Green Frozen Treats

(Green, as in environmentally friendly - but color could work, too!)

Billy and the boys love to snack on popsicles during the summer, and it seems I have to buy a new bag of them every other week. The plastic sleeves make a mess everywhere, and I usually end up with sticky drips on the floor between the snack bar and the trash can.

A few weeks ago, the boys saw a big bin full of mesh bags of popsicles at the grocery store and their cravings began. Last year, it seemed every bag I touched had sticky popsicle residue on it. I was in no mood to wander around the store with sticky hands, so I put the boys off, telling them we'd get some later. Then I remembered the plastic popsicle molds we used to have a long time ago. In our many moves, they'd been lost or misplaced, or maybe I sold them in a garage sale or threw them out. I was on a new mission.

I spent about $6 on three sets of popsicle molds at Wal-Mart, enough to make 12 popsicles at a time - and they're a perfect fit inside the freezer door!

We started out making ice pops from tropical punch-flavored Kool-Aid, which the boys love. They were a hit!

Next we tried strawberry yogurt. (Jacob's big thing lately has been putting his yogurt containers in the freezer, but then he struggles with digging the frozen yogurt out with a spoon. He loves the taste, but after a while he loses interest and sticks it back in the freezer. I've ended up throwing a few away because he never finished it or he left one on the counter to thaw and forgot about it...) These were great! Now the boys can have easy-to-eat frozen yogurt on a stick in the flavor(s) of their choosing.

I can also eat them because they're only 50 calories each. I've gotten so used to eating plain fat-free yogurt with homemade granola for breakfast every morning that I find the flavored yogurts too sweet. But this is the perfect amount - and it's more like an small ice cream bar.

We've also talked about freezing fruit or chocolate chips in with the yogurt or making pudding pops. I think the boys are eager to try banana chunks in chocolate pudding or banana cream pie-flavored yogurt. They're also looking forward to lemonade pops and some made from different fruit juices. I want to try watermelon! We're also considering filling the molds with homemade ice cream and seeing how they freeze up. We've got plenty of options to carry us through the summer!

We're reducing our trash by not having to throw away those troublesome plastic sleeves or the mesh bags - and we're reusing our popsicle molds on an almost daily basis. Now that's $6 well spent!

Cooking Light: Healthy Habit 1: Veggie Up

For this year, Cooking Light is focusing on one healthy habit each month. January's challenge is to add 3 servings of vegetables (and fruits) each day.

This will indeed be a challenge for me, but one I'm up for. In my weekly menu planning, I typically focus on the main dish and scrounge up what sides I can find. Sometimes I'm good about buying frozen broccoli or fresh spinach or apples, but you can only eat so much of that day after day. I need to liven things up a bit!

Last night we had vegetable soup, and we'll finish the leftovers tomorrow night. Other than that, we haven't had many vegetables - and no fruit. We ran out of apples right before Christmas; then the boys finished off the clementines shortly after. I've forgotten to buy more fruit the last few times I've been to the grocery store, but today I stopped by Brookshire's and bought two 5-lb. bags of grapefruit that were on sale.

This month, I will start the new habit of intentionally planning - and buying - vegetables for side dishes for our evening meals. I will also buy a variety of fruit for the boys and me to have with our lunches. It's harder this time of year when not much is fresh, but canned will work for now. I'll just make sure the fruit is in its own juice, not heavy syrup. And since tomorrow is grocery day, I better get to making my menu!

Cooking Light: What They're Stickin' in the Chicken

"Poultry's Salty Little Secret" - Jan/Feb 2011

According to the article, "about one-third of the fresh chicken found in supermarket meat cases has been synthetically saturated with a mix of water, salt, and other additives via needle injections and high-pressure vacuum tumbling." Designed to make the meat juicier and more tender, it also increases the sodium content by nearly 1000%. (Yes, that's one thousand.)

While some sodium is naturally-occurring in chicken (which never occurred to me...), it's minimal - often less than 75 mg per 4-oz. serving. "Enhanced" chicken can have as high as 440 mg per 4-oz. serving. This is still significantly lower than the RDA of 2,300 mg of sodium, but is it necessary?

I rarely buy fresh chicken from the meat counter. Instead I buy a large bag of individually frozen, skinless, boneless chicken breasts. I don't know if they're available without the added "broth solution", as some companies call it. I checked the two bags in my freezer (from different companies) and they both have additional sodium, about 200 mg per 4-oz. serving.

Now that I'm aware of it, I can reduce the amount of salt I add to my chicken dishes. I know most prepackaged foods have higher sodium contents than making similar dishes from scratch, and I typically stay away from them. Still, I want to keep my sodium intake lower. I can always tell when I've had too much because my hands swell. (That's typical after eating out, as opposed cooking my own food.)

Next time I'm shopping for chicken, I'll be sure to read the label closely to make sure the chicken I'm getting has just a small amount of extra sodium added, if any at all.

Cooking Light: Deciphering Food Labels

"The Fuzzy Math of Food Labels" - Jan/Feb 2011

One little quiz cleared up many things for me, or at least brought them to my attention.

1. When you read food labels, pay close attention to the serving size.
I usually take note of that, but I don't always follow it. The main time I notice it is when a small portion has a lot of calories. Then I tend to avoid it.

2. Manufacturers determine snack portions.
According to an article in the NY Times last year, "Standard serving sizes were created by the F.D.A. in the early 1990s, partly to make it easier to compare the nutritional values of different products. Congress required that the serving sizes match what people actually ate. To determine that, the F.D.A. evaluated data from surveys of Americans’ eating habits taken in the 1970s and 1980s."

But many manufacturers package their products in larger than one-serving sizes. For example, one Otis Spunkmeyer Cheese Strudel muffin is two servings. The nutritional information specifies that, but most people are going to see one muffin, think one serving, and eat the whole thing, thinking they're getting 220 calories instead of 440.

And take Lay's Classic Potato Chips - you know, you can't eat just one. But can you stop at just 15? That's one serving (150 calories) in a multi-serving bag.

3. Ingredient lists go by weight, not volume.
This was a surprise to me! I always thought ingredients were listed according to amount. If sugar or corn syrup was listed first, I thought it was the main ingredient. Instead, it's listed first because it weighs more than the other ingredients. I threw out a box of mediocre-tasting dark chocolate cherry granola bars because I checked the ingredient list (after I bought it) and saw that high fructose corn syrup was listed first. Compare that to the oats, which is probably the main ingredient but weighs considerably less. Less even than the chocolate chunks.

So now as I shop for groceries and read labels, there are all these new things to keep in mind. It can be mind-boggling! And while I still want to avoid high fructose corn syrup (as well as hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated goop), I don't have to fret so much if it's listed later in the ingredient list.