Yearly Archives: 2015

Recent media: 20 Inspiring Women in Food

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Last week I was honored to be named as one of 20 Inspiring women who are changing the way we eat (I’m #7 when you are scrolling through). I feel especially flattered because I’ve had to kind of back off of an active role in the food movement (working full-time with a family).

Then WGN Radio interviewed me: Blogger Honored For Food Activism At Public Schools. If you want to hear my voice, click over for my quick interview!

Thanks for being supportive of my journey! 🙂

Keep fit with incentives

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I were a pedometer that looks like a watch. In fact, many people assume it’s some kind of fancy watch. It’s a $25 pedometer in a $5 band. It’s part of our health incentive program for me to wear it. A step goal is set for me (7,000 steps per day) and if I reach it for a certain number of days, I receive money. Last year I earned $175 just for wearing it. This year I hope to earn just as much. But it’s about the money — it has become addicting to check how many steps I take per day. Do you have a pedometer or fitbit? What do you think?

Mrs Q’s Newish Look

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This weekend I went to the salon and got my hair done. Here’s a pic that I snapped when I got home. I’ve also gotten new glasses, just a few months ago. So here’s how I look these days — on a very good hair day! 🙂

Roasting Pumpkin Seeds

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My littlest guy and I roasted pumpkin seeds last weekend and they turned out great. In fact, my eldest said, “They taste like popcorn!”

First we soaked the seeds for a day or more. I lost count because we were busy. Then we let them dry for two days. To prepare them for roasting, we put them in our 9X13 baking dish and we added olive oil, stirring it around (amount to taste). I sprinkled sea salt on them. I’ve noticed that I underseason our food so I added a lot of salt.

The pumpkin seeds stayed in a 300 degree over for 45 minutes. When we pulled them out, they were delicious. I could have eaten them all, but I knew I had to share!

I’m going to attempt to blog once a day for the duration of November. It remains to be seen if I can do that, but I will give it a try. Thanks for hanging in there with me! 🙂

Food Day 2015

Food Day 2015

Food Day 2015

Did you know that last weekend was Food Day 2015? I didn’t blog about it because we have been BUSY. Charlie had a broken arm and we’ve been toilet-training Daniel. Luckily the cast is off now. It was a jujitsu injury. He tells people, “A girl fell on me,” which is true — he fell awkwardly and a girl fell on top of him. His elbow couldn’t handle it… Anyway, it’s been hellish for us here in Chez Wu!

Food Day is an event that happens every October 24th. It’s about celebrating the human relationship with food — real food, that is. It’s an important step for many Americans to become more conscious about their relationship to food. I believe that we take food, eating, and mealtimes for granted.

If you want to learn more about Food Day, explore their website. They have a ton of resources: Food Day.

Food Day

12 Ways to Manage Picky Eating in Toddlers

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Charlie eating kimchi — looks gross, but he tries anything. On his main plate I had made pasta carbonara. Yeah, we don’t stick to one kind of food around here! We eat weird combinations! Notice my littlest is not pictured 😉

My first son is a great eater. My second son is pickier. Why the difference? My eldest was always in the normal range for weight and so when he refused to eat something I served, I’d tell him, “If you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it, but I’m not making anything else.” So it didn’t matter if he ate or not. So he ended up eating because he knew I was serious.

My youngest has always been small. The doctor said, “Put him on the butter and burger diet.” We never felt that we could let him go hungry so sometimes would make him something else if he didn’t like the first option. I never thought I’d be a short order cook! Now that he’ll be three years old in three months, we have seen him become more open to new foods. Here’s what has worked for us:

