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If eggs are not a part of your family’s diet, then let me suggest you start incorporating them into breakfast, or lunch, or dinner. Your choice. Hey, have them for snacks, too. Nutritionist Jonny Bowden says eating eggs can boost health, and I’m with him. Boiled is my pick, and just recently, I learned how to make a perfectly cooked and peeled egg. Here are the basics (stolen from my blog Square One):

• Place eggs in pan, and cover with water.
• Put pan on stove, and turn on heat (in my case, gas heat).
• Once water starts to boil, set timer for 7 minutes.
• After 7 minutes (or 8 or 9, if you’re like me, and you totally don’t hear the beep, beep, beep), turn off heat, and move pan to another turned-off burner to cool.
• Cover pan, and let sit for 30 minutes (use your timer again — and be warned: if you let your eggs sit for more than an hour, like I did last week, this whole process kinda goes up in smoke. Well, not literally, but shells will stick for sure.)
• After 30 minutes, pour out water, run a little cool water on eggs, and start peeling.

Got a better way to make a better egg? Please share in comments!

It seems odd that someone could live half a life, and then have a reaction to certain foods, isn’t it? Seems strange, but it’s not, and many women fall victim to something called celiac disease, a condition characterized by an allergy to wheat, barley, and rye. I think I might be one of those women, and when the results of my blood work come back, I’ll know for sure. Just to be safe, though, I’ve been eating totally gluten-free for a few weeks, and my tummy troubles are so much better! I tell the whole store here: Gluten-Free Works For Me. And tell me: do you have  special diet that makes you feel healthy and happy? Please share in the comments.

My second-grader came out of school one day and announced that the cafeteria chocolate milk has waaaay more sugar grams than white milk. He’s right, and while it might seem no biggie to serve up the sweeter stuff if it means your little ones are downing the calcium-rich liquid, it might be a problem down the line, says Joy Bauer, nutrition and health expert for TODAY. She says: “Added sugar from chocolate milk may not seem like a big issue, but over time the extra calories and sugar add up, especially if kids are drinking it at school every day and having a sweet treat with their lunch.” She makes a good point, don’t you think?

]]> http://planetkidonline.com/2011/05/16/chocolate-milk-means-more-sugar-calories/feed/ 0 http://planetkidonline.com/2010/05/10/happy-meal-toys-get-banned-monday-mention/ http://planetkidonline.com/2010/05/10/happy-meal-toys-get-banned-monday-mention/#comments Mon, 10 May 2010 04:00:16 +0000 Jacki Donaldson http://planetkidonline.com/?p=3551
Photo: gadgetdude, Flickr

You probably know that fast food is pretty darn unhealthy, right? Seems the toys that come with kids’ fast food meals are bad for the body, too. So bad, in fact, that a Santa Clara board of supervisors approved a proposal to remove toys from meals with more than 485 calories and high levels of fat, sugar and salt. The toys promote poor eating habits, you see, and so the toy ban is about to be launched — it will take effect in about three months to give fast-food restaurants a chance to hopefully make kids’ meals more healthful.

And get this: Some meals are so unhealthy, even smart substitutions don’t help. Says a CBC news article: “Offerings like McDonald’s Happy Meals currently don’t meet the board’s nutritional standards, even when apple sticks are substituted for french fries.”

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