Frugal Family

Frugal Family: Cut Bills, Bad Habits, Prices, Calories

This week Frugal Family offers simple, easy-to-keep-New Year’s tasks that have immediate impacts on your health and budget. Take a look at tips to save on power bills, cut back on bad habits, shop smart, save time and money on food and improve your health

This is the time of year for making resolutions to improve our lives. With the best intentions and lots of hope, we usually find ourselves failing miserably and feeling guilty in short order. Most of the time the failure to succeed is because we set our expectations too high. If we can’t save a set amount of money each month for that cruise, how do we expect to turn financial savvy overnight? Just as it took years to develop bad habits like overeating or smoking, it is going to take time to undo them. A much more productive way to reach our goals is by taking small steps in the right direction, things we can succeed at today and feel a sense of accomplishment. Attaining a goal creates confidence and allows us to tackle the next, harder …

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Healthy Eating - Special Foods for the Fiftysomething Crowd

When making those New Year's Resolutions to be more healthy in 2013, consider incorporating these specific foods into your regular diet.

Baby boomers are privy to all sorts of nutritional supplements, diet and exercise plans, modern technology and aesthetic advances designed to make us look well, feel well and age gracefully. Some of these advances are pretty hard to maintain, some are just freakishly expensive, and some are just wishful thinking. But Maureen Callahan with nextavenue.org says that there is new research which shows that there are particular foods which specifically help men age well - and a whole different set of foods that are specifically helpful to women.  I know. I know. In our busy lives, it's hard to maintain the short-order cook status of keeping everybody's "special foods" in order at the dinner table. None of the foods listed are harmful to the …

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Getting Protein Without Eating Meat

Protein is not unique to meat products, but those eliminating or reducing meat intake need to be careful to replace this easy and familiar source of protein.

By Ian Lee October is Vegetarian Awareness Month, which makes it a great time to think about incorporating more non-meat options into your diet. Even for those who don’t plan to switch to full-time vegetarian eating, the Meatless Mondays trend means more and more people are looking for healthy vegetarian options for family meals at least once a week. Protein is not unique to meat products, but those eliminating or reducing meat intake need to be careful to replace this easy and familiar source of protein, according to dietitian Gloria Tsang, founder of nutrition network HealthCastle.com and author of Go UnDiet: 50 Small Actions for Lasting Weight Loss.  “Protein builds and maintains muscles, organs, skin and blood, assists in energy …

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Kids Health and Nutrition

When to Start Your Infant on Solid Foods

The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that the introduction of solid food take place between 4-6 months of age.

There seems to be a lot of variation these days regarding when parents should start incorporating solid foods into their infant's diet. Some studies suggest that introducing solid foods too early can lead to obesity, adult onset diabetes, celiac disease, allergies, eczema and feeding difficulties. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) suggests that the introduction of solid food take place between 4-6 months of age. According to the AAP, breast milk can provide all the nutritional requirements for the growing infant. In 2005, the AAP encouraged the delay of solid food introduction until six months of age for exclusively breast fed infants with a multi-vitamin supplement also being offered. The 4-6 month infant, who is formula fed, can …

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Mom About Town

Turn My Children Into Cave Children, or Not?

Persuading my kids to eat healthy is no easy task. Could the caveman diet-Paleo Diet-be the answer?

The habit or need for eating hasn't changed for human beings since the beginning of time, but what has changed is what our food has become.  There is gluten-free this and that, no fructose corn syrup this, low fat that, no fat, full fat, no soy, only soy, low sugar, and sugar free. What is safe and healthy, and what isn't? What does your body really need and what does it not need? Do foods really affect behavior and allergies? I have no idea. I don't have time to study and research every last changing opinion or scientific nutrition fact. Maybe if we go back in time to the basics of food we can get some answers. This year my husband and I did a Paleo Challenge for our health. It’s not a diet but a change in eating lifestyle. You basically …

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Katie Barrentine

11:25 am on Saturday, November 19, 2011

I've been meaning to comment Warren. My kids haven't been Paleo but I did nurse both of them (not that I was Paleo then). When my youngest switched over to milk he started to refuse it after 3 months or so. I shared that concern with my pediatrician and he was not concerned. He said as long as he is eating meats and other calcium vitamen rich foods that it was fine. He then made the point that …   more ›

Halloween Candy: Healthy Choices

We all know Halloween candy is not health food, but the truth is that not all candies are created equal. Find out which candies will cause the least damage to the ghouls and goblins of your household.

According to dietitian Gloria Tsang, author of the new book Go UnDiet: 50 Small Actions for Lasting Weight Loss and founder of nutrition network HealthCastle.com, choosing the right candy can reduce the health impact of your kid's trick-or-treat haul. "With big differences in calories, sugar, and quality of ingredients used, it's just not true that all Halloween candy is the same," Tsang said. "None of them are exactly good for you, but we've done some close analysis of common competitors to see which options are best from a nutrition perspective." Here are the winners and losers of HealthCastle.com's candy comparison: No matter which Halloween candies you give out, you can't control what comes home in your child's trick-or-treat bag. …

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