We at Health and Harmony LLC hope each and everyone of our readers had a wonderful Christmas plus  a Happy New Year.  New Year is a wonderful time to make resolutions and to start fresh so this year when you are thinking of losing weight or just to be healthier, give us a call or look us up so we can help you maintain that "Happy You!".  You deserve it:  you deserve success and good health.

Happy New Year!

Healthier Holiday Snacks and Desserts

Anne Kolker, MS, Registered Dietitian

Visit:  http://www.nourishinteractive.com/parents_area/healthy_family_nutrition_newsl...

Healthy Holiday Snacks and Desserts High in Fiber

Adding fiber to holiday treats is a great way to add a healthy blast to your recipes. Fiber has a variety of health benefits for the whole family. It keeps your digestive tract working good and it is good for your heart! It also makes you feel full and less likely to overeat.

Here are some tips on how to add fiber to your seasonal snacks and desserts:

• ✰ You can substitute white flour for 100% whole wheat baking flour. If you think your kids might not like it, then start with using half white flour and half whole wheat flour. Your kids won’t even notice and you have instantly made it more healthy!


• ✰ Crackers and cheese are a tasty snacks. Replace white crackers with whole wheat, multi-grain, or sprouted wheat and you have added a ton of healthy fiber to the snack. (Replace the cheese for low fat and double the healthiness!)


• ✰ Making cupcakes from a boxed recipe (me too!) just pour a cup of bran or oatmeal in the mix and you have added fiber easily. It's filled with vitamins, minerals and fiber. You may need to experiment with the amount.


• ✰ Fruits and veggies are great sources of fiber. Add sliced pear to salads, offer pomegranates as after-school snacks, and bring in a tray of grapes and sliced persimmons to a class party.


• ✰ Bring in bean dip (check the label to make sure it is low in fat) and salsa with some 100% whole grain chips or baked chips. Beans are a great source of fiber!

Healthy Appetizers for Holiday Parties

Holiday celebrations are often centered around high fat appetizers. We often don’t have time for trying to find alternatives so we grab the nearest party tray from the grocery store or make a platter of fatty treats. Who has time to try to juggle holiday shopping and preparations with thinking of healthier alternatives? Maybe your thinking that kids won’t eat anything else or the family will be disappointed.. We are here to help.

Here is a list of some healthy snacks and appetizers tips and ideas that are sure to be party favorites and be healthier!

• ✰ It sounds simple, but include at least one healthy food item in your appetizer like fruit, vegetables or 100% whole grains.


• ✰ Cut the fat in half! Switch from whole fat to lower fat versions for your creams, mayonnaise, cheeses, meats and milk products.


• ✰ Change dips from cream, fat or mayonnaise to dips made from low fat yogurt, beans or hummus.


• ✰ Have the kids help find red and green fruits and vegetables that you can shape into a holiday scene!


• ✰ Make healthy sandwiches with lean turkey and low fat cheese and use cookie cutters to make holiday shapes.


• ✰ Try using fruit butters to jazz up your crackers or whole wheat bread. Natural fruit butters are lower in calories (as low as 20 calories for 1 tablespoon) but tasty and sweet.


• ✰ Recipes that call for deep frying, try baking it instead. You will lower the amount of fat and still have all the flavor.

Healthier holiday Cookies, cakes and dessert ideas

Kids (and parents) love desserts. Who doesn’t? It’s one of the foods we all look forward to and make room for. But it doesn’t have to be only sugar and fat! There are plenty of little ways you can modify your recipe to make it healthier without losing the sweet taste.

Here are some tips for creating healthier holiday desserts:

• ✰ Sugar is one of the key ingredients in most desserts. (Okay, it is the key ingredient in desserts). But you can keep your desserts sweet with some healthier options. Agave is a natural sweetner and stevia is a low calorie natural sweetner from plants. Also, you can usually reduce your sugar by about 1/3 and no one will notice, just experiment a little.


