According from the latest

Snacking on low calorie, high fiber, fruits and vegetables daily can help reduce your weight as Mother Nature’s finest will “fill you up before they fill you out”. In other words, you’ll likely get full on produce before you have a chance to overeat. In contrast, higher calorie, less filling snacks such as chips, crackers, and bagels are so easy to overeat that they can quickly fill you out in the wrong places.

If you are falling short of a quota of 4.5 cups fruits and veggies daily, make produce your only snack of choice and the best choice to trim your waist.  Here are 5 easy fruit and veggie snack ideas

Joan Salge Blake, Clinical Associate Professor of Nutrition at BU’s Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, says these findings support recent moves to limit or restrict the use of licensed characters on children’s snacks:

“In this study involving 40 children, ages 4 to 6 years old, researchers asked each child to taste, and then rate, identical packages of pairs of graham crackers, gummy fruit snacks, and carrots.  The only difference between the pairs of snack items was that one of packages had a sticker of a licensed character stuck on the front of the label.  The results showed that the kiddies significantly preferred the snack with the cartoon character on the label, as compared to the same food without the sticker.   The stickers also had an influence over the perceived taste of the food, as the children were significantly more likely to rate the taste of the graham crackers and gummy fruit snacks with the licensed character higher than the exact same, paired equivalent.”

“Based on these findings, the researchers concluded that these influential licensed characters should be restricted on unhealthy junk foods marketed to kids.”

“Ironically, last month, the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity made a similar suggestion in their Report to the President. The Task Force recommended that all media companies limit the licensing of these child-friendly characters to only healthy foods and beverages.”

“Could licensed characters help improve children’s diets?  We only have to look to the very successful, Got Milk? Campaign to see how Hollywood influences consumer choices.  When the dairy industry noted a decline in milk consumption among Americans in the 1990’s, they painted milk mustaches on celebrities and milk sales increased.  If licensed characters were removed from the less healthy foods, and only plastered on Mother Nature’s finest in the produce aisle, perhaps kiddies would be screaming for Pooh Bear bananas.  It would be music to America’s ears.  It’s worth a shot as long as the consumer doesn’t have to pay extra for the sticker.”

Contact: Joan Salge Blake, 617-353-7470, salge@bu.edu

The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, a group of 13 independent experts, has just submitted a report with their science-based, dietary and lifestyle recommendations for the public. Using the information contained in this report, the government will be finalizing the soon-to-be released Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010.

Similar to the last set of guidelines, the DG Advisory Committee is recommending that Americans consume a well-balanced, plant-based diet, which includes all of the food groups, coupled with adequate physical activity, to maintain a healthy body weight and to avoid obesity. They are also advising that solid fats, added sugar, and sodium be reduced in the diet.

Here’s a peek at some of their additional recommendations:

* Reduce saturated fatty acids intake to less 10 percent, and ideally, less than 7 percent of calories, with more emphasis on heart, healthy mono and polyunsaturated fatty acids.
* Limit dietary cholesterol to less than 300 mg daily. Those with heart disease or type 2 diabetes should shoot for less than 200 mg daily.
* Avoid trans fatty acids from commercially prepared foods.
* Consume two servings of seafood per week.
* Reduce sodium to 1,500 mg per day.

The public can comment on this report until July 15 on this website.
For more on reducing the sodium in your diet, watch this.

“Weight Loss Tip No. 7: Downsize Your Dinnerware:  Experts say they’ve seen it again and again: The larger your plate, the more you’re likely to put on it. So serving your meals on smaller plates can help you eat less.  But don’t throw out those dinner plates, Blake suggests. Use the smaller, lunch-size plates to serve dinner, and use the dinner plates for salads.”