Healthy Holidays and Special Occasions
5 Health Benefits of Cranberries
Fresh, dried, frozen, or as a sauce, cranberries are very popular this time of year.Packed with antioxidants, cranberries have one of the highest scores on the ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) scale, scoring even higher than blueberries and blackberries!The...
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Healthy Mother's Day Gift Ideas
When we think of our mothers, colorful memories of nurturing likely come to mind. Our mothers not only nurtured us with healthy cooking ideas and care giving, but also by giving us healthy ideas and opportunities to pursue our talents by signing us up for sports, dance classe...
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Where Did Chocolate Originate?
Chocolate was first enjoyed by the Aztecs, who used the cocoa beans in a hot, frothy beverage with stimulative and restorative properties.1,2In those days, chocolate was reserved for warriors, priests, and the nobility. Taken fermented as a drink, it was used in Aztec religiou...
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Where Is Chocolate Produced?
Where is chocolate produced? The six largest cocoa-producing countries are the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Indonesia, Nigeria, Brazil, and Cameroon. In many of these countries cocoa is a major export and has a profound effect on the local economy and culture. For example, in Ghana, co...
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Why Does Chocolate Make You Feel Better?
Why does chocolate make you feel better? Many of us associate love, warmth and friendship with food, and especially with chocolate candy, and ice cream. We may reward ourselves with food because in our subconscious mind it makes us feel better. For this, we can thank our paren...
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Valentine's Day Candy
Red is the Color of Valentine’s Day …and much of the candy that goes with it. The dyes – whether artificial or natural – that produce red pigments such as those used in candy, and especially Valentine’s Day candy, are linked with allergies and worse. Watch out for these ingred...
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Super Bowl Snacks
Super Bowl parties and salty snacks go together like peanut butter and jelly. Tortilla chips, potato chips, snack mix, pretzels... salty snacks are the perfect finger food for any sports event. They’re cheap to buy, easy to share, and you can find them just as easily at ...
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Holiday Eating Tips + Recipe
Let’s make this year the year when you really do stay on track with your healthy lifestyle. The holiday season is a festive time filled with cookies and alcohol, cocktail parties and large family gatherings. Many people approach these weeks with either a sigh of surrende...
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5 Tips For A Healthy Holiday
With the holiday month officially here, it’s time to start thinking about everything that comes with it. Shopping, parties and cocktails – oh my! With all of that holiday cheer being passed around it can definitely be a challenge to maintain healthy habits.Before yo...
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Healthy Egg Nog Recipe
Sugar free, dairy free eggnog with a baby makin’ twist...yep, you heard that right. Holidays are just around the corner, and I for one am craving a little delicious nog. I try to steer clear of the commercial eggnog (non-organic dairy, that is loaded with refined sugar and oft...
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Artificial Colors & Health Concerns
Pretty red and green frosted Christmas cupcakes grace the bakery window, so moist and creamy you can hardly wait to sink your teeth into them. Snowflake-shaped cookies glisten with blue and white sparkles. Nearby, stacked boxes of candy canes swirling with red and white, among...
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Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a time for gratitude, for reflecting on the pleasures and blessings in our lives. A tradition in many homes is for each guest to share what he or she is thankful for before diving into the meal. This has more benefits than one might realize. The body must prepa...
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What To Do With Leftover Turkey
Tired of the same old leftover meals after Thanksgiving? Try this delicious twist on the turkey sandwich: Slice a focaccia or sour dough bun (preferably whole wheat or multigrain) lengthwise. Spread some brie on one side, and pesto mayonnaise on the other. Add slices of ...
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Weighing In On The Thanksgiving Meal
Joking about how much weight you gained over Thanksgiving is amusing until you actually get on the scale. The average traditional Thanksgiving meal can provide between 2,000 to 3,000 calories. When you consider that it takes 3,500 extra calories to create one pound of bo...
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Halloween Treat Trade-Off
As Halloween nears, supermarket and department store aisles are lined with adorable costumes, boxes of treats, perfectly sized for little trick-or-treaters, and frenzied parents scrambling to get the most popular products. If your house is already decorated with skeleton...
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Passover & Easter Meals Made Healthy
If you gave up chocolate for lent or bread to allow for some indulging over Easter or Passover, deny yourself no more. It is possible to enjoy a holiday menu with few repercussions. In fact, many traditional holiday foods are naturally healthy. EggsE...
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Embody Health And Beauty Over The Holidays
The holidays are a beautiful time to exhale, relax and indulge a little. I believe that Marie Lloyd’s words still ring true: “A little of what you fancy does you good.” However, there is nothing worse than having January roll around and suddenly being an extra 10 pounds ...
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Healthy Christmas Cakes
It is easy to make natural, uncooked or cooked fruit cakes for the holidays. First, stock up on dried fruits that have not been sulfured and sugared. Some health food stores carry unsulfured and unsweetened fruits such as dates, apricots, apples, cherries, blueberries, cranb...
