Category Healthy Tips

Top 10 Healthy Eating Tips For National Nutrition Month

March is National Nutrition Month—a time to refocus our attention and energies on good eating habits, regular exercise and the myriad ways that food and nutrition impact our health and overall wellbeing. Created by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (the world’s largest organization of nutrition professionals), National Nutrition Month (NNM) has taken place every March since 1980. Around the U.S. you may see more nutrition coverage in the media and notice NNM activities taking place at your workplace, local hospitals, schools, or grocery stores.

Delicious & Nutritious Recipes for the Big Game

I eagerly volunteered to tackle this important topic. I love football and the big game is also a significant food event! An estimated 103 million people watched last year. Some tune in to see the game, others care more about the half-time performance and commercials. I think we can all agree, though, that the food served is equally important.

Dorm Room Snack Hacks

In most minds, dorm room dining does not evoke Instagram-worthy images of nutritious foods. Students typically do not have access to a kitchen and can feel resigned to warming up easy mac or ramen noodles in a microwave or splurging on a fast food delivery order. Yet, with some ingenuity, it’s possible to eat healthy and on a budget from a dorm room. Here are a few simple strategies and recipes from Guiding Stars to help college students eat healthy dorm room meals and snacks without spending all their cash.

10 Tips for Sensational Summer Salads

When outdoor temperatures rise, cool crisp salads can take center stage. Construct your salad right and it can be the star of the show, with little need for anything else. On the other hand, build it without some essential components, and you will likely be looking for another option. Use these 10 strategies for smarter summer salads to ensure your salad is built to satisfy.

Snack Healthy: Mini-Meal Chart

The days of three square meals may be a thing of the past. Busy daily schedules, limited time for cooking and the ever increasing popularity of smoothies, juices, protein bars, power bowls and the like are packing many nutrients into quick, on-the-go options. Bigger than snacks, these “mini meals” nourish us throughout the day and have the potential to work together to satisfy our nutrient needs.

School Nutrition Standards: Where are We Now?

On July 1, 2012, schools and programs that utilize the National School Lunch program began the process of adopting the changes required under the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act (HHFKA). Though challenging to implement, the strong need for better nutrition for the over 30 million children who rely on the National School Lunch program and the opportunity for greater reimbursement per meal (an extra 6 cents), encouraged schools to comply. The transformation to come was so monumental and innovative for a program that hadn’t seen change in fifteen years, that Guiding Stars devoted a webinar on the topic. Now, two years later, we can see how the changes are being implemented and where we are on our journey toward feeding the next generation.

Making Banana Pancakes

I love pancakes. They're such a cozy way to start the weekend, and having extras on hand to heat in the toaster makes the work week easier to manage. The problem is that I prefer pancakes covered in butter and syrup, which is not the most nutritious way to start the day, especially given that pancakes are typically not what you could call nutritionally dense to begin with.

I've been learning a lot about improving the nutrition of my favorite recipes while working with Guiding Stars, so I decided to try modifying the buttermilk pancake recipe in my favorite cookbook. The result was completely delicious (without syrup!) and earns 3 Guiding Stars...this is the process I used to get there: