Posts by: Jennifer Needham
These days there are so many conflicting reports of what’s healthy that it’s hard to know which information to trust. Perhaps a back to basics approach is best. Fruits and vegetables really are the best thing for people to eat to stay healthy. They’re packed full of nutrients and other healthy compounds, and there’s not [...]
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Your produce doesn’t have to be cultivated on a farm! Discovering the many uses of dandelions is a fun way to introduce the concept to your family that wild foods can be edible. Dandelion cookies, anyone? Kids: you can help by picking dandelions, then learning how to pull the petals off by holding the green [...]
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Have you ever wondered about those tiny numbered stickers you find on produce at the grocery store? They’re called PLU codes, which stands for “price-look-up”, and there are over 1300 different codes! Notice how the cashier at the store weighs the produce and enters the PLU code at the cash register. This is how the [...]
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Summer is a time of abundance, with fruits and vegetables plentiful and fresh, and full of nutrients galore. The sooner you eat something after it is harvested, the better its nutritional content. When your produce has to be trucked in from somewhere else, vitamins are degraded over the long shipping times, and nutrition is [...]
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Pasteurization is a process that uses heat to kill microorganisms in food. This is most commonly used for milk and other dairy products, but can be applied to certain other foods as well. The key point to remember about pasteurization is that it is not selective as to which microorganisms it kills, and it kills [...]
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Contrary to popular belief, diet soda does not help with weight loss. This seems backwards, doesn’t it? How can the diet sodas so many people use to help keep them thin, and with virtually no calories in them, actually cause weight gain? Unfortunately, the artificial sweeteners in diet sodas, as well as many other [...]
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I’ve been a fan of coconut oil for some time now, so I was eager to try Tropical Traditions Virgin Coconut Oil. What I really liked is that they don’t just sell you coconut oil; they do their best to educate you about what you’re buying. You may think people are crazy to consume a [...]
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I’m the lucky recipient of 2 free bottles of Smarty Pants vitamins, one for kids, and one for adults, in exchange for my honest review of the products. I’d never even heard of this brand before, but when I discovered that they look and taste like gumdrops, I was excited to give them a try! [...]
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My kids play on the local soccer league every year and each of them is assigned one of the games to bring snacks to share with the whole team. With each player bringing snacks to one of the games, the whole season is covered. But I am appalled at the things some of the parents [...]
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A new study asked people all over the world to rate how healthy their food intake was over the course of the day. The results indicate a pattern of healthy eating in the morning, followed by fewer and fewer healthy choices as the day progresses. For many people, all over the planet, it becomes harder [...]
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Did you know that you can slice off the top of a pineapple, or the top of a carrot, and plant it? I’ve been wanting to try this recipe for Pineapple-Carrot Muffins, but what really got me moving was when I thought of re-growing the pineapple and carrot tops after I used most of the [...]
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We all know Mother Nature never intended for cows to eat corn. Cows were meant to graze on fresh, green grass, not to live in feedlots. The nutritional profile of grass-fed beef can be dramatically different than that of grain-fed beef, and of course it’s the grain-fed meats that dominate our grocery store meat [...]
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