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Healthy Holiday Survival Guide
During this time, you are busy shopping, traveling and winding down the work year. It may be a whirlwind month, but it is also a time that you want to feel your best. We are here to help guide you through your holiday season so you can stay energized, fit and productive while ...
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12 Steps to Healthy Holidays
The holiday season is a time of excess – overspending, overindulging in unhealthy food and alcohol, more socializing than usual, and more stress on the body, mind, and wallet. This month, the focus is on preventing the typical holiday weight gain and minimizing the ...
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Healthy Thanksgiving Menu Swaps
For the sake of our consciences, it helps to write Thanksgiving off as ‘one day of indulgence,’ though as we all know, it usually turns into a week of leftovers. When planning your healthy Thanksgiving menu this year, take a look at some of the traditional holiday dishes you m...
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Healthy Holiday Eating Tips
Brace yourself, winter upon us, and you’ll be swept away into writing New Years resolutions before you get the chance to say “Happy Holidays”. The holidays may be stressful, but isn’t this the time we look toward all year? It is almost as though Thanksgiving and Christmas were...
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Avoid Weight Gain During the Holidays
'Tis the season of decadent foods, overeating and weight gain. Many folks will put on anywhere from three to seven pounds in December alone. Just why is it that the holidays always seem to interfere with our best eating intentions? Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, glazed ...
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“Rooting” for the Holidays
The holidays, when the focus is on food more so than any other time of year, are a perfect time to enjoy the season’s bounty of root vegetables. Sweet potatoes, leeks and carrots are normally part of traditional holiday fare, but this year, consider adorning your table with daik...
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How to Have a Vegetarian Holiday Dinner
There are over 7 million vegetarians in America, according to a 2008 poll from Vegetarian Times. It has also been reported that following a vegetarian lifestyle lowers your risk of developing many types of cancer, but it can mean a bit of sidestepping around the dinner table dur...
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Vegan Stuffing Fit for a Meat Eater
Next to turkey and pumpkin pie, nothing says "Thanksgiving" like homemade stuffing; that's why I'm always shocked when people buy stove-top stuffing. Okay, it may be easier to throw the pre-made stuffing in a pot and add ... water? But making your own stuffin...
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9 Easy Tips for a Healthier Thanksgiving Dinner
At first glance, the idea of healthy eating and Thanksgiving may seem incompatible—I have certainly experienced "food comas" that chained me to the couch for the rest of the evening. However, with a few substitutions and changes in the Thanksgiving routine you can make ...
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Trick or Treat? Offer Kids Sweeter Alternatives
You couldn't ignore Halloween if you tried, not with the shelves of nearly every store—from your corner pharmacy to the local Wal-Mart—piled high with candy. There's chocolate, candy bars, lollypops, licorice, chewy colored candy in cute shapes, brownie and cookie packs...
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Summer Time & Healthy Eating
The sun is shining bright, the pool looks clear and refreshing and a cold beer seems like a good idea. You may also be attending lots of BBQ get-togethers and social events that serve high-fat, hard to resist foods. This summer, aim to have a balance between those indulgences an...
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Healthier Holiday Sauce Options
Sauces can tip the caloric scales adding unnecessary carbohydrates and fat to an otherwise healthy meal. Consider substituting some lighter options for your traditional gravy. Sauce For: Instead of: Grams of Fat per 2 Tbsp Choose Grams of Fat per 2 Tbsp Turkey &am...
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Let's Talk Turkey
The traditional holiday feast – turkey, stuffing, and all the fixin’s provides between 1,000 to 3,000 calories and at least 45 grams of fat per serving! This – and the onslaught of cookies, chocolate, fruit cake, and other festive treats – is partly to blame for the 3-7 pound we...
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Trick or Treat: Better Than Candy!
Children love Halloween. With so many costumes and gifts, who wouldn’t? Parents might not. This season can disrupt a conscious routine of healthy eating. We know sugar is not a healthy food choice and can be damaging, especially in large amounts. Is there a healthier way to part...
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Have A Healthy Halloween
This Halloween, treat the little superheroes, princesses, and monsters that knock on your door to something healthy. A “Healthy Halloween” may sound like an oxymoron, but it is possible to go through the festivities relatively unscathed.Perhaps you don’t feel guilty ...
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Healthy Holiday Eating
The December holidays are not like other holidays where there is only one day of feasting. In fact, it's more like a month of being surrounded by chocolate, desserts, alcohol, and other tasty temptations. 3,500 calories from food or drink will create one extra pound. Many of...
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The Healthy BBQ
Three quarters of American households own an outdoor barbecue grill. Before your next backyard barbecue, there are a few health concerns associated with grilled meat that you should be aware of. The health issues have to do with the charring of meat. Research has discovered two c...
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