WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS: Why I Love Watercress

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS

Why I Love Watercress

“We now know what is true:  a whole foods, plant-based diet can prevent and treat heart disease, saving hundreds of thousands of Americans every year.”  

--from The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D. and Thomas M. Campbell II

Several months ago, the organizer of the Fellsmere Farmers Market and Mercado heard what Growing Healthy Kids is doing to create solutions to diabetes and obesity.  She wanted someone to do cooking demonstrations for local residents.  Because our health literacy programs teach people how to eat good food that is tasty and affordable, I was very interested to see if we could be of service to local residents in Fellsmere, located in the northwest corner of Indian River County, Florida.  It is home to a large population of migrant and “settled out” farm workers in the citrus industry.  Many residents are overweight and have diabetes. 

Talking with residents at the Fellsmere Farmers Market and Mercado 

Watercress

Cooking demo using watercress and kohlrabi (in the lower left corner)

So with the invitation to participate at the Saturday market, I looked at vegetables being grown in Fellsmere to create a program using our “local, fresh, and healthy” formula.  It turns out a national company has a farm in Fellsmere and grows arugula and watercress which it ships all over the United States.    I drove up to their farm on a Friday after work and picked up several boxes of freshly harvested greens.  I stayed up late playing in the Growing Healthy Kids Test Kitchen, experimenting with different tasty combinations of greens, grains, and flavors.

The next day I drove north to Fellsmere with my car filled with tables, tents, cooking supplies and, of course, watercress!  The day was great and glorious.  Vendors were selling local honey, fresh eggs, oranges and, of course, our famous Indian River grapefruit.  Lots of people stopped by sample the watercress dishes.  Everyone wanted the recipes!  We served over 150 plates of samples and talked with several hundred more people about simple ways to eat your way to a healthier weight and reverse diabetes. 

Watercress is a “nutrient dense” food.  In fact, it may be the most nutrient dense food known.  Turns out there is something call the Aggregate Nutrient Density Index created by Dr. Joel Fuhrman based on the equation H=N/C (the health value of a food equal to the nutrients it delivers per calorie).  Watercress has a perfect 1,000 rating.  It has 10 calories in a 2 cup serving.  It is loaded with Vitamin C (and vitamins A and K). It contains calcium and beta-carotene.  Add watercress to your sautéed veggies, a breakfast smoothie or pile it onto your favorite sandwich.  Watercress tastes good and is good for you. 

Our relationship with food should be built on a foundation of knowledge and honesty.  Kids need foods that deliver real results, not foods filled with added sugar, salt, and fats.  Next time you go food shopping, please pass by the PopTarts in the middle of the store and head to the vegetable section.  Take home a bag of watercress today!   In next week's Wellness Wednesdays column look for one of our newly created tasty and delicious watercress recipes.

Thank you,

Nancy Heinrich

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids, Inc.

WELLNESS WEDNESDAY: The Elephant in the Room

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS:  The Elephant in the Room

"What we know is that people who eat the way we do in the West today suffer substantially higher rates of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and obesity than people eating any number of different traditional diets."  --- Michael Pollan from In Defense of Food 2008

Michael Pollan writes in several of his books, including Food Rules, about “the elephant in the room” – the pattern of eating a Western diet and a deepening confusion about nutrition.  I have been thinking about his statements and I disagree with Mr. Pollan. Maybe it is because of where I grew up (Sacramento, California) and how I grew up (access to lots of fresh fruits and vegetables as a child and my mother enjoyed cooking).   Dinners were a family event.  My two brothers and I were expected to be at the dinner table when dinner was ready.  We were not allowed to eat in our bedrooms in front of TVs.  We had fruit for snacks after school.  Our house on Bausell Street was built in a walnut orchard in Sacramento.  We earned money picking up bags of walnuts, then shelling them.  No wonder I love walnuts so much!

I am not confused about nutrition.  For more than half my life, I have studied nutrition in relation to my health, my extended family’s health, and the absence or presence of disease.  I have been mindful of what I eat (most of the time!) and where my food is coming from.  This lifelong interest in the relationship between food, health, and disease is largely the reason why I went to University of Alabama at Birmingham to study public health in graduate school. 

