Thoughts on travel … and sponsoring children

I have just returned from a week in Vietnam, and have come back with a new sponsor child and a renewed appreciation for fresh milk, the English language and clean water.

The other thing that has stayed with me is the fact that no matter where we live or who we are, we all value the same things. As clichéd as it has become, we all hold dear dreams for our children’s future and the intimacy of family.

I often think that if everyone found the opportunity to travel, not just overseas but even to a different suburb or a particular multicultural part of our own cities, then our tolerance of each other would be greater. We would appreciate diversity instead of fearing and stereotyping each other.

Underneath it all, we are the same.

My travels have also shown me how people so often thrive in adversity, whilst those of us in comfortable societies often complain about our abundance.

It was so lovely to observe people in villages just living their day together, loving each other’s children and preparing meals. One village we visited had recently been hooked up to a clean water supply and, as a result, water-borne diseases had been eradicated. Such simple lives, but so much to be grateful for.

I saw much heartache and need and wondered why it didn’t really touch me, until I met Vinh, my new sponsor child, and his mother. I am such an advocate for child sponsorship! After our meeting, I watched them ride off on their bike before I dissolved into a blubbering mess! I can’t make a huge dent in the enormity of poverty, but I can dramatically change the life of a few children around the globe.

I was so moved that I brought home photos and details of five other children who need sponsorship in Vinh’s village. Just AUD$38 a month can make such a significant difference, and I was humbled by the opportunity to be a part of that.

Anyone interested in finding out more about these other five kids, please let me know.

Meanwhile, if you can’t go to another country, visit Chinatown if your city has one, or even a restaurant that serves food you don’t normally eat. Placing value our differences may just change the world.

Lv Jane

There's a world outside your window ...

As Christmas once again draws near, in 2008 it is approaching with a bit of a different feel. We find ourselves surrounded by talk of the world changing before our eyes and it is easy to buy into the fear, wondering where we will find ourselves tomorrow and the day after, next month or next year. How will it all work out? Will we be ok? Can we even afford to buy our kids presents this year?

These sorts of questions can take your breath away and as an exercise in removing the focus from me and mine, I have been considering the situation of those who are already disadvantaged, hungry, sick, poor, needy, alone – and for whom this current crisis only increases their plight.

Every Christmas, we support different international organisations in their work specifically so our kids can understand that Christmas morning with a fabulous toy and plenty to eat is not the way most of the world lives.

Even with economic uncertainty and a changing world, we are so fortunate and have so much – more than we need – so much to be grateful for.

Each year, we buy cards from Tear Fund (http://www.usefulgifts.org/ ) which we attach to small gifts for the kids in our extended family. These cards represent a gift that has been given in the child’s name, to someone starting school in India who needs supplies or to a family in Ghana who need a goat to generate income.

These gifts help the needy, but also increase awareness for the person receiving the card about the world outside their comfortable four walls.

It’s a great way to remember that candy canes, laughter and family around the table at Christmas lunch are truly things to be thankful for.

I don’t want Christmas to be about stress, frantic gift giving and shopping malls on overdrive (my girlfriend calls them the vortex!), but about the spirit of the season that is the gift of peace and hope in an uncertain world.

Enjoy your Christmas this year … take a deep breath, hug your kids, laugh with them at the Christmas school play and go buy a box of mangoes, or roasted chestnuts as the case may be, and share them around …

Lv Jane

Summer Time Eating

Well today is officially the first day of summer (in Australia) and I thought I'd write about some summer time eating for the family that doesn't have to involve enormous amounts of the stuff that sends them crazy and doesn't benefit their beautiful growing bodies.

The kids get so busy outside that we can forget to feed them until they are at our heels fainting from hunger at which point it's easy to send them in the direction of a sugary ice block in the freezer or that kid sized packet of chips in the pantry.

If the kids survive only on sugar this summer, no matter how much time they spend burning it off in the pool, not only will they crash and burn, but summer won't be as much fun as it could be with even blood sugar levels!

Being prepared is much easier than trying to pull something together when the little treasures are hungry.

Here's what works for me:

Frozen fruit is a winner. Watermelon and pineapple in chunks are good fun and bananas, peeled, cut in half with paddle pop sticks stuck in make sweet ice blocks that can be pulled out of the freezer quickly and easily. And frozen grapes are yummo.

The kids will also enjoy making juice in the juicer and then pouring it in to ice cube trays. You could then put the cubes into some soda water, throw in some frozen blueberries and you've got a fab kids cocktail.

