October 2008

Just getting ready to finish up my work to head home for Halloween! For the last two weeks, my girls both told me that they wanted to be fairies - all the rage with Pre-K and Kindergarteners. Last night as my older daughter was getting ready to go to bed, she told me that she had changed her mind and she really had to be a cat. Hmmm… She had a halloween parade at school first thing the next morning. Nothing like changing her mind at the last minute!

Although I still had some work to get done and was exhausted, I brainstormed with my husband the best way to make a cat’s tail (try taping some crumpled up newspaper around a coat hanger and covering it with a piece of material or play scarf ) and some kitty ears (cutout from a cardboard cereal box with colored construction paper glued on and attached to a headband) given the late hour. I interspersed my late night art project with finishing up some work (easy to do while the glue was drying) and this morning - my daughter was thrilled.

Entirely worth it despite the last minute effort. Now it’s time to get ready to go trick or treating. And later tonight I expect a visit from the Halloween Fairy who I hear, will be leaving the next series of Rainbow Magic Fairy books by Daisy Meadows. Does she write anything about cats?

For more on the Halloween Fairy, see http://www.zoefoods.com/blog/hello-halloween-fairy/

Well, there is some truth here.  One of my goals is to make a difference in nutrition education across the country – see my blog (http://www.zoefoods.com/blog/mommy-will-you-talk-to-the-chef-at-school/) Okay – I stated it publicly – the next day another mom in the class approached me about getting together a small group of parents’ whose goal is just that!

So, if it’s just that easy, here’s another goal… I’d like Zoe Foods to make a difference in people’s lives with great tasting natural products that are packed with nutrition. Zoe’s Granolas and Bars are distributed across the country and is a major player in the food industry!

The Secret is out - we’re working toward this goal and appreciate your helping to spread the word about Zoe’s so that we can make it happen.

Married seven years as of yesterday and together for almost 10! Just another milestone to make me realize how quickly time passes. I had never heard of the seven year itch until a friend of mine told me about it. Why seven? Do we suddenly tire of our partners after seven years? Do people tend to enter their mid-life crisis at about the same time as seven years of marriage, so that they start to pine for their younger days?

Perhaps it’s akin to the seventh awning stretch in a baseball game. Maybe it’s not really an itch at all, but rather a time to stretch and reflect upon all the wonderful things that have happened, and a time to come up with a game plan for all of the exciting things we have to look forward to.

Did you know that many of the mainstream kid’s cereals – ones that have been around from when we were little – can be likened to white bread with sugar and vitamins? This point was driven home by an article from Consumer Reports called “Some Cereals – More Than Half Sugar.”

“A serving of 11 popular cereals, including Kellogg’s Honey Smacks, carries as much sugar as a glazed doughnut, the consumer group found. Post Golden Crisp made by Kraft Foods Inc and Kellogg’s Honey Smacks are more than 50 percent sugar by weight, the group said, while nine brands are at least 40 percent sugar.” Hmmm, makes you think.

The article stated that Kellogg’s is in the process of “making its foods more nutritious.”

Unfortunately, it cannot happen too soon because Consumer Reports found that “91 children aged 6 to 16 poured their cereal and found they served themselves about 50 to 65 percent more on average than the suggested serving size for three of the four tested cereals.”

So what does all this really mean? It means that you must read the suggested serving size, nutrition facts, and ingredient label. Many of the cereals targeting children are what I’d call empty calories – calories that provide little to no nutrition because they consist primarily of sugar, white flower, food coloring, and some vitamins which are typically sprayed on right before the cereal goes into the colorful box.

Don’t lose hope because there is a lot of research that states that cereal can be really good for you (and delicious). Next time you’re at the market, consider these tips when reading the serving size, nutrition facts and ingredient list:

1. Total calories per serving only gives you a clue as to whether a product is good or not. Beware of small serving sizes! If you would typically eat twice as much as the recommended serving, remember that all the nutrition facts need to be doubled.

2. Look at the fat and make sure that there are zero trans fats. These are the really bad fats that most manufacturers have tried to eliminate from their foods. There is fat in food, and that’s not necessarily bad because we need certain types of fats in our diet. For example, your body needs Omega-3s which is an essential fatty acids that your body cannot produce but needs to be healthy. More on this topic next time.

3. Sodium – try to select a product that has relatively low sodium versus your alternatives. However, if there is something you love where the sodium is higher, try to pick other foods that are low in sodium and then don’t add salt to your food. It’s all about balance and moderation over the course of a day, week, and lifetime.

4. With the Atkins diet, people thought all carbohydrates were bad. However, our bodies need carbohydrates because they give us energy. However, look for complex carbohydrates because they contain fiber. Fiber helps promote healthy digestion and can help reduce the risk of heart disease. From less technical perspective, fiber keeps our digestive system moving which helps with weight management as part of an active lifestyle. Drink lots of water to keep from getting constipated, especially as you increase the fiber in your diet and your body adjusts.

