For the sake of others do not drink and drive

Happy New Year's Eve and New Years Day! I hope you all have great times with family and friends.  Do them all a favor and do not drink and drive. Buzzed driving is drunk driving! Watch the video and go to their website and take the pledge to not Drink and Drive!

Take the Pledge at Buzzed Driving is Drunk Driving!

Tweet For Literacy = Reading families

(Part of this article was taken from Katie & Kimble Blog by Linda Thieman. To see her original article click Katie & Kimble)


In November I was asked to participate in The First Annual Tweet For Literacy campaign with four authors and three mom/book bloggers using the Social Media platform of Twitter.  


On Twitter as @LindaThieman, author of Katie and Kimble, and I (@susieqtpies) co-chaired the  giveaway events, and ended up with 19 winners who divided up almost $2000 worth of prizes amongst them. The donated prizes consisted of literacy-related items: large numbers of children’s books contributed by authors, publishers and sponsors; books on parenting, reading skills, and building vocabulary; and other items like flash cards, puzzles and more.


We gave away a prize set every other day.  These items were all to encourage literacy and reading amongst families. 

In the end, we had over 4,400 entries and created a lot of excitement about getting books into the home and making reading together a frequent fun family activity. In January, 2010, Tweet for Literacy will announce the winner of the second half of the grand prize package—one elementary school has been chosen to receive a classroom set of the first two books in the Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story series for third grade. Free classroom materials can be downloaded from the Katie & Kimble blog by teachers and homeschoolers to accompany these books. 



In this world full of electronics, we need to make sure that we are continuing to encourage our youth to use their words to describe what their eyes are seeing.  You can do that by discussing with your child what they are seeing on the computer.  When they play video games take time to ask them to describe what they are playing.  Encourage them to write a story about the characters in the game.   No matter what they are involved in encourage them to not just sit and watch but teach them to interact and think beyond just seeing.  


This post is part of the MAT@USC: Masters in Teaching Hope for the holidays event. Did you have an experience or witness something in 2009 which gave you hope for the future of American education? If so, please see this post for more information on how to share it.

Merry Christmas Kitty

Eating Well Should be Healthy Too!

CLICK TO ENTER THE Healthy Bread in Five Minutes Giveaway!

Eating Well Should Be Healthy Too!
by Jeff Hertzberg, M.D., and Zoë François,
Authors of Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients

(Thanks to Anna at FSB Associates for offering this article and sponsoring the Book Giveaway)

After the release of our first book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, in 2007, we started hearing from our readers. Many of them wanted to share their experiences with our innovative, time-saving, based on long-term dough storage. Many others had questions, so we set up a website and blog that were designed for questions and discussion.  Most of the questions directed at me sounded something like this: "You're the doctor, what's with all this white flour in the bread?"

Good question! The recipes in our first book were based on the traditional European repertoire, which meant lots of white flour. When people challenged me, I had to admit that I love a well-made white baguette, though I eat more whole grains than ever before. Variety is the spice of life, and I'm not ready to completely give up white flour. Every slice of bread doesn't have to represent a completely balanced meal. But, people asked for recipes with more whole grains, and they were backed up by some heavy hitters in the nutrition world. The American Diabetes Association now endorses whole grains as a preventive for the development of diabetes. And the U.S. Department of Agriculture is similarly pushing for more whole grain intake. We decided to write a second book, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, to give people more nutritious alternatives to white flour.  

Whole grain nutrition: So how does whole grain flour stack up against white flour? White flour is milled strictly from wheat's endosperm, the white part of the wheat kernel containing almost exclusively starch and protein (mostly gluten). There's nothing wrong with starch and protein, but you're missing all the benefits you get from whole grain's "germ," and all the fiber from the bran (the dark outer coating of the wheat kernel). Whole wheat includes the germ, which is packed with vitamins, anti-oxidants, and healthy oils. It's a particularly rich source of Vitamin E, which, when combined with Vitamin C-containing foods, make one of the most powerful anti-oxidant combinations known. Please pass the homemade orange marmalade on whole wheat bread!

Whole wheat also includes bran, which doesn't have vitamins and anti-oxidants -- that's wheat germ's chance to shine. But bran has its own very special role to play, and I'd love to tell you all about it. Unfortunately, it seems that food professionals have some sort of gentle-person's agreement about talking about the digestive tract, so if you're interested in learning more about bran's role in digestion, here's a great website for you: Fiber: How to Increase the Amount in Your Diet, from the American Academy of Family Physicians. The family doctors seem pretty clear that fiber from whole grains prevents a wide range of health problems.   

The other frequent question from readers was whether our books are a good fit for vegans (those who don't eat meat or any other animal products, including eggs, and dairy). Most of our non-enriched recipes (that's the majority of both books) are vegan in the first place. While many other whole grain authors use skim milk powder in whole wheat bread to tenderize it, we decided against that, mainly to keep things simple (fewer ingredients = simple). For vegans, the second book includes alternatives to butter in the enriched recipes. In our first book, butter was the animal-based ingredient that appeared most often. In Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, we give alternatives to butter, including canola oil and zero-trans fat, zero hydrogenated oil-based margarines. We also talk about the new products being sold as "butter substitutes," usually made with vegetable oils, but also flavor-enriched with whey and other non-fat products of butter. Technically speaking, most of these are not vegan because of the whey, but check the ingredients as there are exceptions.

