Nutritious choices made simple®
National Nutrition Month is an annual campaign created by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. During the month of March, everyone is invited to learn about making informed food choices and developing healthful eating and physical activity habits.
If you’re familiar with Guiding Stars, you know that we have been helping consumers easily find nutritious choices in the grocery aisles since 2006. We’re excited to announce that Guiding Stars has enhanced our algorithm, the patented formula we use to assign stars to foods and beverages, to bring new clarity to better beverage choices.
This is Part 2 in our blog series exploring the origin of low- and no- calorie sweeteners and their impacts on health.
The ability to cut calories by reducing or eliminating sugar in foods and beverages has been the driving force in developing both low and no-calorie sweeteners as well as more products that utilize them. It’s safe to say that interest in lower calorie, sugar-free beverages and foods shows no signs of declining any time soon.
If you’ve ever shopped “by the stars,” you already know how handy it is. Lots of foods in the store are labeled with their Guiding Stars 1, 2, or 3-star rating. Choosing more 2 and 3-star rated foods allows you to skip the in-depth label reading. You can easily put more nutrition in your cart. But what about putting more nutrition on your plate? There are only so many foods that we eat simply as they are. (Shout-out to baby carrots, my go-to do-nothing veggie side!). This is especially true if we are making an effort to purchase whole or minimally-processed foods. In other words, we often have to cook our food and combine ingredients together in recipes. How do we make sure our meals earn Guiding Stars too? Lucky for us, the Guiding Stars has roughly 1,200 star-earning recipes on the website!
Do you cook regularly for someone who bristles at Brussels sprouts or shudders at spinach? If so, you know how frustrating it can be to get well-rounded meals onto the table. Taking advantage of seasonal or local produce offerings is even harder. It can be enough to cause even the most patient meal planner to want to throw in the towel. But, like I wrote last year when I covered how to handle veggie-shunning kids, you don’t need to resign yourself to never-ending sides of potatoes or corn.
I LOVE this year’s National Nutrition Month® theme because it speaks to the fact that we are all unique beings and our physical needs and food preferences do vary. But what does “Personalize Your Plate” really mean, and how exactly does one achieve a personalized plate?
Lots of people show love through cooking or providing food for others. It’s an act of love as old as humankind. Feeding a baby is one of the first acts of love a mother bestows on her child. Helping an aged parent get a spoonful of soup to his or her mouth is a tender and touching turnabout that many of us experience. Throughout the lifecycle, we have many and varying opportunities to demonstrate our love and care through nourishment. Nourishment itself, however, goes further than nutrition, of course. Feeding the loves in our lives provides benefits you might not have considered.