5. Try to select products with a lower sugar content. Sugar, although also a carbohydrate, is one of those empty calories because it provides no nutritional value. If you have more sugar in one meal, make an effort to have less in the next. Remember, sugar turns to fat. So even if a product is low in fat, it may have a higher sugar content, so you’re not necessarily better off.

6. Protein is important for all ages. Although you don’t need to be consuming 20g per serving if you’re not trying to build some serious muscle mass, look for products with 4-8g protein per serving.

In summary, it is better to have your calories come from fiber, protein, and even the good fats, rather than sugar or foods with little nutritional value. If you cannot pronounce something on the label, think again before consuming it. As the founder of a natural foods company, of course I am biased, but these are some solid guidelines that can help you and your family to eat more healthfully.

To see original article: http://health.yahoo.com/news/reuters/us_cereal_sugar.html

Nutrition in your child’s school – is there any? My kindergartener started eating lunch at school this year. She was so excited. At barely 6 years old, she is beginning to enjoy the freedom of making her own decisions. With this responsibility, she has quickly learned that it’s not always so easy to make a good choice.

I realize that my daughter’s awareness about what is healthy and what is not, is not the norm. With a mom in the natural foods business and a dad who knows just as much, our girls cannot help but learn about nutrition. Although they have never been to McDonald’s and don’t really know what it is, they do know that it’s not healthy for them. Awareness and education is a crucial component, yet is only half the battle. The other half consists of the options in your child’s school cafeteria.

With the increasing rate of obesity and Type II diabetes among young children, we not only need to teach our children what is good for them, but we also need to make sure that there are healthy options that taste good in our children’s school cafeterias.

One of my dreams is to make a difference in nutrition education across the country, but now that I have a child eating lunch at school every day, I realize that we also need to influence what options our children have to choose from.

I have not, at least not for the last 20 years. After 25 years, I gathered up my courage, my husband, and my kids, and returned. Courage? Why would anyone need courage to go to a high school reunion?

Let me tell you why. Twelve years in one place is a very long time. Everyone in the school knows you, your siblings, and your parents. They’ve known you since you were little. Over the years, cliques of kids form, break apart, and reform. And by the 7th-8th grades, the cliques start to stick. Kids get mean, really mean. They do it because it makes them feel better than their peers. They’re just trying to figure out who they are too. But before you realize what’s going on, you’re just like a duck stuck in the muck (to quote one of my childrens’ books). And, I had a positive school experience!

At 12 and13 years old, you’re just beginning the journey of figuring out who you are. Over the rest of our lives, most of us will still be trying to figure out who we want to be and what we want to accomplish in our lives.

Flashback to Spring 1983… playing team sports, going out with friends, homework, boys, best friends, parties, prom, independence from our parents, the stress of applying to colleges, leaving home, and spreading our wings. No longer a duck stuck in the muck. We have the chance to fly.

Fast Forward to Fall 2008… after 25 years, I admit that I was brought to tears in the warm greetings I received and gave to all of my classmates. Everyone had come into their own. For the most part, the cliques were gone. My class had soared and we had grown up with families of our own. There were still a couple ducks, but since everyone else was flying, it no longer mattered.

I wish I could say that I’ve figured out how to slow down my life – but I haven’t made much progress since my June entry (http://www.zoefoods.com/blog/slowing-down-the-course-of-time-do-less-not-more/). In fact, since being on vacation, I think I’ve tried to cram in everything that I missed doing while I was gone into the last several weeks.

The result of being crazy, busy means that I am not eating as healthfully as I would like. And, the first places that I’ll steal some time from are breakfast and lunch. The result is less portion control and too many carbohydrates.

Here are some tips that I’m following to lead to healthier breakfasts and lunches:

Night Time Prep
1)    Take some salad from the Tupperware where we keep a washed head of mixed greens for the week, and put some in a single serve container for lunch for the next day. Take some other healthy leftovers like chicken, broccoli, squash, and put them in a container for lunch. Watch my portion sizes! Go heavy on the vegetables.

2)    Get to bed no later than 11pm, and ideally earlier. Goal is to wake up well-rested so that I can wake up at 6:30am and exercise!

Morning – Rise & Shine
3)    Exercise as soon as I get out of bed for 20-30 minutes. Do my Prana Power yoga video with Taylor Wells, or my Jackie Warner video, or get on the elliptical trainer!

4)    Take 10 minutes to eat breakfast with my children. Pour Zoe’s Granola into a bowl to manage the portion size and add skim milk.

5)    Grab the lunch I put together from the night before from the fridge. Remember to add oil and vinegar to my salad.

6)    Take a break for lunch and don’t eat while on the computer – it’s no better than eating in front of the television. Enjoy my meal for 10-15 minutes, it will be more satisfying and fill me up, as well as taste better. I know I think that we can multi-task, but if I focus my senses on eating, it will be far more enjoyable. Pundits claim that if we actually take breaks, we will be more productive!

I am starting today, will you?