Adding milk to the ice trays gives you a boost of extra protein to fill up their tummies and frozen smoothies are great too, especially if they're old enough to help make them. We put in milk, (cow's or soy) and frozen fruit with some yoghurt and maybe some cinnamon or honey if they need more sweetness. These fill up little tummies and keep them going longer. The other thing we do after school and on long sunny weekend days is platters of all sorts of goodies that can sit on the table with a cover or in some tuppaware, and they can help themselves when they're hungry.

These platters could hold chicken or beef kebabs with sauce, sushi (if you're feeling inclined to make some, it's actually quite easy), chunks of cheese with crackers and baby tomatoes, carrot and cucumber sticks with dips, and some slices of home made pizza.

Don't forget lots of water. When my kids are home all day, I give them a drink bottle and bargain (ok bribe) with them to finish it by the end of the day. Then they get juice with dinner.

They could also make their own salads from big containers of different veggies and fillings and may be more inclined to eat it if they've been involved in the process.

The chips and ice blocks are not black listed but once again leave them for sometimes or party time and get them into the good stuff and watch their little sun kissed bodies glow with health.

Have fun!
LvJane
PS. I'll post the recipe for sushi in the next few days, it¹s healthy, yummy and a great lunch box or after school snack.
©thefamilyroom 2006

These Pretzels are Making Me Thirsty!

Hiya!


Well I finally found some time to get my Pav recipe online. I'm so glad yourequested it.... I know you will love it! Actually Susan you should have ago now that you are officially Australian Citizens (yes, Australia has accepted 3 more great people to herself....well done friends).


The Perfect Pav

Ingredients
4 egg whites (or up to 6-7 if you want it bigger)
Eggs MUST be room temperature
1 cup castor sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 teaspoon white vinegar
2 heaped teaspoons cornflour

Recipe
Preheat oven to 150 degrees. Beat the egg whites in a metal bowl with a pinch of salt till white.
Slowly (1 tablespoon at a time) add the castor sugar and beat until mixture is no longer 'gritty', it should look glossy and stiff.
Add vanilla and vinegar.
Sift the cornflour over the mixture and fold through.
Place on a non-stick baking paper as a whole big pavlova or as smaller individual meringues. My tip was put wet kitchen paper underneath the baking paper.
For children you can sprinkle with hundreds and thousands or add food colouring to the mixture.
Place in oven, reduce heat to 120 degrees.
Bake a whole pavlova for 1 and 1/2 hours / smaller meringues for 45mins. Turn the oven off and allow them to completely cool while still in the oven.

When cooled, take the pav out and gently tip it upside down onto the serving plate, peel off the paper and let it sit. It will fall into itself and give you that great crusty, smooshy thing!

Serve with cream, berries, banana, kiwifruit, passionfruit, chocolate...whatever!


PS. I have also learned, living in Fiji, that humidity does weird things to eggs!
I always have to make my pavs or any baking, with the air con blasting.
So if it’s a humid day, make sure the fan or the aircon is on or if you don’t have aircon, take your kitchen tools to a friend’s house, Susan will happily have you over, as long as you share the results with her!

* * * * *

Hope you’re all happy and enjoying the lead up to Christmas with your wide eyed kids!
Giorgia stopped believing in Santa last year, girls can be clever beyond their years – but she has kept the magic alive for Jonah and any other little people we have around as Christmas approaches. Lots of fun!

One of the Christmas foods I love – and there are so many – are those big fat pretzels with chunks of salt on them!
I think I just buy them for the salt! They’re too good!

BUT as I’m sure you’ve all heard, we may love salty foods, but they don’t love us.

So how much can we have before it becomes dangerous for our health?

Well it’s around 2300mgs daily, which is great I hear you say, but is that one teaspoon or a whole packet of pretzels?

Like you did with sugar, go and grab some packaged foods out of your pantry and have a look. Two minute noodles have about a day’s worth of salt and a tablespoon of soy sauce or fish sauce has more than 1000mgs.

Don’t forget to look at the amount per serve. You may have to multiply the amount shown, by the 5 servings the brand is telling you is in that little can of chicken meat!

Chips, twisties and alas pretzels all contribute to the tally and tinned tomatoes or tinned anything can take us off the scale. A tin of tomatoes with reduced or no added salt has a negligible amount, but the regular ones have lots, look for yourself.

