Smart Snacking
Photo by: Seth Anderson
The continuous drip method of eating (medium/mini-meals every 2-3 hours) is metabollic utopia. When you’re constantly feeding your system, your metabolism doesn’t freak out that you’re stuck in the desert without food and react by conserving fat. On life’s top list of things you shouldn’t do, #2 is conserve fat. (#1 is ride a motorcycle without a helmet). A day of constant eating looks something like this:
7:30: Breakfast
10:00: Mini-Meal/Snack
12:00: Lunch
3:00: Mini-Meal/Snack
5:00: Mini-Meal/Snack
7:00: Dinner
That’s a lot of eating, right? It sure is! And the good news is that by the time you get to dinner, you may actually be tired of eating. If that happens, don’t skip it, but go for something light… a vegetable salad with some beans and rice, or even a bowl of oatmeal with dried fruit. We’ll talk more about meal ideas later, but as for the mini-meals/snacks, here are 3 rules:
- Start with a large glass (8 ounces+) of filtered water
- Stick with the 200-300 calorie range, and at least 5 grams of fiber
- Try for a balance: a little protein, something starchy, and something naturally colorful (sprinkles don’t count)
Now for some real-life medleys:
- Granola bar (such as a Larabar) + 1 tennis-ball-size serving of fruit = ~270 calories
- 1/4 cup hummus + 10 wheat Saltines + as many cucumber slices as you can handle = ~220 calories
- Raw veggies (lots) + 3 tablespoons dressing for dipping (try Annie’s Woodstock Dressing!)+ 1 large handful pretzels = ~275 calories
- Homemade trail mix: 1/2 cup Cheerios, 1/4 cup raisins, 2 tablespoons cashews, 1 tablespoon dark chocolate chips = ~300 calories
- 1/2 nut butter & jam sandwich on multigrain bread + 1 baseball-size serving of fruit = ~300 calories
- Veggie wrap: whole wheat tortilla + 2 tablespoons bean spread or hummus + shredded veggies & lettuce = ~250 calories
- 1-inch slice of vegetable-infused bread, like this scrumptious Pumpkin Apple Spice Bread = ~290 calories
Isn’t it about time for another feeding?
Fun Food Fact Friday: Capers!
Photo by Tim Lewis
Recently overheard by Bitchin’ Dietitian’s dad: “This dish would be even better topped with capers!”
Hm, so what ARE capers, where do they come from, and do they have any nutritional value? The salty sour flavor of capers makes them a stellar addition to soups, salads, and main dishes. They’re the unripened flower buds of a prickly perennial plant native to the Mediterranean and parts of Asia. After the buds are harvested (picked by hand, which is why they cost a pretty penny!), they’re sun-dried and pickled in vinegar, wine, brine, or salt. The curing brings out their lemony flavor.
A serving is generally about a tablespoon and 2 calories. Too little to pack a nutrition punch?! No way! One tablespoon of capers is loaded with enough vitamin E and other antioxidants to give them a place on the health wagon. Plus, even in small doses, they’ve been shown to prevent lipid oxidation. If all you’re hearing is ‘blah blah blah’… how does lowering heart disease risk sound? Jackpot! The only downside is their sodium content… generally about 250 milligrams per tablespoon. But, just keep your focus on lots of unprocessed nature foods and those capers will fit in perfectly.
Try this Penne with Sun-Dried Tomatoes & Capers dish for something different. And if you want that caper flavor without the bank-breaking side-effect, here’s a recipe for Poor Man’s Capers.
How do YOU caper?
When You Just Need to Shovel It In
Ever have one of those days when you just can’t stop eating? When everything tastes so good, and your “full” meter is on vacation? Those days can easily pack in an extra 700 calories. Five days like that and you just gained a pound. Or, have a day like that once a week and you’ll gain 10+ pounds a year! Well if you’re NOT trying to chub up, here is a list of foods to have on hand for those days. Stuff ’em in and keep the belt setting right where it is:
- Raw, steamed, or grilled veggies. Any kind, any way.
- Fruit. I don’t care if it’s high-glycemic index watermelon or pineapple. Tear it up. No one ever got fat from eating too much fresh fruit.
- Beans (e.g. Edamame). While they aren’t necessarily low-calorie, how many beans can you really eat? 2 cups? Do it.
- Lightly salted rice cakes topped with salsa. Find your favorite salsa and get messy. This snack is crunchfully satisfying and tastes fantastic.
- Light air-popped popcorn. Ideally, something like Bearitos microwave popcorn without oil.
- Pickles. There’s really nothing on earth like a Kosher Dill. Have 12.
- Vegetable soup. Easy on the noodles, heavy on the veggies.
- Dried veggies like Just Veggies.
Of course you could go wild with sugar-free Jello and chicken broth, but do those things really sound good?? Pull from the list and eat away. Did your belt survive?
Fun Food Fact Friday: Bagels!
Do you bounce out of bed on free-bagel Friday?! What is it about those round wonders that gets us pumped for the ball & chain? Could it be the ingredients?… high-gluten flour, salt, water, yeast, and malt. That must be it: Drop the flour, and you’ve got beer. Or, is it the condiments? The tower of cream cheese, drippy margarine, or peanut butter & jelly combo.
When you gather at the toaster today, here are a few facts to help you choose the best “beygel“. Get as close as you can to the following: 300 calories, 0 grams of fat & saturated fat (since your topping will no doubt have some fat), and <5 grams of sugar. Red and Green lights are indicated:
Nutrition info from Einstein Bros Bagels and Panera Bread
Asiago Cheese: 360 calories, 3 g fat, 1.5 g sat fat, 71 g carbs, 4 g sugar, 2 g fiber
Chocolate Chip: 370 calories, 3 g fat, 2 g sat fat, 76 g carbs, 10 g sugar, 3 g fiber
Cinnamon Raisin Swirl: 350 calories, 1 g fat, 0 g sat fat, 78 g carbs, 14 g sugar, 2 g fiber
Everything: 340 calories, 2 g fat, 0 g sat fat, 75 g carbs, 5 g sugar, 2 g fiber
Honey Whole Wheat: 320 calories, 1 g fat, 0 g sat fat, 71 g carbs, 11 g sugar, 3 g fiber
Pumpernickel: 320 calories, 0 g fat, 68 g carbs, 3 g sugar, 3 g fiber
Sesame: 310 calories, 3 g fat, 0 g sat fat, 59 g carbs, 3 g sugar, 2 g fiber
As for toppings, reduced fat cream cheese saves you 50 calories & 6 grams of fat, but still adds 130 total calories to your circular sammidge. To go even lower, top your toasty with jam, which adds only 70 additional calories. And how about this?! Hollow-out or “scoop-out” the bagel guts and save yourself 75 calories!
How did YOU eat it this morning?
Four Year-Old Makes Breakfast in 71 Seconds
Feeding Peter Piper, the Picky Pepper: Tip #3
Your kids have now had 3 servings of veggies without even knowing it… the Popeye smoothie, zucchini pancakes and carrot cupcakes. So now it’s time to make sure they haven’t filled up too much before dinner. Tip #3:
Sayonara Snacktime! Make sure your kids are really hungry come mealtime. If they pounded Cheez-Its and lemonade at 4 PM, chances are that the broccoli casserole at dinner is going to look extra gross. Kids should go at least 3 hours between meals. The exception is if the previous meal was barely touched. In this case, avoid low blood sugar rages by offering a small snack a couple hours before the next meal. My rule is that a snack has to be an item i’d be happy with as part of a meal. Do Cheez-Its go with broccoli casserole? Right. And going even above & beyond, try to make the snack something of vegetable matter. When the heads start banging the walls, here are the snacks I offer:
- Steamed, chilled carrot coins. Dipped in hummus for an extra punch.
- Just Peas. They taste like popcorn, but they’re dried peas. I ate these before having kids, I swear.
- Veggie Booty. Robert’s American Gourmet makes other yummy snacks, but these have powdered spinach, broccoli, kale, carrot, cabbage, and parsley. If your kids don’t like those veggies in whole form, they’ll no doubt rejoice in their powdered byproducts. Especially when they taste like cheese doodles.
- Nuts
- Whole, and dried fruit (dried mango goes over especially well in our house & is full of beta-carotene)
- Raw veggies (cherry tomatoes are a hit)
- Beans. Drained & rinsed, straight out of the can.
- Edamame. Fun to pop out of the pods, and easy to pop in those cute little mouths.
While there are certainly even more ways to get healthy foods into your kids, including scare tactics, cookie cutters, and toothpicks, we’ll leave it at these 3 tips for now. Please share your successes, ideas, and requests for further tips in the Comments section. Happy eating!
Feeding Peter Piper, the Picky Pepper: Tip #2
How was that smoothie this morning? Sounds like you’re ready for finicky kid Tip #2:
Shred or purée veggies and put them in everything. Pasta sauce, pizza sauce, pancakes, banana bread, cupcakes, even cookies. The idea here is that they’ll get the nutrients from the veggies and their bodies will learn to love them through deception, inception, and misconception. The best veggies to sneak in are zucchini, yellow squash, kale, spinach, and carrots. Jerry Seinfeld’s wife Jessica actually put together a book of recipes like this called Deceptively Delicious. While i haven’t actually tried any of the recipes, she’s got some great ideas to help get healthy food into your kids’ pods.
