WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS: Lowering High Blood Pressure

“I began to read all I could about health when my mother was first diagnosed with breast cancer.  Everything I read seemed to point me toward a simple equation:  Food=Health.  I read The China Study, Farm Sanctuary by Gene Bauer, books by Dr. Dean Ornish, Dr. Neal Barnard, and many more.  I realized the untested chemicals used in processed foods and the residue of pesticides and many fertilizers had to be hurting us.  I began to notice that my animals were developing lumps and bumps that I don’t remember them having when I was growing up.  I knew then that it was time to make some changes.”  

                                   --Cornelia Guest from Simple Pleasures:  Healthy Seasonal Cooking and Easy Entertaining, 2012

The more salt you consume, the higher your blood pressure will be.  

In our Growing Healthy Kids classes, kids learn to read food labels to look for hidden sodium and sugars.  Salt used to be primarily used to preserve foods.  Now it is used not only to flavor foods but to replace reduced fats or sugars.  If you see something labeled “low fat” be suspicious that it may have a higher sodium content.

One of the author's favorite low sodium foods
Photo credit:  Barbara DuPont

The goal for most people, especially kids, is to keep daily sodium intake to less than 1,500 mg.  That is about 2/3 teaspoon of salt.  One teaspoon of salt contains about 2,500 mg of sodium. 

Salt is like high blood pressure in some ways.  Often, you don’t taste salt in foods so you don't know it's there. Similarly, people with high blood pressure often have no symptoms and don’t know they have it.  

Most American children are not screened for hypertension.  Pediatricians don’t commonly ask how often their young patients eat processed foods or fast foods.  Kids who consume processed foods, meat, and dairy are at high risk for increased blood pressure.  Cheese, for example, is extremely high in sodium.  Most Americans consume about 30 pounds of cheese a year.  A one inch cube of Cabot's Seriously Sharp Cheddar Cheese contains 180 mg of sodium. Foods you wouldn’t think of as having salt in them often have several hundred milligrams. One hot dog can have 500-600 mg of sodium.  That is one-third of the daily limit for one person!   

On the other hand, one cup of strawberries has about 1.5 mg of sodium.  

Adopting a plant-based way of eating is one way to lower one’s blood pressure.  A resource for parents is the Physicians Committee for Responsible medicine (pcrm.org or click here).

My advice to parents?  Take a look at the sodium that your children are consuming in what they eat and drink every day.  Make it a priority to find ways to reduce it. 

In gratitude,

Nancy L. Heinrich, MPH

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS: Doing is Learning

“Never be satisfied with what you know, only with what more you can find out.” 

                               --David Fairchild, American botanist, 1869-1954

Kids are naturally curious.  Parents owe it to their children to use that curiosity to feed a lifetime of learning.

 

Learning about food is fun when you use all your senses.  In the Growing Healthy Kids movement, we introduce kids to farmers, new foods, and cooking techniques. We teach kids to see, smell, and taste foods with wonder and awe.  

The younger kids can start learning about real food and basic cooking skills, the healthier they will be over their lifetime. 

Recently, a volunteer from the Sunrise Vero Beach Rotary Club chaperoned kids on a Growing Healthy Kids' visit to the local Farmers Market.  One of the market  vendors had prepared guacamole for sale and was offering samples.  The kids on our expedition passed on the opportunity to sample it.  The next week, making guacamole was on the menu for our class of middle school students.  The same volunteer was in charge of the guacamole station, where kids did all of the food preparation.  After all the guacamole was inhaled by hungry kids, he later made the observation that when kids get to make something themselves, they will try it without hesitation. 

On a recent trip to the Vero Beach Farmers Market, kids learn about hydroponic farming
from Alex Gomez of Pure Produce.  

Below is our recipe for the fabulous guacamole that the kids loved making and eating in our recent class.

GROWING HEALTHY KIDS:  Guacamole

Ingredients:

• 3 Hass avocados
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• Juice of ½ lime
• Dash of cumin
• Crystal hot sauce, to taste
• ¼ cup fresh organic cilantro, minced
• Pink Himalayan sea salt

Gently mash ingredients together and serve with corn chips. 

Avocados are a fruit.  Most of the calories in avocados come from unsaturated fats, which are the good fats we need.  Other sources of unsaturated fats include olives, nuts, and seeds.  

In gratitude,

Nancy Heinrich, MPH

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids, Inc.

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS: The Perfect Veggie Burger

"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."  

                                                                     --George Bernard Shaw

I love food that tastes good AND is good for you.  A classic American food is the burger.  How do you make the perfect burger when you don't eat meat? 

It’s easy. 

Below is one of my all-time favorite veggie burger recipes.  I make it at least twice a month.  I have made many different versions of veggie burgers and I always prefer using lentils as the key ingredient.  

Locally grown tomatoes make the flavor on veggie burgers really pop!

3 Seed Burgers starting to cook

Here are 4 reasons why I use lentils:  

1. Lentils are easy to cook; they are fully cooked in 20-30 minutes.  
2. They don't need to be soaked in water overnight.  
3. They are very inexpensive.  
4. They can be cooked a day or two before making the burger recipe and are just as good as if you cooked them the same day.  

Lentils are in the food group called legumes. Lentils, and other plant foods in the legume family, are one of the healthiest foods on the planet because they are nutrient dense and extremely high in dietary fiber.  The legume group includes lentils (green, red, black, French), beans (i.e., black, garbanzo, adzuki, kidney, lima, fava, soy), peas (snap, green, split and black-eyed), and peanuts.  

Just 1/2 cup of cooked green lentils contains about 9 grams of dietary fiber, which is about one third of what you need to consume in one day.  Eating plenty of foods high in dietary fiber is key if you want to prevent or reverse diabetes. 

GROWING HEALTHY KIDS:  Our Recipe Collection

 3 SEED BURGERS

Ingredients:

• ·        ½ cup raw pumpkin seeds
• ·        ¼ cup raw sunflower seeds
• ·        ¼ cup unhulled sesame seeds (or substitute hemp seeds)
• ·        1 cup cooked green lentils
• ·        2 tablespoons rolled oats
• ·        2-3 tablespoons tomato paste
• ·        ¼ cup diced onions
• ·        2 tablespoons tahini
• ·        1 tablespoon chopped Italian parsley
• ·        Pinch of cayenne pepper or smoked paprika         
• ·        Optional:  Add 2 tablespoons vital wheat gluten and/or 1 tablespoon coconut aminos*

Preheat oven to 350.  In food processor, combine all 3 seeds and process until coarsely chopped.  Add remaining ingredients.  Process until mixture is blended.  

Shape mixture into 4 patties. Lightly oil a baking sheet with olive oil.  Place patties on sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Turn and bake another 8 minutes.  If you choose, you can grill burgers in a pan on medium heat for 3-4 minutes per side, or until browned. 

Serve burgers on whole grain buns.  Garnish with avocado, lettuce, tomatoes. 

*For demonstration purposes, Trader Joe's Coconut Aminos were used in the preparation of this recipe in the Growing Healthy Kids Test Kitchen. 

TIP:  Something I like to do is to mix the ingredients on Sunday, place mixture in the fridge overnight so they firm up and are easier to handle, and then prepare the burgers for dinner on Monday night,

  

With love and gratitude,

Nancy Heinrich, MPH

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids, Inc.