Fruits and vegetables in the bread: OK, who told the USDA to increase the recommended fruit/vegetable servings to nine (for a person whose ideal weight is 150 pounds)? I have a friend who says he can't even name nine fruits and vegetables! Those are half-cup servings -- is anybody really getting this much in their diet? I can tell you that I am not. There are some good rules of thumb, such as "two-thirds of the plate should be vegetable or fruit." That helps, but even so, I don't think I'm making my quota. That's why we included a chapter in Healthy Bread about breads that are fortified with fruits and vegetables, sometimes ground finely, and sometimes chunky. We were amazed at how well this works, despite our fears that this stuff would weigh down the bread. Every little bit helps.  

Gluten-free breads: I once interviewed a prominent gastrointestinal specialist from one of the country's finest University hospitals, where his practice includes the treatment of celiac disease (intestinal allergy to wheat gluten). We talked about celiac disease, but I also asked him about people who aren't celiac, but simply don't feel well when they eat wheat. According to the Mayo Clinic, about 1 out of every 113 Americans have celiac disease. They become unpleasantly ill when they eat even small amounts of wheat gluten. The science is pretty clear on how to treat celiac patients: eliminate all gluten from their diet. Chapter 9 in Healthy Bread was written with them in mind. But the science is unclear on what to tell people who say they don't feel well when they eat gluten, but don't have celiac disease. My gastroenterologist friend has a very clear answer for those people. He tells them "don't argue with success." If you feel better when you avoid gluten, then decrease or eliminate it. So Healthy Bread is a book for those people well.  

All this health talk makes me a bit wary. When I used to see patients, I turned over every rock to figure out how to reduce their risk of chronic disease -- quit smoking, get more exercise, do your routine screening exams, and eat a healthier diet. But I'd hate to see people become obsessed with their diet, and specifically, about the bread. If you can pack some extra nutrition into the bread, and you like the flavor, by all means, go for it. But don't let it destroy your appreciation for great bread and other foods. As we said in our first book, if you worry about the bread, it won't taste good.  

© 2009, Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François, used with permission of the Authors

Author Bios

Jeff Hertzberg, M.D., coauthor of Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients, is a physician with twenty years of experience in health care as a practitioner, consultant, and faculty member at the University of Minnesota Medical School. His interest in baking and preventive health sparked a quest to adapt the techniques of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day for healthier ingredients.

Zoë François, coauthor of Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients, is passionate about food that is real, healthy, and always delicious. She is a pastry chef trained at the Culinary Institute of America. In addition to teaching baking and pastry courses nationally, she consults to the food industry and is the creator of the recipe blog www.zoebakes.com. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and two sons.

The authors answer bread questions at their Web site: www.healthybreadinfive.com.

Buzzed Driving IS Drunk Driving

It's holiday party season - time to celebrate all of the exciting winter holidays with our friends and loved ones.  Our mailboxes are flooded with invitations to parties and dinners and other holiday get-togethers.  With these parties come food, fellowship, gifts, and in many cases, festive alcoholic drinks.


If you host a Holiday Party please have someone in charge of seeing who is leaving the party.  They need to make sure the person can drive. If not someone needs to be the safe driver. 

In 2008, nearly 12,000 people in the U.S. were killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes - and during the periods around Christmas and New Year's, this number was particularly high, with 316 people killed in alchol-impaired driving crashes.  In 2007, 162,493 women were arrested for a DUI, an increase of almost 29% since 1998.  You can't help but wonder if lives could have been saved if people thought twice before getting behind the wheel.  With the holidays approaching, it's important that drivers be reminded about the dangers of buzzed driving.  Who knows...it could save a life.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHSTA) and the Ad Council are asking everyone to drive smart this holiday season and to pledge not to drive buzzed. 

YOU can help us spread this message during the holiday season 

1) Post about the dangers of buzzed driving on your blog, sharing a story or experience you might have had with buzzed driving.  IF you don't have a blog post your comments here for my readers to read!

2) Follow Buzzed Driving on Twitter @buzzeddriving 

3) Follow Buzzed Driving on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/buzzeddrivingisdrunkdriving) to get the latest updates and news.  

4)You can also visit the Buzzed Driving website (http://buzzeddriving.adcouncil.org/) and sign a pledge to not drive buzzed, play an interactive game which demonstrates the difference between buzzed and drunk, and hear personal stories from people who have driven buzzed.



5) Join us Tuesday, December 15th from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. EST for a sobering discussion about #BuzzedDriving on Twitter

While at holiday events, it's easy to lose track of a drink here or there - but this can be fatal.  This holiday season, keep you and your family safe by spreading this message.

Have a safe and happy holiday and remember that buzzed driving IS drunk driving.

This post is a campaign through Resourcefulmommy.com

Drive Across the Country for Child Passenger Safety

 Time to Drive Across the Country for Child Passenger Safety! This post is part of the State of Illinois Blog Hop Stop with Momfluence.

With the holiday season moving into full swing, families across the country are in the car and on the go.  Whether you're driving across the country to visit family or across town to holiday shop, it is important that your child passengers are riding safely and that child safety seats are used correctly.

AAA estimated that 30 million people traveled this Thanksgiving holiday alone, and for many this is just the beginning of the holiday hustle and bustle.  Now is the time to utilize the Child Car Safety tools provided by the U.S. Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Ad Council to learn more about proper car seat use and installation.  You will find informative resources that include instructional videos.

Have child passenger safety questions that you need answered before you travel over the river and through the woods to Grandma's?  NHTSA is always available to answer your questions online through Facebook and Twitter.

Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day Cookbook Giveaway

100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients

By Jeff Hertzberg, M.D., and Zoë François
Published by Thomas Dunne Books
October 2009; $27.99US/$35.99CAN; 978-0-312-54552-9

From the authors of the groundbreaking Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day comes a new cookbook filled with quick and easy recipes for healthy bread

Their first book was called "stupendous," "genius," and "the holy grail of bread making." Now, in their much-anticipated second book, Jeff Hertzberg, M.D., and Zoë François have taken their super-fast method and adapted it for the health-conscious baker, focusing on whole grains and other healthier ingredients.

The method is still quick and simple, producing professional-quality results with each warm, fragrant, hearty loaf. In just five minutes a day of active preparation time, you can create delectable, healthy treats such as 100% Whole Wheat Bread, Whole Grain Garlic Knots with Parsley and Olive Oil, Black-and-White Braided Pumpernickel and Rye Loaf, Cherry Black Pepper Focaccia, Pumpkin Pie Brioche, Chocolate Tangerine Bars, and a variety of gluten-free breads. And many of the recipes are 100% whole grain.

Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day will show you that there is time enough for home-baked bread, and that it can be part of a healthy diet. Calling all bread lovers: Whether you are looking for more whole grains, watching your weight, trying to reduce your cholesterol, or just care about what goes into your body, this book is a must-have.

Author Bios 
Jeff Hertzberg, M.D., coauthor of Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients, is a physician with twenty years of experience in health care as a practitioner, consultant, and faculty member at the University of Minnesota Medical School. His interest in baking and preventive health sparked a quest to adapt the techniques of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day for healthier ingredients.

Zoë François, coauthor of Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients, is passionate about food that is real, healthy, and always delicious. She is a pastry chef trained at the Culinary Institute of America. In addition to teaching baking and pastry courses nationally, she consults to the food industry and is the creator of the recipe blog www.zoebakes.com. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and two sons.

The authors answer bread questions at their Web site: www.healthybreadinfive.com.

GIVEAWAY (US only ends 12/23) ended

One copy!

ENTRY - Go visit  www.healthybreadinfive.com and tell me something you found on their blog! Post here and leave your email addy at least once.

BONUS entries

1) Follow my blog (right sidebar) with Google Friend Connect and or Networked Blogs. 1 entry each

2) Put my button your your blog (right sidebar)

3) Follow me on twitter @susieqtpies 

4) Tweet once a day, 1 entry per day; include link to giveaway and @susieqtpies

5) Follow @FSBAssociates on twitter

6) Blog giveaway and include link to giveaway (5 entries)

7) Post a bread recipe here for me to see! (5 entries)

8) Enter in my Holiday Recipe Exchange (top of page) (2 entries)

9) Buy the book! (10 entries) (show proof)


Thanks to Anna from FSB Associates for providing a book for me to review and one to giveaway to the winner of my giveaway at the bottom of this article!

Stepmonster misinformation

Thanks to Anna at FSB Associates for providing this article.

One in two women in the United States will marry or live with a man with children, according to projections by experts who study divorce and remarriage. And the research is clear: it’s harder for women to be a stepparent than it is for men. Who are these women? What motivates them? Are they really wicked?

As for me personally, I had a step mother for a short time and I loved her a lot. I grew up without a mother and I was happy to have her as a part of my life.  My father was absent most of my life and I know that he didn't consider my feelings when he married her.  I would visit and spend time with them.  I know that my feelings weren't considered because they were only married a few years and divorced while I was in college. This woman who I thought loved me disappeared after the divorce and I never knew where she went nor did my father give me a way of finding her.  Parents please consider your children when you remarry! Do you have an experience with a Stepmother? Please post if you do!

Misinformation From the Stepmothering Industry

by Wednesday Martin, Ph.D.,
Author of Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel, and Act the Way We Do

Books for stepmothers tend to perpetuate certain myths. The myth of the blended family and the myth of the maternal stepmother are the most glaring examples. These books' relentlessly upbeat tone can make stepmothers feel as though our own occasional negativity and impatience regarding his kids are freakish. Other books on stepmothering are so lighthearted, so insistent that we see the humor in our situation and in our responses to it, that reading them feels suspiciously like being told that our concerns don't matter and that we just need to lighten up. But the real problem with many books for stepmothers is not what they imply, but what they actually say:

Remember that his kids will always come first.

Leave the disciplining to him.

You will regret it forever if you lose your temper or say something nasty to your stepchildren, so whatever you do, don't.

With patience and love, they will come around.

The fact that these directives have become a virtual mantra, the unassailable golden rules of stepmothering does not mean that they are right. For example, a number of stepfamily experts concur that in a remarriage with children, giving the couple relationship priority is crucial (see chapter 6). It may jar us to learn that our concept that "the kids are the most important thing" is misguided, even destructive to our partnerships. The ideas that you should be second and should accept it, that his kids came first chronologically and so are first in his heart, and that his believing and acting on these ideas makes him a good person are powerful, deeply ingrained beliefs. But all of them can be fatal for the remarriage with children. They are even bad for the children, giving them an uncomfortable amount of power and focusing an undue amount of attention and pressure on them.

