Ok, I admit it. I love ice cream. Do you? What better way to cool down in the summer than with an ice cold creamy frozen treat.
This week on the podcast Margit Ragland, Health Director at Family Circle magazine, and I talk about five ice cream treats that don’t have to be off limits even when you’re on a diet. Their favorites include:
Or spend an afternoon in the kitchen with your kids and make cookies such as oatmeal raisin. Then put light ice cream or frozen yogurt between two for your personal version of an ice cream sandwich.
Turn your kitchen into an ice cream parlor. A couple of Sundays ago, a girlfriend and her two young girls came over. We decided to turn the kitchen into an ice cream parlor. We took light vanilla bean ice cream and sliced it into small pieces on a cutting board. Next we had a selection of blueberries, strawberries, chopped walnuts and mini chocolate chips to choose from. The girls mixed them into the cut up ice cream.
Then we scooped the mixture into ice cream cones and drizzled with chocolate syrup. Do you think these were a hit? The kids had a blast choosing the items that they wanted to mix in and we loved saving a lot of money by making the cones at home. Give this a try…you’ll be the most popular Mom or Dad on the block.
Be sure and try this month’s recipe for Frozen Tiramisufrom the Family Circle kitchens. By using coffee flavored frozen yogurt, instant coffee and chocolate sauce, per serving stats come in under 200 calories and five grams of fat per serving.
According to the American Heart Association the average teen consumes about 34 teaspoons of sugar…or about 500 calories…in a typical day. It’s so easy to reach for snacks loaded with sugar and fat and empty when it comes to nutrition. With just a little planning, you can feed them well and feel good about it.
On the podcast this week, Margit Ragland, Health Director at Family Circle magazine joins me to share simple strategies for your kids’ snacks.
Try these simple strategies from Family Circle’s July issue:
Offer smart snacks. Choose options that override cravings for sweets such as peanut butter or almond butter and whole grain crackers or whole wheat bread. Try fun, prepacked freeze-dried fruit, trail mix or squeezable applesauce.
Focus on fruit. Fruit contains natural sugar or fructose plus a load of vitamins, minerals and fiber. Summer is peak season for a lot of fresh fruit. Serve it with frozen yogurt or make parfaits with granola, fruit such as blueberries and your favorite yogurt. I like to use Greek yogurt and make parfaits for snacks and breakfast.
Rethink drinks. Soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages are major culprits in over-the-top sugar consumption. Try mixing juice with sparkling water or seltzer, unsweetened tea, or try the lower-sugar fruit-juice-blend products. Don’t forget milk.
The Nutrition Facts label is very confusing when it comes to figuring out sugar intake. I hope that changes with the label update. For now, your simple strategy is to do the math so you know the amount of sugar in a product.
Determine calories from sugar: grams of sugar in a serving x 4 (4 calories/gram) = sugar calories
Teaspoons of sugar: grams of sugar per serving divided by 4 = teaspoons of sugar per serving
Remember that currently the Nutrition Facts label doesn’t separate out naturally occurring sugars such as fructose or lactose from the added sugars. You must go one step further and look at the ingredient label to see what sugars have been added.
In your body, sucrose which is sugar, molasses, honey, raw sugar, high fructose corn syrup or maple syrup are all sugars or sweeteners and the body doesn’t differentiate between them regardless of what the Internet scares tell you.
Each month Margit shares a recipe from the Family Circle kitchens and this month it’s a Berrylicious Shake. It’s quick and includes fresh blueberries which are in season now.
Hi everyone! If you’ve been listening to me for a while, you know I’m a self-proclaimed chocolate lover. I’ve never met a chocolate that I don’t like. I adore dark chocolate and enjoy tasting a variety of flavor profiles. In fact, I just heard that Orlando is having The Festival of Chocolate in March presented by the Orlando Science Center. Have you attended a chocolate festival? Would you go again?
The news has been abuzz with the potential health benefits from eating chocolate so let’s get right to the source and find out. And who better to chat with than my guest on my podcast this week, Dr. Amy Preston from The Hershey Company.
A registered dietitian and PhD, Dr. Amy Preston is a Senior Nutrition Scientist at The Hershey Company. Dr. Preston also currently holds an adjunct position within the Nutritional Sciences Department at The Pennsylvania State University. She has studied many different populations, including healthy participants, overweight/obese subjects as well as those at risk for cardiovascular disease. Now her focus is on chocolate and health. Dr. Preston updates you about the latest research on chocolate.
