Ginger Ale Rant

I am not a huge fan of pop, but I do love to have ginger ale in the house when I am sick, and LOVED it when I was pregnant.  When I lived in Seattle, there was this place called Silver City in Silverdale, Wa that made its own Ginger Ale and it was THE BEST!  I stocked up when I was pregnant and always had some in the house.  It really helped with my morning (or in my case all day) sickness.  
So here is my rant...I am  having surgery on Monday, so I went to the store this morning to get a few things so my mom could have groceries, since she flew in from Seattle yesterday to help me for my recovery.  She doesn't drive in the snow, so we decided to go to the store today instead of on my normal day...that really has nothing to do with this story though so I have no idea why I mentioned it...Anyway...We went to the store this morning and I decided I wanted to get some ginger ale because, as I mentioned before, I like to have it when I am going to be sick.  I am not sure if knee surgery counts as being sick, but I thought it would be nice to have anyway.  
So, my mom picked up the generic brand of Ginger Ale and started to put it in the cart. I immediately stopped her saying "no, that will have tons of disgusting additives in it, I will look for REAL Ginger Ale."  So I started looking around, I first came to the Seagram's brand, which had in large letters "100% All Natural Ingredients"  only to turn the box over and read "High Fructose Corn Syrup" on the ingredient list.  It also didn't contain a hint of ginger.  I don't understand how a company can get away with putting "100% all natural ingredients" on its label if the product contains HFCS.  I am SO sorry Corn industry, but HFCS is NOT all natural, and it is NOT a whole ingredient!  Nice try!  Man, that really burns me up!  So I continued looking.  Even Schwepp's Ginger Ale didn't actually contain ginger and was loaded with HFCS!  So my mom suggested I get diet Ginger Ale....oh boy...DIET?  I pointed out to her that diet is EVEN worse!  Why?  one word...ASPARTAME!  Don't even get me started on the cancer causing aspartame!  Needless to say, I didn't end up finding any ginger ale that was actually all natural and none of the ginger ale I found had ginger in it!  How can you even call it GINGER ale if it doesn't have any GINGER in it?  I am SO frustrated!  ARGH!

Let's Talk About Back to School, Shall We?

Well Hello and Happy Sunday!  I am so behind on my posting it's not even funny.  Sometimes I really wish I had a maid because I spent all three hours of nap time cleaning my kitchen and I still have to mop the floors, clean all four of my bathrooms, and dust.  Good thing David vacuumed the entire house yesterday.  We got a new Dyson vacuum so he was really excited and wanted to try it out.  That's good, I will let him be excited for the new vacuum because until I married him, cleaning wasn't in my vocabulary.  So anyway, today I would like to share my thoughts on Back to School and some of the sales that are going on at local stores.  
On Wednesday I received the weekly mailer from HyVee where I do my grocery shopping.  I LOVE HyVee and find it to be probably the best place in Iowa...so I was really upset to find  what this "Big 2-Week Ad" for back to school contained.  
In it were coupons for the normal things, crayons, backpacks, lunch boxes, but I am not wanting to focus on those things today, I am more focused upon the items that would go into the lunch boxes. The actual lunch itself.  

What made me sad was that this "back to school" mailer had pretty much nothing but deals on highly processed foods with little or no nutritional value.  I talked a little bit about NuVal in a previous post.  NuVal is a scoring system for food, telling you how good the food is for you.  It's a quick and easy way to tell if you are making healthy food choices.  100 is the highest score and foods that are given a NuVal score of 100 are highly nutritious whereas foods that score a 1 have pretty much no nutritional value.  That being said, let's take a look at what HyVee is touting as "good" back to school lunch deals.  
Right away on the first page there is a coupon for boxed macaroni and cheese with a NuVal score of 8.  Easy, yes, nutritious NO.  Then we open up the mailer to find a huge two page spread where you get a backpack filled with back to school supplies for only $4.99 (a $25 value) if you buy 5 of the following products:

• A 2 liter bottle of pepsi - NuVal score of 1
• Lays Potato Chips - a NuVal score of 12 (wow, I thought that would've been lower)
• Cheetos Bacon Cheddar Cracker Packs - Amazingly, no NuVal score but I am guessing it's not high
• A Frito Lay Variety Pack- Again, no score, but my guess is somewhere between 1 and 10.

Then we turn the page, and we find more chips, fruit snacks (NuVal of 1), more boxes of macaroni and cheese for ridiculously low prices and it continues.   Kool Aid 10 for $1 (NuVal of 3), Hamburger Helper 5 for $5 (NuVal of 2), Oreo Cookies $2.88 (NuVal of 4), CapriSun juice drinks $1.97 for a pack of 10 (NuVal 1).  And my personal favorite, LUNCHABLES!  Oh Lunchables, highly processed meats and cheeses (or cheese food) that may not even be real meat or cheese, 4 for $5 and a NuVal score of a whopping 5!  Oh yes and if you buy 2 of those, you get a free lunchbox.    

Now by this time you are probably saying, "wait, Elizabeth, what about the fruits and vegetables?"  I am glad you asked my friends because they are located on the last page. Last after all the processed foods, they are the most expensive items in the mailer and yet they are the only items in this mailer that offer any nutritional value.  Peaches -$1.28/lb and NuVal of 99, Pears -$.99/lb and NuVal of 96, fresh green beans- $.99/lb and NuVal of 100, baby carrots- $1.48 for a 32 oz  bag and a NuVal of 99.  See the difference?  I would much rather eat these.

Now here is my rant about all of this, shopping for back to school these days is getting more and more expensive.  I should know, I was a teacher for seven years before having my son.  The school budgets are getting smaller and smaller and therefore parents are being asked to spend more money on school supplies.  This carries into the diets of our kids too.  This is especially true for low income families.  If you are a parent, you have a low income, and children to feed, what are you more likely to buy? The whole foods or the cheap processed foods?  Parents should not be forced to make this decision and there are ways to get around this problem if we have the right resources available to parents.  For one, buy locally.  Your farmer's market is going to have WAY cheaper options on produce and meat than the grocery store.  Second, do your research and find the store that has the cheapest prices on whole foods and shop there. There are so many things you can do to change this. Shop around the perimeter of the store, processed foods are more often than not located in the aisles. If we all stop buying these products, maybe the message will be sent that we don't want them!  We want a healthier nation!

As a teacher, I used to see kids come into my room in the morning with a Pop Tart and a can of Coke, for BREAKFAST!  I saw kids eating fruit snacks, lunchables, Trix Yogurt (which is not yogurt I might add), and anything else colored neon.  When I taught high school I can't tell you  how many kids would walk down the street and get fast food for lunch.  It made me sad.  Probably 9 out of 10 kids in my classes were eating like this.  It makes me sad because not only are these kids not feeding their bodies what they need, they are not feeding their brains either.  Time and time again we have been told by experts that kids need good, healthy foods to feed their brains.  Kids who are constantly eating highly processed foods do not have the concentration they need to get through the day.  They tend to be hyperactive, or overly tired.  I can't tell you how many kids I had come in after lunch to my class and be so sleepy instead of revived.  

In addition, schools don't give enough time to eat lunch.  When I taught elementary the kids had 30 minutes, when I taught high school it was only 15 minutes.  Either the kids had to scarf their lunches down, or sometimes they didn't eat at all.  Many times they grabbed something really fast, that had absolutely no nutritional value whatsoever.  When I lived in France, I taught there for two years, as well as having been a student there myself.  Students start the school day at around 8 am, they have a two hour break for lunch where most of them go home and eat with their families, and then they return to school until about 5 pm.  Most places shut down at lunch time for at least two hours.  This gives people time to prepare a healthy and well balanced meal, eat that meal, and have some time to rest before returning to work or school.  Kids have better concentration in France, they do better academically, and amazingly France has a very low occurance of hyperactivity in children. 

It is absolutely essential to feed our children's brains with healthy and nutritious foods as well as their bodies.  These are lessons that we can instill NOW in our kids that they will have for a lifetime.  

