will you die? What do you eat? How do you get your energy? These are things you’ve said to yourself maybe or sincere, but uninformed, well-wishers say to you.  

Would my new way of eating meet all of my nutritional needs?  I needed to know what the appropriate amounts of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats were in a day’s diet. There are various opinions on this, but Rip Esselstyn (in “The Engine 2 Diet”) claims the following percentages for a WFPB Diet:

70% carbohydrates

6% protein

15% fats

(You probably notice right away that these numbers don’t add up to 100. Rip offers these as rough estimates, with carbs taking precedence. Remember, these are whole foods, complex carbs, protein from plant sources, and fats mostly from nuts. It’s a whole different ball game.)

Now, I needed a way to see an overall picture of just what I was consuming; I could use this as a barometer for my children and husband as well. I found a (free) App for ITouch that counted calories called “Lose It.” The purpose of the App is to help you lose weight. I used it, however, to see what was in each item I was eating. I did this for about a month as I made more radical changes to my own diet. I completely stopped eating meat. I began eating only whole grains. The only fats I consumed were olive oil, olives, nuts, and avocado. I ate a lot of fruit and vegetables. (*Olive oil is not generally recommended according to certain whole foods experts, but I was transitioning – and I still have not decided if I will complete remove this from my diet.)

I was pretty vigilant about my intake. Breakfast was Greek yogourt, Bear Naked Granola, and fruit on top. Then, I made sure that each lunch consisted of some type of grain (I started with brown rice, quinoa, or Wasa crackers), beans and veggies. Dinner was similar. One of my favorite meals starting out was a baked sweet potato, beans, and sesame seeds sprinkled on top, with a side vegetable. I did, however, allow things like ketchup, low-fat dressings, and so forth to add flavor to my food. I faithfully punched these foods into “Lose It” to monitor my intake. One thing that stood out to me was how much protein I was consuming. I wasn't too hard on myself, though, as I was just beginning, but it did give me something to work toward.

I began to get a sense of how much beans, grains, veggies and fruits I needed to eat. I also got a clear picture of how the fats added up. I felt great. I wasn’t going to die eating this way! The “Lose It” App was invaluable. I soon felt confident I could continue to make meals that were healthy. It’s been about six months now that I stopped using “Lose it,” and I’m thinking about doing it again for a 2-week period to check my intake.

A great side-benefit is that the “LoseIt” App also checks for fiber, sugars, saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium. I highly recommend using something like this, either online or through something like “Lose It.” One thing that really surprised me was how much protein whole grains contain. Regardless, I now knew that I could continue this journey and have my percentages line up with what is considered “healthy.”

Confetti Pancakes

So, you’ve read the first two posts (hopefully) and you’re either already head-long into whole foods eating or you desire to be. Here’s a little incentive to get started.

Our meal last night was “Confetti Pancakes.” Fun name, not so fun ingredients. I was fairly pleased with the reaction of my most astute taste testers. Well, okay. Here’s the real story.

I wanted to make these pancakes for dinner. As I read through the recipe, I could just visualize the healthy ingredients coursing through our veins, giving the young ones what the need to grow and lessening the evidence of aging in the older ones. Yes!

We usually hear cries of excitement when breakfast becomes dinner. “Alright!” My youngest whines that she doesn’t get to help make dinner as much as her older sister, so I enlisted her help.

“Okay, Mom!” She was in. Well, when she saw the carrots I was chopping, she started to protest. The “confetti’ part of the pancakes was not sprinkles. “Boo.”

“Mom. You can’t put carrots in pancakes. Yuck!” Nothing I could do would stop her outburst. Rat-fink. Traitor! Now everyone knew there were carrots in the pancakes (well, now her sister knew). Some confetti! Did I really believe no one would notice their bright orange color? An argument ensued.

“Nelia, you can’t be my helper if you spoil the chef’s secret.” I desperately tried to engage her again in this very special endeavor.

“Nelia, this is a secret ingredient. No one can know,” I whispered.

You get the picture. She left the kitchen for a minute and then came back, engaged in the mission.

She watched as I measured the zucchini. “Mom, is this sprinkles?” she said loudly, in the direction of the dining room table where Lourdes was doing her homework. Wink. Wink. My partner in crime was back.

Nelia loves to cook pancakes and is quite good at it for an 8-year-old. We whipped up our mad genius creation. Full disclosure: if you haven’t looked at the recipe yet, there is carrot, zucchini, AND kale (or collard greens) in the recipe. Yowzer! I have no shame in confessing that I allowed Nelia to put one or two chocolate chips on top of the pancakes. This is a small concession, in my opinion, to get them to try new things.

