Healthy Mum, Happy Baby

In light of all the news of late about the benefits of Vitamin D I’ve been wondering if I should start supplementing with it or mainlining it or not worrying about it at all. . .Health Canada has just updated their recommendations around Vitamin D and Health and they’ll be participating in a conference in September of 2007 to review the efficacy and safety of Vitamin D - in the meantime, they recommend that for now “all Canadians over the age of two consume 500 mL (two cups) of milk every day for adequate vitamin D and in addition encourages everyone over the age of 50 to take a daily supplement of 400 IU of vitamin D. ”

Remember - too much Vitamin D can be as bad for you as too little - I’ve made a mental note to update this in September once they’re newer recommendations are out.

So not only did China manufacture each of the 24 kinds of toys recalled for safety reasons in the US so far this year, but the recent pet food scare was over Chinese made pet food and there is more and more in the news about the dangers of food imported from China. Of course since China manufactures about 80% of all the world’s toys it’s hardly surprising…

What’s a mum to do? This is one more persuasive argument for shopping locally - not just for toys but for food too.

I’m toying with the idea of trying the 100-Mile Diet for our family for a few weeks this summer, but first I need to convince my husband and also source some local bread and pasta as I don’t see us surviving on a 100-Mile Diet until they make 100-Mile Annie’s Mac ‘n Cheese.

If any of you out there have tried eating locally with tots I’d love your feedback and ideas on how to make it work.

If you’re going to the YWCA Inner Circle Event at YWCA Citygate Child Care on Tuesday the 19th I’ll be there, along with (get this!) the Minister of Children and Family Development. Not only will I be talking about the book, but also about our child care struggles, and there’ll be some other very interesting sounding women talking about their childcare issues too.

Urbanmommies is a great local site by mums and for mums with loads of info on health, fitness, what’s happening and how and where mums can get support. This month they’re running a contest to win one of five Breastfeeding Bundles.

The bundle includes Healthy Mum, Happy Baby, Nipple Cream from Bug & Pickle and a Parent Posture DVD which I’m itching to get my hands on, my posture not being what it could. All the details on are their site.

And speaking of local resources don’t forget yoyomama (if you sign up in June you could win Bug & Pickle’s Head-to-Toe Baby Wash & Baby Lotion - are you seeing a B&P theme here at all?).

Here’s another tip to make cooking quicker - that’s the rub of writing a cookbook, the recipes keep evolving as you do, but in the book they’re stuck in time.

Anyhow, I read this idea in Nutrition Action Magazine. Rather than spending time doing all the peeling, washing, baking, scooping and pureeing needed for Garlic Ginger Sweet Potato Soup (p. 158 of “the book”) buy your sweet potatoes pureed already. This will cut down a lot on the prep time & cooking time for this recipe. The recipe calls for six large sweet potatoes, I’d substitute about three 15 oz cans of puree.

Granted, you still need to roast the garlic and ginger, but that’s a snap compared to roasting (and pureeing) the potatoes.

Farmer’s Market Organic purees are great, and there’s no sugar added etc. I use their pumpkin puree for these great muffins from O Magazine (that aren’t the fastest muffins to make, but are super tasty): Pumpkin Applesauce Muffins

So, we (well, Andrew) whipped up a big batch of his spaghetti sauce (from p. 156 of “the book”) last night. It’s not usually a June staple, but we’ve had a cold, wet weekend and friends just had a baby, so we wanted to give them a batch for a night they just didn’t feel like, have time or energy for, or were too hungry to cook.

We also had a friend and her two little bookend boys for our little girls over as she’s been on her own a lot with the kids since her husband’s been super busy working. She thought the way we added more veggies to dinner was great, so I thought it was worth posting it here.

What we do is about three minutes before the noodles are cooked we throw in broccoli florets with the noodles - saving an extra cooking pot, and extra dishes for eating and cleaning up. Then we dish up the noodles with the broccoli in situ, and ladle sauce atop it all. For the littlest ones we chop up the noodles and the broccoli, and everyone’s happy.

This week past I launched a new website, yoyomama.ca. Offering a free weekday email newsletter, the website is for every Vancouver mother (or mother-to-be) of a newborn to five-year-old, who’s ever called the community centre two days too late to register her offspring for the must-have class of the season, wandered the aisles of the bookstore wondering which book will make her baby brainiest, or wished she’d known just how child-friendly a coffee shop was (or wasn’t) before she ordered her latte.

It’s designed to make mum’s lives less yoyo-like by keeping them connected to themselves and their community with short hits of helpful, hip info delivered directly to their inboxes.

Check it out: www.yoyomama.ca, spread the word & let me know what you think! My mum, who’s one of my biggest supporters, thinks it’s good for grandparents as well in terms of gift ideas, or events & things & places they can go with the grandkids. Not the original intention, but hey, it works for me!

If you’re trying to be the kind of mum who treats yourself right, then maybe you should get more sleep. Rather than a luxury that can be scaled back to fit everything else in, sleep actually is needed to burn fat and maintain a healthy metabolism. Not getting enough can trigger weight gain, and who wants that?

Of course, if you’re not able to get enough sleep what with waking babies and early-rising toddlers etc. don’t stress too much, that also makes you gain weight around your waist, the place it’s most increases your risk of illnesses like diabetes, heart disease etc.

Sometimes it’s hard to know what a girl’s to do…

When Canada’s  new Food Guide to Healthy Eating was released mere days after the final draft of Healthy Mum, Happy Baby was due, I was a bit frustrated, which is why a site like this is so great, because I can update info that won’t be updated in the book until the next edition comes out. And I did list updates when this site launched. I’ve also found this great article from Nutrition Action, a magazine that my friend Tina (of the hummus fame) turned me onto on Fine Tuning our Food Guide that’s an interesting read (warning: it’s a PDF).  They’re ongoing listing of “Right Stuff” vs. “Food Porn” (again, a PDF) is pretty interesting too!