“September marks the start of National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month, a time for us to encourage America’s children to develop healthy habits that can last a lifetime.

All kids deserve to experience the positive health benefits of daily physical activity and healthy eating, and have those opportunities available to them.”

~Department of Health and Human Services

Visit this link to learn more about healthy nutrition for kids in school and the Let’s Move initiative.

Click here for more information from the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition.

The Weight of the Nation,

The screening will focus on the “Children in Crisis” episode from The Weight of the Nation series. There will be a beginning reception at 5:15 PM followed by an introductory program and the film starting at 6:00 PM.

This event is being sponsored by Health Diagnostic Laboratory Inc. and the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth in partnership with the Greater Richmond Childhood Obesity Prevention Coalition and the Science Museum of Virginia. There will be a beginning reception at 5:15 PM followed by an introductory program and the film starting at 6:00 PM.

If you are interested in attending the screening please RSVP to Lee Taylor-Penn at lee@grfit4kids.org. Seating is limited to the first 250 attendees.

Teaching kids to eat healthy starts early in life.

When kids see their parents and other adults eating healthy, it encourages them to do the same.

• According to the CDC, during the last 3 decades, the prevalence of obesity has tripled among persons aged 6–19 years.
• The CDC also states that the home environment and parental influence are strongly correlated with youth eating behaviors.
• HelpGuide.org goes further to say that “Healthy eating can stabilize children’s energy, sharpen their minds, and even out their moods.”

Focusing on an active lifestyle and healthier eating are important steps in combating childhood obesity.

And here’s another reason to teach kids better nutrition. Research shows that children who eat well perform better in school than kids with poor diets.

Try these activities with your kids:

1. Let kids help choose foods. Take them shopping with you and ask them to choose three different vegetables from the fresh produce aisle. For younger children, you can even make it an educational adventure by asking them to choose three different colored vegetables.
2. Prepare small bites. Kids of all ages (and adults) love mini-portions these days. Cut celery, carrots, and cucumbers into small pieces.  Do the same with fruit. Kids are more likely to eat vegetables and fruit when it’s small and easily accessible. Keep a bowl of chopped fruits and veggies on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator.
3. Visit a local farmer’s market. Allowing kids to experience the fun of the market can encourage healthier eating. The market atmosphere is contagious. You can also visit a local orchard where kids pick their own apples, peaches, and other fruits.
4. Pack lunches in clear, sectioned containers so kids can see the colors and textures of the food. It makes them more appealing and enticing.
5. Engage kids in food preparation. Teach them to prepare foods. Older kids can help chop vegetables and even younger kids enjoy helping in the kitchen. They are more likely to enjoy their food if they help with preparation.
6. Plant a small garden. Teaching kids where food comes from is a great way to encourage healthier eating. When they see cucumbers, tomatoes, squash and other vegetables grow in their own space; they get excited about preparing them to eat. Container garden or raised-bed gardening only takes a small space too.

Snack Ideas for After School (or Anytime!)

Snacks can be traditional like fruits. But snacks can also be a sandwich or even a bowl of cereal. Think of nutritious foods that kids enjoy and go for it!

• Thin slices of crunchy apples with a thin spread of peanut butter.
• Celery sticks with peanut butter and a few raisins on top (or 4-5 chocolate chips)
• Hummus and whole-wheat crackers with slices of apple.
• Vanilla yogurt with fresh berries and a drizzle of local honey.
• Small bite-sized pieces of fruit.
• Small pieces of carrot and celery sticks with a light ranch dipping sauce.
• A bowl of fortified cereal with milk.
• ½ turkey and cheese sandwich with a glass of milk.
• Graham crackers with peanut butter spread and a few chocolate chips.
• A grilled cheese sandwich on whole-wheat bread – use shredded cheese, add some finely chopped fresh spinach, and grill in a skillet or Panini pan. Sice into long thin strips.

Lunch Ideas

Pack a nutritious lunch and include a bottle of water or some low-fat milk with each entrée.

• Try a delicious turkey pinwheel rolled in a whole-wheat tortilla with lettuce and some grated cheese, small bites of celery/carrots with homemade light ranch dip, and thinly sliced oranges (leave the rind on for ease in packing and handling!).
• Or create a peanut butter/banana spread by finely mashing banana into the peanut butter. Spread it on mini whole-wheat pita rounds and top with a small amount of naturally sweetened blueberry jelly. Add a side of celery sticks and carrots with dipping sauce, and toss in a handful of purple and green grapes.

Plan Ahead

These are just some ideas to get you started on healthier school lunches and snacks. Planning ahead and purchasing fresh, wholesome foods to start with is the key to healthy eating.

And if you don’t have time to prepare nutritious lunches yourself each morning, Green Monkey School Lunches is always happy to help!

We deliver to some local schools and many of our lunch options are available through RELAY Foods for delivery right along with your RELAY orders each week. You can also place orders and stop by our Quiocassin Road kitchen to pick them up at your convenience.

Make a difference in how kids eat today and you’ll make a difference in how they eat as adults too. Help stop childhood obesity and promote healthy, active living for longer, better quality living for everyone.

Make it a family affair!

The CDC states that the home environment and parental influence are strongly correlated with youth eating behaviors. HelpGuide.org goes further to say that “Healthy eating can stabilize children’s energy, sharpen their minds, and even out their moods.”

Kids learn eating habits at a very young age and parents have significant influence over how much or how well kids eat. Follow these valuable tips from the USDA ChooseMyPlate.gov website and you’ll teach kids healthy eating from the start.

Balancing Calories

• Enjoy your food, but eat less (manage serving size and exercise portion control).
• Avoid oversized portions.

Foods to Increase

• Make half your plate fruits and vegetables.
• Make at least half your grains whole grains.
• Switch to fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk.

Foods to Reduce

• Compare sodium in foods like soup, bread, and frozen meals and choose the foods with lower numbers.
• Drink water instead of sugary drinks.

Eat healthy today and live a longer, healthier, and happier life.

Wrong!

Don’t worry  – most people don’t know the difference between a portion and a serving.

So here’s the skinny on both:

• A portion is how much food you choose to eat at one time – or that you choose to feed your child. It’s what is on your plate based on what you wanted to eat (and it may be 2, 3 or even 4 servings!).
• A serving is a specific recommended amount of food.

The ChooseMyplate.gov website provides valuable information about serving sizes.

Most people don’t consider the serving size when they decide on a portion to eat. That leads to weight gain and over-eating which also leads to unhealthy lifestyles.

People often gain weight because their “portions” contain multiple “servings” of a particular food or food group. One way to gain a better understanding of servings is to equate them to something you know.

For example, these objects demonstrate serving sizes:

• 1/2 cup cooked rice is about the size of a baseball
• A pancake is the size of a CD
• A serving of cheese is the size of a pair of dice or the size of your whole thumb
• 1 cup of cereal is the size of your fist
• 1 baked potato is the size of a computer mouse
• 1 medium fruit is the size of a baseball

The USDA recommends portion sizes based on years of research and analysis.

Servings include:

• one slice of whole-grain bread
• 1/2 cup of cooked rice
• 1/2 cup of mashed potatoes
• 3-4 small crackers
• 2 medium sized cookies
• 1/2 cup cooked vegetables
• 1 small chicken breast
• 1/4 pound hamburger patty

Now compare the portions you normally serve to the actual recommended serving sizes to see where you are on the scale. Most people find that they have 2-3 servings of mashed potatoes in a portion, or 2 servings of chicken on their plate when they eat.

Watch servings when deciding on portions and use ChooseMyPlate.gov as a guide. Build a healthy plate with 3/4 vegetables, fruits, and grains. Leave 1/4 for protein and include some dairy.