• ✰ Some sites may recommend substituting sugar with “sugar substitutes” like saccharin, aspartame, or sucralose, (the pink, the blue, the yellow). But these sugar substitutes are not natural, have chemicals and there are plenty of research questioning the safety of some of these sugars. These are not good options for kids. It is better to use real sugar and lessen the amount (start with ¼ less than the recipe calls for) instead of substituting unnatural chemical sweetners. Avoid these sugar substitutes.


• ✰ Some recipes call for lard or shortening to make the dough or crust. These fats can be full of saturated fats or trans fats, neither of these are good for the heart. Look for unsalted low fat butter or low fat margarine. Check the food label to be sure it says “no trans fats” and is low in saturated fats. Yes, they are still fats but much healthier option for the heart.


• ✰ Try using lessening the amount of butter or margarine. You can often get away with ¼ less then recommended amount without changing the taste of the recipe. But of course, you will have to try it and see.


• ✰ Try adding some fresh fruit to your cakes and cupcake recipes. You can mix it into the mix or decorate the top of it. Now it has some vitamins and nutrients!


• ✰ You can also add some walnuts or almonds to spice up your holiday recipe and some healthy fats, vitamins and minerals.

We know that holiday snacks and desserts are a normal part of the celebration. We don’t say “Don’t eat that” because we know that is not realistic or practical. Instead, try some of our suggestions so that kids will enjoy the holiday treats with a healthier option.

From the staff at Nourish Interactive, have a healthy, happy holiday with many magical moments. May 2010 be full of laughter, hope, and daily servings of fruits and vegetables.

Written on: December 2009
Last updated: December 2010

Try adding some healthy protein or fiber to add extra nutrients to your cooking.

Check out this awesome, informative newsletter.  Register now for your free copy at ExtremeHealthMakeovers.com.
 

Good health economics 101...

What is the real cost of deteriorating health? If your health were to fail tomorrow... would you and your family be able to handle the financial burden?

Is there a better way to spend your precious health care dollars? More importantly... is there a way to improve and preserve your even more precious health? Find out here…

 Plus... What’s the “BlueBook” price for my procedure?

How to take charge of your health... starting today!

According to a Harvard University study published by the journal Health Affairs, and reported in ConsumerAffairs.com, “Illness and medical bills caused half of the 1,458,000 personal bankruptcies filed in 2001.”

 Here are 3 important steps you can take to take charge of your health today!

Also... The S.M.A.R.T. start...

As well as… Shocking drug cost statistics

The Master Key to your new, improved health...

Superior health can be attained only by building and maintaining an optimally functioning immune system.

 Indeed, the immune system is the Master Key to fighting every kind of insult to the body.           

 Read about the ONLY dietary supplement on the market that naturally increases the production of interferon in the body.

 And… Now... increase your lifespan!

Along with... OmegaGuard... the ultimate heart protector!

Also featuring…

Favorite Shaklee products... why they’re so-o-o-o special!

We love all of Shaklee’s fine products. And why not... they’re... Always Safe! Always Work! Always Green!

Some Shaklee products, however are particular favorites. A few of these are...

 Learn why we love Cinch Shakes, Get Clean Water and the Optiflora System

Oh, and… Get Clean Dish Washer Automatic Concentrate...

To read about these important subjects in this edition of Making a Difference!, click here

Once you've read these articles, its easy to order the featured products! Just visit www.FeelExcecllent2.net call 309-693-1976, or email healthandharmony@comcast.net.

To learn more about...
- health, nutrition and fitness
- cleaning products that are safe for you and for our planet
- natural skin, personal and beauty care
- air and water filtration
- how you can work part-time for a full-time income... from the comfort of your home

...just email me at healthandharmony@comcast.net and start receiving our FREE NEWSLETTERS & REPORTS.

My wish for your continued great health through Shaklee,

Barb & Dick Lulay

P.S. If you know anyone who would benefit by receiving Making a Difference! Newsletters, please forward their first name and email address to healthandharmony@comcast.net and we will make sure they get their FREE COPY each month.

Check out this awesome, informative newsletter.  Register now for your free copy at ExtremeHealthMakeovers.com.
 