Some of the questions I ask Dr. Preston include:
Would you break down the latest research on chocolate and heart health? What about chocolate’s effect on blood pressure?
Do the levels of flavanols/antioxidants in chocolate vary?
Does processing affect the flavanol/antioxidant content?
How does this antioxidant content compare to other foods such as wine or blueberries? If I prefer hot chocolate to red wine, would I get similar benefits?
Does percent Cacao on the label indicate the level of flavanols in a chocolate? What should we go by when choosing chocolate?
You’ll going to like the news about chocolate. If you’re looking for Valentine’s Day ideas, check out their website at Hersheys.com. You’ll find decadent Valentine’s Day recipes and all types of ideas for a chocolate covered February. Now I need my little dark chocolate fix for the day!
Get out of the way trans fat, sugar is in the hot seat now. This week the American Heart Association (AHA) released new guidelines for the amount of sugar to consume…to be accurate and specific, the amount of added sugars to consume versus naturally occurring sugar as found in whole foods such as fruit. What are ‘added sugars’? Think of added sugars as the sugars and syrups added to foods during processing or added by you at the table. Examples of added sugars include sugar, honey, molasses, brown sugar, high fructose corn syrup, agave syrup…you get the idea.
Why all the commotion about added sugars? The data is just too clear to ignore any longer. A diet with a hefty intake of added sugars is tied to the rise in weight gain and obesity in the US. According to the American Heart Association, added sugars in large amounts are also associated with increased risks for high blood pressure, high triglyceride levels, and inflammation. Remember, we talked before about inflammation in the body, the link to heart disease and the potential role of an anti-inflammation diet. You can find the podcast on the anti-inflammation diet in the Nutrition & Health Center podcast archives at WDBO.com or on my site at susanmitchell.org.
Another reason that added sugars can be a big concern is that the calories they provide to the body are referred to as ‘empty calories’? What do think empty calories are? You got it….calories with zero, zip nutrition punch to your body. These calories aren’t providing you with any health benefit…no vitamins and minerals or naturally occurring phytonutrients found in real food…just calories that can easily end up on your belly or backside when consumed in large quantities. Let me stop here a second…the discouraging part for most of us is the term ‘large quantities’. The reality is that it doesn’t take a lot of extra…discretionary calories if you will…to put on the pounds.
By the way, do you know what the number one source of added sugars in the US is? Candy? Ice cream? It is soft drinks and other sugar-sweetened beverages.
Ok, the new recommendations from the AHA suggest:
Most women should consume no more than 100 calories (about 25 grams) of added sugars per day.
Most men should consume no more than 150 calories (about 37.5 grams) each day.
That’s about six teaspoons of added sugar a day for women and nine teaspoons for men.
Here’s the deal. The data shows that Americans are swallowing over 22 teaspoons of added sugars each day. How many grams is that equivalent to since the food labels have sugars listed in grams? Here’s your nutrition 101 lesson for the day: the conversion of sugar grams on a food label to teaspoons. Let’s say your favorite can of root beer contains 120 calories per cup and 31 grams of sugar according to the Nutrition Facts label. One teaspoon of added sugar is roughly 4 grams so if our soda contains 31 grams of added sugars…that almost 8 teaspoons of added sugars….well on the way to that 22 teaspoons that most Americans consume each day.
Let’s go back to the AHA recommendations and make sense of them. The suggestion is for women to limit added sugars to 25 grams per day. Ok, put your math to work. Remember 1 teaspoon is 4 grams and you have 25 grams as the suggested intake for the day…or about 6 teaspoons per day. For the guys, your suggested intake is 37.5 grams of added sugars per day which would be about 9 teaspoons…right…1 teaspoon is 4 grams multiplied by 9 teaspoons is equal to 36 grams…so close to the 37.5 gram suggestion.
In case you are wondering where the 100 calories of added sugars for women and 150 calories for men came from, let me explain. We’ve talked about how to convert grams to teaspoons. Well converting grams to calories is easy too. Four is the operative number here again. There are 4 calories per gram of added sugars so if the suggestion for women is 6 teaspoons or about 25 grams…at 4 calories per gram…that’s the 100 calories. Nine teaspoons or about 37.5 grams of added sugars for men is 150 calories. Now you’re an expert and can convert grams to teaspoons on a food label!
Be a sleuth. Notice what foods your added sugars are coming from. Notice how much you are consuming and what part in your diet added sugars are playing. If your intake is high, think about where you might cut back on these empty calories a bit.
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Ok, I admit it. I love ice cream. Do you? What better way to cool down in the summer than with an ice cold creamy frozen treat.
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