Here is a fun, yummy and very easy recipe you can do with your kids for Valentines.  Rather than giving them lots of chocolate and candy…you can make these eatible ladybugs that have a touch of chocolate!  They are delicious!!!!

We are very excited to join forces with Anne McClymont Elementary in providing a healthy school fundraiser!  It’s so great to see schools coming on board and doing their part to encourage healthy choices for their students.  Their fundraiser will run from February 1st – March 1st.  A dollar for the sale of each chart will be donated to Vitamin Angels, an organization improving the lives of young children around the world.

Congratulations to the PAC at Anne McClymont Elementary for your commitment to improving the health of your students and making a difference in the lives of children in need around the world!

Happy Healthy Fundraising!
Kia

We had a blast making this video with the hilarious Miss Lisa Redl…see eating a rainbow of fruits and veggies can be FUN!

We are so excited to team up with the PAC group at Chute Lake Elementary School to put together a Healthy School Fundraiser using our Today I Ate A Rainbow charts!  It is so great to see a school that is interested in promoting healthy options for their students.  This new school goes above and beyond! 

Getting sick during or right after Christmas seems to be a fairly common thing!  I’m sure it’s due to a number of reasons but the one I want to chat about is food. 

Eating a Rainbow everyday may be a bit much for some children who rarely eat any fruits and vegetables.  For those who have children that are not used to eating a lot of produce, you can easily adjust the goal to Eating a Rainbow every week!  The whole focus of this chart is to get kids to willingly eat fruits and vegetables, if this means doing it slowly, then go for it!  You can focus on one color per day, then after 5 days, they will have eaten a rainbow!  Once they get used to eating a rainbow every week,  it will be easier for them to eat a rainbow every day.  Slowly but surely you will be make long lasting changes to their eating habits…healthy eating habits are one of the best things that you can give to your children!!!

Happy Healthy Eating!
Kia

I think as parents we can sometimes be pretty hard on ourselves! When it comes to feeding our children we all want them to be eating healthy well balanced meals but sometimes we fall short. I don’t think the goal should be perfection when it comes to healthy eating. My friend Ange (who’s a nutritionist) talks about a 80/20 split, meaning that if you are making healthy eating choices 80% of the time then your body will be strong enough to handle the 20% of the time that you don’t eat healthy! This is a very doable way to look at healthy eating! We all have our weak spots when it comes to food that isn’t healthy but we enjoy anyway So why bother feeling guilty when you or your children indulge in an occasional treat! As long as everyone in your family is doing a great job of eating healthy foods most of the time (this means lots of fruits and veggies!) then you can feel comfortable knowing that your bodies are strong enough to handle the occasional junk food. The health problems come up with that eating model is switched around!!

Do you have a picky eater?  Are you a picky eater?  As I’ve said before I am still clawing my way out of picky eater-dome…I’m pretty sure that isn’t a word but let’s just go with it   Here is the best thing I’ve done to “get over” my pickiness.  It works.

We’ve been getting some fantastic feedback on how our charts are helping to change eating habits!  I think some of my favorite comments are from parents who have “picky eaters” in their house.  One parent wrote saying that before they used our Today I Ate A Rainbow chart, their 4 year old son refused, absolutely refused to eat any vegetables.  When they put the chart up on their fridge and explained it to their son he was eager to “play”!  Since he was so picky they followed my advice of not worrying about serving sizes, the goal would be to get him to take one bite!!!!  Baby steps are especially important when dealing with a picky eater.  Celebrate every bite!  

As a Food Explorer, one thing to focus on (with all those other things you’re to do!) is finding a way to incorporate fruits and/or vegetables into everything you make or prepare. Then you know every time you or your family eats, they are always getting that bit of produce goodness in every bite.

That is about the same phrase I heard from a couple of people who stopped to chat with us at our Today I Ate A Rainbow booth at a Christmas Craft fair last weekend.  We had a very positive response to our charts but there were the occasional remarks from parents who seem to believe that no matter what, their child would never eat vegetables.  While I don’t have a child that refuses vegetables (and I am very thankful for that!) I was that kid who “refused” to eat vegetables.  You know how I got away with that?  I had other food to eat so I wasn’t hungry enough to eat my veggies!  I can almost guarantee that if I had been shipwrecked on a deserted island and only had vegetables to survive on…that I would have gladly eaten any and every vegetable available   The same can be said of most “picky eaters”  if they didn’t have the option…they’d eat their vegetables! 

