Kids in the Garden

Tower Garden — Great for kids!

Just as I encourage you to get your kids into the kitchen to help plan and cook meals, I encourage you to get your kids into the garden to learn how their food is grown; many children think food comes just from the super market, they have never felt the warmth of a garden fresh tomato, felt its smooth skin or the unique and earthy scent of the vine on their hands. Although I truly enjoy getting my hands in the soil to garden, that is not always an option for many people. Juice Plus+® has an answer with their Tower Garden®. It fits perfectly on patios, decks, balconies and roof tops …just about any relatively sunny place. It grows vegetables, herbs, flowers and many fruits, convenient to your kitchen. No soil, no weeding, fewer pests, less work, better produce. Grow your own fresh, healthy food with Tower Garden vertical aeroponic growing system. This five and a half minute video, What is Tower Garden® Vertical Aeroponic Growing System? explains the system. Take the time to watch it and be impressed.

Kids + Gardening = Healthier Eating

Most families struggle with good nutrition. Tower Garden® is a fun and easy way to get the kids involved. It’s easy to install and maintain. Studies have shown that gardening increases children’s interest in eating fresh fruits and vegetables. Tower Garden is a great way to get kids involved in gardening. For articles about the benefits of kids in the garden, see:

Highlights from Journal Articles 

Reaping the Benefits From Your Vegetable Garden

Get your kids involved

Gardening season is not far ahead, order Tower Garden® today. 

You can't get produce more local than you can from your own backyard!

Kids in the Kitchen

Kids in the Kitchen

Starting children on Juice Plus+® is the first step to provide them with a healthy future. Step two is to introduced them to new plant-based foods and getting them involved in the kitchen. These books will help you to interest your children in healthy balanced meals.

COOKBOOKS

The 52 New Foods Challenge: A Family Cooking Adventure for Each Week of the Year, with 150 Recipes by Jennifer Tyler Lee - this book is a week-by-week guide, with each week offering a new  food to try, easy enough for the kids to help with or to prepare by themselves. Even in my empty nest home, my baby being in her 40s, I have over a dozen recipes marked for our table. Because most kids intrinsically are drawn to games, Jennifer uses a point system; it’s ingenious.

The Family Cooks: 100+ Recipes to Get Your Family Craving Food That’s  Simple, Tasty and Incredibly Good For You by Laurie David. Laurie was the producer of the 2014 documentary Fed Up. This book was written to encourage home cooked family meals. Although her approach is different when dealing with picky eaters, it’s intended to get the kids into the kitchen and trying new foods. I have tried several of the recipes; they’re delicious and easy. On March 9, in my article "Go Green Recipes," I posted a link, an excerpt from this book: One-Pot Pasta. Try it for a quick and simple meal.

VIDEO

Chew on This—Getting Kids in the Kitchen

Chew on This is hosted by one of my favorite healthy eating advocates, Stefanie Sacks (more about her in a future post). Her guest for this show is Julie Negrin. In this video Stefanie and Julie, along with several children, prepare Toasted Sesame Soba Noodles from Julie’s cookbook Easy Meals to Cook with Kids. 

This book gets accolades from  many of today’s healthy eating gurus such as Molly Katzen, Mark Hyman, Deborah Madison and Juice Plus+® Children's Health Study advisor Dr. David Katz (more about him in a future post). This book, “with family-friendly recipes that adults can cook with children ages two years old and up,” has been purchased for  my grandkids, ages 2 and 5.

Besides cooking, in this episode of Chew on This, Stefanie and Julie also take the kids to a farm stand to teach them where food comes from and to the super market to shop and learn how to read a food label. Watch this with your kids as an introduction to shopping for and preparing healthy foods.

There are many benefits to teaching children how to cook. 

*Excerpt: page 3 from Easy Meals to Cook with Kids © 2010 by Julie Negrin. 

Exposure to scratch cooking helps kids develop a mature palate and a taste for fresh, wholesome ingredients. The earlier kids become accustomed to nutritious foods, the less likely they will acquire a taste for processed foods. 

