15 Healthy Halloween Treats for Trick-or-Treaters

Halloween is creeping upon us... mwahahahaha.  Which means, midget robots, witches, ninjas and clowns will be knocking at your door for a trick or a treat.

If you aren’t graced by cuties in costumes for trick or treat night, maybe your students, your children or grandchildren will be engaging in ‘treating’ at school (or your staff at work for that matter).  

If this is the case, I want you to have the opportunity to be prepared with healthy alternative Halloween treats to help you and your kids not eat endless amounts of junk this Halloween.

Why is this even important?  Shouldn’t kids be able to eat candy for Halloween?

Yes, kids should be able to have treats for special occasions.  The problem is your child may eat pounds of candy for Halloween, then Thanksgiving comes, then Christmas, New Years and then Valentine’s Day is right around the corner.  Not to mention all the birthdays in between AND the daily servings of refined foods, meat and dairy you and your child are most likely eating and all of this adds up!

Ridding yourself and your kid's dietary pattern of these foods are a must if you want them to be lean and healthy adults.  It's never too late to start.

And psst… you don't have to not let your kid trick-or-treat or have any Halloween candy, but set boundaries to how much they can eat (a few pieces on Halloween night) and explain to them why you can't eat 5 pounds of candy in one month.

Likewise, kids are more likely to remember the experience of trick-or-treating at your house than the actually candy you give them.  Light the driveway with candles or scare them from the bushes… that will make the below 'treats' more enjoyable for kids.

So, here they are….

15 Halloween Treats for Trick-or-Treaters

1. Mini boxes of raisins (I've done this in the past and parents have appreciated it)
2. Cups of unsweetened applesauce
3. Baggies of dried fruit
4. Trailmix
5. Peanuts in their shells
6. Small packs of pistachios
7. Granola bars
8. Lar bars (like a granola bar, but made only of dried fruit and nuts and pricey)
9. Clementines (draw spooky faces on their skin with a permeant marker.  They look like mini pumpkins!)
10. Bananas (glue on googly eyes to make it a funny face)
11. Packets of popcorn without oil or butter they can pop at home
12. Fruit leathers (I use to get these for Easter as a little girl and loved them)
13. Pencils with a Halloween theme
14. Erasers that look like bats or ghosts
15. Stickers (what kid wouldn't love these!)

Or, you can always just trick them! 

Take Control Now

Which healthy Halloween 'treat' would you serve?  Have another idea?

Please answer by clicking 'comments' below.

How to Safely Gain Weight

Do you know anyone who wants to gain weight?  (Lol yes those people do exist).

Before you close this article because you don't think it applies to you, stop, because it does.

One of the most important things you can do to take control of your diet and your weight to get the long-term health results you want, is to have a complete and whole understanding of nutrition and what causes weight loss and weight gain.  The more you understand and learn about the big picture no matter what weight you're trying to move towards, the easier it will be for you to achieve your health goals.  

So listen up because today I give you 3 things you need to do to gain weight (or not do if you want to lose weight).

How to (Safely) Gain Weight

1.  The first thing you need to know before you start the weight gain venture is… do you really need to gain weight!?

In the land of the USA where 69% of Americans are overweight and 35% are obese (1) skinny people look abnormal!  Lean people now look like misfits compared to 30 to 50 years ago. 

This promotes comments such as "that boy needs some meat on his bones" when ideally, being as lean as possible without being underweight is optimal -- the best weight to be at.   

Before you start implementing my below weight-gaining tips, make sure you really need to gain weight.  How do you do this?

Check your BMI here.  If you're at a normal weight, great!  Know you're where you're supposed to be.  If not...

2.  Eat more food

I've noticed this frequently, especially with hard-working men.  When they're highly focused and working they just don't eat!  If you want to gain weight you have to eat food and you're going to have to eat more of it.

If you traditionally eat a meat and cheese sandwich for lunch and are now substituting that for an avocado veggie sandwich, you're going to be eating less calories for the same quantity of food.  

So, you're going to have to either eat 2 sandwiches and or eat it with a baked sweet potato or a box of black bean soup.  Additionally, you should eat snacks or mini-meals between your meals.

