Ummm...wow

Ingredients in McDonald's Frappe՛

Mocha Coffee Frappe Base
Water, cream, sugar, milk, high fructose corn syrup, coffee extract, natural (botanical source) and artificial flavors, cocoa (processed with alkali), mono- and diglycerides, guar gum, potassium phosphate, disodium phosphate, carrageenan, carob bean gum, colored with (red 40, yellow 5, blue 1).

Ice
Ice

Whipped Cream
Cream, nonfat milk, water, corn syrup, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, mono-and diglycerides, carrageenan, polysorbate 80, beta carotene (color), natural (dairy and vegetable source) and artificial flavor, mixed tocopherols (vitamin E) to protect flavor. Whipping Propellant (nitrous oxide).

Chocolate Drizzle
Corn syrup, water, hydrogenated coconut oil, high fructose corn syrup, glycerin, nonfat milk, cocoa powder, cocoa (processed with alkali), food starch-modified, disodium phosphate, potassium sorbate (preservative), xanthan gum, artificial flavor (vanillin), salt, soy lecithin.

A Stolen Snack Girl post

So it's back to school time and we all know you should send your kiddos out the door with a healthy, non sugar filled breakfast. Cereal is popular, but its hard to find good cereal. My favorite website, managed by Snack Girl, recently posted the following that I thought I would share. Everyone should check out her website at www.snack-girl.com. She's full of great info!


"Back in March, I wrote Candy or Breakfast? Evaluate Your Cereal and since then I have been on a search for cereals that pass my, "Healthy or Crappy Cereal Test" (patent pending :)

The sad thing isn't that I couldn't find hardly any that I both liked and passed the test! The biggest problem with my test was the second ingredient measure. If the second ingredient was sugar, high fructose corn syrup, molasses, etc., I had decided the cereal failed.

Well, that turned out to be quite a high bar and I think it ruled out some healthy choices. I asked my new pal Cheryl Forberg what she thought. She thinks that if it has 5 grams or less of sugar per serving it is a good choice.

So here is a new version of the test using Kashi's Heart to Heart Cereal:


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Healthy or Crappy Cereal Test
1. Is the first ingredient whole grain? Yes! The first ingredient is whole oat flour.

2. Is there 5 grams or less of sugar per serving? Yes! There is 5 grams of sugar per serving.

3. One serving must provides at least 4 grams of fiber. You can remember this one with Four Fiber. Yes! It has 5 grams of fiber!


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Great! Kashi's Heart to Heart passes!

Previously on Snack Girl, I slammed Kashi for Kashi GoLean, which has 10 grams of sugar per serving. That stuff really tasted like Captain Crunch.

But, Kashi's Heart to Heart cereal is pretty tasty and has less sodium than Cheerios, but more sugar (aah, trade-offs). My kids don't love it, but I can serve it with some other cereal mixed in (like Rice Krispies) and it becomes more palatable.

Give it a try and let me know what you think!"

Food for thought

Snacking on cherries or drinking cherry juice at night can help you fall asleep. They contain tryptophan, like your Thanksgiving turkey.

A handful of almonds will help ward off pre-period headaches, ladies.

Drink green tea for thicker, lusher hair.

Eat grapes to help repair and even prevent premature dryness, fine lines, and sagging of the skin.

Complex carbs, like chickpeas (think hummus), lentils, & whole grains, can help banish a bad mood. When we are feeling blue, we crave sweets because the simple carbs prompt the brain to secrete serotonin, the calming hormone that eases depression and stress. But after the initial high, the blood sugar crashes and can make your bad mood worse. So stick to the complex carbs!

Protein rich foods can help with splitting nails. Sedentary people need half their body weight in grams of protein daily. Active people need more.

Plain yogurt can help with bad breath. The cultures in plain yogurt get rid of stinky sulfur compounds in our mouths. The sugar in breath mints just make things worse.

Eat an apple with peanut butter for an energy boost in the afternoon.

Low fat dairy can help with PMS. When women don't get enough calcium, they may experience more cramps, mood swings, and bloating. If you also get headaches, you may be low in magnesium. 1/4 cup of almonds or cashews will give you 30% of your daily magnesium needs.

Zinc-rich foods (crabmeat, yogurt, baked beans, green peas, pumpkin seeds) can help with a dry, flaky scalp or hair loss.

10 little changes you can make right now

Here's a list of 10 changes you can make right now for better health...

1. Switch from refined oils including vegetable oil to unrefined oils, such as extra virgin olive oil, flax oil, sesame oil, etc. The benefits include eliminating processed, heat-treated, & damaged fats and increasing your intake of healthy omega-3fatty acids.

2. Switch from sugar to agave nectar or honey. Both are sweeter than sugar, so you can use less in your coffee or tea. Another benefit of agave nectar is that it is low on the glycemic index, so it won't enter your body all at once and cause you to crash later.

3. Change from margarine to butter. Butter is all natural, unprocessed.

4. Change from table salt to celtic sea salts. You will be adding essential minerals that your body needs.

5. Switch from all purpose white flour to whole wheat flour, or at least go half & half when you bake.

6. Change from overly processed, conventional meats to organic meats that come from grass fed livestock and are free of hormones, antibiotics, and preservatives. You will reduce your body's toxic load.

7. Change from conventional produce (fruits & veggies) to organic. In addition to reducing that toxic load, organic produce has been shown to have a higher nutrient content. Plus it tastes better!

8. Switch from eating excessively refined carbohydrates to pairing complex carbs with protein at each meal and snack. For example, an apple paired with a tbsp. of nut butter. Protein helps you feel fuller longer, improves your mood, and keeps your blood sugar stabolized.