Kids are much more likely to eat what they make. Is there anything more fun than eating your art project? Cooking creates a sense of ownership. When kids help in the kitchen, there are fewer mealtime battles and more willingness to try new foods. 

Meals prepared from scratch usually contain more nutrients, fewer calories, and less chemicals and sweeteners than packaged foods and restaurant meals. 

Cooking together provides a natural way to discuss nutrition and the impact that food choices have on the environment. The more educated children are about food, the more likely they will appreciate your suggestions to eat something healthy. 

The earlier kids learn how to cook, the sooner they will learn an essential life skill. It’s hard to imagine that teaching a 3-year-old how to break an egg could result in a culinary prodigy, but kids often become quite talented in the kitchen. This makes the messy floors worth it down the road when they start to cook for you. 

Spending time in the kitchen gives kids confidence. Kids thrive on feeling accomplished. Cooking is an ideal way to boost self-worth and to teach responsibility. There is nothing cuter than watching children proudly serving their food to others. 

Preparing meals together means quality time as a family. Cooking with children when they are young offers an opportunity to communicate with them on a regular basis. The time you spend together chatting and cooking in the kitchen becomes even more important as they reach their teenage years. 

What else do they learn? Science, language, counting, fractions, budgeting, weighing, sequencing, measuring, problem-solving, sharing, fine motor skills, reading and learning about other cultures — to name just a few important things! 

Cooking app "for kids by kids"

APP - Nicolas' Garden

If you have kids consider getting this “for kids by kids” mobile app. Inspired by Nicolas Come, this app is geared to make healthy cooking, eating, and shopping fun. It allows kids to create shopping lists, search for a recipe they like, save their favorites and share with friends and family.

Nicolas Come is the 10-year-old inventor of the Nicolas’Garden mobile app and website.  Nicolas wants everyone to know that healthy food is not only good, but it can be fun as well.  In addition, Nicolas also plans to design interactive games to teach kids about agriculture, health and nutrition inspired by Sacramento's Farm To Fork movement. Nicolas will be one of the Main Stage speakers at the upcoming Juice Plus+® Leadership Conference in Sacramento. Watch for photos of this event.

Also visit Nicholas’ Garden on FaceBook.

Learn more about Nicholas at his wonderful website: Nicolas Garden.

Juice Plus+ and Kids

Parents and Grandparents, Listen Up!

The Children’s Health Study

Anyone who takes Juice Plus+® knows it's a simple, convenient, and inexpensive way to add more nutrition from fruits and vegetables to their diet, every day. Yet that's just part of the story. Juice Plus+® has a phenomenal program in which children get their Juice Plus+ FREE with every adult order. Based on the responses of 150,000 families, the study has shown, that as a result children and adults find that they tend to:

Eat more fruits and vegetables

Eat less fast food and drink fewer soft drinks

Drink more water

Visit the doctor less

Miss fewer days of school or work

Take fewer over-the-counter and/or prescription drugs

Are more aware of their health and wellness

Reap a positive benefit of some kind

Juice Plus+® has the support of leading medical professionals. Meet the advisors to the Children’s Health Study. Take the time to read about these doctors who recommend Juice Plus+® to their patients and watch their videos to hear what they have to say about Juice Plus+®.

To learn more, visit my website: and, at the top, click on Children’s Health Study.

A diet high in plant-based foods has shown to prevent cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer, as well as many age-related conditions. Insure your health and that of your family's with Juice Plus+®. It’s “The next best thing to fruits and vegetables.”

Finding a pattern to draw and New Tangle

Finding a pattern to draw

Zentangle® tiles are intended to be unplanned, abstract and non-objective creations that grow organically. One of the many wonderful things about the Zentangle® method is it has been intentionally designed to eliminate the thinking, the planning and the decision-making that often blocks our creativity; it was designed to help you to trust your instincts. Beginner classes use black ink on a white 3.5-inch piece of artist paper called a tile which eliminates having to choose a color. We begin by drawing a border or frame and a string in pencil which provides a foundation and a gentle guide for our drawings, which eliminates the need to make a decision about composition. The Zentangle® kit sold at www.zentangle.com includes a legend and icosahedron (20-sided) die which eliminates needing to decide what pattern to draw next.

