Quick Halloween Safety Tips

Trick or Treating is always a big deal in our family. To be honest, anything in the month of October is a big deal... One way we prepare our kids for Fright Night is by having a fun family safety lesson. Here are some of the highlights from our safety lesson.

 

1. Walk, Slither or sneak on sidewalks, NOT in the streets or you could end up DEAD MEAT! Look both ways for cars and watch out for flying brooms too!

2. Plan out where your group will be haunting and stay close to an adult, you wouldn't want any ghouls to grab you.

3. Carry a flashlight to light your way! You wouldn't want to end up falling into a GRAVE!

4. Only visit homes that have the porch light lit, wouldn't want to wake anyone in the crypt.

5. Accept your spoils at the front door, going inside a stranger's house is wrong to the core. People may offer you to come into their haunted house, but without a parent things could go south. Always say Thank You for treats and No Thank You for anything else.

6. Keep your treats hidden until your parents can check your stash, or you might end up choking and paying the hospital some cash.

7. Keeping these rules will make your Fright Night safe and complete. Now, Trick-or-Treaters go home, eat some candy and get some sleep!

And most importantly, don't forget to sing!

Second verse for the Teenagers

If you don't

I don't care

I'll pull down your underwear!

* I did not create these clever little rules, they were passed down to me.
**Image created using Rhonna Designs App & BubbleFrame

I Heart Pumpkins

Fall Giveaway!

Caption this photo for a chance to win this fun shirt! 

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Giveaway Ends 10/10 (US only).

*FYI: Lettuce Turnip the Beet = Let Us Turn Up the Beat!

Fluid Needs for the Young Athlete

Currently, the recommendations for children ages 6 to 17 is 1 hour of active play per day.  For the young athlete this recommendation is easily met each week. What becomes next important after physical activity is fluid needs. It is important to remember that children are NOT young adults and that they can dehydrate very quickly. Thirst is a poor indicator of fluid need in children because they are typically to busy to recognize the need for water.

General Rule of Thumb:

• Drink every 15 minutes during activity
• Drink even if your not thirsty
• Parents job to remind/enforce/monitor (especially younger children)

Signs your child needs more water:

• Headache
• Tired, muscle weakness/cramps
• Dry mouth
• Urine color & smell
• Weather (heat, humidity, time of day)
• Skin tone (very flush)

Daily Fluid Recommendations for an Average, Healthy Child who actively plays one hour a day:

4-8 yrs: 5 1/2 cups
9-13 yrs, girl: 9 cups
9-13 yrs, boys: 10 cups
14-18 yrs, girls: 10 cups
14-18 yrs, boy: 14 cups or 1 gallon

If your child consumes the recommended amount of fruit and vegetable servings each day, their fluid needs are between 6 to 8 cups a day. Raw fruits & vegetables have a high water content, are rich in vitamins and are low in calories.

During Activity & After
It is VERY important that a young athlete stay hydrated during physical activity (practice, games, tournaments, etc). Every 15 minutes they should gulp down water, ideally, a cup or more at a time. Once activity is over it is important that the child eat OR drink a carbohydrate rich food within 15 to 20 minutes. For example, any fresh fruit (bananas, grapes, apples, peaches, pears, oranges) and/or a sports drink.

I referred to fluid as water throughout this post. Water is the best fluid replacement, however, there may be times when it is necessary to use sports drinks. Our rule for our kids: if they are excessively sweating during activity or will be active for multiple hours, then we pull out the sports drinks.

It is NEVER appropriate to give a child an energy drinks.

Favorite Taco Seasoning

This is a family favorite! Super simple, cheap and adds a nice flavor. I make about 20X this amount and store it in a glass container next to my stove. I use it when I make tacos, chili, soups & chicken salad. If you want a little more "kick" just double the chili powder to 1T.

Enjoy!

#saltfree #spiceisnice #cleanandsimple

Weight Loss Tip No. 1

Source: Pinterest

I just love Pinterest! The internet doesn't lie, right?

#putthecookiedown #weightloss #nutritionwithnat

Did You Eat Your Veggies?

The USDA has a great interactive website called MyPlate. You can type in your personal information and get feedback specific for your lifestyle. One of the standard tables that I refer to on this site is the minimum vegetables servings for each age group. When you first glance at the daily vegetable recommendations, you might think "that's not a lot" or "I get that daily"... Sadly, THINK AGAIN!

It is very common for children to eat NO vegetables for several days at a time. When your taste buds are repeatedly stimulated with sugary foods it's really hard for vegetables to compete. Below are the daily recommendations for vegetables (individuals who exercise less than 30 minutes a day). Remember, this is the BASIC recommendation... If you are physically active eat more! 

Children: 

2-3 years: 1 cup

4-8 years: 1 1/2 cups

Teens:

Girls

9-13 years: 2 cups

14-18 years: 2 1/2 cups

Boys

9-13 years: 2 1/2 cups

14-18 years: 3 cups

Adults:

Women

19-30 years: 2 1/2 cups

31-50 years: 2 1/2 cups

51 years and older: 2 cups

Men

19-30 years: 3 cups

31-50 years: 3 cups

51 years and older: 2 1/2 cups

*Eating the minimum recommended amount of vegetables daily will not meet your daily fiber needs. 

