My Online Dietitian

01/01/2022

Today let’s discuss nutrients that can help boost your immune system and fight infection.

1. Foods rich in omega 3 (found in fish oils, flax oil or walnuts) are immune supportive and assisting in gut health. 70-80 % of your immune cells live in the gut.

2. Probiotics (found in yogurt) also support gut health and overall immunity

3. Zinc helps heal damage tissue and decrease the risk of pneumonia and loss of taste and smell. Some good sources of zinc are oysters, beef, cashews, cocoa powder, and wild rice.

4. Vitamin C is immune supportive and can be found in citrus fruits, peppers, strawberries, broccoli, and potatoes.

5. Magnesium can help support a weakened immune system. It helps promote sleep, and decrease stress, inflammation and anxiety. A good source of magnesium can be found in pumpkin seeds, almonds, spinach beans and dark chocolate.

A balanced diet with lots of fruits and vegetables can provide all these nutrients and help boost your immune system. Using the plate method (1/2 fruits/vegetables, 1/4 lean protein, 1/4 high fiber carbohydrate ) and reducing your intake of sugar intake and ultra processed foods will help your immune system be its healthiest.

Wishing you all a happy and healthy new year.

12/30/2021

6 ways to boost your immune system:

As we face another COVID variant, health professionals are asked this question over and over. How do we boost our immune system? While there is no magic bullet, there are things we can do to help.

1. Get 7-9 hours of sleep per night. Sleep helps us repair our immune system. Getting a good nights sleep is very important. Reduce your blue light exposure before bed (no electronics one hour before helps) and try to keep to a schedule to increase your sleep quality.

2. Limit alcohol to one drink per day (or less). While isolation isn’t helpful in reducing alcohol intake, alcohol depresses our immune system. So keeping our intake to 1 drink or less per day can strengthen our immune system.

3. Smoking can reduce the effectiveness of your immune system. Quitting can improve and strengthen your immune system and help repair/improve lung function.

4. Just 2 minutes of meditation per day can help strengthen our immune system

5. Eating a balanced plate (1/2 fruit & vegetables, 1/4 lean protein rich food , 1/4 fiber rich carbohydrates) provides a variety of vitamins and minerals to help boost the immune system. A balanced plate along with portion control can promote weight loss. Obesity is a risk factor for hospitalization and death due to covid, so managing our weight is important.

6. Destress. Exercise, find ways to connect with people (even online) and infuse joy in your days. Trying a new skill, exercising or making time for the things that bring you joy will help strengthen your immune system.

All these things can help you have a stronger immune system. Check back tomorrow for part 2 on nutrients to help boost your immune system.

12/30/2021

5 Weight Loss Hacks

Weight loss is 75% diet and 25% exercise. But it’s hard to eat less when we are surrounded by temptation. To win the daily battle against calories here are a few hacks to help.

1. Drink a glass of water before meals. This helps us feel full, keeping us from over eating and keeping us hydrated. Next time you feel hungry try a glass of water first, as sometimes our brains interpret thirst as hunger.

2. Cut pizza slices in half and order thin crust. Sometimes we can trick our brains into satiety. If we usually eat 2 pieces, sometimes eating 2 smaller pieces will do and you’ve eaten 1/2 as much.

3. Buy or make smaller portion muffins or cookies. Smaller portions = less calories.

4. Order a small when eating out. We tend to eat what we are served. Try 1/2 sizes or a lunch size. Save money and calories.

5. Load up on veggies. 1/2 your plate should be vegetables. Eat those first, fill up on veggies then move on to the higher calorie items. Not only are you eating lower calories but you are getting lots of fiber, vitamins and minerals too.

Stay tuned for more tips and tricks to help you lose weight and be healthier in the new year.

12/28/2021

Did you know that 40% of all food is wasted? That’s billions of pounds of food a year thrown in the garbage. While 1 in 8 in Canada experience food insecurity.

Food waste has a large environmental impact since 95% ends up in landfills and is a major source of methane and greenhouse gases. Growing food consumes large quantities of land and water resources. And we have a growing world population experiencing hunger and limited resources to provide for everyone.