For many new to Zentangle® finding and deciding on what pattern to draw gets in the way of their Zen. If you don’t have a Zentangle® kit, you can make you own legend with patterns you have already learned and using regular dice. My husband Ed keeps a journal with patterns he has already drawn. He numbers his tangle patterns 1-20, then numbers each group of 20 up to 20 groups, which will give him 400 patterns for his legend. He hasn’t reached there yet. Then he uses his icosahedron die, the first roll is for the group and the second roll is for the pattern in that group. Thus he can shut down his left brain, the thinking part, and allow his Zen to happen. You can do it using a regular die and numbering 1-6. You will be surprised how your intuition will kick in when you get your left brain out of the way.

Linda Farmer at Tangle Patterns makes several suggestions for finding a pattern to draw which include using the letters of your name [or that of a loved one] or numbering the patterns in her annual ebook then using a random number generator to choose a pattern. I keep Sandy Steen Bartholomew’s AlphaTangle: A Truly Tangled Alphabet!  or her app Tangle Library handy at all time. Both the book and the Alpha Tangle app add on are portable and lend themselves perfectly for the letter game. 

 NEW APP: As I was writing this article, I came across a new app with tangle step-outs and pattern generator all in one package. Tangle Patterns Galore by Andre Diamond. Tangle Patterns Galore features 240 tangle patterns with links to online step-by-step instructions. You can search tangles by name and save your favorite patterns to always have them available. Available at http://itunes.apple.com for the iPhone and Pad.

New Tangle!

Ed, my husband and tangling buddy, has deconstructed a pattern, a design on the upholstery at a local Panera and named it Acrosstick. On February 23 it was published on TanglePatterns.com. Be among the first to draw it.

Zendala Stencil

ZENDALA STENCIL

Cadent variation, Bales, Swarm

Ed and I are in the seventh week of teaching an eight-week Zentangle® course, "Zentangle® For Everybody," through our school district’s continuing education program. So far they've learned the basics, beyond the basics, tangleation, and drawing on both black and tan tiles. Get a glimpse of their efforts below. This week and next, the class will be tangling  Zendalas, both tangling on a pre-strung Zendala tile and drawing their own on a blank Zendala tile. If time allows we’ll show them examples of several stencil Zendala methods: here’s one we won’t be showing.

On February 26, Sue Jacobs posted on her blog Sue’s tangle trips,  “Zendala Tool — Free,” how she uses a Healthy Choice Steamers® basket for a tool to draw a Zendala on a regular 3.5-inch square tile. I challenge you to do it her way then see what you can create on your own using her method.

My experience: This was a fun project but purchasing a Healthy Choice Steamer entree is NOT part of my usual habit. I do not buy convenience foods so this purchase was purely for this project. My Simply Lemon Herb Chicken entree was pretty bad; I'll stick with home-cooking. Have fun!

Zentangle® For Everybody— an eight-week course

The first six weeks

Zentangle® Meditation & Go Green Recipes

Zentangle Meditation

Tripoli

During CZT seminar 16 which Ed and I attended and Ed became certified, Molly Hollibaugh took us through a Zentangle meditation. There was no visual instruction; Molly verbally instructed us through our drawing. It was so relaxing and fun. I’ve wanted to do it with a class ever since. In the style of Molly, Holly Atwater has posted a Zentangle audio meditation on her blog Ha! Designs. My voice could in no way compare to Holly’s soft and soothing voice. Thank you Molly and Holly for this gift!

Go Green Recipes

Since my last post when I challenged you this month to add green to your plate, an article, “Amazing Avocados” in the March 2015 issue of Experience Life magazine grabbed my attention. My husband and I have fallen in love with the Zucchini Noodles with Avocado Sauce recipe. Now there's a green salad! However, instead of slicing the zucchini into thin strips with a mandolin or vegetable peeler as the instructions suggest, I used my Veggetti Spiral Vegetable Slicer. such fun!

You can buy a Veggetti Spiral Vegetable Slicer at Amazon.

The article tells about the nutritional benefits of avocado. It's one of my favorite foods and finds its way into my diet nearly everyday: on salads, in smoothies and salad dressing and as a garnish. Avocado helps to lower LDL and to raise the HDL and, in studies, has also shown to have anti-cancer properties. 

Another great recipe from the Jan.-Feb. 2015 issue of Experience Life magazine incorporates kale into a super simple supper, One-Pot Pasta. (This recipe is from The Family Cooks by Laurie Davis. More about this book later this month.) When the directions say to "reduce the heat to a simmer" I also covered my pan to keep the steam inside.

Kale goes off the chart with its nutritional benefits: it's high in vitamin K, a key regulator of inflammation, and it also has anti-cancer and cholesterol lowering properties. Kale now finds itself on the menues in fancy restaurants. How far kale has risen from only being a garnish on the plate!

Kale and broccoli find their way into my weekly shopping cart.


From my kitchen:

Asian Broccoli
1 tsp. sesame oil
1 pound broccoli florets
1 tsp. minced garlic
1 tsp. finely minced fresh ginger (optional)
1/4 c. chicken or vegetable broth
1 tbsp. Bragg’s Liquid Aminos (or soy sauce)

In a pan with a good fitting lid, at medium temperature, heat the oil and sauté the garlic for a few seconds. Add remaining ingredients, stir, lower hear, cover and let steam for 4-5 minutes, until the broccoli is tender-crisp. Stir occasionally. If your lid doesn't fit tightly, you may need to add a little water.

I use Bragg’s because it’s a non-GMO liquid protein concentrate derived from soybeans. It’s an excellent replacement for both tamari and soy sauce. There is no salt added but it does have naturally occurring sodium. As we were accustomed to low-sodium soy sauce, we find that Bragg’s taste saltier. If that’s a problem for you, try diluting it before adding to a recipe.

Dish Up the Greens!

Welcome to Juice Plus® & Tower Garden®

Welcome to to the World of Juice Plus+®

In  this blog I will share Juice Plus+® articles, videos and webinars, post Juice Plus+® events, discuss good eating habits and share healthy recipes. I’m writing this because I want to made a difference in people’s lives. I want you to be in control of your health with the most scientifically researched nutraceutical product on the market.

Add Whole Foods Nutrition With Juice Plus+®

Good nutrition, especially a diet high in fruits and vegetables, is critical for good health. Juice Plus+® is non-GMO whole food based nutrition, packaged in a capsule or soft chewable, and is made from 26 different vine-ripened fruits, vegetables and gluten-free grains. Juice Plus+® is not a vitamin, medicine, treatment or cure for any disease; it's an all natural way to get quality, farm-ripened ingredients into your diet. Almost everyone wants and tries to eat right, but a healthy diet is, most days, a challenge. Juice Plus+® helps you to "bridge the gap" between what you eat and what you should be eating. Juice Plus+® is the next best thing to eating Fruits and Vegetables.

What’s in Juice Plus+®?

Juice PLUS+® Fruit Blend is created from: apples, oranges, pineapple, peaches, cranberries, papaya, acerola cherry,   

Juice PLUS+® Vegetable Blend is: beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, kale, spinach, parsley, tomato, oat bran and brown rice bran.

Those two are sold together. Add:

Juice PLUS+® Vineyard Blend to add: Concord grape, raspberry, blueberry, red currant, cranberry, black currant, blackberry, elderberry and bilberry to your diet.

All three are in capsule or chewable form.

JP is not a supplement, it’s whole foods nutrition. If you look at a vitamin bottle there’s a supplement label — what that product is supposed to contain. Juice Plus+® has a nutritional label. It’s the most researched brand name nutritional product in the world. Clinical research published in peer-reviewed scientific journals show that it:

• is absorbed by the body
• reduces oxidative stress
• reduces key biomarkers of systematic inflammation
• supports healthy immune system
• helps to protect DNA
• supports cardiovascular wellness
• supports healthy skin and gums
• reduces symptoms of the common cold
• improves athletic recovery/performance.
  See the attached List of Published Clinical Research or follow the links on my website to Juice Plus+ Clinical Research.

