Nutrition
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is a holiday of celebration, yet it also is the beginning of a process of self-examination and internal reflection and contemplation, which ends ten days later with Yom Kippur.
The traditional foods that are eaten on Rosh Hashanah hold a great deal of symbolism (and, if you are not careful, many calories). Apples and honey are perhaps the most well known traditional new year’s foods; they represent a sweet new year ahead. It is also a tradition for Jews to eat a slow-cooked stew, which may be made from the head of an animal, like fish heads, or cooked cows’ tongue. This symbolizes the “head,” or start, of the year.
Pomegranates are eaten during this holiday because of their many seeds, which symbolize fruitfulness. Not only do pomegranates symbolize good things, they are full of goodness. They are high in vitamin A and potassium, and a good source of fiber. They are also rich in polyphenols, a potent class of anti-aging and heart-healthy antioxidants.
Challah, a typical Jewish bread, is baked in a round shape on Rosh Hashanah. This is then dipped in honey. The roundness symbolizes wholeness and continuity, and again, the honey represents wishes for a sweet year ahead. It’s particularly important to keep challah and honey to symbolic portions — enough to respect your tradition, but not so much as to upset the balance of your diet.
Ten days after Rosh Hashanah, which begins at sundown on Wednesday, September 28, comes Yom Kippur. This is the holiest day of the year in the Jewish faith. It is otherwise known as “the Day of Atonement.” Jews will fast for a period of 25 hours (from sundown to sundown) on Yom Kippur. This is thought to help one focus on well being, asking forgiveness, and praying for a better year ahead.
Traditional foods eaten to break the fast on Yom Kippur are eggs, cheese and bread. Many times, a family will prepare the break-fast meal a day ahead, so they don’t have to deal with any food the actual day of fasting. Other families will only break the fast with cold foods, such as boiled eggs, cheese, bread, and cold meats. Again, the traditional foods might not exactly be up to your usual low-fat and low-carb standards. Boiled eggs, in moderation, are, of course, a wholesome food (you may even want to prepare my “deviled” eggs, where the yolk is scooped and replaced with hummus, a day in advance). Try to eat whole wheat bread and or bread made with other whole grains instead of their white-flour counterparts.
Keeping healthy foods on hand is important, as the urge to over-indulge and make the wrong food choices is always a danger when you are very hungry (as you might be at the end of a fast).
Find the recipe for my “deviled” eggs and five other quick, prepare-ahead snacks that would be ideal for breaking your fast here.
Everyone wants the best for their children. That goes without saying. And while we all also know there are worse things you can do to your kids than sending them off to school with Lunchables, there aren't many. So we get up early and pack what we hope is a healthy lunch. Parents find it comforting that they’re sending their precious cargo off to school with home-packed meals, but there can be some hidden evil in that lunch.
Here are three of the biggest mistakes we make when feeding our kids during the school year, and ways we can prevent them.
1. No Skipping
One of the biggest mistakes that we make (or our children make) starts before school. Skipping breakfast. This is a no-no for sure. Not eating breakfast reduces learning and decreases ability to focus and pay attention. In addition, it can be a contributor to obesity. When you skip breakfast, you may get overly hungry later and this can lead to poor food choices, eating too much and eating too fast.
So, give your kids a healthy breakfast each morning (and take this as an opportunity for you to have one -- because you need it, too). Start the day off well with oatmeal, a piece of whole-wheat toast with peanut butter, scrambled eggs or egg whites. Even a healthy, protein filled smoothie works great for fueling the day.
2. Lukewarm Lunches?
Unsafe home-packed lunches can be a major problem. Bacteria are evil little buggers, and when our cold food isn’t kept cold enough and our hot food not kept hot enough, they have a perfect environment in which to multiply. Perhaps that stomachache or intestinal upset little Johnny came home with wasn’t a bug he caught from a classmate; it may have been his lunch! Hot foods need to be kept at or above 140 degrees, and cold foods should be kept at or below 40 degrees.
A recent study from the University of Texas in Austin, which was published in the Journal of Pediatrics, found that over 90% of pre-schoolers’ home packed lunches were not at a safe temperature for eating once lunchtime arrived. Be sure to pack several ice packs in your child’s lunch box, and use insulated lunch boxes to maximize staying temperatures. Freeze liquids (and even yogurt) the night before, then in the morning place them in the lunch box. Avoid using lunch foods that spoil easily, such as egg salad and things mixed with mayonnaise. There are even lunch boxes that can be placed directly into the freezer the night before use.
3. Attack of the Snack Attacks
Careful with the after school snacks! Now, don’t get me wrong, snacks are good for us, and I encourage several small snacks throughout the day. The problem isn’t the snacks; it’s what a child may choose for a snack (especially if mom or dad isn’t around).
Many people store convenient snack packages in their pantry or cupboards, such as chips, cookies and the like. If they’re around, guaranteed the kids will snack on them. Instead, choose to have fresh and healthy snacks easily available. Good examples are, dried fruit, fresh fruit, trail mix, low-fat cheese and whole grain crackers, yogurt, cut up veggies, and hummus. Also, many kids will drink their calorie allotment for the day with out realizing it, so don’t have sodas, punch and other high calorie drinks around.