Andrew Gotzis, M.D., a New York City psychiatrist and therapist who works with couples, echoed the advice of a number of marriage counselors when he told me, "In a remarriage with children, the hierarchy of the family needs to be established quickly and clearly. The kids need to know that the husband and wife come first and that they are a unified team." Otherwise, Dr. Gotzis cautioned, the kids can split the couple apart and create tension in the marriage indefinitely. To remarried couples with children, the scenario of kids turning to Dad when Stepmom has said no, or vice versa, in an attempt to split the team is all too familiar. A woman with stepchildren may exhaust herself with her attempts to resolve such situations. For this reason, sociologist Linda Nielsen notes that a woman with stepchildren will have more success when she adopts the attitude "My main goal and my main focus is to build an intimate, fulfilling relationship with my husband and to take better care of my own needs, not to bond with or win the approval of my stepchildren." Nielsen notes that a shift like this cannot happen in a vacuum; the woman's partner needs to be on the same page with her. If the marriage is to work, Nielsen insists, "her husband has to be committed to creating a [partnership] around which his children revolve rather than a marriage that revolves around his children. Especially when his children dislike their stepmother, the father has to make it clear that the kids will not be handed the power or given the precedence over his marriage."

"Things didn't improve until I let my daughter know that, even though I loved her, my ultimate loyalty was to my wife," one man who had survived a rocky early remarriage with children observed. We can only imagine the resultant fireworks in that household. But the outcome was a stronger marriage. This in turn gave his daughter proof that marriages can last. It also replaced what could have become profound confusion about her unchecked power in the family with a sense of secure belonging.

As for the advice "Leave the disciplining to him," whoever said it never went to a home while the stepkids were visiting and their father was out. Certainly, no one is saying to step right in and start issuing orders to your stepkids in your first days and weeks together -- and few of us are likely to do that, fearing that we will be perceived as wicked. But what works in theory -- you should hold back more or less indefinitely so that you don't seem like the villain, backing up your husband rather than doing things yourself -- doesn't always work in practice. What happens when a stepchild does something that crosses the line but hubby isn't around? Are you to sit on your hands and bite your tongue rather than issue a firm "That's not okay, and you know it"? Moreover, firsthand experience has often demonstrated that the longer a woman with stepchildren waits, the harder it is for her ever to draw the line or be taken seriously as an adult with authority. I can attest to this fact. Because I was more or less a fraidy cat in the first year of my marriage, I had to be a tiger for the subsequent two or three years, as my stepdaughters still occasionally tried to walk all over me, just to see if they could. This was hardly their fault; I waited ages to take a stand about things such as snide remarks, dumping suitcases in the middle of the floor, and ignoring me.

Sometimes it is easier and smarter to ignore a stepchild's annoying habit, to decline to get involved in an emotion-charged discussion over her sweet sixteen party, or to be the voice of reason when planning her wedding. A number of women with stepchildren have found that "disengaging" is, in some situations, far and away the best strategy for them (see chapter 4). Other times, ignoring bad behavior just feels like being stepped on and creates a breeding ground for more resentment. And then what?

The culture at large is eager to gloss over women's anger in general, and advice for stepmothers in particular is full of warnings that if we express it, the consequences will be dire and irreversible. This strikes me as absurd. It would be the rare stepchild who never went through a phase of wanting to provoke his or her stepmom. Of course we lose our tempers, inevitably. And although it can feel catastrophic -- What if they hate me? What if they think I'm wicked? -- expressing our anger is, in my opinion, something we should do sooner rather than later. Otherwise, we risk setting the bar too impossibly high for everyone and creating a situation in which kids, teens, or even adult stepchildren go on pushing our buttons forever in an attempt to see where our limit is. Most of all, we need to learn as soon as possible -- to experience firsthand -- that being disliked is an occupational hazard for stepmothers, not a referendum on our worth. "Dad's girlfriend Laura yelled at us once in the car," my stepdaughter told me solemnly in our early days together. I didn't know exactly why she was telling me this, but I knew how Laura must have felt, and I admired her for letting the girls know when she thought they'd gone too far.

You're not my mother! Most of us fear that it is yelling or disciplining or losing our tempers or not being nice enough or patient enough or selfless enough that will keep our husbands' children from accepting us or drive them away. If only we had so much control. Instead, unrealistic expectations about blending and being maternal, difficult developmental stages, competition that is largely inevitable and unavoidable, misinformation about stepmothering, and a host of other factors play a bigger role in the way a reconfigured family group coheres -- or doesn't. We are not, in fact, their mothers. Happily ever after and happiness all around are ideals -- unlikely ones at that, even in traditional nuclear families. Eventually, we may find that we have arrived at a place of comfort, familiarity, and real pleasure with our husbands' kids. But if our happiness is contingent on his kids being happy for us, being happy with us, and loving us, then we have given away our greatest power and put everything at risk.

The above is an excerpt from the book Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel, and Act the Way We Do by Wednesday Martin, Ph.D.. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Copyright © 2009 Wednesday Martin, Ph.D., author of Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel, and Act the Way We Do

Author Bio

Wednesday Martin, Ph.D., is a social researcher and the author of Stepmonster: a New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel, and Act the Way We Do (2009). She is a regular contributor to Psychology Today (www.psychologytoday.com) and blogs for the Huffington Post and on her own web site (www.wednesdaymartin.com). She has appeared as a stepparenting expert on NPR, the BBC Newshour, Fox News and NBC Weekend Today, and was a regular contributor to the New York Post's parenting page. Stepmonster is a finalist in the parenting category of this year's "Books for a Better Life" award.

A stepmother for nearly a decade, Wednesday lives in New York City with her husband and two sons. Her stepdaughters are young adults.