AND children get their juice plus+ FREE with every adult order…for 4 years! What is your least favorite veggie? What is your child’s least favorite veggie? Wouldn’t it be nice to know that you and your child got it everyday without the hassle and argument?

Some people notice a significant difference when taking JP, others not much; that’s not to say they aren’t receiving the benefits. Keep in mind that you don't feel cholesterol rising... you don't feel blood pressure increasing... you don't feel arteries being clogged... you don't feel your bones getting brittle... So, even though one doesn't necessarily "feel" anything, it doesn't mean that they are not getting benefits.

It has significantly reduced my fibro fatigue and pain, I sleep better and my complexion is a little clearer. Ed has not noticed so much of a change. He says his skin has improved, it’s less transparent, his veins aren’t as noticeable and he eats more fruits and veggies (a common experience).

Most Americans do not eat the recommended 7-13 servings a day of fruits and vegetables. We are an over-fed, under-nourished society. All the more reason you should let Juice Plus+® help you "Bridge the Gap." To learn more, see my website: http://jgucker.juiceplus.com or email me at: gucker.jp@gmail.com 

Go Green!

In March, in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, whether Irish or not, most people get into the celebration by wearing green and probably having a beer or two. Also, with spring approaching, everyone begins to think green. We associate green with growth and it’s the symbol for “Go!” There is no better way to think green this month than to Go for the Green on your plate.

http://www.choosemyplate.gov/index.html

The USDA encourages that we fill half our plate with fruits and vegetables. This month, I challenge you to add: green apples, avocados, green grapes, honeydew melon, kiwifruit, limes, bok choy, broccoli, brussels sprouts, kale, okra, green peppers, peas, spinach, string beans, and zucchini to your plate. You will have a sunnier outlook; be adding calcium to your diet from broccoli, okra, and greens such as Bok choy and kale (Who needs milk? More about that in a future blog.); your belly will be healthier thanks to the chemicals in cruciferous greens like cabbage and broccoli that help infection-fighting white blood cells to survive in your gut; and the substance, sulforaphane, a compound in broccoli may cut your risk of developing skin cancer.

Tower Garden®

Also part of the Juice Plus+® family is the Tower Garden®. The Tower Garden® is a vertical aeroponic growing system. It fits perfectly on patios, decks, balconies and roof tops …just about any relatively sunny place outside and, now, indoors too because Tower Garden® now has grow lights! It grows vegetables, herbs, flowers and many fruits, convenient to your kitchen.

Because of its unique aeroponic technology and vertical design, Tower Garden uses less than 10% of the water and land required by traditional, soil-based agriculture. And it will reduce your produce bill. No longer will you throw out old slimy vegetables because you can pick them daily right from YOUR GARDEN! With the Tower Garden® you can grow the freshest and most local vine ripened food for your family!

Gardening is easy with Tower Garden®: there is no soil to prepare, no weeding or getting dirty. It comes with everything you need to get started growing your own fruits and vegetable. It’s compact and easy to assemble. Each 5-foot Tower Garden® holds 20 plants and because of its patented aeroponic growing system, your plants will grow in less time than they would in soil. Simply put, you get more produce for less work. With your purchase of Tower Garden® you will receive customer support and a comprehensive online Resource Center right at your finger tips.

Ed and I do not yet own a Tower Garden; one will be part of our lives right after we return from the Juice Plus+® Spring Leadership Conference in Sacramento, CA. Until then, this portion of my blog will not have a lot of input. But keep watch and follow our experience as we grow our own herbs and veggies convenient to our kitchen door. We invite you to join us on this gardening journey.

Both Juice Plus+® and Tower Garden® are perfect solutions to help you bridge the nutritional gap between what you eat and what you should eat every day.

It’s healthier

It’s easier

It’s smarter

I will feature more articles about this remarkable growing system in future blogs.

To learn more, see my website: http://jgucker.towergarden.com or contact me at: gucker.jp@gmail.com

The Tower Garden® and Juice Plus+® both focus on the importance of fruits and vegetables and support the company’s mission to inspire healthy living.