Make 2013 the year of the vegetable! To bring that idea home, the SMArt kids prepared a delicious and nutritious Super Bowl Snack Salad, spearheaded by Linda Germaine-Miller, our SMArt Kids nutritionist. See below for Linda’s other healthy snack alternatives for the upcoming big game.
During our recent SMA, we also discussed the importance of vegetables in preventing cancer and cardiovascular disease, as well as its protective effect for the eye and digestive tract. We also touched upon the fact that a diet rich in vegetables increases longevity and overall health. We learned that eating a rainbow of vegetables is the healthiest way to eat. Eating an array of colors ensures a wider range of antioxidant phytochemicals – natural substances that keep us healthy. Think about starting a chart on your fridge to record the colors you ate during the day. (You can visit todayiatearainbow.com for ideas about a “rainbow” chart.)
We discussed the significance of eating more foods from nature and foods with a short shelf life (in other words, foods that rot!) Consider the mantra from author Michael Pollan: “If it‘s from nature eat it, if it’s not…don’t.” When shopping at your local grocery store, do your best to shop on the perimeter in order to avoid the aisles with processed foods (long shelf lives) and instead focus on the natural foods (short shelf lives). Also think about eating foods with the least amount of steps from farm to you (which means less ingredients and less processing.)
If you are still worried that your kids at home won’t get the message about eating enough vegetables, try these tips to encourage more veggie consumption:
- Make a vegetable soup and add some fun pasta shapes
- Try it raw! Offer some carrot and celery sticks with hummus
- Food is Art! Offer raw veggies of different colors and shapes so your kids can make a veggie collage. How about a face with a carrot nose and a red pepper mouth?
- Cold Veggie Pizza: try low fat cream cheese on a whole-wheat pita topped with thinly sliced raw carrots, peppers, broccoli
- Turn your kitchen into a salad bar. Put out some lettuce and raw veggies. Let them decide what toppings they would like to add
- Get the kids involved with cooking (kids can shop, wash, prep and serve veggies!)
- If all else fails, sneak them in. How about a kale smoothie? Or check out these books by Missy Chase Lapine and Jessica Seinfeld for more ideas about reaching the goal of five servings of fruits and vegetables per day.
Keep up the hard work SMArt Kids! Looking forward to hearing about your ongoing success at the next SMArt Kids SMA in February! Brittanny Boulanger, MD
SMArt KIDS Super Bowl Snacks
Serve these yummy snack foods at your Super Bowl party and your guests will never know that they’re eating more vegetables!!
7 Layer Dip
1 head of iceberg lettuce
6 ounces plain fat free Greek yogurt
2 TBS mayonnaise
2 small avocadoes, mashed
6 TBS cheddar cheese, grated
Cherry tomatoes, sliced
Black olives (no pits) sliced
Scallions, sliced
“Scoopers” such as baby carrots, celery sticks, pea pods, romaine lettuce hearts
Wash and dry all your vegetables – get a large serving platter and set it aside. Have a grown up help you slice the lettuce. In a small bowl, mix the yogurt and mayonnaise. Get your platter and put sliced lettuce on it in a circle, top lettuce with the yogurt and mayonnaise mixture then top this with the avocado. Sprinkle the cheese on top of the avocado, put tomatoes over the cheese and sprinkle the olives over the tomatoes. Sprinkle the sliced scallions all over the top and refrigerate for about 30 minutes before serving.
Serve with your “Scoopers” or any other vegetable you like.
Pear, Prosciutto and Arugula Bundles
4 cups of lightly packed arugula
1 tsp olive oil
12 (1/2 ounce) think slices of prosciutto cut in half lengthwise
3 ripe pears cut into wedges
Combine the first 2 ingredients in a large bowl, toss gently to combine. Arrange 3 or 4 arugula leaves at 1 end of 1 prosciutto strip. Place 1 pear wedge on top of arugula and roll up. Place bundle, seam side down on a serving place. Repeat with remaining arugula, prosciutto and pears.
Endive Spears with Spicy Goat Cheese
½ cup (4 ounces) goat cheese
1/3 cup plain fat free Greek yogurt
¼ tsp kosher salt
⅛ tsp black pepper
1 clove garlic
1 ¼ tsp paprika (set ¼ tsp of it aside)
36 endive leaves (this is a type of fancy lettuce, you can use romaine instead)
Combine first 5 ingredients and 1 tsp paprika in a bowl – mash with a fork until smooth. Top each endive leaf with about 1 tsp of the cheese mixture. Sprinkle remaining paprika on top as a garnish.