Five for Fridays – Aug 28, 2009

Hello everyone! Seems like I still can’t let go of summer – this picture was so cute, I had to post it this week to remind us of summer fun on the beach. We did manage to get out a few times to the nearby beach, although my daughter refuses to step on the sand! She finds it too yucky – go figure!! Luckily both of our twins love the pool, so that is where we spent most of our summer this year.

It’s Friday, which means it’s time for another Five for Fridays! Here are 5 interesting nutrition stories of the week that caught my eye. Enjoy and drop a comment to let me know what’s on your mind.

Finally some guidance on daily sugar intake for Americans

I almost fell out of my chair when I read that Americans consume a whopping 22 teaspoons of sugar every day. That is about 355 calories, nearly 20% of the 2000 recommended daily caloric intake. I am sure you have noticed that on a typical nutritional facts label, there is no daily percentage for sugar content. This is because a daily limit has not been established, although there is good consensus on limiting the daily intake to less than 25% of total calories. As a result, it is very difficult for consumers to keep track of their daily sugar consumption. A while ago, I wrote about how to take the guesswork out of daily sugar to help set some boundaries and regulate the sugar intake.

Now, for the first time, the American Heart Association has come out with fairly clear guidelines on daily sugar which suggest that most women should limit it to less than 6 teaspoons and most men should limit it to 9 teaspoons. Note that these are still not official USDA recommendations, which I hope will follow soon. I think the breakfast cereal makers will respond first since their products tend to make heart-healthy claims although they contain a lot of sugar per serving. But I hope to see it change other food products as well. It is possible that this will drive the use of zero-calorie sweeteners in food products.

Ideas for packing a healthy lunch your kids will actually eat

My Twitter friend @RelevantMom alerted me to this article by the Associated Press which highlighted a few interesting school lunch box ideas from TV food stars Rachel Ray and Melissa d’Arabian. It is hard to resist the ready-to-go lunchables but they can end up costing a lot without providing good nutrition. Simple ideas like peanut butter, hummus, canned tuna, beans and lentils are good source of protein. You can mix them with breads, pitas and rice to create a quick and easy nutritious item. Add fruits and veggies selected by your child on the last grocery shopping trip to make sure he will actually have an interest in eating them. Get creative on snack ideas and skip the packaged snacks to save money. Their last tip is the best – add a loving note to the lunch box; it costs nothing but it can make your child feel special and loved when out of home in school where they might still not be very comfortable.

Share your tips for the school lunch box this back-to-school season. Here is what @themenumom suggested when I asked this question to my Twitter followers:

What has worked for you so far?

How normal is your eating?

Ever wonder if you practice normal eating? I can see you rolling your eyes and thinking “please, not another diet buzzword to make me feel guilty about my eating behavior”!

I was intrigued by a short note in the Well column of the New York Times by Tara Parker-Pope this week which asked this question. I am sure if you ask different people, they will come up with their own answer, and be quite sure that their eating preferences are perfectly normal. Turns out that the term normal eating was coined by famous dietitian Ellyn Satter. She explained that normal eating is when you “listen” to your body, eat when hungry and stop when full. Sounds simple and common sense. Except that we now seem to listen more to our tongue than to our stomach when it comes to eating. There are some who believe that the food industry has figured out how to rule the tongue by loads of salt, sugar, fat and other taste enhancing chemicals in processed foods. Self-control is lacking, especially when most family meals are consumed in front of the TV. We no longer have a sense of portion control. We try hard when we are motivated to go on a diet, only to give it all up and return to our old ways when things don’t work out the way expect. From this point of view, today’s normal eating is hardly normal the way nature intended it to be. I think it is about time we paid attention to it, especially when it comes to raising healthy children.

Functional food is nothing but dressed up junk food

That seems to be the opinion of many nutrition experts such as New York University’s Marion Nestle as cited by one of my favorite bloggers Dr. Ayala on her recent post “Are functional foods healthy foods?” I liked her article very much because she reminds us that with a little bit of right information, planning and effort you can prepare your own nutritious foods without having to waste money on these so called functional foods. It is easy to slap catchy slogans like low cholesterol, zero trans fats and fortified with brain-boosting omega-3’s without really changing the basic nature of the food inside the box. Sad truth is that such marketing works since such fortified functional foods deliver over $27 billion in sales each growing at up to 20% each year.

I am not personally against all processed foods. To our busy lives, they offer the convenience of immediate consumption although there is a cost to it. I do want to credit the food industry for many innovations that have made the modern life possible. I am not suggesting we turn the clock back by making all of our food from scratch. What I don’t like is that the industry at its heart is no longer concerned about the health of its consumers, rather the profit motive has become the main driver of innovation. Surely there are exceptions, which I hope will become the norm in future.

One Hungry Monkey and a dad committed to raising a healthy eater

I was finally able to finish reading a delightful book by Matthew Amster-Burton called Hungry Monkey! If you did not get a chance yet, check out my review of Hungry Monkey published this week. And let me know what you think.

Enjoy your weekend!

Photo source -sara.atkins on Flickr via everystockphoto
©2009 Littlestomaks.com

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Tagged as: Books, Calories, Diet, Functional Foods, healthy eating, Junk food, Kids Nutrition, School lunch, Sugar