New Generation = New Trends in Nutrition?

Our Kids Could Change the Course of Healthy Eating 

 

The news has been grim: one in three American kids is overweight or obese, according to the American Heart Association. In Maine, more than half of all adults will be obese by 2030, wreaking havoc on the state’s health and its economy. With spiking obesity rates come unprecedented rates of Type 2 diabetes, higher incidences of heart disease, metabolic syndrome, and many weight-related conditions. For the first time in history, the younger generation may have a shorter lifespan than their parents.

Lamenting the poor health and nutrition of our youth seems to be part of the cultural script. There is no shortage of blame. Scientists have uncovered evidence that everything from gut bacteria and antibiotic use to sleep deprivation contributes to a population destined to be larger and sicker. While new factors emerge, others remain culpable, including portion sizes and endless exposure to nutritionally-poor processed foods and their mammoth advertising budgets. Add factors like fewer families cooking at home (and fewer kids learning to cook), tight budgets that lead us to less healthy choices, and less time being active, and we have a recipe for a nutritional doomsday for today’s youth.

At the same time, according to a Generational Consumer Trend Report issued this year by the food industry market research firm Technomi, today’s millennials consider healthy eating important. Young adults, says the report, have greater awareness of and appreciation for food and health-related issues. It may be that the younger generation is primed for better choices: general opinion suggests they are more open to receiving health messages and they possess a healthy skepticism when it comes to advertising claims. As a result, messages about the importance of fruit and vegetables and research about disease prevention may be getting through, starting trends in good health for the generations that follow.

Here in the land of wild blueberries, the University of Maine reports that more students are enrolling in their food and science program, for example. According to the report, enrollment in the program has been nudged by the importance of personal health and wellness for a new generation that has been seeking out whole, natural foods in an effort to be and feel well.

The news may represent a single point of light in a world of nutritional darkness, but it also may indicate real generational differences in the choices we make about food – differences for the better. In the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, signs of a hopeful, healthier future can be found in many places in the nation and locally.

A New World of Healthy Eating

Much of the focus on our kids’ eating has been on the schools, where poor options have been the rule rather than the exception. Choices in the lunch line are improving as schools join the movement to eliminate veggie stand-ins and offer more whole foods. In fact, childhood obesity rates have declined slightly in some cities and states that have taken on the issue of school lunch nutrition. Close to home, Maine Harvest Lunch puts local foods on school menus across the state at certain times in the school year. The initiative has prompted schools to purchase food from Maine farms and other food producers year round, causing a virtuous cycle within the industry. And, when school doors close, summer camps pick up where they left off, exposing kids to local produce and diverse, whole foods. That’s true especially in areas around Maine and Canada, where what goes on in the lunch room at meal time is as important as the activities outside.

In addition to changes in the lunch line, educational programs for kids, legislation about food claims, and healthy eating role models are contributing to changing the food environment of young people and helping them develop a connection to their food sources. It’s these changes that make kids more likely to embrace diverse foods and eat more widely across the food, color, and nutrition spectrum and rely less on a traditional American diet full of fat, salt, and sugar.

Be Part of Positive Generational Change

Can a new generation change the course of our health? A case can be made that it can. Evidence of positive change can be found everywhere. And, the more we recognize the good nutritional choices kids and their families make – eating more fruits and vegetables, either fresh or fresh frozen and more whole, nutritionally-dense food – the more we can propagate good choices in our own families and communities.

Recently, a Wild About Health reader said she started using frozen wild blueberries and spinach in a “synergistic smoothie” every morning based on Dr. Daniel Nadeau’s recipe. She began making a little extra for her teenage daughter, a notorious breakfast-skipper, who loved them and started making them herself. Now, no matter what the rest of the day brings nutritionally, she knows they’ve both had at least 2-3 fruit and vegetable servings. We can all start being more aware of our own healthy eating, too, and model that behavior for our kids. We can challenge them to cook themselves, help them try new recipes, and enlist them to help us shop for whole foods whether local, fresh or frozen. We can let them stock the fruit bowl, or be in charge of buying their favorite frozen fruit to keep in the freezer for snacking. We can bake a fruit pie together, or involve them in picking up squash from local farmer’s market. We can learn not to dwell on the negative choices they make, and start noticing the positive ones, so we can nurture and build on them.

There’s no denying the perils that face the health of our nation’s youth. But a nutritional course correction could be just a generation away. The more we recognize positive change, the more we open the door for health and nutritional messages to get through so our kids can lead the way in the quest for a healthy future.

Get kids cooking. Try these 10 ways to get kids involved in cooking and shopping from Fruit and Veggies More Matters.

Let the healthy games begin! Make healthy eating fun with FoodChamps.org, a game that teaches kids about nutritional choices.

See evidence of healthy change in your family or in your community? Let us know! 

What Does It Mean to Eat “Well”?

Part #1 of Wild About Health’s Made Simple Series

Health and nutrition can be confusing. We are bombarded with marketing messages, inundated with confusing food labels, and assailed with scientific research and multi-syllabic names for compounds and nutrients. 

The Wild About Health Made Simple Series explains health and nutrition as simply as possible. The easier it is to understand, the easier it is to have a longer, healthier life.

Nutrition: Good vs. Bad

Q: Are you eating well?

We’re told by our doctors, by our leaders, and by countless talking heads to eat well and maintain our health; we’re urged to “get healthy” in order to maintain our weight, our heart, our brain, and our longevity. It sounds simple, and in some ways, it is. But how do we accomplish it?

Here, we dump the science and the complex guidelines and strategies, and break down good nutrition in simple terms so you can start today moving the needle toward healthy.

Eating Well: 5 Simple Steps

1. Fruits & Vegetables, Every Day

A healthy diet emphasizes fruits and vegetables. Need a visual? Use the MyPlate guidelines. The new “plate” version of the old pyramid presents the general guideline of how much of each food group we should be eating.