The Whole-Food Guide to Strong Bones and Recipe

The book, The Whole-Food Guide to Strong Bones: A Holistic Approach, is full of tasty tips and recipes for strong bones! The book contains 85 delicious, healthy recipes. Below I included one recipe that I'm using this Holiday Season so I've linked it in my Holiday Recipe Exchange. Do you have a healthy recipe for this holiday season? If so please link it  at the top of my Holiday Recipe exchange!

Coconut Cream p. 235

A healthier, bone optimal cream to try on hot cocoa!

1 (14.5 oz) can organic full-fat coconut milk (don't use low-fat milk if you do you won't get the right texture)

1 Tbsp agave nectar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1) Place coconut milk in the freezer for 5-6 hours to allow the cream to rise to the top.  Gently, without shaking the can, remove it from the freezer and carefully open it.  Scoop the thicker coconut milk off th etop and place it in a glass or stainless steel bowl.  Scoop carefully; the thick part should go down about 2/3s of the way to the bottom of the can.  Reserve the leftover coconut water for another use (use it in a soup or stew)

2) Whip the coconut milk with a whisk or a hand mixer until thick, then stir in the agave nectar and vanilla.  Stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator, it will keep well for several days!  

Makes about 1 cup.

-------------------------------

Everyone wants to know how you can maintain strong bones.  We keep hearing that an active lifestyle and calcium supplements are two key ingredients.  The author, Annemarie Colbin, PH.D., has put together a program to help you create stronger bones.  Just when you learned that there are foods to strengthen and build bone mass you also find out there are foods that will weaken them, too!  The book is divided into three parts:


Part 1

Understanding Your Bones
The book takes on a well thought out Holistic Approach, whole body healing.  The author clearly list her experience in the area of bone health.  She also suffered with a broken wrist and sprained hand joints.  She clearly has  first "hand" experience on this topic.  She was able to change her behavior and eating habits to help her heal.


Part 2 
Caring for Your Bones
She covers whole foods, a diet to promote healthy bones, exercise and movement, strength from within and how to regain lost bone.


Part 3
Recipes for Healthy Bones! Yummy! Click to read article listing best foods and a recipe!

My Take on the book: This book is great for anyone wanting to know more about osteoporosis or fractures. There is a great deal of information here on causes and risk.  She made a great point that are bones are made to last.  According to science data and under certain conditions some bones have lasted tens of thousands of years.  They have been used to make tools.  They were made to not fall apart while the body is living. 

This is such a healthy book!  After reading it I really felt like I have some control on my bone health.  It isn't as easy as constantly popping Calcium chewable, it  is better! Do you need a medical degree to understand this book? No,  I found that she wrote this book for the every day person! She explained and went into details just enough to get you to understand how food, exercise, nutrients, etc all  work together to get you to have optimal healthy bones!

Here are just a few things that I learned from this book:

1) In adults, about 5 to 10 percent of bone is replaced yearly and most of our entire skeleton is replaced about every ten years. (pg 27)



2) The major sources of calcium are found in the foods we eat.  These plants offer twice as much calcium as an ounce of milk does: cauliflower, watercress, parsley, brussels sprouts, rutabaga, kale, mustard greens, bok choy, brocolli and turnip greens.  Other great sources are almonds, sesame seeds, pinto beans, sweet potatoes and seaweeds (often eaten in sushi rolls and miso soup), mineral water, oysters, soft-shell crabs, sardines, anchovies and mineral-rich stock made from bones. (pg 31)


3) A really great point was made that if your meal consists of many sources of calcium, then you will get enough calcium.


4) You need to do more than ingest  a high amount of calcium  for bone health and fracture prevention. (pg.31)


5) Aside from calcium, our body needs other nutrients and activities.  The author goes into great detail of these other nutrients and activities. 


6) Vitamin D is fat soluble so it needs fat  to be stored in the body.  This is a great example on how low-fat diets are not healthy for the body.  It does not help support healthy bones. (pg. 33)  This entire section on Vitamin D was an eye-opener for me.  Including the use of sun screen and how it interferes with the production of Vitamin D. 


7) Best fats to cook with are olive oil, unrefined sesame and sunflower oils, cold-pressed flaxseed oil, unrefined coconut and palm oils and butter or cream. (pg. 44)


8) Are you confused on HDL & LDL? She really explains the difference and that they shouldn't be called good or bad cholesterol.  (pg. 44)


9) Water is very important for optimal bone health? (pg 50)



10) This is where I could list at least 100 more things!  You'll have to read it!

Part 3 gives you some really great recipes!  What surprised me the most was the Dessert section!  She really did a wonderful job putting together recipes that where for optimal health for someone with a sweet tooth!




Author Bio
Annemarie Colbin, Ph.D., author of The Whole-Food Guide to Strong Bones: A Holistic Approach, is a health educator and award-winning writer, consultant, and lecturer. She is the founder and CEO of the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts in New York City. She is author of several books including Food and Healing and writes a column, "Food and Your Health," for New York Spirit magazine.
For more information please visit www.FoodAndHealing.com.
Thanks to Julie at FSB Associates for this book to review.

12 Facts for This Holiday Season GIVEAWAY

For the next 12 days I will be listing Fact that you use to know!  After you read it you will probably catch yourself saying "I Use to Know That"  Thanks to the Author, Caroline Taggart for supplying the article through FSB Associates! Thanks to Caitlin at FSB Assoicates I will have one of these books to offer to a reader as a Giveaway!

GIVEAWAY

To enter: Come read each day for an entry!  So you can earn up to 12 entries! Leave a comment each day you stopped in to read! Did you miss a day? Make sure you read the day you missed and leave a comment!! It's that easy!

