"Mum, I'm hungry!"

In my house gone are the days of the picky pre-schooler.  Instead I'm seeing two growing teenagers who seem to be constantly hungry.  In particular the minute they get in from school!  Teenagers have a higher energy requirement to accommodate their growth.  However 41% of today's Australian teenage diet is coming from discretionary food choices that are linked to obesity,  increased risk of diabetes and tooth decay.  Did you know that tooth decay is five times more prevalent than asthma among Australian children?

Key micronutrients at this age are calcium, iron and zinc.  For both boys and girls the growing skeleton requires increased amounts of calcium to help reach peak bone mass in their 30s.  Think dairy - milk, yoghurt and cheese.  As soon as girls start menstruating their iron needs increase, but boys need iron too for growth and energy.   Red meat and fortified breakfast cereals like weetbix are a good source of iron.

So how can you fill up your teenager and steer them away from the packaged stuff?

1. Make sure their afternoon tea will fill them up for a couple of hours. Those small packages of processed food (even if you get it in the health food aisle) are unlikely to do that. A good snack will combine a serve of protein along with a wholegrain carbohydrate. For example, wholemeal toast with nut butter, or a toasted wholemeal english muffin with cheese, or corncakes with ricotta and tomatoes.

2. Fill up the fridge with vegies and fruit. Have easy to grab fruit and veg at eye height in the fridge - cherry tomatoes, mini cucumbers and snow peas are a great quick snack with humous or a handful of nuts

3. The toasted sandwich maker and a blender are the teenager's best friend. Teach them how to make a quick smoothie - my daughter's favourite is milk, yoghurt, oats and frozen raspberries or mango. My son's fave is milk, weetbix, banana and milo. Great before or after sport if they don't want something solid in their stomach.

4. Again leave left over pasta or stirfry at eye height so they can be reheated quickly

5. If you don't want your kids to eat it - don't buy it!

Rachel is a university qualified Clinical Nutritionist based in Balmain.  She is also the busy working mum of two teenagers, so is practical and realistic with her advice . Rachel offers private consultations to improve your family's health and well-being. You can find her on Facebook and Instagram for more healthy tips and tricks. 

So, if I shouldn't drink soft drinks - are diet soft drinks OK?

I think by now we've all realised that sugar is a big part of the obesity epidemic and cutting out soft drinks is a great way to improve your weight and with that reduce your risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and prevent certain types of cancer.  So are diet soft drinks a better option? Well, no.

Diet soft drink appears to contribute to weight gain also.  A  recent study of 66,000 women over 14 years found an increased risk of type 2 diabetes for consumers of diet drinks.  A study published in Diabetes Carefound daily consumption of diet soft drinks was associated with an increase in metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes.

The research into the effects of diet drinks on humans is still in its early days and the reasons for the associated weight gain are still not fully clear however it is thought that because artificial sweeteners are hundreds of times sweeter than sugar our genetically-programmed preference for sweet taste is activated.  The diet drinks make your metabolism think sugar is on its way which causes the production of insulin which causes your body to store fat.

Diet drinks also seem to affect bone strength and risk of fractures. One 2014 study found that each daily soft drink (diet or non diet) increased the chance of hip fracture by 14% for postmenopausal women.

Instead of soft drinks chose water or green tea.   In summer I use our soda stream to carbonate cold water and add a few slices of lime, cucumber or a crushed handful of mint.  Cheers!

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Cold-pressed juices - should you be buying them?

Every where I look, the supermarket, the deli, the coffee shop  - cold-pressed juices are front and centre of the display, and they are expensive - $8 - $10 a bottle.  Should you be buying them? The marketing spin is that the cold press crushes and squeezes rather than damaging the nutrients through the heat and oxygen used by a standard juicer.  Sounds legit, right?  However the marketing hype has rushed ahead of the science.  Even if there are more nutrients, can our systems absorb them?  The average Australian diet already contains more than enough Vitamin C, and any excess just ends up down the toilet.  The way your gut absorbs nutrients depends on what else you are consuming.  For example, the extra virgin olive oil that you dress your salad with helps your uptake of some of the vitamins in your salad.

