After staying with us for nearly a month this July, my grandkids left me three reminders of their visit: fingerprints smudged on the glass of my deck doors, jars of (dead) lightening bugs on the picnic table, and half-full boxes of popsicles in my freezer! That pretty well sums up the summertime, doesn't it?! Popsicles are a must-have on hot afternoons, and last month, Maia and I set out to
packaged food
10 Healthiest Packaged Snacks for Kids
My kids are big snackers, and they probably get it from me: I often skip dinner entirely (not good, I know!), and then spend the rest of the evening snacking---a bowl of cereal, some grapes, toast, or maybe if I'm feeling ambitious, a sliced cucumber with some feta cheese, drizzled with Olea Blue. I try to encourage my kids to sit down to three meals a day and keep snacking to a minimum, but
Healthy Nutrition Bar Guide
When I was a young mother there was no such thing as healthful bars of any kind, let alone nutrition bars! These days, there are a million different ones available at health food stores, drug stores, and even gas stations. Different bars fit different diet trends: Paleo; high protein/low sugar; athletic fuel (high carb); gluten free; whole foods; raw foods; macrobiotic; etc. It’s amazing how much
Healthy Store-Bought Cookie Guide
1. Rickaroons / 2. Simple Mills / 3. Jovial / 4. Cappello's / 5. Butterfly Bakery of Vermont I like to bake cookies with high-quality, natural ingredients, so writing this guide was a challenge! I know that Maia and many of you are busy moms who don’t have time to bake, but still like to offer your kids cookies from time to time. Who doesn’t love a cookie-and-milk or cookie-and-tea
Is ANY Bread Good Stuff?
Bread has gotten a bad name in recent years due to the popularity of low-carbohydrate diets, grain-free diets, and gluten-free diets. These days, gluten is basically a dirty word! While some of the criticism of wheat and bread is well deserved—I wouldn’t call most of what you see in the grocery store Good Stuff--I have found that for many people, totally giving up bread in order to be healthy is
Are Cheddar Bunnies Healthier Than Goldfish?
Ironically, the proliferation of "healthy" baby and kid snacks seems to have made it more difficult to keep my children on a clean diet. Perhaps without the convenience of all the organic, natural, trans-fat free packaged foods, I would be more likely to offer my kids homemade snacks that are actually nutritious (such as this or this). Instead, I often find myself smugly selecting organic gummy
Why Organic Dairy is Toxic
This post originally appeared a guest blog for Dr. Alan Greene’s website. As a quasi-vegetarian, I eat a lot of dairy—dairy that I assumed was healthful, since it is always organic and often comes from grass-fed cows. Unfortunately, in addition to worrying about the nutritional value of the foods we eat, and whether they contain pesticides, and whether they’ve got trans fats or
Sneaky Stuff: Mott’s Applesauce Has High Fructose Corn Syrup
Hungry for some arsenic-laced apples from China, mixed with high fructose corn syrup and artificial colors? Look no further than Mott's! At a recent birthday party for a 5-year-old, my own 4-year-old ate three slices of the pizza being served, and turned up his nose at the cup of Mott's applesauce at his place setting. I grabbed a spoon and started to peel off the tinfoil lid so I could feed it
