Autumn, Gut Health, Kids Health, Seasons, Whole Food Diet

5 Helpful Tips For A Healthy Halloween (With No Regrets)

Halloween is a favorite holiday for many families. We love the parties, the spooky decorations, and parading around the neighborhood in frightfully delightful costumes. But celebrating with enormous amounts of sugar can make it downright dreadful! I have some tips for a healthy Halloween that you’ll appreciate!

If you’re like me, you’re bracing yourself for the endless negotiations with your kids for treats at parties and on Halloween night. And you’re also wanting to avoid the inner battle of whether you should binge on left over candy.

Over-consumption of sugar right now can lower your immune system response, damage beneficial gut flora, and make you more likely to get sick. And no doubt, if you continue to indulge after the holiday, it can negatively affect your physique.

Is it possible to have a healthy Halloween without taking away all the fun?

Absolutely!

Here are several tips you can try that will get you through this festive time, without any regrets.

5 Tips for A Healthy Halloween

1. Bring healthy Halloween party food

Who said Halloween party food has to be sugary and full of artificial colors and flavors? You can bring healthy items that everyone will enjoy eating. Here are a few ideas you may want to try:

Tangerine Pumpkins and Banana Ghosts by Weelicious

We make these treats every single year. They are cute and easy. Enough said.

Creepy Halloween Fingers by Weelicious

You’re sure to creep out some parents, but kids absolutely love eating carrots and cheese in finger form!

Apple Sunbutter Teeth Bites by Forks and Beans

I’m dying to try out these disgusting, yet nutritious apple bites, probably substituting almond butter for the Sunbutter for our play group.

2. Give out healthier treats on Halloween night

For trick-or-treaters, you can add to their health by giving out non-food items like cute erasers, glow-in the dark bracelets, stickers and such.

Or if you still want to give out candy, consider passing out treats that are organic, lower in sugar, and free of artificial colors and flavors. This fun option that has just 6g of sugar (oops, I swear it wasn’t me who already sampled this open package!)

3. Prepare for trick-or-treating with balanced meals

For the days surrounding Halloween, you can help prepare your child’s body for the treats to come by making sure they eat 3 well-balanced meals.

What does this mean? See here for my specific dietary advice for kids. Basically, I recommend school-age children get approximately:

50% of calories from complex carbohydrates (mostly veggies & fruits with twice as many veggies, limit grains to 2-3 servings/day)
25-30% protein (free-range organic meat, fish, eggs, whole-fat yogurt, nuts, seeds, quinoa, and beans)
20-25% fat (olives, avocado, coconut, macadamia nuts, butter, egg yolk, fatty fish like salmon, flax oil)

Adding good fats to your child’s diet is critical to helping with blood sugar balance. It may also help keep them full longer, so they’re less likely to binge on candy.

You can also help manage blood sugar surges by taking a shot of apple cider vinegar diluted in water prior to each meal. It may be hard for children to accept, but they may try it if you say it’s necessary before eating candy.

4. Limit candy consumption

Last year I tried to be a cool mom by letting my son gorge on as much candy as he wanted when he returned home from trick or treating. And for the first time in his life he passed out during bedtime stories before 9pm. For us, this was a huge deal because my son has never been one to “crash” and has always been a night owl.

He thinks this story is hilarious. I think it’s horrifying. And I’m not going to do it again.

This year, we’re going to have a healthy, fatty snack after trick-or-treating and maybe just a few pieces of candy. And it will be given this way for a few days until we decide what to do with the rest of the candy. Perhaps that will work for your family too.

Now the #5 tip, what do you do with all that candy?

5. Give the candy away

It’s hard to fully embrace a healthy lifestyle if you’re eating handfuls of leftover Halloween candy each day. To resolve this problem, consider…

Making a deal with your child – I know some parents who trade money for their candy, or toys for candy. There’s also the Switch Witch who leaves a special gift in exchange for piles of candy.
Donate the candy – Operation Gratitude collects candy through their Halloween Candy Give-back for deployed troops & first responders. You can find a participating company, club, or dentist in your area at this link. Here in Redwood City, CA Roy Dental is one of the donation spots.
Dump it – my son usually forgets about the candy after a few days, so I just keep a handful and either throw the rest out (because really, candy is not good for anyone), or my husband takes it to work. This year, we’ll try to donate it.

How do you deal with the sugar overload during Halloween? Do you have any rules for your family about candy? We’d love to hear how you manage! Please let us know your own tips for a healthy Halloween!

Autumn, Gut Health, Kids Health, Recipes, Seasons, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Whole Food Diet, Women's health

Healthy Pumpkin Recipes for an Autumn Boost

When it comes to seasonal foods of Autumn, I think most everyone in the U.S. would agree that pumpkin is at the top! I have some healthy pumpkin recipes for you in this article that will satisfy your craving for this tasty squash.

I wrote earlier about my love of of Fall and how it’s necessary to change our activity level, diet, and lifestyle in order to stay healthy throughout the season. Incorporating pumpkin into your diet is a great way to adjust and also add some variety and flare to your family kitchen.

Nutritional Benefits of Pumpkin

In addition to being a yummy food, fleshy pumpkin pulp is a valuable remedy in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) dietetics. Pumpkin has a cool and sweet nature according to TCM. Therefore, it can help with many “heat” or inflammatory conditions such as dysentery, diabetes, eczema, and stomachaches.

Pumpkin seeds are just as valuable as the pulp. They’re high in protein, iron, zinc, magnesium, manganese, copper, vitamin E, and have many other nutritional benefits.

In TCM, pumpkin seed (called Nan gua zi) is an effective herbal remedy for prostate and bladder issues and is strong enough to expel stubborn parasites.

How to Incorporate Pumpkin Into Your Diet

If the thought of working with a whole pumpkin in the kitchen sounds too daunting, no worries. You can buy canned or boxed pumpkin (BPA-free) instead and pumpkin seeds from most grocery stores. We like eating raw, sprouted seeds in our house, like this Go Raw brand.

But for the pulp, I prefer to roast sugar pie pumpkins to make pureé instead. It’s not as challenging as you may think, and can be super fun if you let the kids participate. You can eat pumpkin pureé as it as is, maybe seasoned with a little cinnamon and maple syrup. Or add it to yogurt, oatmeal, soup, or a pancake recipe. And of course, you can make pie!

Here’s some recipes your family with love…

Healthy Pumpkin Recipes

Easy Roasted Pumpkin Pureé based on recipe from Weelicious

Choose a healthy, blemish-free sugar pie pumpkin

Heat oven to 400°F.
Cut out a hole at the top of the pumpkin and just like you’re going to carve it, go ahead and scoop out the insides, placing the seeds into a bowl of water if choosing to save them for roasting separately.
Place pumpkin on baking sheet and cook for 40 minutes.
Fit top back on pumpkin and bake for another 20 minutes or until tender.
Remove top again and cool until easy to handle.
Scoop out the pumpkin and either mash, run it through a food mill, or pureé in a blender/food processor.

Use the pureé in any of these Healthy Pumpkin Recipes:

Creamy Paleo Pumpkin Soup (dairy-free) by Tessa Domestic Diva

Healthy Pumpkin Pancakes (Gluten-free) by Paleo Grubs

Pumpkin Pie From Scratch by Food Foundation

20 Paleo Pumpkin Recipes by Against All Grain

And here’s a quick and easy recipe to roast pumpkin seeds:

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds by Allrecipes

Enjoy!!

Do you like eating pumpkin in season? Are there any recipes you think we should try? Please let us know in the comments!

Boost Energy, Chronic Disease, Gut Health, Kids Health, Thyroid Health, Whole Food Diet, Women's health

The One Surprising Thing You Need To Add To Your Diet

There’s one food you need to add to your diet to maintain optimum health, which you might not prioritize right now. That food is high quality FAT. This may be surprising to you if you only get dietary advice from doctors who align with the United States Department of Agriculture, who don’t recognize the importance of fat. You might be wondering:

Which fats are healthy?
Which fat is good, saturated or unsaturated?
What are examples of good fats?

In this article, I’ll answer these questions and teach you how fat is an essential nutrient that can give your health a big boost!

How Fat Brought Me Back To Health

For most of my life I ate the popular high-carbohydrate (whole-grain centered), moderate protein, low-fat diet to manage my weight and sustain health, as my doctors and health magazines suggested. However, even though I was committed to what I assumed was a balanced diet, I wasn’t healthy. I had terrible digestion, I had acne, and I started to gain weight. I finally woke up and started to question this dietary approach when diagnosed with Hashimoto’s (autoimmune) thyroiditis in my early 30’s.