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s Tip, and share your ideas for sneaking in the good stuff!
Feeding Peter Piper, the Picky Pepper: Tip #1
Before having kids, I did countless TV and radio interviews stressing the importance of establishing healthy eating habits in childhood, and ways to get picky eaters to eat veggies, fruits, and even vegetarian freak foods like tofu and tempeh. And then i had kids of my own. My first child (a girl) was actually a breeze. Right from the start she loved broccoli, avocados, Boca burgers, tofu, and would show up empty-handed and red-mustached when asked to go pick the tomatoes from the garden. So I was right all along! Offer them only healthy things and they’ll eat only healthy things. I can’t believe CNN even bothered to cover this. It was a no-brainer!
Then my son came along. Before even introducing him to solid food, I knew I’d be in trouble. So when he refused to eat food #1–avocado–I realized I’d have to reach into my bag of tricks right away. Thankfully, he ate other fruits and vegetables, but if you tried to feed him anything he didn’t like (like pasta), he’d channel his inner gag, and that was the end of that meal. For the whole family. “Keep trying the foods they don’t seem to enjoy. One day, things might change. Don’t give up!” Did I really say that? Exactly how many times did i recommend people do this? 7 times?
The good news is, thanks to creativity, dessert bribery, and the elimination of snacks, at the age of 2 1/2, boychild is a pretty good eater even by dietitian standards. And as for the “keep trying” part—despite the consequences—I do. We had a major breakthrough last week. After 2 years of gagging, crying, and spitting out tofu, it finally made it down the esophagus. He even said “i like that toe food!” That, my friends, is some bitchin’ determination payoff! (I haven’t gotten the nerve to try him on tofu since, but i remain optimistic!)
I suspect our 3rd babe (also a boy) will bring yet another personality to the kitchen. He’s only just now starting on solid food and seems to prefer spitting things out and wiping them in his eyelashes. So obviously this is a personal work in progress. But, over the next 3 days I’ll share tips that have gotten us through thus far. Here is Tip #1:
Start the day with a green smoothie. The kids are hungry, and thirsty. Get them started on the right foot. The green part is pre-washed raw baby spinach, which is tasteless in a smoothie. The rest is up to you… fruit (banana makes it creamy, but be warned that dark-colored fruits will make the smoothie brown), something frozen (fruit or ice), and then enough liquid (ideally fortified non-dairy milk and/or water) to reach the height of the solid foods in the blender. Blend until it’s a beautiful ogre-green color. Here’s one that totally rocks:
Popeye Smoothie
Serves 4
1 banana
3/4 cup frozen chopped mango
1/2 cup frozen chopped pineapple
1/2 cup green grapes
2 tablespoons calcium-fortified orange juice concentrate
1 1/2 cups (2 large handfuls) raw baby spinach
1 tablespoon spirulina-type green powder (e.g. “Very Green” from Trader Joe’s)
8 ounces unsweetened calcium-fortified almond milk
ice cubes for a thicker smoothie/ chilled water for a thinner smoothie
Per serving: 78 calories, 1 g fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 17.8 g carbohydrate (2.2 g fiber, 12 g sugar), 1.2 g protein, 70 mg calcium, 42% of your daily vitamin C, 29% of your daily vitamin A.
Comment with your own tips and tricks over the next 3 days… I often deplete even my own arsenal!
It Ain’t Easy Bein’ a Collard Green
Before Dinner
Collard greens have taken over our garden in weed-like fashion. They’ve been roasted, stir-fried, smoothied, and even pancaked, and they’re still exploding from the ground. So I consulted @floridagirlinDC and her foodie blog for suggestions on other ways to ride this calcium-crazed green. She suggested the Food Network’s Fried Collard Green WonTons. While they sound absolutely delish, I knew by putting them through the Bitchin’ Dietitian health machine, I could come up with an equally scrumptious but slightly better-on-the-buttocks version. Here’s what we had for dinner:
Collard Green WonTons
Makes 16 WonTons
1 large bunch collards, stemmed, rolled, and sliced into strips
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 package (12.3 oz) silken firm tofu
1 can (15 oz) white beans, drained & rinsed
4 ounces cream cheese (Tofutti or other)
16 WonTon wrappers (eggless recipe here)
Olive oil for frying
Boil the collards with garlic powder, salt, pepper, and rice vinegar until tender, about 20 minutes. Drain the liquid.
Blend tofu, beans, cream cheese, and another dash of salt until smooth. Mix in with the collards.
Heat olive oil in a frying pan, using low heat. Place 2 tablespoons of creamy collard mixture in each WonTon wrapper, fold ‘er up comme ca, and fry on each side for about 5 minutes, until golden brown. Serve warm.
Delish & Healthy-ish With Jen Reilly, RD 