The Auckland Food Show is on this weekend. I went with a friend today. Here’s my take on it.

Earth Gems are multi-coloured, bite-sized vegetables that ‘are the jewel of the South American Incas’. They grow like a potato but are from the beetroot family and have an earthy taste. You sure know you are eating something straight from the ground. I think they are an acquired taste! With all those colours they are bound to have plenty of antioxidants.

Most native Kiwi drink: Kawakawa Fire Tea

A caffeine free tea made from kawakawa, lemongrass and ginger by T leaf T. It’s packaged beautifully with a simple Maori design. A lovely present and it tastes great.

Food I bought today and have already used: Australian semi-dried tomatoes and Monin vanilla syrup

I used the tomatoes on pizza but should have kept them for a salad. They were too delicious to waste on pizza. I mixed the vanilla syrup with low fat milk for a delicious instant vanilla milkshake. I also bought Monin’s Chai Green Tea Extract to make Chai Latte – a sweet, milky alternative to coffee.

What I’ll use tomorrow: New Zealand Breakfast Tea

A black tea blended with manuka. It smells like honey but tastes like tea. It should taste great with grainy toast and honey for breakfast.

Best buy: Dutch Maasdam cheese

It was half-price – about $20 per kilo. I bought a huge chunk!

Most interesting food: Cherry juice that helps you sleep

This tart cherry juice is made from Montmorency cherries from Canada. According to the promotional leaflet these cherries have significant levels of melatonin which promotes sleep. It’s 100% juice with no added sugar or preservatives which is good. It comes in a concentrate which must be kept in the fridge or freezer to maintain its nutritional value.

Food that brought back the best childhood memories: Fresh walnuts

There was always a tray of walnuts drying in the sun at my grandparents. We would spend ages helping my Nana to crack them open. My grand-dad liked them dipped in icing. Walnuts contain alpha-linolenic acid (a type of omega-3 fat) so make a healthy snack, preferably without the icing!

Biggest trend this year: Anything with omega-3 in it.

There was flax seed oil, biscuits, pills for kids that taste like jelly lollies, and even smoothies made with flax seed oil. Parents seemed most enthusiastic about these foods. I just hope they don’t mega-dose their kids. Omega-3 fats are good and most of us could do with a bit more but as with all nutrition too much of one nutrient is likely to upset the balance of others. Also flaxseed, like walnuts, contains alpha-linolenic acid which converts to EPA (the omega-3 fat in oily fish) in the body. The conversion rate is about 8% so you need to eat quite a bit of flaxseed to get the same effect as a from a meal of salmon.

Most organised person

The woman who had a suitcase on wheels filled with all her purchases. She had already made one trip back to the car to unload and was on her second round.

Most popular stand

Anything with chocolate!

No one in the world has the same fingerprint as you – or exactly the same mix of talents and tastes. You are designed as a ‘one-off’ which is wonderful – until you try to get a family of individuals to eat the same meals. It’s a common cry that I’ve come across a few times lately: “My husband likes meat but I want vegetables” “One child wants cheese on everything and the other can’t bear cheese but wants tomato sauce” “My child hates soup” “My children love soup but only if it’s smooth” How can you get everyone in the family to eat well without force-feeding or becoming a restaurant catering to individual tastes. Here’s a few ideas.

My husband wants meat and doesn’t like vegetables, I want vegetables and don’t like much meat

Solution: Stir fry meat and vegetables.  Beef or chicken salad

We love soup but the kids hate it

Solution: Serve soup on pasta as a pasta sauce with grated cheese on top

We always have left-over rice when I make stir-frys

Solution: Add milk, sliced banana and a sprinkle of brown sugar or syrup for a quick rice pudding

I like to put wheatgerm on porridge because it is so healthy but no-one else will eat it

Solution: Make oatmeal pancakes with wheatgerm

My children won’t eat plain yoghurt

Solution: Make a smoothie with banana or berries, reduced fat milk and yoghurt. Make raita – chopped cucumber and mint mixed with yoghurt – to serve with Indian curry

My husband won’t eat lentils

Solution: Add a handful of red lentils to beef casseroles and mince. It helps thicken the meal, makes the meat go further and provides soluble fibre to fill everyone up and help help control cholesterol and diabetes.

The only beans my family will eat is baked beans.

Solution: Baked beans are great but for variety add red kidney beans to mince with a bit of chilli to make chilli con carne. Make minestrone soup with a mix of brown and white beans (I like borlotti and haricot). Try a bean salad.

If you have a great food solution to your family’s varied taste preferences, we’d love to hear it! ..c

A baked potato has got to be one of the easiest meals around. You wash it, prick it and throw it in the microwave for 3-4 minutes – voila! Or, slightly more complicated – you wrap it in tin foil and throw it in the oven at 200C (400F) for an hour. It’s simple, filling and nutritious so why haven’t I done it for years, I wondered?