Too much salt in the diet has been linked to high blood pressure, poor heart health, fluid retention, dehydration and kidney problems.

Also people with Diabetes and exsisting heart problems or high blood pressure should have less than the average of 2300mgs and should have their diets balanced by their doctors or a nutritionist.

Are you adding salt to your food through habit or because you absolutely can’t eat that egg without it?

Like all foods, I’m not saying cut salt out completely, but be aware of the amounts that your body can handle in a day and shop for packaged foods with open eyes, and read the nutrition labels before you buy them. Remember the fancy name for salt is sodium.

Also why add salt to our kids’ foods? Often they don’t notice of it’s not there and hopefully won’t develop a taste for processed salty foods when they’re older.

Meanwhile, enjoy your Christmas pretzels! And don’t forget to drink lots of water while you do, so you don’t dehydrate from salt OD and too much Aussie sun!

Lv Jane
©thefamilyroom 2006

What on Earth is Glycemic Index?

Hello again.
Hope you’re all having a great week so far and enjoying your families.

We have recently learnt to make pavlova in my household as I feel that every self respecting Australian and New Zealand woman should know how!
It’s actually quite easy - Giorgia can now do it pretty much single handed!

Unfortunately pavlova is not a low GI food and as such is on the party food list, but hey, Christmas is just around the corner and I plan to make several, topped with cream, berries and grated chocolate!

So this week Glycemic Index…

You’ve probably heard a lot about eating low to moderate GI foods for good health and weight loss. In fact a great book about GI that I recommend is ‘The New Glucose Revolution’ by Jennie Brand Miller, Kaye Foster-Powell and Stephen Colagiuri – if you’re interested in learning more.

But keepin’ it simple - what is GI?
Basically a food is assigned a GI measure – low/medium/high - when tested to see how quickly it causes your blood sugar to rise when digested.
SO, if a food has a high GI, it will cause your blood sugar to rise quickly. High GI foods include Rice Bubbles and baked potatoes.
Foods that are low-medium GI have a slow-medium affect on blood sugar, examples are pasta, lentils and yoghurt.

So that’s great I hear you say, but what does that mean??

Well, the state of our blood sugar affects our moods, (we’ve all seen the kids at birthday parties) our health, our weight and the potential for disease.

Saving the high GI foods for party time and sometimes, helps keep our blood sugar even, the hunger pangs to a minimum and keeps us healthy.

Eating high GI foods daily has been linked to hypoglaecemia, diabetes, heart disease and obesity.
Inturn, regular consumption of low-medium GI foods has been found not only to help prevent these conditions, but have a positive affect on reducing symptoms.

I’m not a stickler for structuring meals around the GI of each food eaten by my family – I prefer the everyday, sometimes and party time concept - but I do make sure we are eating low-medium GI foods as part of the everyday, at some point.

Do some research yourself to get a better understanding if you’re interested, but here is a little list just to get you started.
Also, as we talked about last week, check the labels of the foods you’re buying, often they will say low or medium GI (they’re not likely to admit to high!).

Low – Medium GI foods
Bananas
Apples
All Bran
Legumes
Wholemeal and mutligrain breads
Porridge
Yoghurt

High GI foods
Baked potatoes
White bread
Many breakfast cereals
Soft drinks
Jasmine rice

Sometimes GI can be confusing, fatty foods have low GI’s (because they take longer to digest) and yet are not good for our bodies. Watermelon has a high GI, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t eat it, just eat other fruit too.
For these reasons, and with a plethora of other information and diet tips out there, I promote the idea of everyday/sometimes/party foods, I like to keep it simple.

I just wanted to explain the basic GI idea so you can contribute to the conversation next time it comes up over morning coffee!

Eat fruits and veggies everyday, good sources of carbs, proteins and fats, lots of water, limited party food….and you’re good to go!

With summer on its way, it’s a great time to throw some good quality meats, chicken and fish on the barbie, toss up a few salads loaded with greens and then round off with a fruit platter….yum-mo!!

Enjoy!
Lv Jane











PS. Getting back to the pav….Some great tips I received include:
Use a metal bowl
Make sure eggs are room temperature
Place wet paper towels underneath the baking paper, then when the pav is cooked tip it upside down onto the serving plate and peel the paper off. This will make it sink into itself and help give you that great crusty outside, smooshy inside feel!
We had bananas (they’re FJ$2 for about 8 here!) and passionfruit on ours last night…too good!
©thefamilyroom 2006

The Sweet Life

If my kids were allowed, they would sit and dip their fingers in sugar and just lick it off for hours!
Most of us love anything sweet and all the more during that afternoon slump or when we’ve got PMS!