Chewing your food, rather than drinking it signals to your brain that you are getting full, it's easy to miss the satiety cues when drinking your calories.

All that said, the typical Australian diet does fall really short on getting in at least 5 serves of veggies every day.  Drink cold-pressed juices if you enjoy them and can afford them, but be sceptical about the claims on the bottle.  So you don't end up with a meal's worth of calories make sure they contain no more than one fruit and the rest is vegetable content.  Some of the juices for sale contain 88% fruit juice which is a significant source of sugar and calories.

I like to make my own green juice if I've not been getting enough veggies.  I use the thermomix so I can retain the fibre - here's my recipe.

green juice cold-pressed

Green Juice

Author:

rachel

Serves:

3

Ingredients

• 250ml coconut water, water or chilled green tea
• 1 apple
• 2 cucumbers
• 2 celery stalks
• thick slice of lemon
• 2 large handfuls of baby spinach or kale

Instructions

1. Put all the ingredients in a high speed blender like a thermomix or vitamix. Process for one minute. Enjoy straight away.

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Creating your own food rules

I was reading this very interesting article about Food Rules and it made me think about how I was able to shift 10 kilograms of post baby weight with a mindset change about 5 years ago.

My rules are:

1.  Make an appointment for exercise.  Yes I would rather be meeting my friends for a coffee after school drop off but they know that's when I get my run or weights in.  It's an appointment in my diary that I prioritise.

2. Avoid wasting calories.  I think this is one of the reasons that the 5:2 diet and other intermittent fasting models work.  For me a weekday lunch where I am grabbing something quick on my own I make it a salad with protein or a salad packed wrap and protein.  I save beautiful sourdough bread, aged cheddar and ham off the bone for weekend lunches with my family.  This is similar to what Susie is mentioning about avoiding the cheap office birthday cake.

3.  I always make myself/pack something to eat for 3 or 4pm before I get really hungry. I grab a corn thin with ricotta and tomato, some almonds and grapes or some veggie sticks and humous.  If I do this I don't start hunting for food at 530pm and eating two dinners.

4.  I don't have packaged biscuits in the house (otherwise see point 3)

5.  I try to only have wine with company.  My husband is away a lot for work so I don't drink unless he is at home too.  I also skip wine at school P&F meetings and the like.  But not book group - when I'm having a nice night out with friends it is lovely to share a beautiful bottle of wine.

One of the subjects that I'm studying at uni this term is Food Behaviour, I am finding it fascinating so far.

Protein and iron for fussy kids

Some kids are just not that keen on meat.  Don't panic!  However you need to be careful that they get good quality protein.  Protein supplies your child with amino acids, essential chemicals which are the body’s building blocks. Whilst all animal proteins including egg and dairy products provide a high quality protein containing all the essential amino acids, cereals and vegetable proteins (e.g. peas, beans, lentils, and nuts and seeds) have a lower quality.

To provide a complete vegetarian protein you need to combine cereal and vegetable proteins like pasta, bread, rice and lentils with a small amount of dairy or eggs.  Or you can combine two vegetable protein food groups.  Soya and quinoa are the only plant-based food that contain all the amino acids.  Here are some examples of good combinations:

• Peanut butter sandwiches

• Baked potato with cheese and milk

• Lentil and vegetables with cheese

• Pasta with cheese sauce

• Baked beans on toast

• Rice and lentils.

Another issue faced by fussy non meat eaters are iron deficiency, which is the commonest nutritional deficiency in the Western world.  There are a few types of iron, the best source is found in meat and is easily absorbed by the body, plant food sources are more difficult to absorb, and lastly a third type added by manufacturers to foods such as breakfast cereals is absorbed less well.

When my children were little the issue was less about the taste of meat but the energy required to chew it!  I found mince meat the best solution - bolognese sauce with pasta and "non chilli" chilli con carne (see Taco Tuesdays).

Good source of iron for non meat eating kids: • Fortified breakfast cereals. • Egg yolk. • Wholemeal bread. • Dark green vegetables e.g. spinach and cabbage. • Beans and lentils. • Dried fruit e.g. apricot, prunes, peaches, raisins.

The best way for the body to absorb the iron is to serve it with a vitamin C rich food, like capsicum or a small glass of orange juice.