My sister, who is a fabulous cook, had my family over for dinner last weekend and when she told me her menu I wasn’t sure what to make of her salad decision – Kale and Brussels Sprout Salad.

Normally, I only eat Brussels sprouts once a year – on Thanksgiving when they are swimming in butter and cream!  However, one bite of the Kale and Brussels Sprout Salad and I was hooked – three plates later I’m pretty sure I had met my fiber, iron and vitamin K needs for the week!  So, in the spirit of adding more green to your Thanksgiving table give this a try – you won’t be disappointed – I promise!

Kale and Brussels Sprout Salad

From Bon Appetite Nov. 2011

www.epicurious.com

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 1 tablespoon minced shallot
• 1 small garlic clove, finely grated
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt plus more for seasoning
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 2 large bunches of Tuscan kale (about 1 1/2 pounds total), center stem discarded, leaves thinly sliced
• 12 ounces brussels sprouts, trimmed, finely grated or shredded with a knife
• 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, divided
• 1/3 cup almonds with skins, coarsely chopped (my sister used slivered almonds)
• 1 cup finely grated Pecorino

Directions:

Combine lemon juice, Dijon mustard, shallot, garlic, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and a pinch of pepper in a small bowl. Stir to blend; set aside to let flavors meld. Mix thinly sliced kale and shredded brussels sprouts in a large bowl.

Measure 1/2 cup oil into a cup. Spoon 1 tablespoon oil from cup into a small skillet; heat oil over medium-high heat. Add almonds to skillet and stir frequently until golden brown in spots, about 2 minutes. Transfer nuts to a paper towel–lined plate. Sprinkle almonds lightly with salt.

Slowly whisk remaining olive oil in cup into lemon-juice mixture. Season dressing to taste with salt and pepper. DO AHEAD: Dressing, kale mixture, and toasted almonds can be prepared 8 hours ahead. Cover dressing and kale mixture separately and chill. Cover almonds and let stand at room temperature.

Add dressing and cheese to kale mixture; toss to coat. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Garnish with almonds.

Photo courtsey of stock.xchng.com. Photographer: nkzs

Read More http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Kale-Brussels-Sprout-Salad-368295#ixzz1dExNjxbQ

As promised here are my recommendations for how much food you should be serving your 2 to 5 year old.  In my practice I give parents a handy card with this information on it which I purchase from www.numatters.com – this is a great website with all sorts of convenient nutrition info cards for those of you who want this kind of stuff in large quantities.

Recommended Daily Amounts for Boys and Girls Ages 2 through 5 years

2 Year Old Boys and Girls

Grains – 3 ounces – make sure at least ½ these grains are whole grains.

Vegetables – 1 cup – bright colors and a wide variety are best for meeting needs.

Fruits – 1 cup – introduce a variety on a daily basis.

Dairy – 2 cups – this includes milk, yogurt and cheese.

Protein – 2 ounces – this is not very much! Your kids don’t need as much protein as you think they do.

3 Year Old Girls

Grains – 4 ounces

Vegetables – 1 ½ cups

Fruits – 1 cup

Dairy – 2 cups

Protein – 3 ounces

3 Year Old Boys and 4 and 5 Year Old Boys and Girls

Grain – 5 ounces

Vegetables – 1 ½ cups

Fruits – 1 ½ cups

Dairy – 2 cups

Protein – 4 ounces

 It’s also helpful to know what counts as an ounce or a cup so you don’t over feed or under feed your child.

One ounce of grain is 1 slice of bread, 1 cup of dry cereal, ½ cup of cooked pasta, rice or cereal, 1 6” tortilla, 7 round or square crackers

A half cup of vegetables is ½ cup of mashed, sliced, chopped vegetables (cooked or raw), 1 cup of leafy greens, 4 ounces of 100% vegetables juice.

A half cup for fruit is ½ cup mashed, sliced or chopped fruit, 4 ounces of 100% fruit juice, ¼ cup dried fruit.  Fruit juice and dried fruits should be served on occasion.

A half cup of dairy is 4 ounces of milk, 4 ounces of yogurt, ¾ ounces of cheese, 1 ounce of processed cheese.

One ounce of protein is 1 ounce of cooked beef, poultry, fish and other meats, 1 egg, 1 tablespoon of peanut butter, ½ cup of cooked beans.

One of my good friends requested some information about what her 3 ½ year old son should be eating. So, instead of just informing just her I figured there might be more than one person out there interested in this information as well.  This information is just for a 3 year old male,  my next post will give detailed information like this for girls and boys ages 2 to 5 years old.  Check back!