So when we hear about choosing low GI foods and cutting down on sugar, it can be confusing to know which foods are which and how much sugar we should be cutting down.

I’ll go into GI, or Glycemic Index in more detail next week, but first let’s look at sugar.
Our bodies don’t need – but can handle – let’s say 9 teaspoons of sugar a day. There are lots of different numbers and recommendations out there, but from my reading, 9 teaspoons is a pretty good reference point.
This is for adults, for kids, I would say around 6-7.

Carbohydrates (a carb is basically anything that grows), eventually break down as sugar, or glucose, in the blood stream which is why we don’t need extra sugar in our diets if we are eating our fruit and veg and some good grains, legumes and nuts.

Over time and if we eat more than the 9tsp/day regularly, we will put on weight (sugar not used by the body will be stored as fat) and our blood glucose may start to go a bit nuts.
This is especially true for kids, we’ve seen the evidence after those birthday parties!

So, what do we do?

Well bear with me while I give you a little formula and we can go from there.
9 teaspoons of sugar roughly equals about 34grams.

So, something like a 600ml soft drink for example which contains 70 something grams of sugar, has a whopping 18 teaspoons right there.
A can has about 11.

Going back to last week….case in point, not only do many soft drinks contain caffeine and all sorts of weird chemicals, the amount of sugar in my kids bloodstream would be off the scale!
Save it for party time. Too many kids (and adults) are guzzling loads of the stuff….enter obesity and Diabetes.

Ok, getting back to what we do about this – Start to read labels and understand them.
That way you can limit and reduce the amounts if sugar your family is consuming and prevent obesity, disease and behavioural problems, rather than have to fix them once they’re there.

Go and get a packet of something from your pantry and have a look at the nutrition label, and see how much sugar is in that product PER SERVE.
A packet of biscuits for example may have 11 grams of sugar per serve, then we see at the top of the label that their idea of a serve is one biscuit!

Check your breakfast cereals and low-fat-so-it-must-be-good-for-me sweet products and you will find enormous amounts of sugar.

Look at the amounts in sweetened yoghurts. Even the ones with just fruit have a days worth of sugar.
A teaspoon of jam has the equivalent of 3 teaspoons. One cup of ‘no added sugar’ juice has 5.
“Sports” drinks are just watery, coloured, flavoured sugar (about 15tsps worth) and are only necessary to replenish your sweaty body if you are an olympic athlete!

Add up the amounts of sugar your family is consuming in a day and see how you fare. It’s very easy to hit 9tsp of sugar in one go!

I’m not telling you all this to depress you, rather to empower you to be able to make smart choices.
If your kids love the sweetened yoghurts, then give them one a day and other sugary foods are limited or saved until it’s ‘sometimes’ day or party time (see last week).

My kids and I came to an agreement – they love juice so that’s their sugar for the day. They are allowed one cup and only if they’ve finished the water in their drink bottle at school.
Other than that, for sweetness, they have slushies made from frozen fruit and maybe something involving honey on bread.
And…..on the weekends ice cream and chocolate chip cookies may make an appearance!

Again, this is not some sort of regimented thing, I eat chocolate with the best of you, just know what your boundaries are, stick to them most of the time and enjoy the times when you don’t!

I’d love to hear your comments and talk more about how this can work in your family!

Next week GI…
Lv Jane

©thefamilyroom 2006

The Basics

Hi again Ladies! Hope you’ve had a great week. We’ve just started to see the sun again here in Fiji after one month of torrential rain!

My kids have been sick with an evil bug that’s finding it’s way from village to village and so I’ve been force feeding them home made garlic bread, making mounds of mashed potato so I can throw in every vegetable I can find without being met with too much resistance, and making slushies – ‘just like the one’s from Boost mum’ – loaded with fruit.

We’ve had a busy couple of weeks with birthdays and late nights and school holiday craziness and Jonah said to me when he started to get sick, “Mum I think I’ve had too much party food!”
Which made me think about the basics…

Whenever I need to talk to people about good health and preventing disease, we go back to the basics with food, which looks something like this:

Everyday food
Sometimes food and
Party food.

My kids could give a health promotion talk on which foods come under which headings and we talk about them a lot. If your kids can GET this now, it can save them a lot of struggle later.

