Colorado lawmakers delay hearing on school trans fat ban

By KRISTEN WYATT, Associated Press

DENVER — The nation’s leanest state is taking its sweet time as it considers a proposal aimed at getting junk food out of schools.

A Colorado House committee was expected to discuss a bill that represents the nation’s toughest regulations meant to keep trans fat away from students, but lawmakers Thursday delayed the hearing without explanation.

The bill would forbid trans fat in cafeteria lunches — but it wouldn’t stop there.

The proposed ban would apply to snacks in vending machines, bake sale goodies and popular “a la carte” items on lunch lines such as ice creams or pizza, requiring any such treats to be prepared without artery-clogging trans fats.

Small amounts of trans fats...

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Greek yogurt all the rage

By MICHAEL HILL, Associated Press

SOUTH EDMESTON, N.Y. — Chobani is making Greek yogurt as fast as Americans are eating it.

Its plant in upstate New York farm country already pumps out 1.5 million cases of the thick yogurt every week, and pallets are stacked four stories high in the chilled warehouse.

But like other Greek yogurt makers, Chobani is expanding.

Greek yogurt now accounts for a quarter of the total yogurt market after a dizzying growth spurt that is especially apparent here in the heart of upstate New York. The nation’s No. 1 and No. 2 Greek yogurt brands — Chobani and Fage, respectively — are both expanding plants within 60 miles of each other, and another company is building a plant in western New York. The expansions come...

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School lunches to have more veggies, whole grains

MARY CLARE JALONICK, Associated Press

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The first major nutritional overhaul of school meals in more than 15 years means most offerings, including popular pizza, will come with less sodium and more whole grains, with a wider selection of fruits and vegetables on the side, first lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced during a visit Wednesday with elementary students.

Pizza won’t disappear from lunch lines, but will be made with healthier ingredients.

Mrs. Obama, also joined by celebrity chef Rachael Ray, said youngsters will learn better if they don’t have growling stomachs at school.

“We have a right to expect the food (our kids) get at school is the same kind of food we want to serve...

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Veggiecation program encourages students to eat their veggies

McClatchy-Tribune

Will your kids eat asparagus? Do they even know what a parsnip is? We all have to pick our battles, and the Battle of the Veggie has probably been won by the kids in your house or school. But now, Lisa Suriano and her Veggiecation program is on the side of teachers, afterschool program leaders and moms.

Veggiecation is a series of adaptable lessons and materials — a CD of music, an activity book, stickers, recipes and more that incorporates kid-friendly vegetable preparations into each lesson. Activities can be adapted for science, literacy, art, social sciences, math and physical education for kids in pre-K-3rd grade.

Suriano is the owner and founder of Veggiecation and grew up in gardens and kitchens. After getting her undergraduate...

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Kick your resolution off with healthy Tex Mex stuffed peppers

Family Features

According to the National Pork Board’s “Healthy Habits 2011” survey, while 60 percent of dieters have made a health-related resolution, sticking to that goal will be harder than quitting smoking or even winning the lottery.

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Luckily, finding nutritious foods, like pork, which taste great and can help you feel fuller longer, is a delicious recipe for long-term diet success. However, the survey also showed that seven out of ten people are not aware that incorporating lean pork into their diet can decrease distracting thoughts about food.

“One of the keys to weight management is managing hunger,” said Dr. Heather Leidy, currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology at the University of Missouri. “There is a growing body of evidence that suggests increasing the amount of lean protein, like pork, in your diet can help decrease distracting thoughts about food to help you achieve long-term healthy eating goals.” …

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Eating for two? Try this healthy breakfast recipe

Family Features

What you eat not only affects you, it could affect your unborn child.

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Of the four million women who give birth in the US each year, some 3,000 babies are born with neural tube defects, which include certain birth defects of the brain and spinal cord. Folic acid is a critical element needed for proper spinal cord development during the first three weeks of pregnancy. Because this is often before a woman even knows she’s pregnant, it’s important for women of child-bearing age to follow a healthy lifestyle and to include folic acid as part of her diet.

The Grain Foods Foundation would like to remind all women of child-bearing age of the important role folic acid plays in preventing birth defects. Enriched breads – and many other grains such as rice, tortillas, pasta and cereal – are important sources of folic acid. …

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Child nutrition bill could limit school bake sales

By MARY CLARE JALONICK, Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Don’t touch my brownies!

A child nutrition bill on its way to President Barack Obama — and championed by the first lady — gives the government power to limit school bake sales and other fundraisers that health advocates say sometimes replace wholesome meals in the lunchroom.

Republicans, notably Sarah Palin, and public school organizations decry the bill as an unnecessary intrusion on a common practice often used to raise money.

“This could be a real train wreck for school districts,” Lucy Gettman of the National School Boards Association said Friday, a day after the House cleared the bill. “The federal government should not be in the business of regulating this kind...

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Top 5 vegetables for healthy eating

Iva Young, The Healthy Mom

We all know we need to eat our veggies, especially with the new wave of processed food companies touting how their sauces and canned pastas now contain a full day’s allotment of vegetables — but Iva Young thinks that’s just a bit deceiving.

“It’s a tricky definition of terms,” said Young, author of Healthy Mom (www.ivayoung.com). “It’s really not as healthy to eat processed foods to begin with, but for them to say that using vegetables as fillers somehow makes processed foods healthy is disingenuous, at best. It’s like saying ‘don’t pay attention to all the chemicals, dyes and sodium we put in the can — there’s vegetables in there, too, so that makes it all okay!’...

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Schools, with some prodding, are making lunches healthier

By Georgina Gustin, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

First it was the Pop-Tarts. Then the french fries. Then the nachos.

And this year, another school lunch staple got the ax.

“We’re not serving any chicken nuggets,” said a triumphant Carol Kon, the food service director for the Maplewood-Richmond Heights School District, in Maplewood, Mo. “We’re the first to do that.”

The district of 1,150 students has incrementally, but very deliberately, weaned itself from less-than-healthy offerings, transforming its progressive food program into the envy of school districts around the region.

Students tend the district’s own vegetable gardens. Preschoolers look after the district’s chicken coop. Local farmers supply...

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Tips for helping you raise a healthier child

From the editors of Weekly Reader Digital and Print

Who wants to raise a healthy, confident, self-sufficient child?

All right, we know; every parent wants to do just that. But how many parents know that one of the best ways to put your children on the path to those qualities is to get them into the kitchen — and put them to work?

It’s true. Evidence suggests that when kids are involved with food preparation, they tend to eat healthier. In addition, children who cook their own meals are more likely to try new foods, says Sandra Nissenberg, registered dietitian and author of “The Everything Kids’ Cookbook.”

The simplest tip of all is this: Invite your children to help as you prepare a meal.

Encouragement alone is enough...

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