Obesity Pop! All Natural

image source: natural news

I stumbled across this clip art the other night and found myself cracking up, before you judge my lameness understand what got me...

1. I totally relate to that mother, with what appears to be a little slobber on the side of her lip and the screaming toddler in the front of the cart.
2. I have desperately bought those ADHD Flakes, cracked them open and handed them to my screaming monster so I could finish shopping. 
3. The Obesity Pops- All Natural cracked me up!!
4. Oddly, when I go down certain aisles I think this about SO many products... simply, we have a whole lot of CRAP choices at fingers length.

Juicing 101: Carrot Limeade

Simple & Sweet, this is my favorite juicing recipe!

Try This: Cleanest Bar in Town: LaraBar

If I had to choose the cleanest bar, hands down the LaraBar wins! They are the cleanest snack bar on the market with a max of 9 ingredients. There are numerous flavors and appeal to a wide range of taste buds and *kid approved! 

These bars are well suited for special dietary restrictions due to the simple, clean product ingredients. You can find them in the snack aisle or in the supplement section (near the vitamins and protein mixes) of most grocery stores. 

Special Diet Considerations Courtesy LaraBar.com

GLUTEN FREE/CELIACS LÄRABAR®, über® and Jŏcalat® are Gluten Free. They have no gluten-containing ingredients, and we have manufacturing controls in place to ensure that there are no cross-contact concerns. We also periodically verify our practices using Gliadin gluten testing.

NUT ALLERGIES  We make the following products that contain peanuts: LÄRABAR Peanut Butter Cookie, Peanut Butter & Jelly, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip, and über Roasted Nut Roll. If you have questions regarding specific nut allergies, please call 800-543-2147.

RAW DIET  Many raw foodists enjoy our products as part of their diet.  However, because there is no consistent definition for what can be labeled as “raw,” we have chosen to take the word raw off our label.  LÄRABAR products are made by a simple process in which fruit, nuts, and spices are ground and mixed together. They are not baked or cooked. We use simple ingredients, as close to their natural state as possible.  Practitioners of the Raw Diet should be aware that to ensure the safety of our products some of our nut ingredients are steamed or roasted and our few juice concentrates are pasteurized.

VEGAN/VEGETARIAN  LÄRABAR and Jŏcalat are made entirely from plant-based foods. Though the vast majority of chocolate chips in the world are made with dairy, soy or both, we specifically asked our supplier to provide us with chocolate chips which are Vegan—containing no dairy. While no dairy products are used to make our chocolate chips, they are made on a line which also produces chocolate chips made with dairy products.  Due to the potential for cross-contact between the types of chocolate chips made at the facility, the chips we use may contain trace amounts of dairy from those other chips; thus we cannot claim that our chocolate chip flavor varieties are Vegan. Due to the use of honey, über is not certified as Vegan.

SOY  With the exception of our chocolate chip varieties, LÄRABAR bars do not contain soy or soy derivatives.  We do not claim soy-free on the flavors containing chocolate chips because our chocolate chips are made on a line which also produces chips made with soy.  Due to possible cross-contact, the chips we use may contain trace amounts of soy from other chips made at the facility.

Visit HERE to see all the different bars!

*kid approved = MY kids approve

Redneck Cantaloupe

Here, in Southeast Texas, it is pretty common place to drive passed someone and see them in their yard burning stuff. We Southerner's call this designated spot a burn pile and most people have one in their backyard. Now, what is burned depends on the level of country living you fall into. I have a burn pile but I like to dress it up and refer to it as a fire pit... bricks stacked and formed into a circle, simple. We burn sticks, grass cuttings, yard debris and paper products. Some people burn everything, and I mean EVERYTHING (remember the level of country living I mentioned earlier). 

Which brings me to my latest burn pile discovery. I stopped at my grandma's house and noticed that there were three bags of trash on the porch. I asked her why they were not in her dumpster. She laughed and told me that it wasn't trash and that there were cantaloupe plants that started growing out of the bags! My uncle had went and cleaned my mom's burn pile (removed the excess ashes) and bagged up the ashes to throw away with the upcoming trash day. My mom likes cantaloupe and had tossed her rinds near her burn pile and never gave it another thought. The cantaloupe seeds from the rinds were mixed with the ashes my uncle gathered... add a two day rain shower and poof you've got cantaloupe plants! 

INGREDIENTS:

If you think about it, it is the perfect place for seeds to grow. The ash from this burn pile is predominately wood ash and it is rich in nitrogen which promotes leaf growth. Add a little rain shower and you have an ashy garden. 

I do not recommend anyone grow their garden vegetables or fruits in this setting. Gardening is a science and I do not pretend or claim to be an authority on gardening in any aspect. I am a receiver of master gardeners... they grow it and I eat it! 

In the event that these plants grow what I refer to as Redneck Cantaloupe, I highly doubt I will be one of the taste testers :) But it has been a fun teaching tool with my kids and they have had a fun time checking on the "trash plants" when we go to visit.

Why is it that when I try hard to not kill a plant it dies but a pile of trash on a porch can yield a fruit plant?! 

#nutritionwithnat