October 22, 2013

A Healthier Choice for Trick or Treaters

If there’s one thing that scares me about Halloween, it’s the candy. It’s not just the sugar and high fructose corn syrup, that makes our kids bounce off the walls, but most treats these days are also packed full of artificial colors, flavors and chemical additives. Halloween Candy makes my skin crawl more than seeing a mouse darting across my living room floor. As a kid, I loved candy, of course. As a mom, I wish it didn’t exist. But I believe that depriving my boys of the Halloween experience, candy included, would cause more harm than a couple of days of gluttony. Fortunately, I’ve discovered that there’s a whole new world of options out there that will satisfy both of us. It’s still a snack food, but it’s not made of junk. If you’re going to be handing out snacks to the trick-or-treaters this Halloween, consider stocking your big candy bowl with some of these better choices and healthier selections. All of these come in smaller individual packets that you can feel safe giving away.

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1. Annie’s Organic Bunny Fruit Snacks or Surf Sweets – these sweet treats are better than the average fruit snack. While they still contain sugar they are not made with any added colors. You can feel safe knowing there are no additional chemicals in these yummy gummies and also provide a serving of Vitamin C.
2. Archer Farms Fruit Leather – look and taste like all-too-familiar junk food, but are made from real organic fruit, with no artificial additives or added sugar. You can buy them in natural food stores and many supermarkets, or online.
3. Ghiardelli Chocolate Bites – Most chocolates contain fake vanilla as a flavoring agent (known as vanillin, which is actually made from petroleum) as well as other added chemicals in the processing of their chocolate. This is a great alternative which is made from dark chocolate and contains no artificial flavors or preservatives and is also good antioxidant.
4.Pearsons – Mint Patties – Pearson’s Mint Patties feature a creamy mint center covered in real dark chocolate with 66% cacao and are naturally low in fat. Pearson’s Mint Patties set a standard of excellence earning national recognition within the confectionery industry and retailer community.
5. ZBar – are low in fat, made with whole oats, high in fiber and fortified with 12 essential vitamins and minerals. They are free of hydrogenated oils, high-fructose corn syrup, preservatives, and artificial flavors or colors. They come in a variety of different flavors: Apple Cinnamon, Chocolate Brownie, Blueberry, Chocolate Chip, Honey Graham, Peanut Butter and, S’Mores. Trader Joe’s sells them for $.69 each, and they’re often available online for even less.
6.Pirates Booty –You can still have a crunchy low calorie treat with this gluten free corn based chip substitute made with all natural ingredients and found at local grocery stores. 7. Yummy Earth Organic Lollipops and Candy Drops come in flavors like Pomegranate Pucker and Wet Face Watermelon. Free of gluten, nuts and corn syrup, these candies are also certified organic and kosher. They’re available at Whole Foods and other natural foods stores, and online at www.YummyEarth.com. Lollipops are about $3.50 for 15, and drops are about $2.59 for 25.
8. Little Pretzel Packs – Many of the chip type snacks today are made with hydrogenated oils, trans fats and added chemicals. Another better alternative for a salty treat instead of Doritos, Cheetos, or flavored chips are pretzels.
9.Barbaras Snackimals – better than traditional animal crackers, which usually contain trans fats and little flavor. These cookies are made with organic ingredients and come in Chocolate Chip, Snickerdoodle, Vanilla and Oatmeal varieties. They’re about $.89 per bag, and available at most natural food groceries and online at www.WorldPantry.com.
10. Other – If you do not want to send the trick or treaters off with a sugar buzz, consider these alternatives:

  • Tiny plastic animals, figurines, finger puppets, whistles
  • Buttons, pins, spider rings, trinket jewelry, bracelets, friendship rings, hair barrettes, ponytail holder
  • Halloween stickers, coloring books, puzzle books, pencils, erasers, note pads
  • Crayons
  • Trading cards
  • Restaurant coupons
  • Money (How about quarters)

When you hand out these treats at your door this Halloween, while they might be a little more expensive than conventional options, you can feel a little better knowing that you’re doing your part. If your kids are willing, you can even swap their junk for the good stuff. This year I am going to buy an assortment of healthier treats, set up a store where the boys can shop for them, and let them pay for their purchases with their trick-or-treating loot. They can even buy cash instead of the alternative snacks. It may be a bit of a trick, but in exchange they get a far better treat. Don’t be fooled, all of these items are still snacks and are not providing nutrition for our kids. We still need to watch the quantity of what our kids are consuming, as they are still filled with sugar, but are definitely healthier than the conventional choices.

