Healthy Eating Blog (Health and Well Being)

You may have noticed, when browsing through my website, that I offer both traditional and “Non Diet” approaches to weight concerns. Wondering what this Non Diet Approach is and if it might be for you? Consider these questions.

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I finally went and got myself some Kefir grains so I can try out homemade brewing of the stuff.

Kefir? You ask. Kefir is pretty much a fermented milk drink. (I am using milk Kefir, although there is a”water” version of it as well.).

When you hear fermented milk drink, basically think ….probiotic drink.

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One of my Dietitian friends recently reviewed a “low sugar” cookbook that is currently being marketed by a UK “personality”. It turns out the recipes are pretty much full of sugar, in the form of honey in most cases. At the end of the review article, were many, many comments about honey not being sugar. I often see “low sugar” recipes which use honey as the sweetener and am sorry to say, yes, it’s a sugar.

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I’m ready to get in the car and start up on the AM Dietetics home visiting service. How much more easy could it be than to have the Dietitian come to you?

The AM Dietetics home visiting service includes:

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Someone told me that I should pretty much start this blog off with a joke.. there are so many and they are so bad! I had to settle for this one:

Q: “why did the chicken have to wash his mouth out with soap”
A: “because of all the fowl language”

Oh dear!

Jokes aside, chicken is such a popular meat, it’s scary. Consumption of chicken in Australia has slowly increased over the years and, as mentioned in my previous blog, we are eating about 45 Kg of the stuff per person each year.

So why is chicken so popular?

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This week, I was fortunate enough to take part in a media tour of a chicken farm and processing facility, hosted by Australian Chicken Meat Industry and Ingham’s Enterprises. I was in two minds about going, being that it was smack in the middle of the school holidays but then thought to myself “when am I ever going to get the chance to go to a chicken farm again???” I think it’s really important for all of us to have a good grasp of where our food comes from and of the processes involved in getting it from Farm to Fork.

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Since I arrived back in Brisbane, I have been enjoying some great hospitality and the brilliant Australian food and wines. I have been staying with family members who like to have a drink each night with dinner and sure have noticed the weight creeping on. Oops.

Over the years, I have seen many women who are looking to reduce weight; and I have found that regular drinking of wine over the week is a big contributing factor to weight gain and a bit of a barrier to weight loss.

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I was listening to the radio the other day and heard a Home Economist talking about cheap, quick and easy meals. (Yes, it was MY kind of radio show!). I was intrigued to hear a throw away reference to a really easy pizza dough made from just two ingredients – flour and yoghurt- so I had to investigate.

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We all want our kids to eat healthy, right? Healthy eating doesn’t just happen. It is up to us as parents to raise healthy eaters with positive attitudes to food, health and cooking. It’s so important to establish healthy eating habits from early on. It’s never too late, though! If you are keen to get your family on track to healthy eating, here are my top tips for raising healthy eaters

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It’s a wonderful thing to discover new foods and I had the opportunity to try a new fruit recently. Some of you will probably be familiar with the fruit and wonder where the heck I’ve been but I got to experience the Feijoa for the first time when meeting new friends in Brisbane.

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I have had quite a few questions after my last blog post and have picked out a few to answer here. I hope that the answers help a few people, not just those who emailed in. I will cover a few today and, hopefully, answer the rest later. I do tend to write long answers! By the way, I did answer a couple “off line”, as confidentiality or an individual consultation was requested. So here we go:

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My little boy has school dinners every day. I never had school dinners, growing up in Brisbane where we I took a packed lunch to school and occasionally had money for the “tuck shop”. I can’t say I’m 100% happy with the school dinners my son has, but we have decided he will stick on them for a few months.

Each day when I pick my son up from the bus stop, I ask him how his day was and what he had for lunch. It’s been playing on my mind for some time now that he never mentions that he has any fruit at school. He tends to have a baguette or wrap and a small cake and drink. The other day, I asked him why he doesn’t have any fruit at school and was told that there was no fruit on offer. Now I don’t know if that’s so or not, (8 year old faced with a small cake or fruit is a difficult one), but it certainly made me aware that I can’t rely on school dinners to be providing my own son’s fruit and vegetables for the day.

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My family seem to have been eating lots of oranges at the moment. They are “at their best” at the moment so we are making the most of them while they are in season. Everyone knows how good oranges are, especially when it comes to Vitamin C. Sure they pack a punch when it comes to the “C” but there is so much more to the orange.

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Increasing portion sizes would have to be one of the major contributors to weight gain and the obesity epidemic. Everything is supersized, “standard” portions we think are normal are far bigger than they were in the past and even our plate sizes have increased. It’s easy to lose track of what is actually the right portion size for us.
So how can we tell?

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Just a quick mention of my successfully kept resolution from the start of 2012. I was terrible for cooking too much pasta and was determined to downsize the portions and prevent food waste. I’m happy to say this one has been a success and I’ve managed to cook the right amount each time using this handy tool – my spaghetti portion measurer. I’d highly recommend using portion measures, especially for things like pasta and rice.

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