Nutritious choices made simple®
When I was a kid, my absolute favorite recipe to make was called “Peanut Butter Bumps.” It had three ingredients: peanut butter, butter, and oatmeal. All you did was mash everything together and roll it into sticky little fat bombs, and I LOVED them. Those little bumps have too much saturated fat, salt, and added sugars to earn Guiding Stars, but working on the Guiding Stars recipe database, I have discovered something: snack balls can be delicious and nutritious.
Potato chips are among America’s most popular “snack foods” and sales spike during the summer months. There’s no wonder why, unless you’ve never tasted a potato chip. They are the classic high-fat, salty snack designed to make it hard to stop eating once you’ve started. Most Americans recognize that potato chips are a food that should be eaten in moderation. At the same time, due to shopper demands, there are an increasing amount of better-for-you chip options to choose from at the supermarket. For this month’s Surprising Stars, I’m going to explain why some potato chips earn Guiding Stars.
Did you know that the Guiding Stars database has over 1,200 recipes? Most of them have been tried and tasted by various members of the Guiding Stars team, and nearly 1,000 of them have high-quality photography that is available for use by ADUSA brands. We talked with a few of the team members about their favorite recipes.
Nothing says “Hello, summer,” quite like a smoothie. Smoothies are also a great way to engage kids in some culinary play. Offering ample room for choice and creativity, taking very little time, and yielding a sweet treat that can give the ice cream truck a run for its money, smoothies are prime for playing with.
There seems to be an ever-growing amount of content available online for our children. If you have internet-savvy kids, you know it’s super tough to keep up with. Has your child approached you in recent weeks asking if you have instant coffee that she can whip into the perfect beverage? If so, just know they are aware of many fun food hacks, ideas, and crafts available to them. My own daughter finds these things, but it’s not until the New York Times picks it up that I pay attention. I get it: the struggle is real here.
Earlier this week, our nutritionist, Garrick Brown, wrote about fun ways to get your kids involved in the kitchen. Building off his foundation, Kitchen Smarts this month is going to dive deep into the world of what makes a recipe fun to play with.
Cooking with kids is an effective way to encourage lifelong healthy eating habits. When kids help prepare nutritious foods, they are more likely to taste and eat them. Learning how to cook safely also builds their confidence. Cooking is a source of pride for children when they can do it for themselves, their family or friends. Through cooking with kids, we can teach them many lessons and have a lot of fun along the way. Here are some ways to get kids into the kitchen this summer.
“We have food at home” is the most boring sentence on the planet. It’s so lame that it’s the subject of a viral meme. It is the response of the health-conscious, budget-conscious parent to the child who wants fast food. And, let’s be honest: it’s the inner adult voice that keeps us on track with health and budget goals when we’d rather take a break from cooking. I don’t know about you, but under the current guidelines to go food shopping no more than once a week, telling myself “we have food at home” is hard. It’s exhausting. One thing cooking from the pantry doesn’t need to be, however, is boring.