If you look oh-so-closely, you can see specks of green and orange on the sides.

So, what happened when we served them? Well, my husband and I were delighted. They were delicious. We ate… That’s not really what you want to know, is it? Nelia ate two pancakes and Lourdes painstakingly ate one. I prefer to believe that they tasted good to my daughters; the orange and green colors were just too foreign; it threw them off. Next time, I might try making them with just zucchini, because you can obliterate it in the food processor and not really notice it. I couldn’t see any zucchini in the pancakes, just kale and carrot.

I think it helped that Nelia got to help make them and be in on the secret. You have to get creative and I’m not above sinking to low levels to get kids to eat healthy. By now, our kids are used to having to try new things, but next time even I might put zucchini in one half of the pancake mix for the girls and all the good stuff in the other for me and my husband. I do take pity on them once in awhile. Or, maybe I can figure out how to chop the kale and carrot oh-so-tiny as to not notice it. I can always try!

Let me know if you try the recipe and how your kids react. I’d love to know!

Confetti Pancakes
Makes enough pancakes for a family of 4

2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups unsweetened almond milk
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sweetener (agave nectar, sugar, etc.)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 cup shredded zucchini
1/4 cup finely diced collard greens
1/4 cup shredded carrot
Optional: add 3 dark chocolate chips to each pancake
(“Chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, anyone?!”) 

Mix all ingredients together, and add more almond milk as needed for thinner pancakes. Cook in a large skillet with a touch of oil. Add fruit sauce, maple syrup, agave, or nothing at all. YUM.

 (I added a little over 2 cups of almond milk, and next time I will add more. They came out pretty thick, more like corn cakes. I bet, the deception could have gone further if the pancakes had been thinner.)

Recipe taken from 21-Day Vegan kickstart

Getting Started

I had the idea for this blog several months ago. I wanted to help other parents change their children’s diets into a healthy lifestyle of eating and living. My family has eaten a vegetarian diet a couple of times in our lives, when our children were babies and toddlers. We all really enjoyed eating this way, but, over time, “life” would get in the way and we would go back to eating meat and less fruits and vegetables.

At the beginning of 2010, I watched “Food, Inc.” on the recommendation of a friend. I also came across T. Colin Campbell’s book, “The China Study.” I will be forty in two years. I know all of the information out there about my metabolism slowing down, losing muscle, and becoming more susceptible to diseases as one passes this milestone. These experiences changed my direction, yet again.

So, armed with the information I had gathered from the movie and book, along with my passion and enthusiasm, I began to do a web search on the topic of Whole Foods, Plant-Based (WFPB) eating. I also would search a vegan diet, as these are fairly similar ways of eating. I didn’t get much. There is precious little about kids and WFPB. There is some good information out there, especially from Rip Esselstyn, that I found useful.

The idea for this blog came about to share some of my personal experiences, triumphs and failures that have come out of implementing a WFPB lifestyle with my family, particularly my children.

Now, we have not been what would be considered the typical American family, according to experts; I have always made my kids eat veggies and fruit daily, with every meal, but we ate ice cream, both my kids have a special “candy” bucket, and I didn’t pay much attention to ingredients in, for example, crackers (which is a staple item in my kids’ diet.).

However, when our youngest daughter, Nelia, was a baby, I had a copy of "Super Baby Food." So, when the time came to incorporate foods into her diet, in addition to breast milk and formula, I went all out. I would steam, bake and roast veggies and fruits and freeze them in ice cube trays. These became her meals, along with cooked whole grains, homemade yogourt and tofu. She ate this food for the first year of her life, and I’m so glad I took the effort to do so. Our oldest daughter, Lourdes, was 2 ½ when Nelia was born. I would also feed her many of these good foods, but, since she had already been exposed to so many other “yummy” things, she didn’t take to eating steamed kale like Nelia did.

My husband had been raised a vegetarian during his teen years, so his palate was amenable to the changes I wanted to make to our lifestyle during these phases. He also has a reputation in our families for being the best “consumer” of any kind of food. He just loves food! He is my best “taster” and so appreciative of my attempts at certain meals, even when they turn out dry and tasteless. Thanks, honey!

This time, however, I was determined to change our eating habits to become a lifestyle that would take my husband, Paul, and myself into the latter half of our lives, healthy and active. I also wanted to give my children a rich heritage in healthy foods they would thank me for…later.

I don’t plan to go into great detail here to show why you should eat certain foods. Others are much more qualified to do so, and there are great resources out there that you can search. I will include some links along the way as well.

Here, I want to share my family’s experience in making the change, gradually, and share how, as a mom, I was able to get my kids on board. And, believe me, this is a work in progress!

Thanks for joining me on this journey.