This is a guest post by Lisa Cain, PhD, a.k.a Snack-Girl

Do you have a food fight with your child after school?

Is he starving because he tossed out his uneaten lunch? Was he  having too much fun in the school cafeteria and simply forgot to eat?

You’re not the only family where this happens. That’s why the after school snacks are tricky – kids are uptight, you haven’t prepared anything special, and the temptation to open up a bag of processed junk is just too high. As a result, afternoon snacks tend to fall into the treat category more than parents would like to admit. Cookies, candy, chips, along with “healthy” packaged snacks like fruit snacks are very common.

A recent study has shown that kids are eating 27% of their daily calories from snacks.  If a third of daily calories are coming from non-meals, parents need to be vigilant about the composition of those snacks.

We all want to ensure our kids don’t get too cranky before dinnertime. But, we should try to feed them something that will feed their brains (homework time!). What can we feed them without a war? Here are 5 afternoon snacks that have promise as peaceful substitutes for unhealthy treats. Replace brownies, potato chips, candy, pizza bites, and ice-cream with these suggestions:
Replace brownies with No bake brownie balls
Replace chips with Ants on a log
Replace candy with Chocolate covered raisins
Replace frozen pizza snacks with the Tiniest and Yummiest Pizzas on the Planet
Replace ice cream with DIY yogurt

Lisa Cain, Ph.D., is an avid snacker, foodie, published author, and mother of 2. An evolutionary biologist by training, she has become obsessed with how food contributes to our overall health. Check out snack girl for other healthy snack ideas.

Get Fooducated: RSS Subscription or Email Subscription

Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/fooducate

New! Choose a better breakfast with CerealScan™ by Fooducate

It seems like the best and brightest MBA graduates go to work for marketing firms. In 1989, one of them came up with a great idea to increase snack sales in the ho-hum month of February. According to the Snack Food Association (SFA) the idea of the month long munch-fest was

to increase consumption and build awareness of snacks during a month when snack food consumption was traditionally low. The result has been a substantial increase in snack food sales during this month. The promotion kicks off on Super Bowl Sunday and publicity is generated throughout the month of February.

Twenty plus years later, you can’t argue with “success.” We’re a snackin’ nation, that’s for sure, with over $60 Billion in sales of snacks annually.

What you need to know:

The decline of family sit-down meals as well as a blurred line separating meals from snacks means that today it’s easier than ever to not even once during the day eat a meal. Whether it’s the breakfast bar you can chew on your commute or a bag of chips in your desk drawer, we’re always an arm’s reach away from a quick and easy hunger fix.

Riding on the health trend, marketers are now busy reformulating and re-messaging their products has healthy snack options. Whether it’s the 100-calorie snack genre, the “health hallowed” granola bar, or potato chips with only 3 natural ingredients, consumers are being convinced that the snacks they are consuming by  the billions are the best thing to happen in the world since sliced bread.

Now don’t get us wrong, snacking is fine, and can fill an important part of the day both nutritionally and socially (cookies and milk, anyone?), but we’ve really, really got to notice how often we snack, what we choose, and how it affects our mealtimes.

Especially with young children, where a less than ideal snack can fill up a small tummy instead of a much more balanced meal to be served an hour or two later.

What to do at the supermarket:

Get out of the snack aisles, and choose your snacks from surprising lanes in the supermarket. Fruits? Check. Veggies in a dip? Check. Bake your own cookies from scratch? Check.

A great resource full of ideas for healthy snacking is over at the Snack-Girl blog.

Get Fooducated: RSS Subscription or Email Subscription

Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/fooducate

New! Choose a better breakfast with CerealScan™ by Fooducate

You’re in your thirties, forties and fifties.

You’re trying to eat better than you once did.

You’ve gained a few pounds since highschool, and maybe even have a medical condition. You’re not eating all the stuff you used to, whether it’s a refined taste you have acquired over the years, or limits you’ve imposed on yourself due to health considerations.

You’d like your children to eat healthfully as well. But that’s where problems  arise.

You’re not alone. If you are a parents to children under the age of 3, you still  have a chance to succeed because you control almost of every facet of their day, including meals. But it’s all downhill the minute kids go to preschool, kindergarten, grade school and onwards.

Here are a few reasons why it’s an uphill battle:

1. The law of the lowest common denominator. If your child has an apple for snacktime at school, but another kid is munching on twizzlers, what snack will both of them want tomorrow?

2. Childhood heroes sell (out). Movie tie ins are a very lucrative business for Hollywood. Entire licensing departments exist at all the major studios whose task is to sell the rights to use images in conjunction with sales of junk food. In just one example for this summer, Burger King is promoting Star Trek, Transformers, and G.I. Joe.

3. Convenience. The kids have to eat at school. You need to prepare their lunch every day. Or do you? What about some pocket change for little Johnny to get something at the school cafeteria? Or better yet, at the fast food diner conveniently located 2 blocks away from school.

4. Junk Food tastes good. It’s hard to argue with kids, whose taste buds are more responsive to sweet than complex tastes.

5. More convenience. You had a long day in the office, and the last thing you want to do is spend an hour cooking dinner in the sweltering kitchen when you get home. How simple, and cheap, it is to pick up a ready meal at one of the many drive-in windows spread around town.

6. The law of diminishing moderation. You don’t want your child to be totally clueless, plus the grandparents will have a fit if they can’t bring little Sally a chocolate treat when they come over this afternoon. What starts out as our good willed intentions to let kids enjoy a sweet snack once in a while, becomes once a day, and then once every few hours. Before you know it, things get out of control, and the majority of the snacks consumed by your kids are of the wrong kind.

What you need to do:

There is hope. But it requires strong willed parents who can help their children feel good about their food choices, and not feel like social outcasts.