3/4 of the US teen and adult population are deficient in Vit D3. Now with the cold and winter months upon many of us, this number is even higher. Get your Vit D3 from a safe source where you know it is pure and bioavailble (ie your body can absorb it): Buy Vit D3 Now. Vitamin D deficiency soars in the U.S., study says

New research suggests that most Americans are lacking a crucial vitamin.

Read more by visiting:  http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=vitamin-d-deficiency-united-...

By Jordan Lite | March 23, 2009 | 10

Three-quarters of U.S. teens and adults are deficient in vitamin D, the so-called "sunshine vitamin" whose deficits are increasingly blamed for everything from cancer and heart disease to diabetes, according to new research.

The trend marks a dramatic increase in the amount of vitamin D deficiency in the U.S., according to findings set to be published tomorrow in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Between 1988 and 1994, 45 percent of 18,883 people (who were examined as part of the federal government's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) had 30 nanograms per milliliter or more of vitamin D, the blood level a growing number of doctors consider sufficient for overall health; a decade later, just 23 percent of 13,369 of those surveyed had at least that amount.

The slide was particularly striking among African Americans: just 3 percent of 3,149 blacks sampled in 2004 were found to have the recommended levels compared with 12 percent of 5,362 sampled two decades ago.

"We were anticipating that there would be some decline in overall vitamin D levels, but the magnitude of the decline in a relatively short time period was surprising," says study co-author Adit Ginde, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine. Lack of vitamin D is linked to rickets (soft, weak bones) in children and thinning bones in the elderly, but scientists also believe it may play a role in heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

"We're just starting to scratch the surface of what the health effects of vitamin D are," Ginde tells ScientificAmerican.com. "There's reason to pay attention for sure."

But Mary France Picciano, a senior nutrition scientist in the National Institutes of Health's Office of Dietary Supplements, is skeptical that the dip is as deep or widespread as suggested, noting that there's disagreement on how much vitamin D is needed. She notes that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) defines insufficiency as less than11 nanograms per milliliter. Using that as a threshold, some 10 percent of U.S. adults are vitamin D deficient, according to a study published in November in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

That earlier study, co-authored by Picciano, also found that vitamin D deficiency had become more common between the late 1980s and 2004, but that between half and 75 percent of that difference was due to changes in the test used to measure those blood levels and therefore wasn’t a true gauge. "The results are far overstated and their findings are not as accurate as ours," Picciano says. "There is some deficiency — I don't want to minimize that — but it's not as high as they're saying."

Ginde insists the results are reliable. "There's potential for methodology contributing to some of what we found," he says, but the magnitude of the change and other research "argue that this is the reality in the U.S. right now."

Ginde, who last month linked vitamin D deficiency to catching more colds, blames increasing use of sunscreen and long sleeves following skin cancer-prevention campaigns for the change. Using a sunscreen with as little as a 15-factor protection cuts the skin's vitamin D production by 99 percent, the study notes, and there are few sources of the vitamin in our diets. Some food sources are salmon, tuna, mackerel and vitamin D-fortified dairy products, such as milk.

IOM recommends that people get 200-600 International Units (IU) of vitamin D daily, but it's reviewing whether to increase that recommendation in the wake of new studies. An update is expected in May 2010. Ginde believes that whatever those recommendations turn out to be, blacks should take double the amount of vitamin D supplements, because they have more melanin or pigment in their skin that makes it harder for the body to absorb and use the sun's ultraviolet rays to synthesize vitamin D. He adds that people should also take greater amounts of vitamin D in the winter when there's less sunlight.

Jim Fleet, a professor of foods and nutrition at Purdue University who wasn’t involved in the study, agrees with Picciano that failing to consider differences in the vitamin D testing methods (used during the two survey periods) was "a fatal mistake." But he tells ScientificAmerican.com that real deficiencies in vitamin D exist, even when they're defined by the lower cutoff, and that some 40 percent of African Americans are vitamin D deficient according to that threshold.

"If you look at people in the categories that we worry about," he says, "that’s still a lot of people."