Since that time, I’ve made many lifestyle & dietary changes that have helped to manage symptoms. Transitioning away from vegetarianism and committing to a traditional whole food diet made the most dramatic change. This included adding more fat to my diet every day. Not just any fat, but SATURATED FAT. Yes, the kind that the American Heart Association is still blaming on clogged arteries and heart disease.

More on that in a moment, but back to my story…

In this last year, I’ve gradually increased the amount of high quality fat in my diet. It’s what my body is craving the most! Currently, I’m exploring a combo Autoimmune Paleo / Ketogenic Diet. According to my last blood panels, I’m closer to remission (and my pre-baby shape!) than ever. And by the way, my blood pressure and cholesterol are well within normal limits.

Current Research on the Importance of Fat

I’m a huge fan of fat, as are many holistically-minded people these days. There is a ton of research out there disproving that saturated fat causes heart disease.

Check out this article, where Dr. Aseem Malhotra, consultant cardiologist at London’s Lister Hospital says (based on meta-analysis, review of previous studies, and personal experience):

“This idea that dietary saturated fats build up in the coronary arteries is complete unscientific nonsense.”

And yet the AHA is holding on tight to it’s claims in a recent health report which again urges us to avoid saturated fats and replace them with unsaturated fats. They deny the importance of fat. Coconut oil in particular was targeted as being unhealthy. I will not refute this claim here myself because others have already done a beautiful job:

Dr. Mercola – American Heart Association Renders Itself Obsolete With 1960’s Dietary Advice On Coconut Oil

Dr. Axe – Is Coconut Oil Healthy (The American Heart Association Doesn’t Think So)

This thorough article on coconut oil shows us how versatile and important it is in our diets and lifestyle!

52+1 Reasons to Love Coconut Oil

Fat is essential in our diets! Here’s more on the benefits of saturated fats in particular since their importance is the most misunderstood.

10 Important functions of saturated fats in human biology:

Half of our cell membranes are made up of saturated fatty acids, giving them structure and integrity.
Fat contains loads of vitamin A, D, E, and K and fat is needed to absorb these fat-soluble nutrients into the small intestine.
Fat and cholesterol are building blocks of brain tissue and needed continuously to maintain function.
Saturated fats protect the liver from alcohol, pharmaceuticals, and other toxins.
Kids need fat in order to develop properly. Nutritional dwarfing and inadequate weight gain have been observed in children placed on low-fat diets.
Researchers have shown that children oxidize fat quicker than adults and therefore need more. Even the American Family Physician (who is more in-line with government dietary suggestions) cautions against limiting fat and cholesterol in children less than 2 years old.
Increasing dietary fat while decreasing carbohydrates (favoring low-carb vegetables instead of grains) lowers blood sugar and insulin levels and also promotes healthy weight by balancing metabolism.
Cholesterol in foods with a lot of saturated fat is needed to make bile salts, steroid hormones (progestagens, glucocorticoids, mineralocorticoids, androgens, and estrogens), and vitamin D.
Eating fat keeps you satiated, reducing overeating. Try it and see for yourself!
Saturated fats support healthy thyroid function by making receptors more available to use T3 thyroid hormone.

Dietary fats are definitely not equal though! The infographic below is what I know to be true about what we should indulge in and what we should avoid.

Good vs. Bad Fats

The concern with “bad” fats is that most are polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), which have unstable chemical structures that leave them vulnerable to damage from heat, light, and oxygen.

Damaged PUFAs = Oxidation = Inflammation = Chronic issues like cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, fatty liver disease, some cancers, and much more.

Also, PUFAs are made up of Omega-6 fatty acids. Our ancestors ate diets with 1:1 ratios of Omega-3 to Omega-6 oils. However, modern Americans typically eat greater than 10X more Omega-6 than Omega-3. The imbalance causes inflammation (and the diseases mentioned above) in addition to damaging of gut flora.

This article has a very thorough explanation about the dangers of PUFAs if you’d like to learn more.

So is fat healthy? Yes! Nature is awesomely perfect and we were designed to eat natural fats, not those manufactured in a laboratory, and only those that don’t spoil quickly.

I hope this post gives you a greater appreciation of fat in our diets and that you recognize it’s importance. And if it makes sense to you to eat more fat, then please do! Your gut, brain, and hormones with thank you! If you’re not sure how you feel about fat, saturated in particular, then I hope this post was thought-provoking and you look into it further.

I’d love to know how you feel about the role of fat in human diets and about animal vs. plant fats. Also, are the amounts/types you’re consuming working for you? Please let us know in the comments!