It’s important to start your kids off right from the minute they’re weaned off milk/formula. Set rules that are reasonable (one chocolate snack a day) and stand by them. Show your kids how to prepare meals. Take them to a community garden. Teach them to read nutrition labels. Have them read about the risks of obesity and other diet related health problems. Eat together.

Talk with other parents at school. Talk with the teachers and school administration about improving the nutrition of school food.

If enough parents band together, perhaps law number one above will not be relevant anymore.

What do studios need to do: stop selling out childhood heroes to the highest paying burger!

What Junk Food Execs need to do: stop pushing crap at American kids. Think about your own children and multiply by 100 million!

And the government: Please, make them stop! You know they won’t do it on their own.

Get Fooducated: RSS Subscription or Email Subscription

Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/fooducate

Help us test our new food comparison tool: alpha.fooducate.com

Image via Wikipedia

A new study presented recently at the European Congress on Obesity claims, in no uncertain terms, that the almost exclusive reason for the rising rates of obesity in the western world are excess caloric intake, and NOT lack of exercise. From Food Navigator:

The study’s leader, Professor Boyd Swinburn, chair of population health and director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention at Deakin University in Australia, said: “There have been a lot of assumptions that both reduced physical activity and increased energy intake have been major drivers of the obesity epidemic…This study demonstrates that the weight gain in the American population seems to be virtually all explained by eating more calories. It appears that changes in physical activity played a minimal role.”

The researchers took a sample of 1,399 adults and 963 children and tested how many calories they burned in free-living conditions. They were then able to establish what their calorie intake would need to be in order to maintain a stable weight or, for the children, to maintain a normal growth curve. They then used national survey data of US weights in the 1970s and early 2000s and compared actual weight gain to expected weight gain if food were the only factor. Read more…

Here are ten facts about trans-fat, the Darth Vader of  processed foods:

1. Trans fat is found in shortenings,  margarine, snacks such as crackers, candies, and cookies, fried foods, pastries and other  foods prepared with partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.

2. Hydrogenation is the process of bombarding an oil’s fat molecules with hydrogen atoms, making it more dense and raising its melting point, so that the oil becomes solid at room temperature.  An unfortunate side effect of this the creation of trans fatty acids. Partially hydrogenated oil means that the hydrogenation process stopped short of a full solid, reaching a more creamy, semi-soft, butterlike consistency. This is the story of margarine.

3. Cis and trans are terms that refer to the arrangement of chains of carbon atoms in a fat molecule. hydrogenation turns cis  into trans.

4. Some margarine brands use fractionated oils instead of partially hydrogenated oils in order to eliminate trans-fat. The fractionation process involves heating then cooling a liquid oil, thus separating it to fractions that have different melting points. Unfortunately, this process raises the level of saturated fat in the oil.

5. Trans fat labeling on food packages has been mandatory since 2006.

6. Loophole alert: If a serving has less than o.5 grams of trans-fat, the label may state ZERO. Yes, that includes 0.49 grams in a serving size even a 2 year old would find ridiculously too small.

7. Trans-fat is an artificial creation, but there are some trace amounts of trans-fat found naturally in meat and dairy products, called vaccenic acid.

8. consumption of food containing trans-fat has unequivocally been shown to increase the risk of heart disease by raising levels of LDL (bad cholesterol), and lowering levels of HDL (good cholesterol).

9. In 2003, Denmark effectively banned trans-fat from foods, charting a course for an 80% reduction of trans-fat in all foods.

10. in 2008, California became the first state to ban restaurant chains from using  trans-fats for cooking or frying.

What to do at the supermarket:

Don’t trust the nutrition label stating zero trans-fat per serving. Take a look at the ingredient list to spot partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.

Get Fooducated: RSS Subscription or Email Subscription

Help us test our new food comparison tool: alpha.fooducate.com

Image via Wikipedia

We recently wrote about the soup war raging between Campbell’s and Progresso. Could the following be another battle for consumer mindshare?

Campbell Soup Company has reformulated its product line specifically for schools, lowering salt and fat content to meet the nutrition standards of an alliance set up to fight childhood obesity. Campbell Soup Company announced this week that their Foodservice division will provide healthier reformulated soups and snacks to schools. Some soups got cheaper too. Here’s a rundown of the healthier products:

* lower-sodium Campbell’s Chicken & Stars soup
* lower-sodium versions of Campbell’s Vegetarian Vegetable Alphabet
* Campbell’s Mega Noodle soup
* four varieties of Campbell’s Healthy Request soups
* Goldfish Snack Crackers in Cheddar, Parmesan and Whole Grain Cheddar
* Flavor Blasted Goldfish Snack Crackers in Kickin’ Ranch and Hot and Spicy Cheddar
* Giant Goldfish Grahams in Chocolate and Cinnamon
* Goldfish Physedibles(R) Animal Crackers in Strawberry, Lemon and Vanilla

According to Campbell’s, The reformulation meets nutrition standards of the Alliance for a Healthier Generation – a partnership of the American Heart Association and The William J Clinton Foundation (President Clinton) – which is fighting childhood obesity. The soups have less than 480mg of sodium per serving (at the supermarket sodium levels can be twice as high). And of course, no MSG.

What to do at the supermarket:

Unfortunately these 50oz supersize soup packs are only sold to schools and organizations. Hopefully Campbell’s will expand their health drive to adults as well. At the supermarket, do look for low sodium alternatives when visiting the soup aisle. And if you can, try to make your own soup at home, where you control how much salt goes in.

Get Fooducated: RSS Subscription or Email Subscription

flickr photo: Charles Haynes

Two recent posts from Health Castle with great ideas for easy and healthy after school snacking.

10 Healthy After-School Snacks

Four Everyday Fruits Packed with Powerful Nutrition (Apples, Banana, Oranges, Grapes)