As a working mom with more limited time with my girls, I struggle with the fact that children need boundaries and discipline and that I cannot give in to their every whim. I’ve discovered one way to make this a little easier – try to avoid certain situations in which I know they will constantly be asking for something that I don’t want to regularly have to deny. By the way, my girls are very persistent.

Halloween candy is one of these situations. Last year my girls realized that the more candy they can collect, the more they’ll have to eat. On the night of Halloween, we pretty much let them have what they want. What I try to avoid is their asking for candy after dinner every single night until it all disappears.

Several years ago a parent told me a secret that solved the problem of too much Halloween candy.

Hello, Halloween Fairy!

When we get home from trick or treating, my girls spill all of their candy out on the counter and they each get to pick 10 pieces that they would like to keep in a bag with their name on it. Then they put the rest of their candy back into their trick or treating bags. We write a note to leave for the Halloween Fairy along with the candy they decided not to keep. They put the note and their candy outside the back door and get ready for bed. The next morning, they gather their trick or treating bags from outside the back door to discover a present that the Halloween Fairy left in exchange for their Halloween candy.

Thank you Halloween Fairy for leaving something that my children will enjoy for a lot longer than the candy bars, and just as importantly, thank you for eliminating the battle over their wanting to eat their Halloween candy daily for the next month.

About a week ago I wrote about the benefits of pro-biotics – supplements that contain the good bacteria that are normally found in your body. After a round of anti-biotics and two weeks of eating vegetables while traveling in China and Central Asia – it sounded like a battle was waging in my stomach.

I have now been taking pro-biotics for a week and not only do I feel better, but I felt better within two days! What a lovely thought… I’ve introduced a new army of bacteria to my gut, but this time, they’re on my side!

Have you ever told someone a real story and the reply was “It’s too good to be true?” Come to think of it, I haven’t with a sole recent exception. Recently I went to a meeting for Boston entrepreneurs/founders of companies. In discussing my company with one of the venture capital people at the meeting I was told that a deal that I had negotiated for Zoe Foods was too good to be true.

For some reason, this comment keeps coming back to me along with all of its philosophical and dire implications… the deal really isn’t real, there’s some sinister legal language that even after crafting the document hand-in-hand with my attorney for three months that I missed, or maybe even that I signed a deal with the devil and just don’t know it yet.

Since I don’t believe that any of these three scenarios are true, I’m going to stick with my story - we got a good deal because we’re actually a good company since Zoe Foods mission is to make a difference in people’s lives with great-tasting, good-for-you foods.

Have you ever found something too good to be true? After 43 years, I am happy to say that my life is too good to be true, and it truly is.

Rule No. 1: Do no harm.
Rule No. 2: Do not violate Rule No. 1 unless you have no alternative.

According to the Barack Obama / Joe Biden campaign, as well as the John McCain / Sarah Palin campaign, these are the generally accepted criteria in selecting the U.S. Vice Presidential candidate.

These have got to be the craziest rules I’ve ever heard! Can you imagine choosing a spouse or partner because you thought they would do no harm and were the best option you had? Frankly, I’d rather not be married.

Can you imagine choosing a childcare provider because you thought that at least they wouldn’t harm your children. Boy, your children are bound to get a lot of nurturing and learning from someone like that!

Can you imagine only buying food for your family because you thought that at least it would do no harm? Boring! Nutritious? Unlikely.

Can you imagine running your life so that you would always be safe from harm? If so…
Don’t go out in the rain for fear of catching a cold
Don’t cross the street because you could be hit by a car
Don’t go out in a lighting storm because you could be electrocuted
Don’t be friendly with your neighbors because you could be bitten by their dog
Don’t live in San Francisco because you could be hurt in an earthquake
Don’t learn to swim because you risk drowning

If we lived like this, we wouldn’t leave the safety of our homes and we wouldn’t teach our children to try new things because they risk failing or getting hurt. No one chooses to run their life this way; do you want our country to be run this way?

We have alternatives, let’s choose them.

Avoiding Nanny Nightmares (again)

A couple of days upon returning from our “big trip” to China, our current nanny who has been wonderful for the last 10 months told me that she would like to keep working for us but “live-out.” Ugh! This is about the last thing I need to handle right now – I still feel like I’m catching up on my work from being away and cannot afford any outside distractions, especially because Zoe Foods is just at the brink of taking off if we can meet consumer demand and build our distribution quickly enough.

So… childcare… I welcome your suggestions. I have made every effort in the last year to keep our current nanny happy. I’ve taken vacation time to cover for her vacation. When we’ve had vacation and she didn’t want to take hers, I paid her anyway. I’ve tried to make her feel welcome in our home – we’re easy-going and flexible and it’s been fine with nannies in the past, but she wants her own apartment. If she were to “live-out” that means a higher cost for me. Alternatively, she offered working for me in the afternoons only and receiving the same compensation. There’s no value to me in that other than I don’t have to go through the search process again and that my children can have consistency beyond the last year. Ugh. That’s what comes to mind, a big, fat, ugly, UGH!