Grazer's Delight

This Week's Bento Lunch

Calling all grazers! If you're looking for a lunch to enjoy all afternoon, this one's for you. Everything in this lunch can easily stand on its own giving you a series of small meals to get through the day. 

Click here to view this full menu and nutritional information.

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Enjoy Great Food While Greening Your Travels

Italy-Homemade Pizza - After
purchasing ingredients at Campo
de’ Fiori market in Rome, we made our own pizza.
Photo by: Greenloons

Savoring local flavors helps communities, families and the environment.

Eco-tourism travel is about preserving ecosystems, educating visitors about conservation, empowering localities, operating sustainable tourist attractions – and, most of all, having fun and unique family experiences!  Of course, eating is a big part of traveling and aside from the fact that families can truly immerse themselves in the travel experience when sampling local foods and delicacies, the practice of eating locally teaches the value of food to both young and wise, and helps the environment.

The environmental benefits of eating locally include: less need for preservatives, better health since smaller farms are less likely to use pesticides and more likely to grow a variety of foods, and helping local economies since farmers receive the full retail value of the item rather applying it toward the expenses of transportation, processing, packaging, and refrigeration.

To find sustainable food restaurants in the United States and Canada, two great resources are Eat Well Guide and Local Harvest, which provides a comprehensive U.S. directory of farmers markets, farm stands and other sources of locally grown food.

London-Gastropub - Farm-fresh appetizer
 at London’s only certified organic restaurant,
the family-friendly Duke of Cambridge.
Photo by: Greenloons

When traveling overseas, a great resource to use is World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF), which lists organic farms as well as organic farm volunteering opportunities around the world.  While ‘farmers markets’ may be a relatively new concept for Americans, almost every foreign city large or small has established local markets that sell fresh meats, fish, cheeses, breads, pastries, vegetables and fruits.  Traversing through one of these markets with children will not only reveal the different colors, shapes, textures and smells of local food, but will serve as a quick language, math and social studies lesson too.

Alternatively, if you are overseas and a family member suffers from allergies, Select Wisely portable translation cards, which can also be downloaded to a smartphone, cover all manner of food allergies and medical conditions including cards for nut and shellfish allergies, restaurant chefs, gluten-free diets, as well as smoke-free and low-salt requests.

Zurek Soup-Poland - The Polish specialty
of Zurek Soup, served in Krakow,
 is not only nutritious and filling,
 but “delicious” according to
my 7 year-old.
Photo by: Greenloons

Next time you are traveling to a new country, try to find a sustainable food restaurant or organic farm market or festival, and start savoring the local flavors.

About the author:

Irene Lane is the founder and president of Greenloons, which connects families to meaningful and unique nature-based travel experiences all over the world.

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Homemade Strawberry Creamsicles

By Amy at Super Healthy Kids

You know it is summer when after being outside all day, your kids take a playing break to sit and enjoy a popsicle!  It’s too bad most of the popsicles you can buy in the store are loaded with sugars, artificial flavors and modified chemicals.  The secret all the popsicle makers don’t want you to know is that making your own popsicles is so easy and fast that you won’t ever want to buy popsicles again!

These literally took me less than 10 minutes to whip up.  My strawberry creamsicles only have 2 ingredients!

 First we start out with beautiful red strawberries.  The great thing about this recipe is that you can use strawberries that might be on their way out.  If they are too mushy to eat, use them to make these popsicles!

Rinse well, and cut the greens off.

Blend.  I didn’t add water or juice, or anything.  I love my Blendtec for that reason.  It really does blend anything.  If your blender isn’t quite as powerful, you could add a little water/juice if you want.  I have seen some recipes that just mash their strawberries, but my girls are weary of ‘chunks’ and so I wanted these popsicles to be smooth.

The second ingredient:  Greek Yogurt.  I used a honey flavored yogurt, but you can use any flavor you want.  The strawberries blend into a beautiful puree which you can add right to your popsicle molds.  I borrowed my neighbors ‘Zoku’ which was amazing!  You place the base of it in your freezer before hand, and then it only takes 5-7 minutes to  make a popsicle!  I also have the regular molds and used those as well. 

Spoon some of the puree into the bottom of the mold, and then alternate with yogurt and puree until the mold is full.

Put the handle in and freeze!  These took around 2 hours to be solid enough to eat.

