Community Foodies, Week Three

This week our group talked about presenting a session to a group. As Community Foodies, we will be giving information and support to people in our community who would like help with nutrition.

That can be all manner things, from feeding children, eating for weight loss, eating for better health and others. Various diseases require different nutritional response. By the time we have finished our training, we will be far better equipped to help people out with their food needs, either by telling people what they're interested in knowing, or by letting people know who they can get the information or help from.

Someone at the group yesterday talked about hating to be called a do-gooder and getting derided for it. I thought about that for a while. Personally, I always try to do good things, but for some reason being a 'do-gooder' has become a bad thing.

I told the person they can call themselves a helper rather than a do-gooder. That is the way I see my role as a Community Foodie, as a helper to people who want my help. I will not force my opinions on people, but will be there if they would like some help.

All of the members in the group will be putting on a short presentation to the other members in a fortnights' time, and yesterday we said what we thought we might do. The range of things covered was amazing. From a small group of less than ten, we were all looking at doing something interesting and different.

I am personally interested in increasing my own vegetable intake, because I am well aware now of the importance of it. I also have a son who was a fussy eater as a young child (he's fifteen now, and much more accepting of different foods), so my idea for a presentation was about ways to hide vegetables in acceptable food for people, particularly children who don't like vegetables.

I already have some ideas on this, and I have done some research on it today as well. I will try to make it fun, and will welcome ideas from the people I give my presentation too. I will have a recipe handout, and some other information available.

A Way to Lose Weight, Save money too!

When you are trying to lose weight, sometimes it feels like the whole world is against you. Jealous friends may be hoping you fail, jealous spouses may want you to stay the way you are, and stay with them.

Every time you look at the TV or read the newspaper you see ads for the foods that caused your weight explosion. Exercise classes and diet 'experts' are can be too expensive and don't teach you real life ways to lose your weight and keep it off. They only show you how to do it if you stick with them.

I have found a person who knows how you feel, she knows the road you are trying to travel, because she has travelled the same road, and reached the goal. Successful weight loss can be yours. You will learn the tricks and tips that helped another to achieve their ideal weight, and they will be as close as your computer keyboard, helping you along your way.

If you are interested in giving this service a try, you will get ten percent discount if you quote "carolyn" when you put your order in.

I have gone down this road too, but I did it alone, struggling with myself, my friends and family, people who knew me and disapproved of what I was doing. Now, at my idea weight, I have so much more self-confidence and so much more self esteem I know I am a winner because I won the weight loss course. You can too, with just a little help from your new friend at When you are trying to lose weight, sometimes it feels like the whole world is against you. Jealous friends may be hoping you fail, jealous spouses may want you to stay the way you are, and stay with them.

When you know you have control over your weight, and you know you have that control because you have learned the secrets that you can take with you all through life, then you will know you are a winner too!

2 Fruit and 5 Vegetable

I've heard about the push from the health authorities for years. Where they try to get Australians to eat more fruit and vegetables.

It has always made me feel a little guilty, because I don't eat that many vegetable. I eat potatoes, and onions, mushrooms too, most days. But I could only rarely manage to eat 5 different vegetables.

Imagine my joy yesterday when I discovered I was mixed up. I didn't have to eat different vegetables, I just had to eat five servings of vegetables. I could have three servings of potatoes and two of sweetcorn, if that was what I wanted. Or five servings of mushrooms!

I found out this liberating information yesterday at my Community Foodies training, and it made me so happy! I've been beating myself up as a bad mother for not giving my son five different veges every day, when all I needed to do is feed him lots of my yummy home-made wedges, and some sweet corn, and I could wear my good mother hat with pride!

Of course, eating a wide variety of food, whether fruit, vegetable, grains, dairy or meat is the best way. Food scientists know a lot about food, but they are always discovering new things. If we all eat a bit of everything, then we'll get all of the goodies scientists know about, and also the goodies they haven't discovered yet.

Yesterday we learned about the five food groups, how to read labels including understanding the sometimes misleading language on them, antioxidants, fibre, the importance of eating breakfast and drinking enough water. We also have a delicious curry cooked by one of the other people doing the course. Thanks Shirley! It was a great day of sharing what we already knew, and learning more.

So part of my homework is having breakfast every day, and drinking more water - I am not good about these things, but now I have more information about why they are important, so I will follow the guidelines better.

Breakfast is another opportunity to fit more serves of different foods into my day, and water helps my body do what it does. I'm convinced now, and I'm going to get my breakfast of cereal right now!

First meeting out of the way

The Community Foodies group in the Wakefield region had their fist meeting yesterday. We discussed what we knew about healthy food and nutrition, and had a presentation by a person from District Council of Mallala regarding proper food handling for not-for-profit groups. There was a DVD which was interesting and a Q & A session afterwards.

I found the day interesting and informative, and I'm very much looking forward to the meeting next Wednesday, when we will be talking about basic nutrition. You know the kind of stuff, the five food groups, eat more fruit and vegetables, have breakfast, eat more whole foods, drink more water.

Personally, I have a real struggle to fit in 5 serves of vegetables. It's not unusual for me to only manage one or two different vegetables, which is simply not good enough. Thinking about my kitchen at the moment, I only have sweet corn, potatoes, mushrooms, carrots and onions. Almost there, but I'd be hard pressed to put even those four together in one meal.

I'm off to the Adelaide Central Market tomorrow, and I will be buying more of the veg we already have, and I'll get some baby spinach, cauliflower, maybe snow peas, spring onions and perhaps something else entirely - I'll have a good look around and see what I find. I know, capsicum. We usually have red capsicums in the fridge but they've been used up for the week.

A Great Website

I have just found a fantastic website, jam-packed full of good information for those of us who care about what we eat.

Everybody has at least one reason why food is important to them. Most people have many reasons. The first and obvious reason is you eat to stay alive. There are many other reasons why people eat, and reason they eat what they eat. Some of those reason can lead to living a healthy life, other reasons lead to poor food choices.

But if you don't know enough about nutrition, you may not know which food choices to make. I can strongly recommend you visit the website of the Australian Better Health Initiative (ABHI), a national program, supported by the Australian and state and territory governments. There is information about food groups, tips for getting active, recipes for healthy foods, advice on how much is a 'serving' of fruit and vegetables.

There's also a quiz, which is on the website I've mentioned. I was very excited to test my nutritional knowledge. And I was even more excited when I got all of the questions correct.

There is also a quiz for testing how physically active you are. I'm not so excited about that one, and I don't think I'll get a good score. I know I am nowhere near as active as I could/should be. But, in the interests of fairness, and encouraging others, here goes...

...Well, it could have been worse. The answer to the question of how physically I am, was that I'm not active enough, but I'm getting there. I'd better get back on Wii Fit today, and every day (every other day at the very least).

How do you think you'll go at these quizzes. Is your knowledge about your physical health up to scratch?

I'd love to hear from people about their thoughts on physical health. Tips, recipes, quiz results, let us know. This is a community issue, be a part of the community by leaving a comment!