Healthy eating = In your face!

I know that when I talk about healthy eating all my kids hear is blah blah blah. Occasionally a word or two may get stuck in their heads, but not enough to keep me happy.....and don't we all know the world evolves around mom being happy? So when thinking of others ways to get them to realize that some of the stuff we eat is not the healthiest I decided to try an "in your face" approach. Thanks to  my Fooducate app I have done just that. For those who are not familiar with Fooducate, they grade food according to a few different facets. As stated on their website "Fooducate's scientific algorithms grade each product and provide simple, concise explanations. Grading system developed by scientists, dietitians and concerned parents."

 

I have been using my app for a while for myself, so I can keep track of everyday things I eat. Then I realized that if I went through our cabinet and "graded" everything in there with a Sharpie the kids and my husband would see what I see. Yes IN YOUR FACE! I was surprised, to say the least, when things I thought were healthier turned out to be worse and things I thought were horrible (and yes still in our cabinet) rated not really that bad.

 

There were B's, C's, C minuses! Some A's and yes, a few D's. 

Things that surprised me? Annies organic Shells and White Cheddar, which is rated at a C+. Yes organic does NOT always mean healthier.

Some of  Campbells "light" soups did not rate well, yet others did. A Velveeta Skillet dinner kit my husband bought for emergencies? Rated B+. The nice thing about the app is that you can click on "why?" for an explanation of why it is graded the way it is. You also can browse the foods already in there and add the better ones to your next shopping list :)

 

It is important that we know about the foods we are eating. Quality of life can be more important than length of life. This article is not to solely promote Fooducate, although they are awesome! This is to show that there are multiple ways to research and SHARE knowledge about food and health.

 

You can research and grade your food yourself (a lot of our food we do research on, especially everything we add to our smoothies). As we all know READING LABELS

is extremely important. But if you want an easy way to start try Fooducate.

 

And thanks Jamie for first introducing me to Fooducate!!