A healthy treat such as my Very Berry Smoothie from my latest cookbook Flavor First makes an ideal after school snack. Get the recipe here.
Win a one-year membership to the Biggest Loser Club! Season 12 is just weeks away, but until the premiere we'll be giving away a year-long membership to the Biggest Loser Club, a customized interactive diet and fitness program, every week. To enter for your chance to win sign up for my monthly newsletter of tips, recipes, news and advice. Sign up here.
Unless you are a registered dietitian, a medical doctor, or a food scientist, it may be difficult and daunting reading food labels on packaged foods. There seems to be so much information packed into that small label, including serving size, calories, fat (including saturated fat), cholesterol, sodium, total carbohydrate (including fiber and sugars), protein, several vitamins and minerals. And to boot, these items are expressed in a percentage of daily value based on a 2,000-calorie diet. Going to the grocery store has become tedious for some consumers; less like shopping for food for their families and more like math and science homework.
As Americans continue to gain weight and our national obesity problem gets worse and worse, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have come together to commission the Institute of Medicine (an objective group) to help with developing recommendations for front of package labeling. The food industry, which is made up of many huge manufacturing companies must follow the current labeling laws and post the familiar detailed label on all packaged foods.
But the idea of putting a simpler label on the front of a food package in addition to the mandatory label is coming to fruition soon. Actually, two major food industry trade associations, the Grocery Manufacturers Association and the Food Marketing Institute, have gone ahead and developed a front of package label without waiting for the recommendations from the Institute of Medicine. It’s based on “Nutrition Keys” such as calories, saturated fat, sodium, and sugars.
Manufacturers can choose to use only one of the figures and leave out the others, or they may choose to place 2,3, or all 4 on the package. Besides the info regarding the things we may need to limit in our diet (calories, saturated fat, sodium, sugar), manufacturers will also have an option to include up to two additional nutrients, (ones that may provide a benefit to our diet), such as potassium, fiber, protein, vitamin A, C, D, calcium or iron. This new front of package label with these “Nutrition Keys” is purely voluntary and will likely show up by the end of this year. The food industry claims that this system will help consumers make better choices when choosing their items in the grocery store.
To me, this is a bit confusing, although it gives an “at a glance” picture of what the food contains there i no frame of reference. A shopper has nothing to compare the numbers to. With the same idea in mind, England has adopted a similar system for front of package labeling, which provides color coded information based on a traffic light idea. Green, yellow, and red. The idea is that shoppers can aim to have more of their cart filled with green, less with yellow, and minimize the red.
I have always encouraged people to eat less processed food, and try to stick to wholesome, fresh foods with less packaging. The first choice is always the food that requires no label at all because it’s not in a package. However, many of us will still continue to purchase packaged items, out of necessity or convenience.
Will the proposed front-of-package labeling help you when shopping, will it just confuse you more, or will you ignore it altogether?
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Every week that the show is on break we'll be giving away a year-long membership to the Biggest Loser Club. To enter this time you have some homework. Look in your cabinets, cupboards and fridges and find the item that has the highest Calories, Saturated Fat or Sugar per serving by looking at the Nutrition Facts. (Then throw it away.) For a chance to win a 1-year membership to the BL Club leave that information in the comments on my Flavor First Facebook page here.
Eating and sleeping are two of our most basic functions, and they bear an important relationship to one another. Clients and Biggest Loser contestants have often asked me, "What is the best time to eat dinner?" It's not so much a question of the best time to eat the meal, as it is of when's best for you.
The time that you eat dinner is not as important as how close it is to your bedtime. If you’re eating dinner too close to your bedtime, you may experience reflux (heartburn), not sleep as well as you otherwise might, or skip breakfast the next morning (this is quite a common pitfall).
It works the other way, too. The proper amount of sleep is important to your meals. Sleep deprivation may actually cause you to eat more to help you "wake-up." This can cause unwanted weight gain, and may lead to less exercise because you may feel too tired for a workout. Not good.
Eating dinner 2-3 hours before bedtime may help with several common issues:
You’ve heard me say it a million times before, and you’ll hear me say it a million times again -- for healthy nutrition, cut out the “white stuff.” That means white flour, sugar, pasta, bread and processed baked goods. They affect your blood sugar and insulin too quickly, and you don’t want an excess of either in your bloodstream. Unlike their browner, whole grain counterparts, these foods lack antioxidants and fiber, which is good for your digestion and can help prevent colorectal cancer. In fact, they don’t offer much of anything, other than calories. The quality of your calories is as important as the quantity, so choose wisely.
Last week during a live chat we did on Twitter (using the hashtag #AskCheryl) while The Biggest Loser was on, several people wondered about healthy high-protein snacks. These chats have been valuable in showing me the types of information that you are looking for and I hope that you'll join us on Twitter again this Tuesday during The Biggest Loser.
