Blog

How to Find the Fiber

This past month we’ve been talking all about fiber! Christine and Justine shared about the health benefits of fiber and how we can include high fiber foods in our meals and snacks. Today I’m going to share with you how to find high fiber foods using the food label.

Altering Recipes for Better Health

As a mom, I want to make foods for my family that taste good and are good for them. Sometimes I do this by altering a recipe to make it a bit healthier but still taste good.  For some recipes, I reduce the amount of an ingredient. In others, I substitute one ingredient for another. Small changes can make a big difference in the amount of fat, salt, sugar and fiber in a dish.

“It’s a Date”

Written by ISU Dietetic Intern Alexa Berkenpas

Good Snacks for Youth Sports

In just over a week, my kids will be back in school and my son will start fall soccer. I love that when playing soccer my eight year-old son gets to run around being active. On the other hand, I feel that the snacks that are given to the players after their games could be improved. Often times my son gets a small bottle of sports drink along with donuts or some kind of packaged snack cakes. Even though my son runs when playing soccer, the game is only one hour and he rotates out with other players. Therefore, he isn’t playing for the full hour. Sports drinks are meant to replace sodium and potassium that is lost in sweat when being continuously active for an hour or more or when it is especially hot outside. Otherwise, water works well to keep kids hydrated. We enjoy donuts and other treats occasionally but to teach kids how to better fuel their bodies for activity, here are some other ideas for snacks after a game:

Spice it up!

When creating recipes for Spend Smart. Eat Smart. three things we keep in mind are the flavor, the cost, and the nutrition content. We want our recipes to taste good, provide good nutrition, and be relatively low cost to make. To determine if our recipes provide good nutrition, each recipe must meet our nutrition guidelines. One guideline we pay particular attention to is sodium. The sodium level in our recipes needs to be low to moderate. The limit varies depending on if the recipe is for a:

Happy Holidays from Spend Smart. Eat Smart.

Good or Bad? Finding Reliable Nutrition Information on the Web

The Keto diet, the DASH diet, the Paleo diet. What about Intermittent Fasting? With the start of a new year, many people set New Year’s resolutions with hopes of making some sort of change in their life. A top New Year’s resolution is to eat better and lose weight. And a popular source people look to for nutrition information is the internet. You can find reliable nutrition information on the web, but you need to be careful where you look and what websites you trust. Below are five tips for finding trustworthy nutrition information online.

Meal Planning for the Health of It

Last week Rachel shared five red flags to look out for when considering diet advice. In the blog, she mentioned learning new skills that can improve your health, like meal planning, instead of focusing solely on weight. Meal planning is a popular practice; especially at the beginning of the year when people are trying to eat better, save money and be more organized. It can help you check off all three! Today I’m going to share with you five tips for meal planning with health in mind.

Save Money with Unit Pricing

Unit pricing is a great way to save money. It helps you determine which brand, which size, or which form is the best deal. It can even save you from being tricked by flashy ‘Sale’ signs. But who wants to stand in the grocery aisle doing math to figure out the unit price? Now you don’t have to! Watch our new video on unit pricing to learn how to use the unit price calculator on our app to help you get the best deal without all the hassle.

Shredded, sliced, or string cheese: Which one is a better buy?

Last week I wrote about our new video on unit pricing and how the unit price calculator on our app can help save you money. This week I want to share how I use the unit price calculator to help me determine the best buy on different forms of cheese.

Solid fats and oils: What’s the difference?

Back in 2013, I wrote a blog comparing the cost and nutrition of different vegetable oils. That blog was recently shared by a national outlet and it received a lot of attention. As a result, we got a lot of questions related to what type of fat or oil is best to use so we thought it was time to write another blog on that topic.

I Like to Move it Move it!

Today I’m excited to share with you a new feature that was added to our Spend Smart. Eat Smart. website! We added a section on physical activity. For good health its important to eat well and move our bodies. Now you can find information about both on our website.