Natural has become quite trendy of late. I recently had to write an article about the benefits of natural cleaning products and quickly learned that, like natural foods, natural cleaners do not have an officially-sanctioned description. At a dinner party, I was seated next to the CFO for Really Cool Foods, a company that markets natural prepared foods to market chains. He told me that “natural” is supplanting “organic” in some markets. And the Nielsen Healthy Eating Report for 2008 showed that natural food sales were four times greater than organic food sales. As with so many goods, the economy may be taking its toll on the organic market since organic foods tend to be more expensive. Buying “natural” may be a feel-good trend that doesn’t break the grocery budget.

A growing number of supermarket chains have developed food rating systems to help shoppers make healthier food choices. Hannaford led the way with its Guiding Stars program that awards foods up to three stars, based on their nutrition value. Foods that score highly have more vitamins, minerals, fiber, and whole grains, and less fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, added sodium, and added sugars. The newest system, NuVal™, can be found in HyVee and Price Chopper markets. Food scores are calculated on a scale from 0 to 100; the higher the score, the higher the nutrition value. While these rating systems are helpful, common nutrition sense is important. Most of us should eat more fruits and vegetables, all types of fruits and vegetables rather than just those with the highest scores. And just because one cookie has a higher score than another doesn’t mean it’s okay to eat a bigger portion.

Among the many e-newsletters I receive is the food industry-based MorningNewsBeat.com. The April 21 edition ran a short story and commentary on leftovers, a subject near and dear to my heart in these days following our Passover seder. Chicken stew, made with leftover chicken and vegetables, is on tonight’s menu.

Here are a couple of words of caution about leftovers: First, they can’t be left over forever. For food safety purposes, eat leftovers within two days, or freeze them immediately after the original meal and defrost and eat within a couple of months. Second, watch for adverse reactions to foods that have been fried or sauteed, cooled, and then reheated. The cooling and reheating process creates ring-shaped fatty acids that some people cannot break down. The end result may be cramps and a quick trip to the bathroom. So you may be among the small group of people “allergic” to leftovers.

Passover begins at sundown on April 19, just a couple of short days away. While many families struggle with menu planning during the holiday’s seven (Reform and Israeli Jews) or eight (Conservative and Orthodox Jews) days, we stick with a few favorites and make it through the week relatively unscathed. Bored with traditional Eastern European foods, we ventured into Copeland Marx’s Sephardic Cooking for a new charoset recipe and found a gem from Iran.

Here’s our version of the recipe, which also provides fiber to counteract the binding effects of matzo:

Passover Halek
1/2 cup each almonds, pistachios, pumpkin seeds, hazelnuts, and walnuts or pecans
1/4 cup each dates, raisins, dried apricots, prunes, dried cranberries
1/2 cup sweet Kosher wine
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon each orange blossom water and rose water (more to taste)
1/4 teaspoon each ground cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, and ginger

Chop all dry ingredients together in a food processor or by hand and moisten with wine and vinegar.

[ Photo credit: santheo via Flickr ]

The 5-A-Day campaign was a widely publicized effort to get Americans to eat more fruits and vegetables. Certainly 5-A-Day reminders were all around us, especially on bags, signs, and banners in the supermarket. After millions of dollars spent over 20 years, the 5-A-Day folks took a look at how we were doing, and found that we were eating about the same amount of fruits and vegetables as we were eating before 5-A-Day. Promoters of the blood pressure-lowering DASH diet — plenty of fruits and veggies, along with low fat dairy — received similar bad news. Over time, followers of the DASH diet slacked off, even though following the diet helps boost heart health. It takes effort to eat enough fruits and veggies, but it’s not that hard if you have one serving at breakfast and snack plus at least two at lunch and dinner. Remember that soups made with vegetables, bean dishes like bean salad and baked beans, and dishes made with tomato sauce all count.

[ Photo credit: karimian via Flickr ]

My mom has always been a big walker. As a young girl in Germany, she often went on a spazier (pronounced shpahtzeer) with her family. That tradition continued when we were growing up. So I was thrilled to read in Br J Sports Med. that vigorous walking for an hour at least five days can add years of healthy life to older adults.