“Let’s bake some potatoes tonight,” I suggested to my 8-year-old son this morning. He rolled his eyes in total disinterest and asked, “Why?” I switched into ‘enthusiastic mummy’ mode: “Because I want to teach you how to do it – it’s so easy – and then you can put baked beans or corn or cheese on top – it’s so delicious. I’m sure you would love it. It’s just like having cheese or baked beans on toast, except it’s a potato!” The sell job didn’t work and we ended up with grilled salmon and vegetable fried rice!

“That’s the reason!” I realised as we sat eating our dinner with a fork. This generation eats mostly fork food – meals that can be balanced on your knees in front of TV and eaten with one hand. A baked potato, on the other hand, needs a knife and fork – both hands and a good solid table.

Potatoes New Zealand believes that ‘if a child can bake a potato, they can make a meal’. So they are calling all grandparents to teach this simple skill to their grandchildren. I’m sure they won’t mind if parents take up the challenge too. There’s three days left of school holidays and I’m determined to bake a potato with my son. It can’t be that hard, can it!

Related:

The new hero food – potatoes

Found these digging around on the net … mostly from down under!

Glenn Cardwell: Getting kids to eat their veggies … Vegetables were probably never that big in the human diet. We evolved eating meat, seafood, nuts, seeds, fruits, tubers, fungi, berries and insects because that’s where the kilojoules are. When you need energy (kJs/Cals) each day to survive, why bother eating a leaf (lettuce), a flower (broccoli) or something else that is mainly water …

c: I don’t subscribe to the evolution theory, I’m more a creation girl – it makes me feel more special. And the people I have read about who lived 3-4000 years ago definitely knew their grandparents.  But I love the idea of talking positively to your children about vegetables! What about kids and meat?

Dieticians missed point on story: 60 Minutes – National – NZ Herald News … TV3’s 60 Minutes says criticism by nutrition experts on its report on the effects of food colouring on children was disappointing and failed to focus on the real issue – that Britain is phasing out some artificial colours while New Zealand is doing nothing….

c: Medical and other science experts such as dietitians get exasperated with some media reporters who either deliberately or out of ignorance use anecdoctal evidence or dubious ’studies’ to sensationalise their story. Of course dietitians don’t condone artificial colours and, whether or not  they cause your kids to ‘lose the plot’, it would be good to see these unnecessary additives phased out.

Editorial: Don’t tinker with our daily bread – Health – NZ Herald News … It is not too difficult to see why many public health authorities support the mandatory fortifying of bread with folic acid. No one questions folate’s effectiveness in reducing the incidence of certain birth defects, notably spina bifida, if it is taken in sufficient quantity around the time a woman becomes pregnant …

c:Nice commentary but there are hints of negative effects on the US population -update today on kiwiblog and read my own folate posts.

Omega-3 deficiency causes 96,000 US deaths per year, say researchers … Omega-3 deficiency is the sixth biggest killer of Americans and more deadly than excess trans fat intake, according to a new study. The Harvard University researchers looked at 12 dietary, lifestyle and metabolic risk factors such as tobacco smoking and high blood pressure and used a mathematical model to determine how many fatalities could have been prevented if better practices had been observed …

c: This is really interesting but keep in mind it’s an analysis of numbers – and we all know how they can be manipulated! Still, I’ll be sure to keep up my weekly salmon dinner and salmon sushi snacks – delicious.

A rural town in Australia has voted overwhelmingly to ban the sale of bottled water over concerns about its environmental impact. … Campaigners say Bundanoon, in New South Wales, may be the first community in the world to have such a ban…

c: Good on them! Why pay for something you can get naturally. Bottled water has its place – it’s made it trendy to drink water – that’s got to be a good thing. But if you want to be even more ‘on trend’ and eco-friendly simply drink filtered tap water (see TIME mags megatrend on this).

Blood glucose control ranks high in US death causes

c: From the same mathematical analysis as the omega-3 story.  Blood glucose ranked 5th and omega-3 ranked 6th in preventable causes of death ie it doesn’t include accidents. I’m surprised at inactivity ranking 4th. I’d better go for that bike ride – even though it’s freezing cold outside and I’d rather sit inside and eat cake!

Price of milk too much for many families, study finds – Nutrition – NZ Herald News … Price increases for milk and other dairy products are having a detrimental effect on children’s health, University of Otago researchers say …

c: This means almost 2 out of 3 Kiwi kids don’t drink milk daily – that’s terrible! Instead of cereal with milk what are they eating for breakfast – toast and a can of fizzy? Perhaps we will have to re-introduce milk at schools. How about banana smoothies or Milo instead of sausage sizzles and lollies (see my article on toddlers healthy bones).