Children's Nutrition Begins with Parental Education

Precious little one’s dietary needs are the same as they were 20 years ago; however, the food they eat is not. Today’s foods aren't even kissing health on the cheek. I submit, ‘Lunchables’. Alluringly marketed, this Anti-Christ of nourishment is laden with an un-Godly amount of salt, HFCS, synthesized fats, food colorings, nitrates and immune-depleting sugar.

Kids need 40 heavenly vitamins a day to grow mentally and physically. They require a variety of fresh, chemically-free food in its natural, cosmic wrapping. Today’s foods are nutritionally D.O.A.; devoid of their cosmic life force due to reckless industrial modification and ethical malnourishment..

Small adults require freshly prepared, pure whole foods primed with love; the key ingredient. Vulnerable bodies require quality materials, not holiday sugary treats, to grow big and strong with alert minds eager to absorb knowledge. Find time for preparing wholesome, balanced lunches, or find time for illness. Sugar profoundly depletes immune function.

It’s time for devoted parents to update their nutritional literacy. Time-strapped Mom’s and Dads’ lament the daily hassle of preparing healthy lunches. One child told me her parents gave her a Pop Tart and a can of Mountain Dew, kissed them goodbye, hastening them to the bus stop. The quandary? The Indiana State Board of Health warns, due to malnourishment, parents today will outlive their children. Before packing those recyclable brown bags with convenient, dead foods, caringly consider your choices. Are they based on personal convenience or your brood’s primary requirements?

The CDC states 1 in 200 rosy-cheeked kids under 18 are avoiding meat and embracing the earth-friendly vegetarian diet. Thanks to YouTube, animal slaughter videos have shocked the developing sensibilities of U.S. children. Kids raised vegetarian lower their risk of ‘Diabesity’, cancer, GI problems, and have steadfast immune systems. At the lease, cut back and make one home-dinner a week vegetarian night. The average family spends $4-5 K annually factory-farm produced meat.
Dust off the thermos for hearty vegetable and bean soups. Make a garden salad or whole grain pasta salad with vegetables mixed, walnuts and last night’s chicken breast. Pack a low-cal dressing separate and let them add it in.

Its critical children obtain adequate amounts of clean, locally produced protein, vitamins B 12 and D-3, iron, zinc, calcium and other nutrients most people get from meat, eggs and dairy. If they are uber-picky, provide youngsters with a food-based multi-vitamin-mineral supplement.

Your kids truly love you. Love them back responsibly with ‘good for you’ green eating behaviors.

Eat Right Now
Chef Wendell Fowler
Please visit: www.chefwendell.com

Hearty and Healthy Pumpkin Recipes for Fall

By: Chef Wendell Fowler, author of Eat Right, Now: Holy Temple Maintenance Guide

My message is, and always will be, that ‘food is the most powerful medicine on earth’. We are one large carbon-based, bio-chemical factory, which reacts to everything we put into it. Disease occurs when we put foods that are unnatural, or overly processed, into our Holy Temple; like chemically laden convenience foods that chip away at the crispy edges of our health.

If you desire to loose weight, lower your risk of developing lung cancer, diabetes, or heart disease, simply look to food as your solution, by changing your way of looking at food. Pumpkin contains Folate, which you may know about as a B-vitamin needed to prevent birth defects and also helps to lower levels of homocysteine, an indicator of heart disease. Plus, our orange friend is also brimming with magnesium, tryptophan, iron, zinc, fiber, and a little bit of protein. Everything our body needs to prosper.

Corn helps maintain your fading memory with Thiamin (Vitamin B1) and is jam-packed with fiber, vitamin C, phosphorus and manganese. The sweet potato in this dish provides valuable Beta Carotene, which aids in warding off cancer. What’s not to like? Your loving family deserves the best.

Corn and Pumpkin Chowder

Serves 6

INGREDIENTS

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
2 to 3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup well-scrubbed sweet potato, cut into 1/2-inch chunks
6 cups vegetable broth
1 cup pumpkin puree

2 drops of liquid smoke
1 cup corn, frozen or cut from the cob
1/2 teaspoon dried or fresh thyme
1/2 teaspoons crumbled dried sage
1/2 cup soy, rice milk, or organic milk
salt and freshly-ground pepper to taste

1. Heat olive oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add onion, garlic, and sweet potato; Sautee, stirring to coat the vegetables with the olive oil, until onion is translucent, just a few minutes.

2. Add vegetable broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cook, covered, 30 minutes, until sweet potato is tender.

3. Add pumpkin puree, corn, and herbs. Bring back to a boil, then reduce heat again and cook over low heat for 10 minutes. Stir in soymilk or organic milk and remove soup from the heat.

4. Puree half the soup in a blender and return it to the pot, stirring well to combine. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Stew In a Pumpkin Shell

Heart Food

1 large pumpkin
Sucanat, honey, real maple syrup, or stevia
2 large onions, chopped
Olive oil
3 pounds fake meat (Seitan / wheat meat, or ground up soy crumbles)
1 pound tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon tomato paste
3 1/2 pints veggie stock
2 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 pounds white potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 pounds raw pumpkin, cut in chunks (as best you can)
2 cans sweet corn
12 canned or fresh, yellow peach halves, sliced, saving the peach juice on the side
1 heaping teaspoon dried oregano
Sea Salt and pepper

To prepare the pumpkin, cut the top to form a lid, angle cutting so the lid will sit on and not fall in. Leave the stem for a handle.