By Caroline Taggart,

Author of I Used to Know That: Stuff You Forgot From School

Click to read a review on the book

Ever catch yourself saying I Used to Know That?

Each holiday season brings another round of cocktail parties, family get-togethers, and corporate gatherings -- and invariably, lots of small talk. It's easy to feel overwhelmed when discussing politics, literature, and other intellectual "stuff," especially when what is thought to be general knowledge is often long-forgotten. Enter I Used to Know That: Stuff You Forgot From School. From English and Literature to Math and Science, from History and Geography to Religion and Other-Worldly Topics, this book leaves you equipped to handle any topic of conversation.

Here we've cherry-picked twelve fun facts for the holiday season -- one for every day of Christmas (or whatever holiday you prefer!) Quiz yourself to see how much "stuff" you need to brush up on before hobnobbing with the boss or office crush. Check back daily for the next one!!!

DAY ONE

1) On building sentences: Just what is a "clause"? (Not to be confused with Santa Claus.)

Answer: A clause contains a subject and a verb and may stand alone as a sentence or as part of a sentence (when it is often called a subordinate clause): Santa Claus loves cookies but can't eat them without milk.

 DAY TWO

2)  How many bones is the spine made up of?

Answer: 26 small bones called vertebrae (Be careful lifting all those heavy holiday boxes.)

DAY THREE 

 

3. Acclaimed author Charles Dickens (1812-70) wrote which Christmas classic?

Answer: A Christmas Carol. The miserly Ebenezer Scrooge tries to ignore Christmas and is haunted by the ghost of his former partner, Marley, and by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come, who show him the error of his ways.

DAY FOUR

4. The fist chapter of this famous book opens with "Call me Ishmael." Name the book and author. (Hint: it makes a whale of a gift!)

Answer: Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Melville is also the author of Pierre and the unfinished Billy Budd.

DAY FIVE

5. There's a name for the process of watering your Christmas tree? Who knew?

Answer: Grab the kids and give them this science factoid as they nurture the family tree: Osmosis is a form of diffusion that is specific to the movement of water. Water moves through a selectively permeable membrane (that is, one that lets some types of molecules through but not others) from a place where there is a higher concentration of water to one where it is lower.

Day Six

6. Can you name all 6 wives of Henry VIII, father of the Church of England?

Answer: (Listed in order) Catherine, Anne, Jane, Anne, Catherine, Catherine. They are often remembered as divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. Sure makes you think twice when complaining about bad relatives.

Happy Holidays to all!

©2009 Caroline Taggart, author of I Used to Know That: Stuff You Forgot From School

Author Bio
Caroline Taggart, author of I Used to Know That: Stuff You Forgot From School, has been an editor of non-fiction books for nearly 30 years and has covered nearly every subject from natural history and business to gardening and astronomy. She has written several books and was the editor of Writer's Market UK 2009.
For more information please visit www.amazon.com.

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Seven Ways to Manage Your Diabetic Waistline During the Holidays

Thanks to Anna at FSB Associates for the article! Stay tuned for a book review in a few weeks!

Seven Ways To Manage Your Diabetic Waistline During the Holidays
By Frederic J. Vagnini, M.D., FACS, and Lawrence D. Chilnick,

Authors of The Weight Loss Plan for Beating Diabetes: The 5-Step Program That Removes Metabolic Roadblocks, Sheds Pounds Safely, and Reverses Prediabetes and Diabetes

During the holiday season many dedicated dieters or those who follow special diets for diabetes, heart disease or other conditions not only "fall off the wagon" but also leap into the deep end of the pool. Don't feel guilty. This is a normal reaction to attending large family dinners where everyone makes food loaded with seductive carbohydrates. We also go to multiple parties -- sometimes on the same day -- where the hosts have hired caterers who specialize in delicious appetizers and desserts that are so good you just stand at the buffet and eat more and more.

Worse, in some cases you are at the home of a sensitive relative who has taken gourmet cooking courses and will be insulted if you don't have at least seconds of every dish. Your diabetes is not an excuse where they are concerned.

Can you have "your cake and eat it" during this holiday season that now seems to stretch from before Thanksgiving well into the coming year? If you adopt a simple strategy, you can survive the holidays without too much damage.

The first thing you have to admit is that you are not powerless over the mounds of mashed potatoes, hams, turkeys, stuffing, butter coated green beans and apple and pumpkin pies. Next, adopt these few logical steps below and with any luck and preparation you will come out of the holidays as healthy as you went into them -- your blood sugars and weight at the same levels three months before.

One: Put Yourself Into Pre-Holiday Training: Think of the holidays as sort of an Olympics (for Eating). The first thing any athlete does is begin training. As a diabetic you are already exercising, eating properly and taking medication and supplements. Adopt a strategy that helps you increase your exercise and lowers your blood sugars even more. Begin this a month ahead of Thanksgiving. When you are shopping park farther away and walk everywhere you can. The more "workouts" you get with proper food and exercise the better shape you will be in. 

Two: Holidays are not a license to eat. We all tend to have "slips" when following a weight loss plan -- especially as a diabetic whose health depends on keeping nutrition balanced. Do not rationalize as you line up to shovel food on your plate that this is only "for today". It won't turn out that way. There will be more parties and unless you adopt the attitude that "today is just like any other day" you will be on the downhill slide.

Three: Use Visualization. Think of how you felt in the past when you did overeat. Remember over eating and the bloated, nauseous feeling that may have led to you getting sick and ending up vomiting and passed out on the couch. Just bring that sensation back and you will already start backing away from the table.