The portion sizes offered here come from www.choosemyplate.gov.  Your child’s intake may vary slightly and will very likely vary day to day as kids rarely eat the same way every single day.  Use this guide as an average.

3 Year Old Male – 1,400 calorie diet

Grains – 5 ounces/day.  One ounce is 1 slice of bread, 1 cup of dry cereal, ½ cup of cooked cereal, cooked pasta or rice, 5 round crackers, 1 cup of snack food (goldfish, pretzels).

Vegetables – 1.5 cups/day.  One cup of raw or cooked vegetables or 2 cups of leafy greens.

Fruit – 1.5 cups/day.  One whole piece of fruit or 1 cup of sliced or chopped fruit. Do not exceed more than 6 ounces (3/4 cup) per day of 100% juice.

Protein Foods – 4 ounces/day.  1 chicken tender is about 1.5 oz.  3 oz. piece of meat, chicken or fish is about the size of a deck of cards, ¼ cups of beans equals 1 ounce, about 12 almonds or 1 tbsp of peanut butter also equals 1 ounce.

Dairy Foods – 2.5 cups/day.  1 cup (8oz.) of milk, 1 cup of yogurt, and 1 slice of cheese are all equal to a 1 cup portion from the Dairy Group.

In addition, my friend’s 3 year old son can have up to 120 extra calories of fats and/or sweets a day. These would be what I call “treat” foods.

Image from www.stock.xchng.com, by tg44.

Nurturing Nutrition, LLC. is pleased to welcome Stephanie O’Donnell, RD, LDN to the practice.  Stephanie is a Warwick, Rhode Island native, she attended the University of Rhode Island where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science in Nutrition and Dietetics. Stephanie completed her Dietetic Internship at the University of Rhode Island and has worked for Easter Seals Early Intervention, Roger Williams Medical Center and Newport Hospital.

She has extensive experience in early childhood services and is certified in Childhood and Adolescent Weight Management.  She is currently pursuing her Master of Science in Nutrition in Food Sciences at the University of Rhode Island.

Welcome to the practice, Stephanie!

No, not sofas – those are for sitting, which, while detrimental to your health too, those aren’t the sofas I’m talking about today.  I’m talking about “SoFAS” a new term that you’re likely to hear thrown around a bit more often.

So – Solid

F – Fats

A – Added

S – Sugars

All those junky things that make our food taste awesome, but our bodies cry out in pain!  They are responsible for our obesity epidemic in one way or another.  It doesn’t matter why we over consume SoFAS the point is we do and they are everywhere!  Let’s break it down and see why they have such bad effects on our health.

Solid Fats – Specifically, fats that are solid at room temperature.  So, this is your bacon fat, any meat fat, chicken skin, butter and shortening.  These fats give us great flavor and mouth-feel, which keeps us coming back for more!  But they are also a major cause of heart disease, clogged arteries, high cholesterol and obesity.  Fats that are solid are room temperature can form plaque that sticks to the inside of your arteries this plaque builds up over the years and can eventually cut off blood supply.  Or a tiny flake of this plaque comes loose and causes a blockage – either way the end result is heart attack or stroke.  Neither are much fun.

You’ll find solid fats by reading the food label and just looking at your food.  On the food label solid fats are saturated fats and trans fats.  For saturated fats you should aim to keep the % DV as close to 5% as possible, this means that that food is LOW in saturated fat.  For trans fat the nutrition facts label should say 0 grams, but you can’t stop there, trans fats are sneaky.  Go a little further and read the ingredients.  If your food has “partially hydrogenated oil” leave it on the shelf, this is a sneaky way of saying trans fats.  You can see solid fats when you look at meats and at your pan when you’re done frying.  The white part of steak and bacon – solid fat; the skin of chicken and turkey – solid fat; the drippings from burgers – solid fat.  Just imagine – solid on your plate, solid in your arteries.

Added Sugars– Added sugars can show up in surprising places – bread, baby food?  And under surprising names –dextrose anyone?  Added sugars like those found in sugary cereals, cookies, granola bars, fruit snacks, drinks, granola, yogurts – pretty much everything – are another cause of bad health.  Most humans naturally crave sugar, broken down sugar is your brains first choice of a fuel source.  That’s why when you’re starving or stressed you crave carbs – they breakdown to sugar to feed your brain.  But sugars do more than just cause addictions.  They are also a major contributor to obesity, diabetes, high triglyceride, low HDL and insulin resistance.  Oh, and cavities too.

from stock.xchng.com. Courtsey of amp2

However, you have to keep in mind the major difference between added sugars and natural sugars.  Natural sugars like those found in fruit and milk do not cause the same health problems that added sugars cause.  Unfortunately, the nutrition facts label gives us no help because they don’t specify between natural and added sugars, you have to read the ingredient list.