9. Switch from white stuff (bread, pasta, rice...) to whole grains. Foods made with white flour have basically had all the nutrients sucked out of them. Like protein, whole grains help you feel fuller longer and add fiber to your diet, which we all need daily.

10. Switch from candy, chocolate bars, and other sugary treats to dark chocolate. Look for 70% to 90% cocoa. Good quality dark chocolate is rich in antioxidants and minerals, especially magnesium.

Tuna and White Bean Salad

This recipe is from Beachbody and is very versatile if you want to improvise from the original. It's a great source of protein and fiber, and incredibly tasty as well.

2 6-oz. cans water packed tuna
2 cups canned white cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 red onion, chopped
1 cucumber, chopped
2 plum tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup canned or jarred artichoke hearts, chopped (reduce olive oil used in dressing if artichokes are marinated in oil)
1 bunch parsley, stemmed and chopped
1 tsp. fresh rosemary, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 Tbsp. olive oil
3 Tbsp. lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix first eight ingredients (tuna through rosemary) in a large bowl. Whisk together garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, and salt & pepper. Add dressing to large bowl and toss together. Serves 4. (For extra zip and fiber, serve on a bed of raw arugula or spinach leaves.)

I really had to improvise because I did not have on hand cucumbers, tomatoes, parsley, or rosemary. So I dug through the fridge for veggies that needed used up. In with my tuna and beans, I mixed chopped red pepper, snap peas, a few diced carrots and the called for onion and artichoke hearts. Unfortunately, I had no fresh herbs, but the recipe was still good. The dressing really makes it work with anything you have on hand.

As prepared from the original recipe, one serving has 372 calories, 12 grams of fat (though it's the heart healthy kind from the olive oil), 40 grams of carbs, 11 grams of fiber, and 33 grams of protein.

Red dye #40

Yesterday I had one of those moments that can make you feel like a total failure as a parent. My youngest daughter is involved in American Heritage Girls, which is sort of like Girl Scouts, and they had their valentines party yesterday after school. Guess who's little girl was the only one to show up with no valentines to pass out? Yep. Mine. It just completely slipped my mind. So, I left one down-hearted child there, took the older one, and high-tailed it over to CVS to find something she could share with her friends. Now I'm not sure if it was the guilt driving me or what, but I ended up with a bag of red heart shaped suckers. Here's the short ingredient list: artificial flavoring, artificial coloring, high fructose corn syrup, and red dye #40. That's it. Four items. Four items that I have successfully eliminated from my children's diets (well, minus what others give them, GRAMMA!). And now here I was handing them out to 24 little girls, including my own. Ignoring the first three ingredients for now, I know all too well the evils of red dye #40. That nasty stuff wreaked complete havoc on my oldest daughter for awhile until we finally nailed it as the culprit to her constant hives. Red dye #40 can cause all sorts of woes, especially in our children's little bodies. Allergies, headaches, mood swings, behaviorial problems, lack of concentration, hives, asthma, hyperactivity...it's even labeled a possible carcinogen. But the FDA approves it because in small doses, it can't hurt, right? Let's take a look at some of the products out there that contain red dye #40.

Icing and cake mixes (and I'm talking about you, Duncan Hines & Pillsbury)
Pillsbury crescent rolls
Pie crusts and pie fillings
Hard candy of all sorts: peppermints, suckers, cinnamon disks
Gummy worms
Caramels (why??)
Chocolate bridge mix (again why??)
Twizzlers
Altoids breath mints
Fruit chews
Jolly ranchers
Starburst
Jelly beans
M&Ms (unless you live in England because they've requested it be taken out of their chocolates. M&Ms complied. Bet the red ones taste the same over there still.)
Skittles
Life Savers
Certs
Too many types of gum to list
Smarties
Tootsie roll pops
Hot tamales
Dum Dum suckers
Cereal: Kix, Lucky Charms, Reese pb cereal, Fruit Loops, Fruity pebbles, Honey Bunches of Oats with strawberries, Capt Crunch
Dannon Light n Fit and Fruit Blends yogurt
Yoplait Trix yogurt
Strawberry Kiwi V-8 Splash, Hi C, Minute Maid orange soda, Sunkist, Gatorade, Hawaiian Punch, various koolaids and crystal lights
Lipton Brisk iced tea
Ruby Red grapefruit juice
Code Red Mt. Dew
Tropicana Twister
Canned fruit salads
Betty Crocker Hamburger Helper
BBQ sauces
Catalina salad dressing
Popsicles
Doritos
Fritos
Fruit gushers
Hersheys syrup
Twinkies
Nutrigrain cereal bars
Poptarts
Jello

I'm going to stop there, though this is only a partial list. And please note that you should always read labels since companies change their recipes sometimes, so some of this stuff may be red dye #40 free now while other stuff may have snuck it in to their product.

So, after taking out all this junk from her diet, my daughter was still in hives. Why? Well, because red dye #40 can also be found in laundry detergent, body wash, shampoo, cold medicines, toothpaste, lotions, hand soap, talcum powder, makeup, lip gloss, chapstick, cough drops, etc. For us, it was her pretty pink princess toothpaste. So, yes, now I get to pay extra dollars for the Tom's of Maine brand. Totally worth it to see my daughter's back clear of open sores, though.

It's easy to say "Oh, a little won't hurt." But how many products do you or your children consume/use that contains the FDA dyes over the course of a day? A little here and there adds up to a whole bunch rather quickly.

*sources include www.red40.com and my textbooks
**My sincerest apologies to the mommies of the 24 little girls to whom my daughter lovingly passed out valentine suckers yesterday. I promise it won't happen again. :)