KTK-Nutrition

Who doesn’t like pizza?   Is pizza healthy?    How can you make healthier choices and still enjoy pizza?   Many people, including some nutritionists, ban pizza thinking it is unhealthy.   But we enjoy pizza at least once a week.   We make modifications to our pizza to make it healthier and we add some healthy sides.   Consumer Reports had a great article on the Best Frozen Pizza .      They taste tested 26 frozen pizzas and found some that are reasonably healthy.   Yes, ordering out and having that pizza delivered is great.   But many of us enjoy a frozen pizza a couple of times a month.   If you do, what are some of the highly rated frozen pizzas and how can you “doctor” them up to be healthier? What are some healthier options in frozen pizza? Frozen pizza would probably not be considered a “health food” but there are healthier options.   Choose a plain cheese pizza or a veggie pizza if you want a healthier choice. Whole grain crust – there are pizzas that now offer whole grain

So many food fads come and go.   In the nutrition class I teach, it is interesting to hear about the latest food fad trends.   A current trend is alternative milk.   For some reason people are shunning real milk for fake milk.   Another faux milk is coming to a store or coffee shop near you.   Some food fads are really unhealthy fads like coconut oil.   Almost every week I hear someone talking about adding coconut oil to their diet.   Thankfully, this unhealthy fad seems to be coming to an end.    1.  Oat milk – yes, you read this correctly, the newest alternative to real milk is made from oats.   Time magazine’s article, The dairy aisle’s next new thing , describes this faux milk and why it is being used as yet another replacement for real milk.   Apparently, almond milk was the number one faux milk but has fallen from grace recently.   Why?   According to Time, almond milk was linked to the drought in California.   It takes a whole lot of water to grow almonds.   ONE ALMOND tak

Welcome to March and welcome to National Nutrition Month sponsored by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.   Their theme this year is “Go Further with Food”.   The theme reminds us to “eat healthfully for ongoing energy and plan meals and snacks in advance..”     When I told my husband that March was National Nutrition Month, he asked, “and how do I celebrate National Nutrition Month, eat an extra carrot?”   Well, planning healthy snacks is a good nutritional practice – so yes, you can eat the extra carrot. To have more energy during the day, dietitians recommend you start your day off with a good breakfast.   There are foods that one should skip at breakfast and there are foods we should add for better health. Foods to Skip at Breakfast – Skip the high calorie Danish, donut, chocolate croissant - yes, they make look tasty in that glass window but eat them and you’ll get that sugar high and then the sugar low.   These are loaded with added sugar, the simple carbs,

Can what you eat affect the mood you are in?   Can eating better actually affect whether you get down in the dumps or not?   My sister sent me an interesting article, Eating fruits, vegetables and whole grains slashes depression risk by more than 10%.    Now 10% doesn’t sound much but eating more of certain foods can improve the mood you are in and can help you have more energy throughout the day.   So often we hear that to eat healthy we have to cut things from our diet.   A current fad is cutting gluten from our diet which is not really a healthy thing to do unless you have Celiac disease.    Now many people are on the Whole30 diet that cuts out grains and dairy.   One person on this diet told me how tired they were, too tired to exercise.   No wonder, cut out the grains from your diet and you are cutting out the carbs needed to energize yourself for the day and you are cutting back on the many B vitamins our bodies need to make energy.   So what does the research show about foo