Starting to eat more food and interrupting your work to eat it, is nothing but a big ol' HABIT.  You need to start doing it everyday and after a 1-3 months, this habit will stick and will become second nature.  Set an alarm on your watch for the same break and lunch times each day.  When it goes off, eat! (no matte what!)

3.  Eat more high calorie dense foods

Calorie density is a measurement of the amount of calories per volume of any given food.  This means some foods will have more calories even though they're in a small amount of food and these are great for someone trying to gain weight.

Why?  Because they're an easy way for you to get more calories in your diet without having to eat food that will contribute to you getting chronic disease (or erectile dysfunction) later in life (skinny people die of heart attacks too).

Healthy, calorie-dense foods include...

- Processed 100% whole grains such as whole-grain breads, crackers, pitas, tortillas, english muffins etc (I love Ezekiel whole-grain flour products)

- Juice and drinks.  Calories consumed in liquid form don't prevent people from eating less in food form.  Great news for weight-gaining wanna-bees.  Choose 100% fruit juice or add plant-milk to your oatmeal or smoothies instead of water.

- Dried fruit.  Because the water has been removed from the fruit, dried fruit isn't as filling as fresh fruit.  You can easily eat 2 TB of raisins and still be hungry versus the same amount of calories in grapes.  Add dried fruit to your meals or eat as snacks.

- High-fat plant foods such as olives, nuts, seeds, coconut, avocado and whole soy products can be added more generously to your meals to increase the caloric-density of your food.  Add an extra TB of ground flax seed to your oatmeal (along with dried fruit and plant-milk) and you'll easily add more calories to this important meal.

Take Control Now

What's the greatest insight you gained from this article?

Share your comments by clicking 'comment' below.

References

1.  CDC, Overweight and Obesity FastStats. Accessed online Oct. 2014 at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm

How to Stop Eating Junk Regularly

I have a confession to make… I've been eating foods regularly that I tell you not to eat!  Like cake, (4 times in one week, ahh!).

My guidelines for treats are to eat them on special occasions only (chocolate on Valentines day, cake on grandma's 80th birthday etc.) and to eat them outside of the house to avoid over-eating which will impede on your health and weight-loss goals.  

Why did I not follow my own recommendations?

Like you, I have A LOT going on.  Working full-time on an organic veggie farm, building my business, keeping up with relationships, moving and the list goes on (sound familiar?).

At work, the organic veggie farm, there tends to be a lot of 'junk' food in the break room… donuts, cake, ice-cream bars etc. on an almost daily basis.  Which normally, I honestly do fine around.  I don't care that it's there and don't care about eating it.  I'm not even a big cake person and after eating so well for so many years, not being addicting to fat, sugar and salt, treats rarely tempt me.

However, towards the end of the summer when I was exhausted, physically worked and with everything else going on in life, I walked into the break room and you-betcha, there was cake.  And you know what, I ate some!  

Within that week, after that first initial sugar blast, I ended up eating a chocolate muffin, a donut and another piece of cake all within 5 days.

 

How to Stop Eating Junk Regularly

How did I stop this pattern of destructive behavior?  

1.  First off, I made up my mind that I just needed to stop because I couldn't let myself go down the junk-food path again.

2.  More importantly, I sanitized my environment or removed myself from unhealthy eating environments to not tempt myself and decrease my chances of eating treats.

This means that at work, I just stopped going in the break room for lunch.  I can't remove other people's food and treats, so I removed myself from them instead (I ate lunch under a tree and enjoyed the beautiful view).

3.  You should never keep treats in your home as well.  This way, if you have a rough day and are hungry and tempted you can't eat ice-cream because it's not there!  

When you try and use will-power to eat healthy, it's only a matter of time until you give-in to foods you shouldn't eat.  That's why it's so important to set-up your environment so it works for you, not against you.

If your husband still eats junk food and you're trying to stop, ask him to move all of the food you don't want to eat into a separate cabinet or to a place in the house where you don't have to see it and know where it is.  Out of sight, out of mind.

4.  Lastly, if you do end up eating some junk don't beat yourself up about it!  Just brush it off and try again.  

5.  If you eat a healthy, plant-based diet 90% of the time and end up eating some cake like I did, it's not that big of a deal (especially because I don't have any diseases).  I eat so well the rest of the time that a piece of cake (or 4) isn't going to do much damage.  