Remove the "guts", the fibers and seeds and discard.

Scoop away most of the solid flesh, leaving a sturdy wall of pumpkin, being careful not to cut through it. Measure out 2 pounds of the raw pumpkin flesh for the stew and cube it the best you can. Replace the lid and set the pumpkin on a baking sheet. Bake at 325 long enough for the inside to get soft enough to scoop but will still hold up the weight of the stew. Remove from oven with an oven mitt.

Cook the onion, garlic and fake meat in a little oil until soft but not browned in a sauté pan. Transfer to a large saucepan. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, the stock, a little sea salt and plenty of pepper to the ‘meat’ and onions. Cover and simmer until the ‘meat’ is heated.

Add the remaining ingredients, sweet and white potatoes, corn, cubed, pumpkin and peaches to the saucepan and cover with more stock. Return to a boil and simmer until the potatoes are cooked, and the liquid is thickened from the pumpkin scooped off inside gently with a spoon.

Add stew to pumpkin shell and stow it in the oven at 140 degrees for 15 minutes or longer if the walls are thick. Be careful not to collapse the walls. You can use a large casserole dish as a support for the walls.

Taste, correct the seasoning and add a little of the peach juice. Remove the pumpkin from the oven and ladle the stew into your set of soup bowls you’ve been trying to use for something. You could use baby pumpkins, but you’d have to cook them first a bit. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

For more information about Chef Wendell Fowler and his recipes, visit www.chefwendell.com.

Chocolate—Opiate of the Masses

Chocolate—Opiate of the Masses

By: Chef Wendell Fowler

Do you yearn to travel to Hershey, Pennsylvania, Cocoa Beach, Florida, or Carmel, California? Welcome to the Chocophile Club.

For 2000 years, chocolate has mesmerized humankind as it is the symbol for love, friendship and celebration with its creamy smoothness which melts in our mouths, and not in our hands. Chocolate originates from the cacao (kah Kow) tree known as Theobroma cacao. The tree is pollinated by midges whose wings beat 1000 times per second and birds that make homes in its branches. The seedpod grows on the trunk, not the branches as one might expect. Each pod is the size of a fresh pineapple and holds up to fifty seeds: enough to prepare about seven milk chocolate or two dark chocolate bars.

Actually, the first people to have made chocolate were the ancient Aztec cultures of Central America and Mexico where primarily it was mixed, ground, fermented, and turned into a frothy, bitter, spicy, albeit coveted Mesoamerican luxury beverage. For ninety percent of its history, chocolate was drunk not eaten. The Aztecs spiced their drink with chili pepper, thicken it with cornmeal, or flavored it with honey, vanilla or flower petals. At that time, sugar was not available. Montezuma was rumored to have exacted his revenge upon his domain by harboring all the “liquid gold” in his treasure troves and one would be considered lucky to be offered a frothy cup from the Emperors private stash. The great Emperor was rumored to also have used chocolate to improve his lovemaking.

The University of California, Davis has discovered that chocolate contains flavonoids and anti-oxidants, substances that are good for the heart. Flavonoids, which come from plants, are naturally occurring compounds in the cacao plant, as well as in red wine, tea, fruits, and vegetables. Six hours after eating flavonoids, platelet activity and aggregation, responsible for clotting, is reduced. These flavonoids dilate blood vessels, can help improve blood flow to the heart, and they act as antioxidants which help prevent damage caused by free-radical stress.

Flavonoids assist in keeping low-density lipoproteins (LDL’s) or the bad cholesterol from oxidizing and creating plaque on walls of our arteries. Plaque is what builds up over time and clogs our arteries. According to a press release from The Field Museum, “Contrary to the popular misconception, eating lots of chocolate does not raise blood cholesterol levels. Chocolate contains stearic acid, which is a neutral fat that doesn’t raise bad cholesterol (LDL).
Also, the cocoa butter in chocolate contains oleic acid, a good mono-unsaturated fat similar to that fat found in olive oil that may actually raise good cholesterol.”

Various processing procedures of cheaper brands can deplete chocolate of the beneficial nutrients, and the level of them may vary from brand to brand. High quality, organic dark chocolate is the best, and chocolate made with cocoa butter instead of cheaper palm oils is much better for your heart.

Your mood is in the food. If your mojo needs a jump-start, chocolate improves your disposition since it contains 3 mg/100 g of serotonin. The celestially divine chocolate contains theobromine, a stimulant that is chemically similar to caffeine. Theobromine is used to treat high blood pressure since it dilates the arteries. Chocolate also contains a chemical PEA which is the same chemical our earth-suit produces when we are joyful or in love. Cocoa also contains phenyl ethylamine, a compound that increases your production of the brain chemical adrenaline and dopamine, which elevate moods.

Forest Gump said, “Life is like a box of chocolates…” all well and good, except you’ve got to select the right ones. Bummer; milk chocolate and truffles don’t count.

Since we know that consuming fruits, vegetables, green tea and red wine are far better choices for lowering cholesterol, eat in sensible moderation. How about chocolate dipped fruit at your next soiree? Americans spend around 13 billion per year on the seductive food of the gods. Are you doing your part?

“Eat Right, Now!” biweekly on Saturday Daybreak Morning News, 7:50 AM on WISH
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