You can eat seasonal food, organic food, or local food – if it’s available and affordable, then that’s great. You can eat across the rainbow and make an effort to get important phytochemicals that provide some fruits’ deep color. But the most important principle is this: fill you plate to half with fruits and vegetables every time you eat.

2.  Know the Basics

Keeping nutrition simple means knowing about a few hot button healthy eating issues. Good nutrition emphasizes dietary fiber and cuts salt, saturated and trans fats, and added sugar. Unless you are dealing with specific dietary needs, as a general rule, you can maintain a healthier diet by doing the following:

  • Reducing sodium
  • Getting more fiber
  • Drinking more water
  • Reducing saturated fat

3. Shrink Your Portions

In order to maintain a healthy diet, many Americans must cut calories. Our health is often associated with our weight. Being overweight contributes to diabetes and heart disease and can shorten our life, and it’s as simple as that.

According to the Lempert Report, portion size is linked to plate size. (Surprisingly, it is also linked to plate color!) If you love numbers, counting calories might help. (Realizing that a bowl or chips and french onion dip will take up at least half your day’s calories helps their importance sink in.) But the easiest thing you can do is shrink your meal. Get a smaller plate, cut portions in half to eat later, or get rid of family-style eating. Whatever you do, aim to get the most nutrition you can from the calories you eat, and eat only the calories you need.

4. Cook For Yourself

Why cook for yourself? It’s simple: You’ll know what’s in your food. You’ll eat more whole, unprocessed ingredients. You’ll be better able to control your sodium, sugar, and fat. It’s more economical. It’s tastier. And, cooking your own meals is almost always lighter. Start cooking: it’s one of the best things you can do for your health.

Is your goal to eat better? Get these four simple principles under you belt. You can start understanding the benefits or pterostilebene and the best superfoods for optimum disease prevention later – it will come naturally. For now, start simple, and change the way you eat and how much. Then, if someone asks if you have a healthy diet, the answer will be simple: Yes.

More on the Web

  • What is a healthy diet? Get a simple definition at Choosemyplate.gov.
  • Give your diet some digital help. This article has 5 Apps for Eating Better that will help you find fruits and veggies, locate local, seasonal foods, and give you a fun way to track of your servings.
  • Break it down. Fruits & Veggies More Matters takes the confusion out of healthy eating and provides nuts and bolts advice about calories, food groups, and what you should know.

Fall for Apples

Shine Up a Cortland, Grab a Macoun…This Favorite Fruit 
Has a Lot to Offer 

Kiwi, guava, cactus pears, acai…the longsuffering apple can get lost in the cornucopia of today’s stylish fruit choices. It’s easy to pick up a bag during apple-picking season, cook up a crisp, and forget this favorite until next year. But the list of reasons to keep apples on your year-round list is long. The apple has a reputation for warding off the doctor for a reason. Besides being universally liked, it is easy to eat and transport, it is readily available, and its nutritional benefit is rock solid.

Mom’s the Word

The apple’s iconic history is unparalleled in our culture, with its penchant for pie, and its ability to conjure wholesome visions of an apron-clad Mom. It’s nutritional history is similarly deep: famed SuperfoodRx author Dr. Steven Pratt, who helped bring the advantages of antioxidant-rich wild blueberries to the public, also gave the superfood nod to apples for their disease-preventing, anti-aging nutrients. They can’t be ignored for those interested in fighting cancer, heart disease, and Type II diabetes.

So, is the everyday apple prescription tired advice? Not a chance. Here’s why:

  • They have fiber.
  • They are rich in Vitamin C.
  • They have excellent antioxidant properties.
  • They contain a powerful dose of polyphenols.
  • They are rich in potassium.
  • They are satisfyingly high in fiber (whenever possible, eat the skin).
  • They are fat free, sodium free & cholesterol free.

Tastes Worth Telling, William

Red Delicious, Northern Spy…the variety of apples adds to the fruit’s allure. Whether you cherish sweetness or crispness, you’ve probably got your favorite. There are hundreds of apple varieties, and Maine provides an excellent region for sampling many of them. Visit a local orchard and start grazing to identify your favorite. The Maine Pomological Society (that’s right – pomology is the study of pome fruit, and apples are the most commonly known pome)  provides a run-down of local varieties you’re likely to encounter.

The time is now for enjoying the essence of apples, and if you live here in Maine, it’s practically an apple fair a day. Check the Portland Press Herald for a listing of apple festivals galore, including this weekend’s Apple Pumpkin Festival in Livermore Falls, and Downeast Heirloom Apple Week at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor taking place in October.

Cider: Apples to Apples 

It’s truly the essence of the apple. The enthusiasm for the array of apple cider blends for its connoisseurs is no less than that of oenophiles for their wine. Cider, the naturally sweet juice from apples, is particularly beloved in the Northeast. It serves as the impetus for many fairs, festivals and gatherings that focus on this drinkable treat. Cider is a unique seasonal pleasure that differs from apple juice because of its raw, unfiltered nature. (In cider, the pulp and sediment that is otherwise taken away in regular apple juice is preserved.) It may come as no surprise that cider contains all the health benefits of apples. For those who pasteurize, the process does little to affect its high nutrition.

Can you make your own? You bet. Pickyourown.com tempts those who want to try their hand at their own personal blend. The required equipment can be purchased without too much expenditure, and the result can be enjoyed, or canned for future use.

Slim Pickings

Take full advantage this fall when local apples are abundant in the Northeast – and keep them on your radar throughout the year for nutritional benefit in a figure-saving package. If you are looking for ways to bite the big apple, go au naturel for unadulterated advantage, or take your pick from these apple ideas when your diet allows for indulgence.