However, if you're eating cake and donuts weekly, meat, cheese, oil and refined flour products daily, you're going to be in trouble and it's highly likely you're going to gain weight or are setting yourself up for diabetes, cancer or heart disease later in life and I don't want to see that happen to you or your family!  

If you're interested in adopting a health-promoting and permanent weight-loss diet learn what to eat here and here.

Take Control Now

How have you stopped eating junk in the past?  What's your biggest insight from this article to share with others?

Answer in the comments section below.

One Way to Get Your Kids Eating More Veggies - the Rainbow

The plant kingdom is abundant in beautiful colors -- a range of purples and blues, shades of greens, yellow, orange, white, brown and red.  Not only do these colors create beautiful works of art, but the colors themselves have health promoting properties as well.  

For example, orange fruits and veggies such as yams, oranges, pumpkins and mangoes are full of beta-carotene, a powerful antioxidant and immune system strengthener.  

Dark leafy green veggies such as kale and collard greens are high in folate which is essential for cell building and genetic material.

Red plants contain lycopene, a cancer fighter; purple and blue plants have anthocyanins which destroy free radicals and white foods such as garlic and onions contain allyl sulfides which fight caner cells too.

Plus… all of these foods are naturally low in calories, fat, contain zero cholesterol and all of them contain fiber!  Whole plant foods are essential for your health and weight loss goals!

Remembering to 'eat the rainbow' is a simple way for you and your children to learn about and eat more of these whole, plant foods.  

I've taught almost more than 2,500 children from K-12th grade about the importance of eating the different colors and students had a lot of fun doing so.

If your child is pre-K to 1st grade, you can have them gather different fruits and vegetables into their respective color groups.  You can do this at home, at the grocery store, at the farmer's market, in the garden or while unpacking groceries.  

For older students, I've used bingo boards with different colored columns.  Each block within a color column has a fruit of veggies picture on it.  As the bingo caller, you call out a color column and a random fact about a particular fruit or veggie in that column.  The students raise their hand to guess which plant they think it is.

These games are even better if you get to eat a rainbow meal as well such as fruit salad or a veggie wrap with hummus or avocado after the game.  

Take Control Now

Are you eating the rainbow everyday?  Are your grandkids?  What's one way you can incorporate more colors into your daily diet?

Answer in the comments section below.

Why Superfoods Suck

I still remember browsing for spices in the grocery store 2 years ago when I overheard a concerned and overweight couple (mid 50s).  They were searching for turmeric.  I over heard them say "we hear it's really good for you" to the market employee as they painfully walked down the aisle.  

Studies have been done on turmeric and its effect on diabetes.  I assumed the couple was struggling with their health and were hoping turmeric was going to help them feel better. Unfortunately, the advertising of superfoods such as turmeric, Maca Powder and goji berries etc. can be quite misleading and here's why...

If you're unhealthy or overweight and all you do is add a superfood to your regular diet, it's highly unlikely that any physical positive change are going to come from that, especially if you're eating the standard American diet (SAD!).  What is for certain however, is that if your whole diet shifts away from one that is mostly made of processed, refined foods and animal foods (like most Americans eat), to a diet comprised of at least 90% whole, plant foods, you're health is going to improve significantly and quickly.

For example, if all you do is add a tsp of turmeric to your diet or a tbsp of maca powder, that's not going to cut it compared to eating fruit and oatmeal every morning, veggie pasta with bread and a salad for lunch and a rice and bean burrito with salsa and guacamole for dinner.  And for dessert?  Yes of course, banana ice-cream! 

You could lose 1-3 pounds per week and reduce or eliminate cholesterol medication, blood pressure medication, insulin and other medications within one month by switching the totality of your diet to a whole foods, plant-based diet without superfoods!  

I'm not trying to say these individual superfoods aren't high in nutrition and aren't very healthy… they are!  And if you're eating them, don't stop!  It's not the superfoods themselves that I don't like, but the concept of superfoods is what sucks, or rather, what's misleading.  

Many people believe these superfoods will save them.  Superfoods are another 'magic bullet', reductionist, solution to a wholistic (yes, purposely spelled with a 'w') problem - the entire American diet. 

Take Control Now

What did you learn from this episode?  Have you ever been sucked into the 'superfood' trap?

Share your thoughts in the comments section below.  Thanks for watching (or reading!).  See you next Tuesday!