October 11, 2013

Let’s Make This Pledge

Sometimes we come across an article, song, quote, book etc… that make us stop in our tracks. If you are like me, I subscribe to a variety of blogs and have the best intentions of reading them, but don’t always get the chance. When I find a good one, I like to share it. Yesterday I not only received this in my box, but a friend also forwarded it to me to read. As a result, I felt inspired to continue to spread the message.

How many of you find a good message or have an idea that you want to share with others, but are maybe afraid of what someone else might think or day? And you ponder to yourself, should I? or shouldn’t I? Or maybe you think to yourself, who are the people I should send this to that wouldn’t really mind? Why do we do this to ourselves? It happens to all of us at some point or another. We worry about what other people think and don’t want to be judged or criticized.

If I ever had any doubt whether I was suppose to share this message, it has been squashed. There were various signs throughout the last 24 hours reminding me of the importance of this lesson. First the note from my friend, an excerpt from a book that I read yesterday and then first thing this morning, a verse in my Jesus Calling book reminding me about the evils of criticism and judgement and the power of encouragement.

The moral of the story below is to a reminder to encourage one another in our lives and not to judge. “We mom’s should pledge to encourage one another each day and never judge one another. We are all desparately trying to do this mothering thing right”

http://proverbs31.org/devotions/devo/moms-lets-make-this-pledge/

Whether you are a mom, wife, daughter, sister or friend, we can all learn something from this message. Encouraging words build up. We all know it. Any type of energy we send out into the universe comes back to us. We need to fill our lives with positive thoughts and energy. I encourage you to forward this along to any other women you know. You never know whose life you might touch.

October 11, 2013

Let's Make This Pledge

Sometimes we come across an article, song, quote, book etc… that make us stop in our tracks. If you are like me, I subscribe to a variety of blogs and have the best intentions of reading them, but don’t always get the chance. When I find a good one, I like to share it. Yesterday I not only received this in my box, but a friend also forwarded it to me to read. As a result, I felt inspired to continue to spread the message.

How many of you find a good message or have an idea that you want to share with others, but are maybe afraid of what someone else might think or day? And you ponder to yourself, should I? or shouldn’t I? Or maybe you think to yourself, who are the people I should send this to that wouldn’t really mind? Why do we do this to ourselves? It happens to all of us at some point or another. We worry about what other people think and don’t want to be judged or criticized.

If I ever had any doubt whether I was suppose to share this message, it has been squashed. There were various signs throughout the last 24 hours reminding me of the importance of this lesson. First the note from my friend, an excerpt from a book that I read yesterday and then first thing this morning, a verse in my Jesus Calling book reminding me about the evils of criticism and judgement and the power of encouragement.

The moral of the story below is to a reminder to encourage one another in our lives and not to judge. “We mom’s should pledge to encourage one another each day and never judge one another. We are all desparately trying to do this mothering thing right”

http://proverbs31.org/devotions/devo/moms-lets-make-this-pledge/

Whether you are a mom, wife, daughter, sister or friend, we can all learn something from this message. Encouraging words build up. We all know it. Any type of energy we send out into the universe comes back to us. We need to fill our lives with positive thoughts and energy. I encourage you to forward this along to any other women you know. You never know whose life you might touch.