Food waste happens all along the production chain but the greatest wastage is at home. 40-50% of all food wasted happens at home. On average that’s 218lbs a year or 21% of the food we purchased. That’s expensive. Produce is the highest percentage wasted followed by dairy and meat/seafood.

So how do we waste less? Good planning is key to keeping more of our money in our pocket and less food in the garbage. 1.Plan weekly menus and use those to guide your grocery shopping trips. 2.Buy local when you can, it supports your area and less food is wasted in transit and storage. 3.Take your produce out of plastic bags when you store in the fridge to prevent moisture which can cause your produce to spoil more quickly 4. Organize your pantry and fridge so you can see what you have, prevent food from expiring and so you only buy what you need next time you shop 5. Freeze food if it’s sitting too long. For example, berries can be frozen and used for smoothies if they are starting to lose their freshness. 6. Take home your leftovers from the restaurant rather than throwing them out. 6. Support buying the ugly food/2nd best fruit in the grocery store as much of the less than perfect fruit and produce gets thrown out.

If we can cut food waste at home,encourage our policy makers to help reduce wastage in production and supermarkets and use this extra food at shelters and food banks, we could save enough food to feed millions experiencing food insecurity.

02/01/2021

The adult body is made up of about 60% water. Staying hydrated is important to maintain optimal function and to look and feel better.
If you don’t get enough water you can become dehydrated. Symptoms of dehydration can include dizziness, confusion or even seizures. The amount of water a person requires varies depending on age, size, exercise or any health condition.
A healthy adult men requires about 13 cups (1 cup =250ml) and a female 9 cups. Pregnant women about 10cups, breastfeeding about 12 cups. If you have an illness with diarrhea, or vomiting you will require more. If you exercise, sweat a lot or it’s a hot day you will need more water to stay hydrated. Children or teens require 6-8 cups of water per day.
Remember to drink often throughout the day. All drinks contain water but pure water is always the best choice for hydration and doesn’t contribute extra calories.

10/29/2019

While not about food /nutrition per say, plastic use and food storage is definitely a hot topic. Why is plastic a concern? Can we conveniently store food and leftovers without plastic?
Yes plastic is a concern. Plastic can leach chemicals into our food and liquids. The type of plastic and what is being stored can effect how much leaching happens. The number 7 (all plastics should have a number on the in the recycle sign printed on them somewhere) is generally thought of as the worst offender (as if can have BPA). The higher the acidic content of food (such as tomatoes) the more leaching of chemicals can occur into our food. Plastic lasts forever and is clogging our oceans and landfills. Only a small portion is ever recycled.
The best way we can reduce plastic in the environment is to reduce our use in our day to day lives. Food purchase and storage is a significant contributor. We can use cloth shopping bags and find alternatives for food storage. Mason jars are great and economical replacement for plastic food containers. Glass food containers are now available everywhere and we can start to replace our plastics with glass or even stainless bento type boxes for lunch (make sure they are food grade stainless) and food storage. Reusable baggies are also a good alternative to plastic baggies for lunches. Use stainless water bottles and coffee cups to reduce plastic coffee lids and plastic water bottles.
On average a person uses 156 water bottles per year, 1500 shopping bags per family and most of us have a cupboard of plastic storage. There is so much plastic on our planet we are now unknowably consuming it. More than 1/2 a pound per year. If you could eliminate plastic shopping bags, water bottles and plastic food storage from your life how big would your impact be after a year? Ten years? A minor change for a big impact.
While I’m not sure I can agree with this picture below as far as the Hazard rating. I think it’s safe to say no plastic is completely harm free whether it’s from leaching or the destruction to the planet.

02/06/2019

What’s “clean food” food and should we buy into this marketing strategy? As the new buzz word what does it mean? It can be defined any way a company wants and it’s an elitist campaign that sets up the wrong message about food. This lady writes an excellent post on “clean food” and is well worth the read.

This is a photo of a tweet I posted yesterday on Twitter (thank you to Cami Ryan, PhD for reposting with the graphics you see on it!). It has almost 1000 likes which tells me that it's resonating a lot with my followers and many other people on the platform.
As you can see, I'm not a fan of Panera's 'clean food' angle...at all. I was just in Florida, and I swear their ads for 'clean soup' and 'clean food as it should be' were everywhere.

