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Join the campaign to pick right, feel bright.
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This week is National Nutrition Week in Australia - a week that aims to improve our nutrition and eating habits, but the week always includes World Food Day (16 October 2015), a day to raise awareness of the fight against world hunger and poverty.
Spearheaded in Australia by Nutrition Australia in conjunction with the Produce Marketing Association, this year's theme for National Nutrition Week is 'Pick Right. Feel Bright'.
'Pick Right. Feel Bright' is all about getting both children and adults to make healthy choices when it comes to food, in particular, snacking. So together, Nutrition Australia and Australia's fruit and veg industry are encouraging all Australians to eat more fresh fruit and vegetables for better health.
Each year National Nutrition Week raises awareness of the role of food on our health, and supports the community to enjoy healthy eating.
The food and lifestyle choices we make impact on both our health, and the health of our planet. With childhood obesity rates now around 25% and with Australians identified as being among the highest producers of waste globally, we need to address these issues urgently.
One of the worst offenders for piling on the pounds is snacking. We're all guilty. We get peckish between meals and the temptation is to go for a quick fix sugar hit… And many of the so-called healthy snack bars and fruit sticks etc can be just as full of sugar as eating a bar of chocolate.
Sugar snacking can also play havoc with blood sugar levels, which can give you a fuzzy head or lead to tiredness, lack of energy, irritability and poor concentration.
Snack right
We all know how hard it is to get our kids to snack right, but here are a few ideas for some healthy snacks the kids (and adults) will love:
- Fruit and veg shapes: Perfect for apples, carrots, cucumbers or anything you can slice - take the slices and cut them into shapes with biscuit/pastry cutters.
- Bananas sliced and drizzled with honey or sprinkled with cinnamon.
- Veggie faces - take rounds or slices of some favourite veg and fruit and get your kids so make some faces…great with celery, capsicum, cherry tomatoes, apple segments, orange/mandarin segments.
- Go Crackers: Rice or corn crackers (plain) with sweet or savoury toppings, such as vegemite, Philadelphia, honey, peanut butter.
- Toast soldiers and shapes - sweet or savoury. Cut your toast into soldiers, squares, triangles or shape it into stars and circles with pastry cutters.
- French toast (Dip bread into 1 beaten egg and lightly fry in a pan with a tiny bit of olive oil).
- Apple or banana fritters - dip cored apple rings or banana slices into some light batter (1 egg, 100g plain flower, 100ml milk) and fry until golden in a hot frying pan
- Eggtastic: eggs are really nutritious. Soft boil them with some dippers, hard boil and slice them with pepper; scrambled with a piece of toast. They're a really healthy, filling snack or light meal.
- Skinny dipping - hummus, tzatziki, plain yogurt. Perfect for celery, carrots, capsicum sticks, apple wedges.
- Fruity Yogurt - no need to buy flavoured yogurts - buy plain or Greek yogurt and sweeten with some honey and cinnamon, add stewed apple, apricot, mashed banana, frozen berries, strawberries and raspberries. Let the kids add their own.
- Go Nuts - raw nuts are some of the most nutritious snacks. So as long as there are no nut allergies in the house, then a selection of hazelnuts, brazil nuts, walnuts, almonds will go down a treat. Mix with some pumpkin or sunflower seeds.
- Tea with the Queen - make some dainty sandwiches and have tea like the Queen - cucumber, tuna, Philadelphia, smoked salmon, peanut butter, honey or banana…crusts removed and sliced into fingers or cut into shapes.
For information on National Nutrition Week or Nutrition Australia, go to: www.nutritionaustralia.org
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