Then enjoy a nutritious meal that doesn’t leave you over-stuffed!

Check out our school lunch menus and let us know how we can help. We love preparing fresh, natural delicious lunches every day.

Blueberries are high in antioxidants and organic blueberries are highly recommended.

Back to school means the weather is changing and before you know it, we’ll enjoy some cooler weather. But cooler weather also brings on colds and flu for lots of people. Keeping your children as healthy as possible starts with watching what they eat.

We know that antioxidants are one way to help fight off illness and help build a strong immune system. Antioxidants are simply vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that protect and repair cells from damage caused by free radicals. These free radicals can wreak havoc on an immune system and make it easier for kids to come down with colds or flu.

Antioxidants can help keep the immune system strong so you and your kids can better fight off colds and flu. That’s why Green Monkey School Lunches always focus on foods rich in antioxidants, nutrients, and vitamins.

And it’s great that those foods highest in antioxidants are also foods that contribute to a healthy weight, mind, and body!

Some foods are higher in antioxidants than others so we try to always include the best ones in our lunches.

The three major antioxidant vitamins are beta-carotene, vitamin C, and vitamin E.  These are found in lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. Canned fruits and vegetables don’t always offer the same protection as fresh either – that’s why Green Monkey lunches include fresh and natural.

Fill a plate with color for more antioxidants!

Some great sources of antioxidants include:

• Apples
• Beans
• Cantaloupe
• Carrots
• Corn
• Mangoes
• Peaches
• Tomatoes
• Strawberries
• Broccoli
• Raisins
• Blueberries/Berries of all types
• Red grapes

Try to incorporate some of these super foods with high antioxidants into your child’s breakfast, dinner, and snacks every day. And we’ll do our part at Green Monkey Lunches to include them in their fresh lunches every day!

REPOSTED FROM RELAY FOODS MONTHLY NEWSLETTER

Green Monkey is excited to partner with RELAY Foods to bring healthy lunches to kids everywhere! Adults will love this too!

Revolutionize your mornings with healthy, fun school lunches  Packing lunches that are delicious and healthy shouldn’t be a battleground, but there’s no denying that many an unpleasant morning spring from the fight over what goes in the lunchbox.Enter our friends at Green Monkey Catering. With fresh-packed, colorful bento boxes full of healthy ingredients, the Green Monkey team has forever saved a generation of Virginia parents from the horrors of Lunchables.As one Green Monkey regular puts it: “School lunches from Green Monkey make our lives much easier! Thanks for preparing healthy food for my son and allowing us a more relaxed morning without the hassle of packing lunches!”Three nutritious Green Monkey lunches to sustain a healthy school day: Basil Egg Salad: Basil egg salad with crackers, orzo pasta salad, seasonal fruit PB&J: PB&J with crackers, celery + carrot sticks, seasonal fruit Tuna Salad: Tuna salad, hummus with pretzels, seasonal fruit

And many of our school lunch options are available in the Charlottesville area now (delivered through RELAY Foods – Charlottesville). We welcome our Charlottesville friends to Green Monkey for the school year!

The new Bento Lunch Box Program offers plenty of great choices for kids of all ages. These conveniently packaged lunches include nutrition and flavor – and we’re packing lots of foods that kids are familiar with so they enjoy them more.

Fresh fruits, crunchy carrots, housemade ranch dip, peanut butter banana and jelly, chicken tenders and honey for dipping, and lots of other delicious foods are packed and delivered right to your child’s school (check to see if we deliver to your child’s school – if not, you can order our school lunches through RELAY Foods).

If you haven’t tried our lunches yet, you’re in for a treat. You and your kids will love them.

Green Monkey does all of the shopping, cooking, slicing, and dicing so you have more time with your kids. And you can always rest assured that kids are getting only wholesome natural food from our kitchen.

Thanks for ordering from Green Monkey School Lunches!