I'm happy to see so many people asking for healthy snacks; snacking, in general, is underrated as a weight-loss tool.
When we are trying to lose weight, the temptation is to eat less, but, in fact, the smart strategy is to eat more -- well, more often, actually. Eating small snacks at regular intervals prevents you from becoming famished at any point during the day. It's when we are "starving" that we are most likely to reach for unhealthy foods and overeat.
The same goes for when we come in from a workout. The temptation is to raid the fridge or cabinets. Snacking at intervals before (and even during) exercise prevents this. Eating regular, small portions keeps your blood sugar stable and helps your body to recognize hunger cues. And of course, no matter how often or infrequently you eat, the name of the game is making the right choices. I discuss this issue in more detail in my upcoming book, Flavor First, which is also chock full of prepare-ahead snacks and appetizers that you can make at home.
Below are six quick and healthy high-protein snacks that will keep you on the right track. Each has near a 150 calories and provides more than 10 grams of protein.
Good Eggs: "Deviled Eggs" -- 3 hard boiled egg halves, whites only, each half filled with 1 tablespoon hummus (140 calories, 10 grams protein)
Green Gobbling: 2/3 cup edamame in the shell (158 calories, 13 grams protein)
String Theory: 1 low-fat mozzarella cheese stick and 1 large fresh orange (140 calories, 10 grams protein)
Rye Society: 2 Wasa Rye Crackers and 2-1/2 ounces lox (smoked salmon) (150 calories, 14 grams protein)
Gobble, Gobble: Half a turkey sandwich 1 slice whole grain bread with 1 ounce turkey, 1 slice low-fat Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato and 2 teaspoons mustard (150 calories, 14 grams protein)
Greece-y Spoon: 2/3 cup non-fat Greek yogurt plus 1/2 cup blueberries and 1 tablespoon almonds (150 calories, 15 grams protein)
Ever had an upst stomach and don’t know why? It could be that you’ve had too much inulin, a common ingredient in many processed foods. But inulin, a starchy substance containing several compounds, including fructose, also occurs naturally in a wide variety of fruits, vegetables and herbs.
Interestingly, inulin is not digested or absorbed in the stomach, which allows for the growth of natural, specialized bacteria that help improve bowel function and general health. Inulin also decreases the body's ability to make certain kinds of fats, which is a good thing.
If you’re among the 167 million Americans who drink coffee every day, then chances are that you’re also mixing in a little cream or sugar or both, or picking up a latte or mocha at the local drive-thru. Tasty, yes, but this is where empty calories can really pile up.
Sixty-five percent of all coffee drinkers add milk or a milk substitute to their coffee; 48 percent some kind of sweetener, according to a 2010 survey by the National Coffee Association. Since coffee drinkers consume, on average, 3.1 cups per day, that’s a lot of milk and sugar being added. Even if you’re not counting calories, reducing white sugar and unnecessary fat from your diet is a healthy habit to have. Using low- or fat-free milk and measuring the pour can shave more than you think off your caloric intake. Keep in mind that two tablespoons of one percent milk is 26 calories, while the same amount of whole milk is 37.
Sweetening your coffee may be a preference but it’s not beneficial. Sugar is a high-calorie carbohydrate – one tablespoon is 45 calories – with little nutritional value. (The jury is still out on the long-term affects of artificial sweeteners but, in my opinion, they’re best avoided.) If you must sweeten your coffee, minimize how much you add and try a natural sweetener, such as honey, brown rice syrup or coconut sugar, which are also high in calories but at least have some health benefits.
When was the last time you said “I need to lose a few pounds” but then didn’t do anything because you didn’t know where to start? You’re not alone. Millions of people ride the weight loss roller coaster everyday. They perpetually jump on and off the wagon because they’re too busy or too overwhelmed with scheduling, shopping, exercising and eating choices.
Whether you have 10 or 100 pounds to lose, it didn’t appear overnight. Chances are you’ve been making some not-so-great choices over a period of time that added up to a little love handle here and there. The good news is that you don’t have to change everything overnight. Integrating a few small changes, s-l-o-w-l-y, can be simple, while adding up to a big difference, in your weight and your health.
Swapping an unhealthy food, habit or lifestyle choice for a healthier option is easier than you think.
During the festive holiday season, it can be hard to avoid consuming cocktails and wine. But most cocktails and alcoholic beverages are full of calories and not much else of nutritional value; just a few drinks can break the bank of your calorie budget.
Some of the most traditional beverages are packed with loads of calories and fat. Take good old eggnog: per cup it has a 343 calories and a whopping 19 grams of fat (11 g saturated fat). A Long Island iced tea has 789 calories, and a white Russian has 425 calories. Even a non-alcoholic grande eggnog latte made with nonfat milk at Starbucks is loaded with 450 Calories and 18g of fat (11 g saturated)!
So, how do you make the best of the festivities without completely going overboard or depriving yourself? Here are some dos and don’ts of holiday drinking:
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Cheryl Forberg, RD, is a James Beard award-winning chef, a bestselling author and the former nutritionist for NBC's "The Biggest Loser." 
