Healthy Mum, Happy Baby

I’ve found a couple of helpful links this morning while I’m battling my guilt about sending my not 100% preschooler back to daycare and adding an extra day of daycare to my toddler’s week. How am I justifying it? After almost a week of sicko preschooler and now a postop hubby I need some time to get caught up before the weekend with almost helpless hubby hits us.

All that aside, now that strawberries are coming into season did you know that they’re not just an excellent source of vitamin C and fibre but they’re also antioxidant-rich and thus can help promote heart health and protect against cancer and inflammatory diseases? They’re also an important fruit to eat organic if possible as per the Environmental Working Group’s list of most pesticide contaminated foods.
>> Strawberry source & >> EWG source

And channeling strawberries, Daily Candy recently posted a great do-it-yourself spring renewal facial with ingredients including yogurt and strawberries… >> Daily Candy 

And are you already a fan of Caring for Kids? It’s seaonally appropriate kids health info from the Canadian Pediatric Society and I find there’s almost always something worth reading in their montly newsletters.
>> Caring for Kids

We know folic acid (vitamin B9) is especially important for women of childbearing age as it helps prevent certain birth defects, but in general it also helps with nerve and brain functioning, may help prevent heart disease and stroke, and may protect against certain cancers. Where can you find folate in foods? Try:

• spinach
• green vegetables
• beans
• fortified products such as orange juice and cereals
• asparagus
• bananas
• melons
• lemons
• legumes
• yeast
• mushrooms

Source & more info

I love the mayo clinic website, it’s got tonnes of good health info, everything from what to do when you get a cancer diagnosis to the ten best foods to eat. Here’s their list of top ten foods & the criteria that make them so: Mayo Clinic’s Top Ten. If you’re into online newsletters theirs is just great.

I have to admit that whether or not it was good for me I’d still eat dark chocolate. My current favourite is pretty much anything from Green & Blacks Organic. They make the most amazing dark hot chocolate mix andtheir dark chocolate hazelnut and currant bar is the best fruit and nut bar ever.

Here’s a very indepth link to the health benefits of dark chocolate from the University of Michigan.

Actually, none of us willingly picks (or creates) a picky eater, but if you have a child who is one, or think you’ve got one developing, April’s Today’s Parent has an article called Whining & Dining (gotta love the name) that has some handy tips. The article is taken from an upcoming book by the same name.

If there are any other fans of Milly Molly Mandy* out there, or who at least remember her fondly from their childhoods they’ll remember she spent a lot of time going blackberrying. Which in light of recent research is apparently good news, as blackberries may be the healthiest food around.

* I’m scared that if I reread MMM I’ll find it hugely unPC, rather like Noddy (although apparently they have or are sanitizing it), or Curious George or even the newly released Peter Pan on two disc DVD. We just got it for Madeleine only to discover it’s got some horrible stereotypes in it and Tinker Bell’s just nasty, which hasn’t seemed to lessen Madeleine’s fairy fixation. . . It’s not that I think kiddielit should be all happy and lovely, and I had no idea what I was reading when I was little, but still…It’s kind of like when you reread the Narnia books when you’re older and suddenly you get all the biblical stuff. Anyhow, this was supposed to be about blackberries.

For those of us who are no longer pregnant (nor planning to be again) it’s too late for us to take advantage of new research finding that mums who eat fish give birth to brainier kids but the info about mercury found in tinned tuna is still useful. And here’s a link to a whole host of info on Omega-3’s in fish oil and their benefits to breastfeeding & pregnant women.

And if you’re trying to get more oily cold water fish into your diet, here are some links to some delicious sounding ways to prepare salmon:

• Roasted Salmon with Maple Glaze from the Mayo Clinic’s Healthy Recipe section
• Monte Cristo Salmon Sandwich from Dr. Weil’s Healthy Kitchen section
• Serving suggestions for Wild Salmon from Whole Foods

Hint: All these sites have heaps of great health information and Whole Foods has a great section on maternal health and feeding kids as well. Speaking of Whole Foods if anyone knows when the Cambie location will be opening up please let me know, my pocketbook will shrink but my tummy will be happy!

So the whole time I was writing the book Health Canada was promising to update their Food Guide, it was coming out in the fall of 2006. Well, that’s exactly when the book was due, so I was hoping it would come out before my deadline so I could include up-to-date recommendations. Don’t quote me but I believe the previous recommendations were from 1992 and there’s been a lot of knowledge under the bridge since then. Anyhow, the long and short of it was I had to use the old guidelines if I actually wanted to meet my oft delayed publication date (you try writing a cookbook when you have morning sickeness and a toddler and getting it in on time!). So here’s a link to the updated info (which includes more specific recommendations for pregnant and breastfeeding women): Canada’s Food Guide to Health Eating