So, I have had my say, now I want to challenge all of you who have kids going to school to do right by them.  Even if your income is fixed.  Visit NuVal's website to find a scoring guide, or if you live in the Midwest, HyVee has the scores posted on the price labels.  Pack your kids a lunch for the first day of school that does not have any items with a score lower than 75.  For a drink, give water, not juice.  Don't forget to leave me a comment and tell me how you did! Talk to your kids teachers and have them encourage parents to pack healthy lunches.  We CAN change this, we just have to stand up!

Until next time, happy and HEALTHY cooking and EATING!

Meatloaf and Another Rant

Have you signed up for the 30 Day Fit Family Challenge?  If not, head over to the challenge page and linky up!  You can join us even if you don't have a blog!  Let's make our families healthier together!

Tonight, I have a recipe and two rants.  The first rant is a small one.  I was at the grocery store earlier today and there was a lady there passing out samples of a salad made from corn, tomatoes, and cucumbers.  When I walked up, she asked me if I would like to try some, I told her I wasn't hungry but Daniel might like to try it.  Her response to me was "oh, I don't think he'll like it, it has cucumbers in it."  What???  This woman had never met me or Daniel in our lives and she just assumes that Daniel won't like cucumbers!!!  So I replied, "oh, he loves vegetables," and I gave him a big bite of the salad to which she replied, "oh  my goodness, that is so rare for that age!  I don't believe I have EVER seen a toddler eat cucumbers before!"  So to that I say, WHY is this the mindset in our culture?  WHY DOES EVERYONE  JUST ASSUME THAT CHILDREN WILL NOT EAT VEGETABLES!  IT DRIVES ME INSANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!  This is the problem, parents just ASSUME their kids won't eat it and feed their kids processed GARBAGE instead!  Come on everyone, join my challenge and let's change this!

Ok, now onto tonight's topic which brings me to my second rant, but we will get to that in just a second.  Tonight's meatloaf recipe is one that I adapted from Jessica Seinfeld's meatloaf in her book "Deceptively Delicious."  That being said, The Foodie Mommie DOES NOT APPROVE of Jessica Seinfeld's, however well intentioned but misguided, book "Deceptively Delicious. "  I got this book a few years back as a gift from a very well intentioned friend who thought I would like it because she knows how much I like to include extra veggies in everything.  I thanked her of course, and with one look through the book I knew it wasn't for me.  Then one day, my BFF Heather, who is also a total Foodie and shares the same food beliefs as me (and who is not the friend who gave me the book) called me up and told me she tried the meatloaf recipe and it was actually decent.  I pulled the book back out and decided to give it a try.  Before I get onto my version of this meatloaf, let me take a moment to share with you why I do not approve of this book. Though I feel that Jessica Seinfeld had good intentions when writing this book, I have to say that she is very misguided in her beliefs about food.  First of all a grand majority of the recipes call for ingredients made in labs, charged with chemicals and are highly processed.  For example, many of her recipes call for margarine instead of butter.  Contrary to what we have had pounded into our heads in this country, BUTTER IS BETTER FOR YOU THAN MARGARINE!  It comes from a natural source and is minimally processed.  Even if the margarine says "trans-fat free" that does not mean it is good for you or free of chemicals!  Many recipes also call for low fat or fat free ingredients which usually send up red flags for me too.  With the exception of sour cream and milk, I DO NOT approve of anything that says fat free, reduced fat, or low fat, and you shouldn't either.  Usually those are indicators that the nutrients have been taken out of the product and replaced with chemically produced processed ingredients made in a lab, namely High Fructose Corn Syrup, and other ingredients that are very bad for us.  It is my belief that we should eat the way our grandparents and great grandparents ate.  They were a healthier generation, and that has been proven over and over again.  

