February 2012

THE MONTH OF LOVE

Feeding your kids right is an act of love.

You may recall last month we announced our own new year's resolution of helping you foster healthy eating habits with your family. This newsletter continues that tradition with tips to increasing ACCESS to healthy food choices, especially at times when your children are most open to eating them. HINT: Get 'em when they're hungry.

How can you maximize opportunities for your kids to eat healthy foods while they are home? Read about our Healthy Habit #3 below and find out!

Our second feature, Time For Soup!, highlights another way to increase ACCESS to fresh and healthy foods: homemade, kid-favorite soups. Soups are a great way to pack extra nutrition into your kids' day. Using ingredients from our Top 100 Family Staples List, we share a few kid-favorite soups to warm up your family this winter.

Meatball Sub

All-natural, house-made turkey meatballs piled high on a whole wheat bun. Served with our signature "sneaky" marinara sauce and melted provolone cheese.

Caesar Salad Bento

Fresh, crisp romaine lettuce with house-made croutons, house-made Caesar dressing, and shredded Parmesan cheese. Also available with sliced, house-roasted chicken!

Waffles with Strawberry Syrup

All-natural, whole grain waffles served with our house-made strawberry syrup. Also available in Gluten Free!

Healthy Habit # 3 Fill Your Fruit Bowl

M&M's, Skittles, Nerds, Reeses Pieces, Laffy Taffy, Jell-O, Ice Pops. For as bad as these treats are for us, the manufacturers of these popular candies know that color sells. Studies show that drinks colored with red dye taste sweeter to kids than the same drinks without the red dye, even when the drink itself remained unchanged. How can you leverage this knowledge to train your child's healthy eating habits?

Time for Soup!

It's a daily ritual for most families with school-age children. Kids come home from school, throw their backpacks on the floor, and inquire frantically... "What's for snack? I'm starving!" With five school days a week, it's impossible to consistently answer this question (or is it a demand?) with a fully prepared response and an equally prepared snack menu. Read on for heavy-duty ammunition to help you fight the daily snack time battle.