Here is a list of common added sugars:

• Brown sugar
• Cane juice, cane syrup
• Confectioner’s sugar
• Corn syrup, corn sugar
• Dextrose
• Fructose
• Fruit juice concentrate
• Glucose
• White sugar
• High fructose corn syrup
• Invert sugar
• Lactose – naturally occurring in milk, but added to other products for sweetness
• Maltose
• Sucrose
• Molasses
• Malt syrup
• Syrup

Just as we were getting used to the MyPyramid (well, some of us anyway) the USDA gives us MyPlate.  Many feel that this icon is a much better visual aid for how to eat than the MyPyramid was and I suppose they’re right in some ways.  My biggest criticism of MyPlate is that it doesn’t depict exercise at all whereas exercise was a main component of the MyPyramid.  When using MyPyramid as a visual it was easy to point out the food groups and then the other important part of calorie balance and healthy weight management – exercise.  Not so with MyPlate.

However, MyPlate does have some redeeming qualities.  It teaches what I preach everyday – make half your plate vegetables and fruit.  On the MyPlate the vegetable portion of the plate is visibly larger than the fruit section – I like seeing this too because as much as we’d like to believe that fruits are just as good as vegetables it’s just not true.  The remaining half of the MyPlate is broken up into Grains and Protein Foods.  Changing the Meats and Beans Group to Protein Foods is a pretty significant change.  I’m not sure what the premise for the change was but now it is the only group that is named for a nutrient (protein) instead of a food (meat and beans).  Maybe it was changed because the foods in the old Meat and Beans Group were much more than just meats and beans.  Now we can easily include eggs, nuts, seeds, tofu, and seafood in addition to meat and beans into the protein group.  Of course, consumers need to know what protein is first.

The MyPlate also makes a point to show us that the protein portion of our plate should be the smallest portion.  Americans are not at risk for protein deficiency and protein is usually the most expensive thing on our plate.  However, I’m not sure how I feel about this portion of MyPlate.  I still think that your dinner plate should be an even one-quarter whole grains and one-quarter protein.  This is because I know how satiating protein is and if someone is still hungry after dinner adding more protein is a good way to keep them full.  Plus, the Grain portion of the MyPlate doesn’t say Whole Grains, so filling almost 1/3 of your plate with white-refined grains, which most Americans are apt to do is not a good lesson in my book.

My other issue with MyPlate is that for the majority of my meals I don’t eat off of a plate.  I also don’t always include every single food group especially not for snacks.  I still manage to meet my nutrient needs and eat a wide variety of foods, but if I used MyPlate as a guide for all my 5 eating events during the day I’d be taking in way more calories that I need!  The MyPlate doesn’t give us any guidance on how to plan our snacks or breakfast, which for most Americans is a grab and go meal.  But, it does do a good job reminding us to eat more vegetables and fruit, and that’s a lesson that everyone needs.

Visit www.choosemyplate.gov for more information on the new USDA MyPlate.

I grew up in a hiking family, I think I was about 7 when I hiked Camel Back Mountain in Vermont (in winter!).  I also haven’t had a gym membership in 5 years, which means I get all my exercise outside.  That’s why I think that getting outdoors is the best way to stay fit and have fun family-time!

Explore your local parks and hiking trails – there are some great ones in Rhode Island.  I just posted the Rhode Island Great Outdoors Pursuit to my facebook page – check it out!  Your kids will love all the adventure Rhode Island parks have to offer from rock climbing to kayaking, hiking, bird and seal watching, bike riding and fishing!

You can also follow the links below and get more ideas for how to get active at home.  Keeping an activity chart keeps kids (and adults) motivated.  Let this summer be the summer of fitness for your family!

Sample Moving More Tips:

•       Go for a half-hour walk instead of watching TV.

•       Take the stairs instead of the escalator.

•       Acknowledge your efforts with non-food related rewards, such as a family day at the park, lake, or zoo.

•       Use a family activity planner to make time each day for activity.

•       Do something physically active with your kids each day. Take a walk, play tag, or simply dance around the house to your favorite tunes.

•       Make new friends that share your interests. Sign up for a fitness program at your local recreation or community center and meet others with similar fitness goals.

•       Meet a friend for workouts. Working out with a friend may help you stay on track and encourage you to challenge yourself.

We Can! Make Physical Activity Fun

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/obesity/wecan/downloads/tip_physical_activity.pdf

We Can! Try Tips to Eat Well and Move More

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/obesity/wecan/downloads/tips.pdf