Four: Think Of The Damages: Keep in mind that over eating during the holidays can destroy an entire year of work and you end up possibly gaining 10-15 pound in a few weeks. It is OK to go off your diet a bit but keep the consequences in focus. 

Five: Stay Home When You Can: This one is tough but if you can keep the "exposure" down your odds of staying on track increase.

Six: Don't Go To Parties Hungry: In effect pre-medicate. Have a small salad or something healthy when you go to a party or dinner so you will not be as tempted.

Seven: Avoid the "liquids". Parties seem to attract bottles of beer and glasses of wine. Remember how many calories these contain and stick to water if you can.

The holiday season is about seeing old friends, family and having a good time. While all the food and entertaining is hard to avoid, if you keep these ideas in mind you can still enjoy yourself and not suffer from it. The most important lesson is that if you keep exercising -- staying in training -- you will have a much easier time continuing your weight loss program after the holidays are passed..

©2009 Frederic Vagnini, M.D., FACS, and Lawrence D. Chilnick, authors of The Weight Loss Plan for Beating Diabetes: The 5-Step Program That Removes Metabolic Roadblocks, Sheds Pounds Safely, and Reverses Prediabetes and Diabetes

Author Bios

Frederic J. Vagnini, M.D., FACS, coauthor of The Weight Loss Plan for Beating Diabetes: The 5-Step Program That Removes Metabolic Roadblocks, Sheds Pounds Safely, and Reverses Prediabetes and Diabetes, is a board-certified cardiovascular surgeon whose understanding of the ravages of cardiovascular diseases is grounded in twenty years as a cardiac surgeon. He hosts a popular call-in radio show and has published several books, including The Carbohydrate Addict's Healthy Heart Program, a New York Times bestseller.

Lawrence D. Chilnick, coauthor of The Weight Loss Plan for Beating Diabetes: The 5-Step Program That Removes Metabolic Roadblocks, Sheds Pounds Safely, and Reverses Prediabetes and Diabetes, is the authors and creator of the New York Times bestseller The Pill Book, which has sold 17 million copies and is still in print after more than two decades. He is a publishing executive, editor, teacher, journalist, broadcaster, and author of several popular health reference books, electronic products, audiotapes, and videos.

For more information please visit http://vagnini.com 

and http://www.fairwindspress.com/description.asp?isbn=9781592333844 

Giving back at the Holidays!

I just found out that Twittermoms and Robeez is involved in a blog event to give back for the holidays!   Guess what Robeez   is up to?  For every pair of Robeez Soft Sole purchases, stride rite will donate that pair to K.I.D.S (Kids In Distressed Situations), through December 23rd.  I would love to get a pair of these shoes for Lucy.  She is the cutest baby and will need these shoes before you know it!

I love these Robeez soft sole Paisley T-straps in fuchia!  They will add a little prep to her step. Lucy can study her ABC's and 123's at the playground or the park in this easy-on, stay-on paisley t-strap.

As for my family we give back to our Church Family by hosting a huge Open House!  My husband is the Pastor and this is our 4th Christmas here and our 3rd year.  We moved here right before Christmas.  We had closed on our home so we got to sleep there with air beds! It was a lot of fun!  Members of our Church brought over food, frying pan and utensils, salt & pepper,etc whatever they thought that we could use for a few days until we moved in all our belongings.  Their love and generosity has continued year after year.  So our Open House is a way that we can give back to them and say THANKS for all that you do!

As part of the Open House we are also going Christmas Caroling to the local nursing homes and stopping at homes of people from our church who can't get out and join us.

As a family and as a church family we are involved in Project Weekend Warrior.  Each week we bag up food for needy school children to take home to eat over the weekend.   During their Christmas break we will be sending home $20 McDonald gift cards and extra food and water to help them get through their break.  It is so sad to think that there are kids that don't get much food on the weekends or during the Holidays.  We try and help.

Our family and church family also volunteer and donate food to the local Food Pantry.  We were able to give them money to help purchase chickens for the holidays.  A fun treat we are doing is putting together personal care items for those who visit the pantry.  They will be little holiday bags of shampoo, soap, shavers, denture cleaner, feminine hygiene products, etc.  These are items that are not available for them at the Pantry. If I happen to win the grand prize I will be donating the shoes to the Food Pantry for those with little ones.  They will be overwhelmed to receive such a high quality and very warm product for their little ones this winter.

Thanks to all who go the extra mile and do something special during this time of the year.  What do you do for the Holidays to help others?

Take a few minutes and visit Twittermoms to enter in this blogging contest! K.I.D.S brings hope and self-esteem to children in need and their families by providing new clothes, shoes, toys, furniture, books and juvenile products donated by leading manufacturers and retailers. The donations move through their network of community social service agencies in the U.S. and abroad to reach children who are ill, living in poverty, or are the victims of natural disasters.

About The Stride Rite Children’s Group, LLC. and Collective Brands, Inc.

Stride Rite Children's Group, part of the Stride Rite unit of Collective Brands, Inc., markets the leading brand of premium children's footwear in the United States under such brands as Stride Rite®, Saucony® Kids, Sperry Top-Sider® Kids, Keds® Kids, Robeez® and among others. For 90 years, the company’s passion for excellence in design has been focused on ensuring the proper development of children’s feet with a commitment to innovation, research and technology.

Overcome Supermarket Roadblocks for Healthly Weight Loss

Thanks to Anna at FSB Associates for the review article.