I've always hated this particular ad campaign, but I reached a boiling point when I realized that my kids were inadvertently absorbing Panera's sh*tty message.
My girls had some good questions for me: What is clean food, anyway? Is the food we eat dirty? What will happen to us if our food is 'dirty'? Will we get sick? Is the food we eat not real?

I mean, I'm an adult and have critical thinking skills to deflect messages such as Panera's...but kids don't. And if you mess with my kids, you have a whole other situation...as all of you parents know!

The use of the meaningless phrase 'clean food' needs to go. Like I say, food isn't laundry. It can't be 'clean' in the way that Panera claims. Enough with this!
I've had a couple of people tweet back at me that Panera's message is good, that we need restaurants to sell 'clean' food with no GMOs and processed ingredients. My response to them:

How about the people who can't afford to eat 'clean'? Are they lesser? Do we just leave them with their 'dirty' McDonalds and look down on them? Am I 'dirty' because I don't eat Panera?
Am I 'healthier' and more virtuous as a person because I'm eating an 800 calorie soup or a 1000 calorie sandwich from Panera that has no 'dirty' ingredients? Sigh.

GMOs have never been proven to harm humans. And, the ingredients that Panera has removed from their food are harmless...especially in the amounts you'd consume from a soup or sandwich. The chemophobia that Panera is selling is the same as the Food Babe's.
This is a marketing ploy, and nothing more.

If Panera wants to take 'unrecognizable' ingredients out of their food, then great! But to sell food using elitist, moralistic terms is not okay with me (and clearly, it's not okay with a lot of people out there).

01/27/2019

Family meals, whats all the hype about? Why are family meals so important, that even the new food guide is encouraging it?
There is some really good research that shows that the more family meals you have per week, the more likely you are to eat healthy food, the less likely you are to eat unhealthy food or skip meals and less likely to be overweight. Families that eat together more than 3 times per week had children that were less likely to engage in disordered eating, did better in school (had higher averages) and were less likely to try/use drugs or alcohol.
So how do we make family meals happen more, with our busy schedules? Its not easy but we know that each time we sit down together, our kids reap the benefits so its worth trying to increase those family meals.
Meal planning can free up time during the supper rush when you know what to cook and that you have all the ingredients on hand (there are tons of apps or printables available with a quick search). Online shopping/ scheduled pick up is a great time saver for families struggling to find time to grocery shop. Meal prep done the night before or on the weekends can free enough time for families to sit down together during the week. Slowcooker meals, freezer meals, instant pot or sheet pan meals are all popular with time crunched families and there are endless webpages and pins dedicated to these recipes.
Reducing distractions such as cell phones at the table or watching tv tend to reduce the family meal benefits so its important to talk to each other. There are conversation starters that can be found online for those difficult teen years if you find your family struggling with the silence.
Just remember that any increase in family meals are beneficial. One adult still counts and so does breakfast. Some families find it helpful to schedule them in, just like activities so that kids know they need to be home on a certain day for that family meal.
If you are still feeling stuck for inspiration,check out the link below for some freezer meal recipes.

Make meal times easier with these 35 easy freezer meal recipes! There are freezer meal ideas for breakfast, lunch and dinner with everything from hearty soups to casseroles, pizza, burritos and more!

01/26/2019

Have you seen the new Canada's Food Guide? Newly released it looks quite different than the previous rainbow. The new guide is visual and shaped as a plate, something everyone can relate to. It focuses more on fruits and vegetables and less on grains and animal protein sources and promotes water to drink over juice or milk.
So what does all this mean? How do you use this new guide? Well to follow the guide, all you have to do each meal, is fill your plate with 1/2 fruit/vegetables, 1/4 whole grains and 1/4 protein source (meat,beans,lentils, egg, tofu,nuts etc..) and drink water with your meal. The new guide is encouraging you to cook more often, eat together as a family, limit foods high in saturated fat, sodium, sugar, read food labels and be more mindful of your eating habits (emotional eating, mindless eating, and other eating habits). Following these recommendations will ensure a healthier diet for you and your family. As always if you have nutrition or diet questions please book an appointment with your local dietitian, for clarification and nutrition expertise.

For more information on Canada's Food Guide check out the link below.

Canada's Food Guide

12/25/2018