Voila!  You could blend the yogurt with the strawberries, but I liked the swirled look.  My 3 year old said it was the best popsicle she had ever eaten.  Really.  Word for word.  I was curious and a bit nervous to see how my girls would react because they aren’t super sweet.  I was pleasantly surprised that they licked them down to the stick!

I felt good knowing they were getting a fruit serving as well as protein, fiber and calcium!  Store bought popsicles are basically sugar and water and won’t keep you full for 5 minutes.  These creamsicles however definitely have substance and are actually a balanced snack.

I hope you enjoy these as much as we did!  If you are looking for more healthy snack ideas for your kids, visit our meal planning site!

A Conscious Guide to Choosing Snacks

By: Randy Rabney

 I’m often asked for snack ideas for kids (and adults). I’ve said this often and I’ll say it again, the most important thing when choosing snacks and meals is the quality of the ingredients. If you stay away from foods that are pre-packaged it’s easier to know what’s in the food. I recommend doing your best to look for foods that are organic, grown using organic practices or non-gmo. When using things that are pre-packaged like crackers or even nut butters and bread, for example, be sure to read the label and avoid ingredients like high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated fats, MSG and artificial colors.

When choosing snacks think about the purpose of it, are they hungry and waiting for dinner to be ready shortly or will it need to keep them going for a while, like a small meal? Here are some of my favorites that are great-tasting, nourishing and easy to prepare:

1. Nuts and dried fruit. This is a standard. It’s easy to keep in your bag or the car. I go heavier on the nuts than the dried fruit. It contains fat, protein, carbohydrate plus vitamins and minerals and the dried fruit can satisfy a sweet tooth. Figure out what your child’s favorite is and keep it available. You can even add a very small amount of high quality chocolate covered fruit to the mix.
2. Roasted Vegetables. These are great fresh from the oven, cold or room temperature. My son especially likes cauliflower, brussel sprouts and kale chips prepared this way. It’s a great snack for right before dinner when they are saying “I’m hungry, when will dinner be ready?” For cauliflower and brussel sprouts, pre-heat your oven to 450 degrees. Toss either vegetable with a little extra virgin olive oil and sea salt (just enough to lightly coat). Cook until the vegetables are brown (this brings out the sweetness) and tender to the tip of a knife. For kale, use the same method but cook at 300 degrees, check for crispiness after 10 minutes, you want it crisp like a chip but not brown, do not overcook.
3. Hummus, Black Bean and White Bean Dips with Raw Vegetables and/or Crackers all make great snacks. I like to make my own so I can season them the way I like them and know what kind of oil is in them. If you are buying them already prepared look for products made with olive oil, avoid products that contain soybean or canola oil (non-organic soy and canola oil are likely to be GMO).
4. Shrimp Cocktail is also a great snack. Instead of traditional cocktail sauce, try mashing an avocado with a squeeze of fresh lime juice and some sea salt and use that as a dip for the shrimp. If you do use traditional cocktail sauce, make it yourself with ketchup and horseradish, you can control the spiciness that way. Also, many brands of store bought prepared cocktail contain high fructose corn syrup (corn is another food that if not organic, is likely to be GMO) which should be avoided.
5. Sliced cheese, turkey or roast beef rolled around a slice of avocado. When possible choose meats from grass-fed animals and grass-fed raw cheese. Please make sure that your meats and dairy products are at a minimum antibiotic and hormone-free. If you’d like serve some brown rice or other high quality crackers on the side.
6. A Small Plate with some good quality cheese (organic or hormone-free), crackers and a piece of apple or some other fruit.
7. Whole grain or sprouted bread, toast, crackers or sliced apple with nut butter. This is fast and easy, if using bread, toast or crackers, you can combine it with a small amount of raw honey or some organic fruit spread sweetened with fruit juice.

Action Steps

1. Think about what you typically choose for a snack. Is it something that just fills you up or is it something that also nourishes you?
2. Take a look at the ingredients in some of your pre-packaged foods. Do you know what they all are? Do you know how they impact your health in the long and short term?
3. Make a decision to make one small improvement, if one needs to be made. The next time you want a snack, try something from my list or create one of your own using my guidelines.

Randy Rabney is a Food Lover, Chef, Board Certified Health Counselor and Parent. She offers a variety of programs and services to teach people of varying ages how to prepare great tasting food quickly and easily and to understand the value of high quality ingredients so that people enjoy eating healthy food. You can find Randy at http://theconsciousplate.com. She's also always happy to talk with you if you think that she can help. Feel free to contact her at Randy@TheConsciousPlate.com to set up a call.