  1. Serving Non-Preferred Foods on the Family Table
    We continue to serve foods that we don’t think he’ll eat. Daniel sees me put peanut-fried noodles with tofu on the table. He sees what the family eats even if he doesn’t want it.
  2. Putting Food on His Plate
    Daniel has to be okay with different foods on his plate, just like the rest of the family. He doesn’t have to eat it, but it’s on his plate.
  3. “You Have to Lick it.”
    If he doesn’t want to eat it, he has to lick it before he can leave the table. He has not had a problem licking something. The taste has surprised him and maybe 3/10 times after he licked it, he went ahead and ate it, saying, “Dat good!”
  4. Touching the Food
    If licking a food seems to be too much for your picky eater, see if he/she will touch it with their fingers. If they say no, ask them to pick it up and toss it in the garbage. Any interaction with the food desensitizes your child from worrying about the food in the future.
  5. Playing with your Food
    My toddler loves it when food talks to him. We also make foods walk around. It looks ridiculous but it makes eating pleasurable instead of a battleground.
  6. Touch the Food with a Spoon or Napkin
    In an effort to get your child to be willing to eat something new, consider touching food with something else. That way there’s a barrier between the child and the “weird” new food, but they are still interacting with it.
  7. Involve Child in Cooking
    My younger kid loves to eat while we prepare foods. He might not eat the final product, but he’ll nibble as we cook together. If you’ve never cooked with your kids, I’d try baking something from a mix first. It’s hard to screw it up. It’s fun to stir and see what happens!
  8. Try Smoothies
    Both my kids like smoothies. We make them together using the stick blender. It’s fun to peel the banana and add milk. I put in a little scoop of Raw Meal powder, which I call “chocolate.”
  9. Keep Offering
    Both of my sons went through periods of thinking something was awesome and then it wasn’t. For my older son it was avocado. For months he couldn’t get enough of it and, then out of the blue, he refused it for seven months. One day he decided to try it again and we were back to normal. It’s maddening!
  10. Go to a Restaurant
    My toddler eats three times as much at a restaurant. He loves white rice so we take him to a pita place that serves yellow rice. It expands his repertoire by letting him eat a preferred food that just a bit different. He’ll try some chicken shwarma sometimes too!
  11. Incorporate More Sensory Play
    Get out a big Tupperware and put dried beans and/or rice in there. Then get little trucks or measuring cups and spoons and have your child play. Children who are picky are often less willing to experiments new sensory experiences. My younger one hated sand when he first felt it on his feet at the beach, but by day two he was fine. Lack of exposure to different textures can be an issue. Try snow and sand too!
  12. Call Your Doctor
    I put on my speech path hat to give you the suggestions above, but consider talking to your doctor if your child’s preferences decrease to a small subset of foods. For example, if your child accepts only 10-15 foods or less, you may have a feeding disorder on your hands. Feeding therapy (from a speech path or occupational therapist) can make a difference. If your child eats all fruits and hot dogs, hamburgers, and chicken nuggets, that’s probably not a feeding disorder (more than 15 foods). I would be concerned if a child ate only grapes, watermelon, milk, only McDonalds nuggets and fries, yogurt, certain crackers, and they are getting worse. That could be a feeding disorder. If in doubt, talk to your doctor.

Did I miss anything? Let me know!

10 Tips about Cancer Surgery Recovery for Dogs

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Fenway enjoying summer up north in Wisconsin after his surgery!

 

Deciding what to about Fenway’s cancer was really stressful. We ended up deciding to go ahead and have his tumors removed. They couldn’t be staged until they were out, according to the vet, and so there was a chance that we would go through all the stress of surgery just to find out that he was too far gone.

Luckily for him and all of us, the tumors came out and they were in early stages. The vet also said he got great margins and all of the tumors. I don’t know if the cancer will come back one day, but Fenway is doing great now that he is three weeks out. I wanted to share my learnings with you so that you can avoid pitfalls of cancer surgery:

  1. Take the cone off when going home from surgery — I tried to have Fenway jump into our minivan with his cone on when we left the vet. He had never had trouble with jumping into the car before. I mean, car riding is one of his favorite things. Poor thing was sore after surgery and tried to jump into the car and the cone hit the side and he flipped all over the place and out of the car. It was painful and disorienting. If we had just taken the cone off before he got into the car, all would be avoided.
  2. Give pain medication before leaving the vet — Fenway was due to take a dose of pain meds right as we left the vet. I should have insisted they give them to him, because when I got him home he was too disoriented to eat.
  3. Expect a change in personality after anesthesia — Fenway is a nice dog that loves us, but because he was in such pain and unsure about his place in space with the cone on and the pain in his body, he actually tried to bite me for the first time in his life. Fenway took a step when trying to walk and when he hurt, he turned around and snapped at me. I was shocked and upset because he is not a biter.
  4. Consider having your dog spend an extra night at the vet’s — After I realized how much pain Fenway was in and after he tried to bite me, I turned my car around and went right back to the vet’s. He spent an additional night there because he was not ready to be home. When I picked him up the next day, he was in better spirits.
  5. Anti-anxiety meds are your friend — In addition to antibiotics and pain meds, Fenway ended up on anti-anxiety meds because he was upset about the cone and the fact that he had trouble taking stairs. We’ve actually continued having him take them because they have really helped him adjust and be okay if someone leaves the room. Fenway wants to be with us at all times and with his decreased mobility after surgery, he was mightily upset about not being able to follow us everywhere.
  6. Recovery is worse than surgery: Expect it to last two weeks — People think long and hard about surgery, but the real consideration should be recovery. It took Fenway two weeks to completely heal even though staples came out before then.
  7. Your emotions will fluctuate — Expect that you will have trouble seeing metal staples in your dog as well as the blasted plastic cone. It’s very tough to see your dog in pain and to be confused.
  8. You will be up at night — Dogs will need medication at night and you will need to get up and give it to him. Depending on how your dog is, you may need to change their sleeping arrangements due to mobility issues and bleeding concerns, etc. Just an FYI.
  9. Accidents increase — Before the surgery Fenway took five days worth of prednisone. It made him so thirsty that he couldn’t stop drinking. Of course that mean that he needed to pee constantly. He had several accidents before surgery. Then, after surgery, he had a couple poop accidents. Having accidents is something Fenway never did so this was new. Luckily now that he has healed, we’ve had no accidents.
  10. Personalities and routines change, potentially forever — Fenway is super mellow now (yes, some of it is the medication) and he is a much better walker. I think he’s more cautious now because walking hurt before and so he takes it slower — it’s become a habit. We’ve changed him to a grain-free diet, which seems to agree with him. Also, I’m taking him on walks more instead of letting him just run around in the backyard. The backward was boring to him, I guess. He is loving going on walks and, so am I.

We’re lucky that Fenway is back to a new normal now. I think I am happy we had the surgery, but my husband and I agree that we will not make him go through that again, even if the cancer returns. It’s too traumatic for all of us.

P.S We were able to afford the procedure because of CareCredit.com. Check it out for any major human or animal medical expense. I’m recommending them because we had a good experience (they are not paying me).

“Guess what? Soda is Awesome!”

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That’s what my six-year-old son said to me the other day. Recently we visited family and all the cousins got to drink some soda. Soda was instantly cool. But I think a big part of his reaction is also because soda is not something we drink in my home.

I’ve really tried not to have “forbidden” food in my house. Contrary to what you might think, I do buy junk foods like chips (potato, corn, etc), chocolate, candy, marshmallows, lollipops, cookies, chocolate-covered gluten free pretzels, etc. They aren’t eaten all in one day, but the kids eat them every so often.

I have junk food in my home because my mom restricted my access to chips and candy as a kid. So when I grew up, I ate Snickers bars, M&Ms, Reese’s pieces and I went out to eat fast food with my friends. I loved eating the occasional Twinkie, which was completely not allowed as a kid. All of those foods were pretty much off-limits until I moved out of the house.

I have a real problem resisting chocolate these days. I think it’s because I reward myself with it and I go overboard with it. But chocolate was something I didn’t have very much as a child. I want the forbidden fruit.

I didn’t want my son to have that same obsession with junk food as an adult. That means that he does eat candy and chips every so often in my house. Admittedly, I feel bad that he is gluten free.

My mistake was neglecting to consider junk foods that I don’t like. When I was about his age, I tried soda and thought, “This is terrible.” The fizziness was overwhelming to my mouth. I didn’t enjoy the experience so I never felt like I was missing out when friends drank it.

I forgot about letting him sample soda. Oops! I guess I’m going to have to let him have soda more frequently (than never) so that he learns it’s not a big deal. I don’t need him fantasizing about soda and then having problems overdoing as an adult.

What do you think of my approach? Do you restrict your children’s access to certain foods? Are there forbidden items?