Everyday foods are the foods we need to eat, well, everyday, if we want to stay healthy and prevent disease.
These include the 5 + 2 principle…..5 serves of veggies and 2 pieces of fruit per day, (non-negotiable), lots of water, good quality protein like fish, chicken and lean meat, grains like oats, nuts and seeds (very easy to sneak in if there’s no allergies), dairy or soy and some eggs (2 a day are fine).
These are daily essentials and should be eaten as fresh as possible. They give you a mix of immune building nutrients that strengthen your body and keep things like blood sugar on an even keel. They also give us mums energy and nourish the body processes that support fertility and keep your mind sharp, just to name 2 of many examples.

Sometimes foods are the Friday night pizzas, the weekend pancakes, the occasional desserts, the school holiday and Christmas baking…you’re with me yes?
They are foods that we eat sometimes not everyday and not in large amounts. They are loaded with sugar, nasty fats, refined flours and salt, which is why they taste GREAT, but our bodies can’t deal with them everyday and we will eventually crash like Jonah. Eat them sometimes.

Then the Party foods are for celebrations. Eat them and enjoy them.
Lose the talk about how you’ll have to work it off at the gym tomorrow, let your kids go nuts and make themselves sick, have a party!
But if your life is like mine, parties are occasional events, they happen maybe once a month (although at times it feels like a lot more with kids!!), and our health and waistlines can handle a celebration.
It’s good for the soul too.
These foods deplete our energy, send the kids feral, give us headaches and leave us dehydrated…BUT - If we are eating the everyday foods, the sometimes and party foods are ok, just not everyday.

Food isn’t good and bad, it doesn’t have morality. It’s just food. It will be there tomorrow. And if you’re eating your greens and an apple a day, the odd afternoon chocolate bar isn’t going to give you diabetes or heart disease. It also doesn’t make you bad.

Give yourself a break.

Learn to love your veggies, snack on fruit instead of ice cream, drink water often, but don’t run shrieking at the sight of a magnum.

Next week I’m going to start to give you some ideas about daily allowances for sugar and salt etc, and maybe freak you out a bit with amounts in packaged and fast foods but at least you’ll know which foods fit firmly into which category and which foods you may just decide to do away with altogether. (Or maybe just keep for party time).

One of my choices is soft drink. My kids are point blank just not allowed to have anything beyond the occasional lemonade at a party and they understand why.

But we'll talk more next week.....I'm off to round up the remaining mash and veg so I can smoosh it into salmon patties for tomorrow night.

Lv Jane

©The Family Room 2006

Say Hello to Jane, our Resident Nutritionist

Hey Girls!

Let me introduce myself. My name is Jane Kennedy and I am a Nutritionist currently working in the field of Health Promotion, which is great fun, especially as I get to do it in Fiji!

I have a lovely 9 year old girl (who is the most fabulously dramatic person I have ever met apart from myself at her age) called Giorgia – Gigi – and a 7 year old yummy, handsome boy called Jonah.

I am married to a hot chocolate man who drags me around the world with his job - I’m not complaining - and together we are navigating the unchartered territory (for us) of marriage and family on the move.

We have been away from Sydney for 2 and a 1/2years but I have watched and listened expectantly to the creation of the Family Room in the hearts of Susan and Michaela. I am very excited to be apart of it.

I will be chatting with you on the blog each week about all sorts of Nutrition related topics like Nutrition for busy mums, healthy lunches, reading food labels, and Nutrition for PMS (isn’t that chocolate?), pregnancy and exercise….and loads more, including learning to be comfortable with food (a BIG one).

You will be free to ask me questions, which I will do my best to answer the following week. I will also provide a list of Nutritionists and Naturopaths in the Sydney area who you could go and see if you needed further, personalised advice.

Nutrition is such an important part of staying strong, feeling good and preventing disease. It also has such an impact on our kids’ behaviour and their little bodies’ resistance to nasty bugs and germs.

Instinctively, you’re probably already sneaking veggies into everything and feeding your kids well, while trying to make sense out of all the advice out there. I’m simply going to put some tools in your hand so that when you hear ‘reduce fat’, ‘cut down on the sugar’, ‘avoid MSG’, you have a clearer idea of how to put that into action.

You can relax though, I’m not afraid of carbs, I love pizza and chocolate and am partial to odd glass of vino, I just eat loads of good stuff too and have learnt that it’s not all or nothing.

Looking forward to the ride….wish I could be there for Christmas with the Girls,

Lv Jane
©The Family Room 2006