Why my healthy changes are important...

Yes, this is a blog about my darling little angles. Yes, my recent posts have been about healthy changes my family is making. The are connected I assure you.

Children are like sponges they soak everything up around them good and bad. For many many years psychologists and child development athorities have agreed and concluded how seriously influencing a child's environment is to their development. Children of divorced parents are more likely to get divorced, girls of mothers with bad body images tend to have the same issues, and so forth. No matter what we want to think we are very much alike to those who raised us. Please don't freak out, I didn't say we are destined to be like them, we have free will and can make different choices. Children tend to mimic their parents style when it comes to food. Those who had parents who cooked tended to do the same. Children who had a taste per say for healthier things, tended to make healthier eating habits when they were older. There is a ton of information out there about this, I encourage each of you to research it for yourselves.

In my house, I want my kids to grow up eating and liking healthy choices. I want them to prefer fruits and vegetables over microwave dinners. I'm not saying never let your kid have a treat, but educate them about what you are eating. My four year old knows exactly what I mean when I tell him he can only have something healthy vs a treat.

Besides helping them grow up to make healthier decisions, I am helping them grow up into the healthiest people they can be. I truly believe there is more to feeding you child then just putting food in front of them, but that the quality of that food matters greatly.

My NEW water bottle

My love for what I just discovered, my stainless steel water bottle, it two fold.

1) My kids drink water through out the day, the benefits are immense for the body. We always use glasses her at the house. However, my son will be in school next year come august and has to bring a water bottle every day.

2) Thanks to my eco-friendly super awesome friends I now have a fear of plastic!! I am currently ridding my house of plastic. For those of you who don't know it carries many toxins and DOES leak them into your food and or drink.

So here I was needing a sturdy water bottle for my son, preferably one you didn't need to unscrew. Reusable, not plastic. So I found this water bottle I bought one for my self to try and I love it. You can drink from it without your fingers having to touch the mouth piece, super sturdy, not plastic and not overly huge either. After all my son will have to carry it in his back pack. So now I will go and buy several. My kids will have a cute eco-friendly drink and learn about recycling and reusing things, along with environmental awareness.

Whole grain

Now that I have been educated to the awesomeness of whole grains. I only buy whole grain bread and pasta. If you pay attention to the sales 90% of the time they include the whole grain varieties of the brand as well. The whole grain has more fiber, interestingly enough I keep finding that the less healthier option has odd things added to the product to make it seem like a healthy choice. Such as thiamine, niacin,and riboflavin.

Thiamine- is a vitamin prescribed to those who have a deficiency, that you get from not eating enough whole grain.
Niacin- is found in meats, dairies, vegetables, nuts. You don't need a lot, daily.
Riboflavin- interestingly enough is water soluble and NOT stored in the body, it needs to be replenished every day. It also can be found in dairy,veggies and nuts.

I'd rather my family eat several veggies a day to receive what they need of the above and the many many other benefits the veggies have to offer.

Banana bread

my kids love bananas, but we always ended up with a few overly ripe ones. So I began making banana bread. My kids love it and it freezes REALLY well. I don't have to waste my overly ripe banana's and we have a tasty healthy treat. I bake a lot actually and one of the biggest things I have noticed in difference to store bought items besides taste :) is the amount of salt used. In banana bread I use a pinch, in chocolate chip cookies I use 1/4 tsp. Many times one batch of B-bread makes two loafs and one batch of Choc chip cookies makes several dozen. I like to think this is healthier for my kids.

Other Healthy food choices we make have to do with cooking. I DO NOT use shortening. I DO NOT fry. I DO not buy pork (that's a personal one). I try to buy organic when ever possible.

Olive oil and green tea

We have started cooking our meat and whatever veggies in Extra virgin olive oil instead of vegetable oil. I all ready bought pure vegetable oil, so the nutritional value didn't really change, However, we did notice a big difference in taste. Especially in stir-fry's



I LOVE coffee. I have said many a times I am an emotional coffee drinker. I drink it when I'm sad, happy, tired, to celebrate, to curl up with a good book. I have a really hard time with moderation, that's why every time I'm pregnant I quit completely. Then I have a newborn and something about sleepless nights, make coffee sound like a gift from God.
I do realize how unhealthy this is and have started drinking green tea. We have even begun making ice tea out of green tea. Plus side is that my kids love drinking warm green tea with a little sugar on cold days. It has no caffeine and major antioxidant properties. I don't know how good it is for growing children so we do it in moderation.

Hazelnut Spread

I love this stuff!!!

Not only is it healthier then typical peanut butter.It has 30 less calories than PB and 60 less calories from fat then PB. It has a little higher fat, but NO Polyunsaturated or Monounsaturated Fat, unlike PB. It has 10 mg of sodium compared to the 150 mg of sodium found in PB. While PB has more protein and Vitamin E,Riboflavin and niacin, The Hazelnut Spread has Calcium, Iron and a lower level of protein. Once again I can read and pronounce all the ingredients in the hazelnut spread.

My kids think it taste like chocolate frosting. We eat it on whole grain toast or crackers. A real treat is animal crackers dipped into the spread. Which by the way is a million times healthier than actual frosting.

Butter

So one of the healthier choices I have made this year is to use only REAL butter and not margarine. Besides me being able to pronounce every ingredient in the butter vs. the margarine. Here are a few health facts, that helped me make my decision.

1)Margarine is high in trans fatty acids

2)Margarine increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol).

3)Margarine lowers quality of breast milk.

4)Margarine decreases immune response.

5)Decreases insulin response.

No, it wasn't made to fatten turkey's and no it is not one molecule away from plastic. Many have said Butter help your body absorb other nutrients, I could not find this. However, the above reasons seem pretty good to me. What do you know Wal-mart carries a wal-mart brand of "REAL BUTTER"!!!

For us, we can tell a HUGE difference baking with it and eating it spread on things.

Beef

Due to all of my recent knowledge about food. My family has chosen to buy 1/4 of a cow. One that we know for sure is hormone free, grain feed and healthy. It even turned out slightly cheaper this way.


There is 108 lbs.

The Tooth part 2

So... that wiggly sucker is no more.

On February 23rd, Cj says "mom look". I turn around and there before me stands my four year old in all his glory, proudly holding is little hand out to me. I look and then look closer, laying on his palm is a tiny white tooth. I look up at my son his eyes gleaming and a toothless smile beaming at me.

That night we put the tooth in a small cup and the tooth fairy left him $2.00.

C.J. feels rich, declaring he shall go to Wal-mart and buy a huge toy.



So in my own way of keeping all life experiences educational, I used this experience to reiterate the importance of dental hygiene, we read a book " The Night before the Tooth Fairy" by: Natasha Wing and "Just going to the Dentist" by: Mercer Myer. We also used this receiving money as a way to go over the money concept, using addition, subtraction and easy division. Such as you have a two dollars, if I take one away then what do you have? One dollar four ways is 25 cents and so forth.

C.J.'s first Feild Trip

In January C.J. had his first class field trip, to the Dinosaur Museum. I left Jasey with Grandpa and went with him and his class. It was really neat to see everything the museum had to teach the kids. I was impressed with all their was to touch. The whole class was very well behaved and attentive. For me it was awesome watching C.J. interact with his peers, I take personal pride in seeing how well-behaved he was. I also was glad I got to know some of his class mates better. After the trip was over I walked back to the school with his class. For the rest of the day all he could talk about was seeing the dinosaurs.