Overcome Supermarket Roadblocks
by Frederic Vagnini, M.D., FACS, and Lawrence D. Chilnick,
Authors of The Weight Loss Plan for Beating Diabetes: The 5-Step Program That Removes Metabolic Roadblocks, Sheds Pounds Safely, and Reverses Prediabetes and Diabetes

Shopping Defensively

Here are some specific hints for defensive shopping:

• Prepare ahead. If there's one rule to follow, this is it: Don't to go to the supermarket "on the fly." We've all run out for a few things and ended up buying twice as much as we needed. Often, something in the store tempts us to do just that. For example, how many supermarkets position the bakery right where you walk in, with the wonderful smell of newly baked bread or cakes perfuming the air? It's not an accident.
• Consult your cookbooks and create a weekly menu. Write down all of the ingredients you need for it.
• Know what you are going to make, and make sure that most of what you buy fits into your overall meal plan.
• Check the fridge and pantry so you know what you don't  need to buy.
• Shop weekly. Shopping too often or stretching your shopping trips to every two weeks will make sticking to your meal plan more difficult.
• Learn the store layout. The fewer tempting products you see and the less time you spend browsing, the easier it will be to avoid buying the wrong foods. The healthiest fresh foods are in areas against the store walls. Don't spend time in the central aisles with things you don't need.
• Look up and down. The most attractively packaged food is on shelves at eye level.
• Stay away from the areas where store employees are offering free samples of high-carb and fatty foods.
• Eat before you shop. A hungry shopper buys more food and makes worse food choices, plus with diabetes, you need to eat at specific times and in amounts that ensure stable blood sugar.
• Shop alone and without the kids. Although research claims that men are more likely to stick to their list only, the levels of obesity in both genders suggests otherwise. Going to the supermarket should be a directed, time-limited event. You are there to buy certain things you need; you don't have to review every single one of the store's offerings. If possible, shop for food when the kids are in school because they are special targets for marketers.
• Make healthy choices. This doesn't only mean buying fresh vegetables from local farms or good produce in the supermarket. A healthy choice is a meal you make at home -- not take-out or prepared foods. Over the past decade, sales of prepared foods at the deli counters and throughout the store have risen steadily. Americans now spend over $15 billion per year on prepared foods in supermarkets and in shopping mall food courts.

While sales of starchy, fat-dripping fast foods are dropping, prepared take-out foods aren't much better. The choices are often "family friendly": fried chicken, chicken nuggets, chicken wings, baked potatoes, egg rolls, tacos, and creamy "comfort food" soups. Did you know that much of the prepared supermarket food is made by the same giant food companies that make the fast foods? If you buy prepared foods, avoid those with heavy mayonnaise or breading and high calories. Dodge items featuring rice or mashed potatoes, too.

Some experts suggest you take a close look at how much of your diet comes from the prepared choices. If prepared food makes up more than half of your diet, you have a problem. While one solution would be to learn to cook more or better, some people simply don't like to cook or have too little time to make meals at home. But this isn't an insurmountable problem.

Making the Supermarket Your Support System

Doing your own cooking will help you control what you eat, control your glucose, and lose weight. You will still go to the supermarket, but buying fresh vegetables in season, certain fruits, and good protein sources such as fish, chicken, turkey, and other lean meats will make your diet more interesting and flavorful. You might even discover that cooking can be fun, and you can make it a group activity. As you lose weight, you will feel better physically and mentally because the food you eat will be better for you. Your body will thank you.

Another good tip is to ask questions at the market. You'd be surprised how much help the people behind the counters can be, and not only at high-end supermarkets.

The desire for certain foods has been studied and reported on over the years. It's often been noted that people fantasize more about food than any other pleasure, including sex. After all, food gave us our first pleasure as children, and eating habits last a lifetime. Given the level of obesity in the country, is it any surprise that many adolescents who do their "hunting" in front of the computer or video game are following in their parents' footsteps?

The above is an excerpt from the book The Weight Loss Plan for Beating Diabetes: The 5-Step Program That Removes Metabolic Roadblocks, Sheds Pounds Safely, and Reverses Prediabetes and Diabetes by Frederic Vagnini, M.D., FACS, and Lawrence D. Chilnick. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Copyright © 2009 Frederic Vagnini, M.D., FACS, and Lawrence D. Chilnick, authors of The Weight Loss Plan for Beating Diabetes: The 5-Step Program That Removes Metabolic Roadblocks, Sheds Pounds Safely, and Reverses Prediabetes and Diabetes

Author Bios

Frederic J. Vagnini, M.D., FACS, coauthor of The Weight Loss Plan for Beating Diabetes: The 5-Step Program That Removes Metabolic Roadblocks, Sheds Pounds Safely, and Reverses Prediabetes and Diabetes, is a board-certified cardiovascular surgeon whose understanding of the ravages of cardiovascular diseases is grounded in twenty years as a cardiac surgeon. He hosts a popular call-in radio show and has published several books, including The Carbohydrate Addict's Healthy Heart Program, a New York Times bestseller.

Lawrence D. Chilnick, coauthor of The Weight Loss Plan for Beating Diabetes: The 5-Step Program That Removes Metabolic Roadblocks, Sheds Pounds Safely, and Reverses Prediabetes and Diabetes, is the authors and creator of the New York Times bestseller The Pill Book, which has sold 17 million copies and is still in print after more than two decades. He is a publishing executive, editor, teacher, journalist, broadcaster, and author of several popular health reference books, electronic products, audiotapes, and videos.

For more information please visit www.amazon.com.