It is clear that food and agriculture are Big Business in the U.S.  The more you process food, the more money you make.  The more processed food you eat, the sicker people will be.  The sicker people become, the more drugs will be prescribed by doctors because doctors don’t learn about nutrition in medical school.  They are taught to give pills, not kale and kiwi.  The more drugs doctors prescribe, the more visits you have to make to see if the drugs are working.  The more visits you have to make to the doctor, the richer the doctor gets.  And you are still sick.  

It is clear that eating foods filled with sugar, salt, and fat cause us to want to eat more foods with sugar, salt, and fat.  There is a scarcity of health literacy in this country.  You are what you eat.  When people learn to question the quality of the foods they eat and ask what the ingredients are they need to be healthy, then we will shift the burden from treating disease to preventing disease.  When people start asking about the quality of the water they drink and the chemicals used to grow the foods they eat, then we will begin to shift cancer morbidity and mortality. 

Become clear about what you are eating, who grew it, where it was grown and with what chemicals, if any.  How many days was it between when the food was harvested and when it was on your dinner table?  How far did someone have to drive your food to get it to your local store so you could buy it?  Become clear about these questions.  Learn the answers.  No elephants allowed.  

Nancy Heinrich

Growing Healthy Kids, Inc.

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS...Inside a Boy's Mind

Inside a Boy’s Mind

"The sovereign invigorator of the body is exercise and of all the exercises, walking is the best."  --Thomas Jefferson

I have always been a fast walker.  Walking just makes me feel great.  I am aware of my steps and my stride as I move towards my destination.  I enjoy walking. 

Lately, I have become painfully aware of children who are at 

unhealthy weights walking to and from school.  I notice them when 

I am driving to and from work, which is next door to an elementary

school.

One day, I saw him.  The boy was standing by himself at the corner of the school, a gray sweatshirt zipped up and the hood covering his head.  He waited to cross the street after school.  He didn’t step forward, even though the road was clear.  His head remained looking down at the sidewalk, as if unsure of which direction to go or how to take the next step.  What was unusual was that it was May and we were in south Florida and it was hot, with tropical temperatures and high humidity locked in for summer.  He had to be boiling hot inside that zipped up sweatshirt.  But he didn’t move. 

The boy, probably 9 or 10, appeared to be very overweight.  As a mother, I worried about him standing there.  Why was he standing so still in the mid-afternoon heat?  Why was he wearing a sweatshirt all zipped up and the hood pulled over his head?  Was he thinking about how little energy he had for the walk home?  Were his legs painfully chafed from rubbing against his jeans? Or was he silently wishing someone he knew would drive by, notice him and give him a ride home because he was out of breath from carrying the excess weight? Did another child at school make fun of him for being fat?  Was he paralyzed with fear about having to go back to school the next day to face more taunting?  Perhaps, he was hoping that if he stayed still long enough and hid inside the sweatshirt, no one would notice him and his oversized body. 

Children do not ask to be overweight.  The added pounds come on gradually, not overnight.   How does it happen?  An extra serving of white rice here, a large Coke there.  Sandwiches on white bread because the white bread from Walmart is cheap.  The drive- through window at McDonald’s is where the kids can order a cheap dinner from the dollar menu.  Cheap food?  I think not. What parents might consider cheap food is really expensive, at least in the lives of young children who get addicted to the salt, sugar, and fat it contains.  The consequences of an unhealthy weight, especially for a child, are so significant but as adults we look at it as adults, not from the child' perspective.  What is it really like to be inside the mind of a child who is screaming inside to be healthy and to love to know the pleasure of walking but no one is listening?

   

Are you helping your children to make healthy choices about food and fitness?  Do you know know any parents who could use some inspiration?  Please support Growing Healthy Kids and our health literacy projects to reverse, halt, and prevent childhood obesity.  We’d love to come to your neighborhood!

Thank you,

Nancy Heinrich

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids, Inc.