Another reason why I do not approve of Deceptively Delicious is that I do not believe it is right for us to deceive our children, or anyone for that matter, about what they are eating.  How are our kids supposed to learn good eating habits if we lie to them about what they are eating?  We need to change this mindset that things that are good for us do not taste good and that things that are good for us come from unnatural sources, made in labs, with chemicals.  How are we supposed to teach our children to appreciate the bounty of nature if they do not know what they are eating, where it came from, and how it was made?  Yes, I DO put pureed vegetables in my dishes, but everyone ALWAYS knows that I have included them, and I add them to either give us a boost of nutrition or to give the food a boost of flavor.  I am NEVER deceitful.  It my opinion, it is NEVER ok to lie to our kids about food.  In addition, children will not starve themselves.  I have always said that I am not a short order cook, if my family doesn't want to eat something I've made, they don't get to eat, case closed.  That may sound harsh, but we cater too much to the culture of processed foods and that needs to stop in my opinion.  

All of that being said, the meatloaf recipe is a good baseline recipe, so here is my version:

Meatloaf- The Foodie Mommie Way

• 2 cups Italian seasoned breadcrumbs (I make my own, very easy!)
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1 tbsp. butter or olive oil
• 1/2 onion, finely chopped
• 1 celery stalk, finely chopped
• 1 lb ground turkey or beef
• 1 1/2 cup grated parmesan
• 2 cups spaghetti sauce (homemade or tonight I used Newman's Own)
• 1/2 cup pureed carrot
• 1 tsp. granulated garlic
• 2 eggs

Spray a 13X9 inch baking dish generously with cooking spray and set aside. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  In a bowl, soak half of the breadcrumbs in the buttermilk for about 5 minutes.  Saute the onion and celery in the butter for about 5 minutes or until translucent and fragrant.  In a bowl, mix the ground meat with the granulated garlic, the eggs, the onion and celery, all of the breadcrumbs (dry and soaked) half of the parmesan, the carrot,  and 1/4 cup of the spaghetti sauce until completely combined.  Place in the 13X9 inch dish and form into the shape of a loaf.  Pour over remaining spaghetti sauce and top with remaining cheese.  Bake for 45-50 minutes or until set and meat is fully cooked.  Enjoy!  

Before I sign off, just a little disclaimer - these are my own opinions, nobody asked me to review anything, I am just all fired up right now about this topic and needed to get it off my chest!

Until next time, happy and HEALTHY cooking and EATING - naturally!

Et a tous mes compatriotes - BONNE FETE NATIONALE!

Sorry, but I need to RANT about something!

There is something I really need to get off my chest.  There is something that REALLY bothers me.  REALLY BOTHERS ME!  REALLY, REALLY, REALLY BOTHERS ME!  Ok, sorry, let me tell you what it is:
I keep seeing commericals on TV for processed foods like a certain brand of canned ravioli and certain brands of jarred spaghetti sauce to name a few.  These commercials are claiming that these foods have a full serving of vegetables in each can or jar.  That is all fine and good but let's not forget that these are highly processed foods, that probably have very little nutritional value despite the claims to the contrary.  But that is not what bothers me, well it bothers me, but that is not what drives me crazy.  What drives me crazy is that while these commercials are touting a full serving of vegetables, they are also sending a message that parents should be secretive about giving their kids vegetables.  These commercials are very similar, the one that pops into my head (and the one I just saw on TV that began this rant) is a scene of a mom and little boy in a grocery store.  The boy is offered a sample of a certain canned ravioli product and the lady working the sample stand begins to tell the mom about the vegetables in the product.  The mom goes to extremes to make sure that her son does not hear about the product containing vegetables.  And there are several others like this one out there as well.  It makes me very upset that this is the mindset in our culture.  There is nothing wrong with kids eating vegetables and kids WILL eat vegetables.  Yes, I "hide" veggies in my food, but not to be deceptive as my family knows they are in there, it is to ADD nutrition.  I am against being deceptive because I firmly believe that kids need to learn healthy eating habits.  Not only would I NEVER serve my son a canned ravioli product, I certainly would never lie to him about ingredients that are in it.  I realize that children go through food phases, but that is no reason to LIE and be deceitful with your children about eating things that are good for them!  This is why we have an obesity problem in this country! 
So here is what I ask those processed food companies - DO NOT ADVERTISE THAT VEGETABLE DECEPTION IS OK!  Let's teach our kids good eating habits, let's teach our kids that they need to eat whole foods and that it IS ok to eat their vegetables!
That is all for now.  Rant over.  I feel a little better.  Thanks for listening.