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).

1/4-1/2 cup each of red kidney beans, lima beans or any others you like. Use a mix of red, brown and white.

Soak overnight in cold water.

Drain off water.

Boil with lots of fresh water for 30-45 minutes until cooked. Do not add salt or the beans will go tough.

Drain and cool.

Cover with vinegar mix: Boil together 1 cup brown vinegar, 1 cup sugar, 1/3 cup water and 1 teaspoon salt.

Add chopped raw celery, cauliflower and red onion.

Store in the fridge.

You may have seen the movie “Once Were Warriors”. Well the Maori people were not just warriors they also ‘once were gardeners’! Before the Europeans arrived they worked hard cultivating kumara – a delicious purple root vegetable with sweet golden flesh. Kumara was their main carbohydrate source, along with ferns, kanga wai (fermented corn) and other native plants. They had a diet high in protein from birds and fish, low in fat and low in carbohydrate. This was especially so over summer when the last year’s kumara stores ran low and the people had little to eat. Everyone would hang out for Potuterangi – the star that appeared in March and told them that they could eat the first kumara.

In less than 100 years we’ve gone from gardening to driving, and from kumara to KFC! It’s no wonder that our Maori people die younger than Europeans and even our children are getting Type 2 diabetes – once only seen in older people. All those cheap chips, pies, fried bread and fatty meat is the exact opposite of what the Maori of a few generations ago ate. This food flip has happened in many people but it is especially tragic to see the drastic change in health of a once lean, muscular, fit people in such a short time.

The colonising of New Zealand, as in all countries, brought good and bad. The bad was the decimation of Maori land, mana, wealth, and subsequently health. Many Maori still carry the hurt of the injustices of the past and, like any emotional wound, it often affects physical health and habits. How do we get past this?  Acknowledge what’s happened. If you are European, ask Maori for forgiveness on behalf of the earlier generations. If you are Maori, forgive. This breaks the bonds that tie you to past hurts so you are free to move forward. Then together, as Kiwis, we can restore health – not just through nutrition knowledge but also through re-building confidence and self esteem.

“A heart at peace gives life to the body”

Related post: Recollections of Maori food

A man in one of my lectures once told me that his father had a simple rule for ensuring good health – eat colours. This was before the explosion of artificial colours into our food and decades before nutritionists latched onto ‘eating colours’ as a great health promotion message. The old advice is often the best!

To eat colours means you have to eat a spectrum of different foods including plenty of fruit and vegetables. Despite many health messages changing over the years, the call to eat more fruit and vegetables has never changed. The old saying, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” is just as true today as it ever was. We now know that apples are high in a flavonoid called quercetin which acts as an anti-oxidant, reducing DNA damage and stopping cancer activating enzymes in the body.

But we can’t live on apples alone, and we also can’t pull out one substance, put it in a pill and think that will keep us healthy. It’s the combination of many different foods that gives us all the vitamins, minerals, fibre and protective phyto (plant)-chemicals. And when those foods are mostly from plants, as the World Cancer Research Fund recommends, you will have a plate full of colour!

Stop reading right now. Take a look outside. How many colours of nature can you see? What colour is the sky? Look closely at a flower. Notice how intense and intricate the colour and design are. In our hectic rush of living it’s easy to overlook the wonders of nature. But what if our world had no colour? What a drab place to live. Now think of what you eat. Do you eat a drab diet or is it as exciting and colourful as nature intended it to be? Colours in nature have many functions and one of these is to make food appealing and interesting for us to eat. So drop that beige bun with the fake pink icing and munch on some natural colours instead!