Several of my friends have become avid walkers after their knees and hips gave out from running. They say that a high intensity walk, sometimes on an incline on a treadmill, maintains their fitness as much as running did. And you burn the same 100 calories or so per mile regardless of whether you’re running or walking. Our mainly sidewalk-free town just opened a one-mile stretch of sidewalk leading into downtown and has plans to add more sidewalks to promote safe walking. I hope other towns do the same.

[ Photo credit: designatednaphour via Flickr ]

On April 7, Good Morning America featured a segment on food label accuracy. The Food and Drug Administration allows a margin of error of 20 percent for each nutrient, meaning that if a food has, say, 2 grams of protein per serving, the actual amount can range from 1.6 grams to 2.4 grams. Not surprisingly, Good Morning American found that some foods exceeded the 20 percent margin.

I don’t object to their findings but I do object to the irresponsible way they reported the information on the Good Morning America website:

The government says trans fats are downright dangerous. The Nabisco Cheese Nips label boasts “0″ trans fat but, according to our test, each serving actually contains about a quarter of a gram of the artery-clogging fat. It’s perfectly legal, but also troubling because the Food and Drug Administration says Americans should try to eliminate trans fat from their diets.”

Yes, Americans should cut back on trans fat, but a quarter gram of trans fat is NOTHING compared to the amount that a person might get in a doughnut or serving of fried chicken.

The website is equally alarmist about the amount of fat in a fat-free cookie:

As for total fat, consider Snackwell’s Devil’s Food Cookies. With “0″ fat listed, they’re supposed to be a guilt-free treat for dieters, but the lab we hired found more than a quarter of a gram of fat in each one-cookie serving.”

Get real. Even if a dieter eats four cookies, the fat totals a mere gram. That’s next to nothing. The article totally misses the mark — Americans need to learn to eat better overall, not stress over a small amount of extra fat in a still-low-fat food.

[ Photo credit: slierk via Flickr ]

A couple of weeks ago, I spent about an hour, maybe a bit more, preparing dinner for my family. My sons were done eating in 10 minutes. Sure I felt like my hard work was not appreciated. But more importantly, it’s all too easy to overeat when you eat quickly. It takes the brain about 20 minutes to realize that you’ve eaten enough. So if you are a speed eater, you are likely to eat more than your body needs to feel satisfied. Here are a few tips to help you reconnect with not only your brain but also your taste buds and stomach:

• Evaluate how hungry you are before you start eating. Not hungry? Then it’s not time to eat.
• Eat slowly and taste every bite. Stop eating when you no longer taste the food.
• Pay attention to how your stomach feels.
• Take at least 20 minutes to eat.
• Listen for messages from your brain and stomach telling you that you’ve eaten enough.

If you pay attention, your stomach will tell you when it is full. Here’s how. When you have the urge to eat, first rate your level of hunger or fullness on a 7-point scale, with 1 being very hungry, 4 being neither hungry nor full, and 7 being very full. If you rate your hunger as a 2 or 3, it’s time to eat. Wait to eat until you’re very hungry and you may overeat because you’re so famished. A rating of 4 or above suggests that you might want to do something else instead of eating. At a meal, rate your hunger when you start eating and stop eating when you reach 5 (somewhat full) or 6 (full). If your fullness meter hits 7, you’ve eaten too much. And keep in mind that your stomach can “shrink” and become accustomed to eating less food.

[ Photo credit: Meredith_Farmer via Flickr ]

I recently spoke at the More Magazine Health Expo on nutrition for active women who are over the age of 40 or so. A point that I made will be the subject of the next three blogs — Establishing lines of communication with your taste buds, brain, and stomach. Talking to your taste buds means getting back in touch with what truly tastes good to you. Foods that don’t taste good, or stop tasting good, don’t get eaten. Try this experiment: buy an ice cream cone or scoop yourself a bowl of ice cream, eat it slowly, tasting every bite. At some point, maybe after two or five or 10 bites, you won’t really taste the ice cream any more. Stop eating it and throw the rest away (or put it back in the freezer). Taste every bite of everything you eat. You may realize that some foods aren’t worth eating because they don’t really taste good.