For those of you just joining us in a quest to eat rainbows every day we thought we’d put together some ideas on how to eat all those colours!

Breakfast: Always provide a fruit! Bananas, Apple Slices, Seedless Grapes, Pears Slices. If you eat dairy and your kids like to dip their fruit, yogurt works well! Sometimes I’ll incorporate the fruit into the meal, such as a bowl of yogurt, granola and apple chunks. Or I’ll add a handful of Raisins to a bowl of oatmeal.

Well it’s that time of year when we get to dress up and have some fun trick or treating! The only problem is – our kids get all that candy given to them! A bit of candy isn’t a big deal but if they eat too much of it too often all that sugar leads to a weakened immune system. At this time of year when all those flu and colds are making their rounds it’s really not the best time to be eating loads of sugar!! I’m all for the whole Halloween experience…I just know that it means that we need to pay extra attention to increasing the amount of fruits and veggies in our diet in order to combat all that sugar!

So just a friendly reminder that at this time, it’s especially important to ensure that your kids are eating rainbows…at least one a day!

Have a Happy and safe Halloween!
Kia

As a Nutritional Consultant, the first thing I get clients to do is to track their fruit and vegetable intake.  Simply the best thing you can do to prevent disease in you and your family is to increase the fruit and vegetable intake daily.  Each colour of produce contains a different set of phytonutrients – the defense system of the plant – that protects a different system in your body.  That’s why eating a rainbow is so key!

Involving your kids in making food choices is huge in getting them to eat more fruits and vegetables without a struggle.  My Carrot Salad with Flax Dressing is a great way to eat a lot of carrots, boosting the immune system during these cold and flu months.  Plus, if you have a food processor, kids love to feed the carrots into the chopper, and help mix everything else by hand.  And it’s ready with no waiting – so instant gratification!

Be a Food Explorer – put a new fruit or vegetable in your grocery cart each week. There are many internet resources that can give you great tips on how to prepare it in a way the whole family will love!

Angela Wright, RNCP – Nutritional Consulting Practitioner

Align Nutrition – follow me on Twitter!

We are very excited about our partnership with Vitamin Angels!  We will be donating $1 from the sale of each chart to their organization.  So when you purchase a Today I Ate A Rainbow! chart for a child in your life ~ you are helping children in another part of the world too!  Below is some information taken from their website to help explain what they do and why!  Please visit their website to learn all about Vitamin Angels and what else you can do to make a difference www.vitaminangels.org

Kelowna Community Food Bank Donation

We were really excited to make our first donation on behalf of Today I Ate A Rainbow!  The recipient was the Kelowna Community Food Bank.   They have been coming up with some great programs; my favorites are the ones that directly benefit kids!  Their Vitality Program ensures that families with young children are getting the fruits and vegetables that they need.  I am sure that no matter where you live there is a food bank that would appreciate your help no matter how small. 

Children deserve the right to eat healthy food no matter what situation they have been born into.

A special thank you to Lenetta, who took the time to give us a tour of the food bank and explain all their various programs!  We are looking forward to being able to donate to the food bank again very soon!

Happy Healthy Eating!
Kia

We had a great time at the Organic Okanagan Festival!  We met lots of great people, sold charts and spread the word that Eating a Rainbows is fun and easy

Starting at a very young age it is very important that we encourage our little ones to eat a variety of fruits and vegetables.  The earlier we start, the easier it should be as they get older, to keep them eating their produce!  A parent with an 18 month old could easily use the chart themselves to help keep track of what their toddler has eaten.  We simple recommend that the chart not be used by the toddlers themselves until

We came across the issue of Stainless Steel Refrigerators not liking magnets when we were creating our product and as such we have done some research into options for those of you with this type of appliance.  Here are the possible solutions we have found:

1. A product out of the USA called Choopa Board http://www.choopaboard.com