Nut Free Shouldn’t Mean Nutrient Free

Note: This is a guest post by Dr. Stefanie Stevenson, an Integrative Physician who sees patients in Montgomery, OH. Dr. Stevenson has a special passion for the healthfulness of food served to children in schools. She is actively involved with The Sycamore Wellness Community, a Facebook group that provides information about good nutrition for children.  You can learn more about Dr. Stevenson’s services here.

 

All three of my kids started school last week, which means myhomework began as well!  After leafing through the four million forms  I needed to fill out, I came across a suggestion list for nut-free snacks.  It seems every year there is a child with severe food allergies in each of my children’s classrooms.  It is really not surprising since the incidence of food allergies has exploded in the last decade.  What I do find surprising is that many of the suggestions often provided for “safe” nut-free snacks are the very foods that may be playing a role in this explosion of food allergies.  This year I was really pleased that the list from my school offered healthy, natural choices. Too often, suggested nut-free snacks from various schools, parents, or coaches include items like:

Fruit Rollups/Fruit Snacks

Cheez-Its

Rice Kripsie Treats

Fritos

Sun Chips

Vanilla Wafers

Teddy Grahams

Many of these foods include ingredients  like soybean oil, genetically modified foods, partially hydrogenated fats, and high fructose corn syrup, all of which are indicators of poor quality foods.  Why do we think that nut free foods have to be nutrient free as well?

 

Instead, some easy ideas for safe and healthy nut free snacks include  fruits and vegetables, low fat dairy, and whole grains.  I often send in snacks like:

Fresh Strawberries

Mandarin oranges

Apple (whole or cut up with cinnamon)

Applesauce

Carrot sticks, cucumber slices, jicama matchsticks, or red pepper strips

Dried raisins, cherries, or mangoes

Air popped popcorn

A handful or two of low sugar breakfast cereal (i.e. Cheerios, Kashi Heart to Heart)

Triscuits or Ryvita crackers

Low fat mozzarella cheese stick

Pumpkin or Sunflower seeds

The snack you send for your child simply needs to carry them through for an hour or two until they get to lunch or until school is dismissed. It should be an added source of nutrients in their morning or afternoon to give them good quality energy for the next part of their day. I hope the suggestions I’ve included here will help you set them up for a successful, energy-filled school day!

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Sauteed Chicken & Bell Pepper Medley

Here’s a really simple dinner idea that takes advantage of the last of the summer’s peppers. Who wants to be in the kitchen laboring over a complicated recipe when you can be outside enjoying a glass of wine in the cooler evening air? That said, simple doesn’t have to mean bland. If you love peppers, you’ll love this simple little saute. Chicken provides some texture and protein to this dish, but you could substitute tofu or shrimp or even cannellini beans if you prefer.  This is good over pasta or brown rice or quinoa – you just need a neutral grain that will soak up the juice.

A word or two about peppers since I often get questions about peppers during the Nourish Grocery Store Tour. Here’s the scoop. Green, yellow, orange, and red bell peppers all come from the same plant. The colors are each picked at different levels of ripeness (Green is least ripe, red is the most). This gives each color a different level of sweetness (Green is least sweet, red is the most), despite coming from the same plant. Red, yellow, and orange peppers require more time in the ground before harvest which is why they are more expensive.  And I recently learned that their different colors give them different nutritional benefits, too, so it’s wise to eat a variety. Green peppers have an abundance of chlorophyll and twice the vitamin C of an orange! Yellow peppers have more of the lutein and zeaxanthin carotenoids. Orange peppers have more alpha-, beta-, and gamma-carotene. Red peppers have more lycopene and astaxanthin, two other important carotenoids. And now you know!

 

Chicken & Bell Pepper Medley

Serves 4

 

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 – 1 1/2 lb boneless chicken breasts, thinly sliced

1 cup thinly sliced onion

4  assorted bell peppers, thinly sliced – yellow, red, orange, or green

1 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic

1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

 

Directions:

1. Place a large skillet over medium heat. Allow to heat for 1 minute and then add the olive oil and swirl to coat the pan.

2. Turn the heat to medium-high and add the onion and chicken. Cook until the onion wilts and is translucent and the chicken is almost cooked through – about 5 minutes. Do not let the onion burn.

3. Add the garlic, bell peppers, and salt. Turn the heat down to medium after 1 minute. Cook and stir (tongs work well for this) for about 5 minutes longer. The peppers should be barely cooked.

4. Serve over hot pasta tossed with olive oil or brown rice.

 

 

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For healthy packed lunches – think inside the box

It’s painfully easy to fall into the “Sandwich, Chips and a Cookie” rut when it comes to packing lunches for your school age children…or for yourself! This morning on FOX19 in Cincinnati (Here’s a link to the video clip) I shared some ideas for easy, nutritionally balanced lunches that might not be top of mind during the morning rush!

 

To enable this whole plan there are a few containers you may want to have on hand:

1) a reusable lunchbox

2) a thermos or “hot food container” as they are sometimes called

3) a Bento Box, which is a segmented plastic or metal container modeled after the traditional Japanese lunchbox.

Remember Molly Ringwold’s lunchbox in The Breakfast Club? That was a bento! Pottery Barn Kids makes the one I’ve pictured here, but there are many on the market. If you don’t want to get a Bento Box, you can use small Tupperware (or Gladware) containers inside the lunchbox to keep the different foods separate from one another.

 

When it comes to the food itself, I like to compose a lunch with three elements:

1) a complex (whole grain, high fiber) carbohydrate

2) a source of protein

3) fruits and vegetables

Following that simple formula will open up some lunch ideas you might be overlooking.

 

As inspiration, here are 10 ideas for Healthy Lunches that I shared in a recent Nourish e-newsletter :

1) Whole wheat noodles sprayed with olive oil and dusted with parmesan cheese, edamame in the pods (fun!), sliced apples with cinnamon

2) Whole wheat tortilla with melted cheese rolled up and cut, side of salsa for dipping, jicama sticks, banana

3) Vanilla yogurt with sides of granola, nuts (if allowed), berries, carrot sticks

4) Whole wheat crackers with turkey and cheese, mango slices, salad greens with sliced veggies

5) Whole wheat bagel with cream cheese, mixture of nuts and dried fruit, cucumber slices with cherry tomatoes

6) Chicken noodle soup (e.g. Healthy Choice) in a thermos, sugar snap peas, strawberries, greek yogurt

7) Rice, sushi (yes, some kids will eat it and love it!), non-fried spring roll/summer roll, grapes – make sure this one is on ice

8)  Fresh fruit salad (cantaloupe, honeydew, watermelon, grapes, strawberries, pineapple), Cottage cheese or Greek yogurt, graham crackers

9) Quinoa or brown rice pasta with cooked veggies and shredded cheese, a tangerine “cutie”, fresh blueberries and raspberries

10) Leftovers! If you’ve served a healthy dinner, let it do double duty. Heat up a portion of leftovers and put it in a thermos/hot food container. Add a side of fruit and lunch is served.

As for beverages, it’s best to send a small stainless steel water bottle daily – for variety you can add a splash of juice or use sparkling water. Horizon makes shelf-stable organic milk in single serve containers that pack well and an Honest Tea juice bag makes a good treat.

Importantly, while you’re packing lunches for your children, think about what you might pack for yourself using the same ideas. Too many women skip lunch altogether, robbing themselves of much-needed energy for their long afternoon and evening. My final piece of advice? Give yourself a lunch break too!

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