October 5, 2013

Blink – Credit Cards Easily Read through Clothes and Wallets

While the focus on my blog is usually health related, this week’s information is related to your financial health. I met with a group of friends for dinner earlier this week and one of them is planning a 2 week trip abroad and wanted to ensure her finanical safety on the trip.

She shared stories from past trips of seeing and/or hearing friends being pickpocketed and not knowing it had happened to them. This is not something I normally worry about on a daily basis, but is definitely something many people think about when traveling. She then shared something interesting about a new feature on some credit cards that can be easily accessed THROUGH your purse or clothing. It is a new feature called “blink”.

When she described it, all of us opened up our wallets to see if any of the credit cards had this new feature. Unknown to all of us, at least one of all of our cards had this blink technology logo. I had never heard of such a concept before, so when I got home I decided to google it and learn more about it. Here is an article from FORBES magazine with some facts around the new technology. While it might have some new cool features, this article also shows how easy it is for a pickpocketor to steal information from your card, when your card is NOT even out in the open. I personally would rather be safe than sorry when it comes to a situation like this. My friend said she called her credit card company and asked them to resend her a card without the blink. Any they did.

If anyone has had any experience with this new blink technology (either good or bad), I’d love to hear some other thoughts. In case you haven’t heard of blink, attached is the FORBES article. Hacker’s Demo Shows How Easily Credit Cards Can Be Read Through Clothes And Wallets

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/01/30/hackers-demo-shows-how-easily-credit-cards-can-be-read-through-clothes-and-wallets/

October 5, 2013

The 85 days before Christmas Family Health Challenge

Ok yes, I said Christmas, and Halloween isn’t here yet, but I was on a call yesterday and someone said it was 86 days left until Christmas, just about the right amount of time it takes to change a habit. For the past 12 weeks, I have been providing a variety of different suggestions or recommendations for things you can do to focus on the health of your family.

Some of you have shared some successes. Kudos to you! But how many of you have thought to yourself, I really like that idea and I want to make some changes, but there is always some excuse that gets in the way of taking action. I don’t have the time to make that recipe, I don’t want to pay for organic products, I don’t want to spend additional money on natural supplements. My kids are fussy eaters. How can cleaning products really impact my kids allergies? Some of you may still be skeptical wondering, is this for real? Will these suggestions and products really make a difference in my family’s health?

I have seen many examples of where changing one small thing, made a huge difference. The only way to know is to give it a shot. If you see an area of your family’s health that could use a little TLC, I encourage you to take the challenge and act now. Lets face it, when it comes to our health, many of us don’t put it on the top of the priority list. I encourage you to pick one small thing that you can commit to do regarding your family’s health.

Here are a some suggestions to jog your memory of where you might begin:
– Read food labels
– Eliminate products with “the bad stuff” (start with just one item at a time)
– i.e. Take a look at your cereal and notice what’s in it
– Remove “processed foods and those with preservatives”
– i.e. Take a look at the meat products you buy (Try Boar’s Head deli products)
– Add more raw and organic foods
– i.e. Commit to only buying Organic Strawberries or Cage Free Eggs
– Remove toxic household cleaners from your home and use natural products
– Start adding natural supplements to your diet
– Drink more water
– Start creating and making meals plans ahead of time
– Plan ahead special healthy after school snacks or have a healthy snack to choose from
– Try a new recipe
– i..e Try one new recipe each week
– i..e Learn to make a homemade soup now the weather is starting to cool off
– Or add your own other idea or tailor one of these as there are many more…

Now I want you to do the following: After you identify the thing you want to work on
– Write it down
– Tell someone about it (etiher a friend, or in this blog)
– Get support from others to help you achieve this goal

Noone said change was easy, in fact the reason why its so hard for us to make even small changes in our health is because if it were easy we would be doing it already. When it comes to our health it is slow small changes that make a differances and studies show that changing a habit takes time and effort. I encourage you to jump on the bandwagon in our Family Health Challenge and share what one powerful step you are going to take to invest in the health of your family. Think of it as an early christmas present to yourself and by the time x-mas rolls around, it will have already become a habit.