August 17, 2006
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Issue #004 17 August 2006
www.healthy-eating-made-easy.com
Contents
- What’s new at Healthy Eating Made Easy
- Seasonal suggestions: tomatoes
- Recipe of the month
- Healthy eating for kids: Nutrients your child may be lacking
- Would you like to build a successful website too?
What’s new at Healthy Eating Made Easy
This month on the site, I've taken a look at feeding kids and teens - who are often a difficult group to please. Click the links to view these new pages.
Healthy Lunches for Kids
Suggestions for that all-important late morning meal. Ideas for term-time and school holidays.
Healthy Diet for Teenagers
Which foods are essential, and how much should you give them?
Seasonal Suggestions
Tomatoes
Keen gardeners will know that in August and on into September, they are likely to be facing a tomato glut. Although tomatoes are available all year round, all too often they are miserable, flavourless items, that aren't worth buying. Make the most of them when they are in season, and enjoy their fruity flavour.
- Nutrition: Rich in lycopene, an antioxidant shown to protect against heart disease and cancers. Also vitamins A, C and E. Canned tomatoes are almost as nutritious as fresh, and the lycopene is absorbed better from canned or cooked tomatoes than from raw. Tomato paste, puree and passata are also very nutritious.
- Choosing and storing: Look for locally grown tomatoes. Choose firm, bright red fruit. Allow slightly under-ripe tomatoes to ripen at room temperature.
- Preparing and Cooking: When cooking with fresh tomatoes, you'll get a better result if you remove skins and seeds. To skin a tomato, drop it into a bowl of boiling water and leave for 30 seconds. Nick the skin at the base with the point of a sharp knife, and the skin will peel off easily. Cut tomato in half, and scoop the seeds out and cut away the hard core.
- Serving: raw - choose small sweet cherry tomatoes for good flavour. Children often enjoy the intensified sweetness flavour of grilled or roast tomatoes. Use to make sauces for pasta or rice, in stews, curries, casseroles and soups. Top pasta bakes and gratins with slices. Wilt halved cherry tomatoes to make a pasta dressing. Or try the tomato bake, below.
Recipe of the Month
A light dish which goes well with grilled lamb or chicken, or can be served as a light vegetarian lunch with a green vegetable or salad.
Tomato Bake
- Preheat the oven to 400F/220C/gas 6. Skin 1 kg (2 lb) ripe tomatoes as above (under Preparing and Cooking). Remove seeds and core, slice flesh.
- Cut three thick slices of wholemeal bread, remove crusts, and process to crumbs in an electric grinder or food processor.
- Chop 1 bunch spring onions (scallions) very finely. Chop 2 cloves of garlic and a small bunch flat leaf parsley. Mix these ingredients into the crumbs, with 6 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese.
- Grease an oven dish and place the tomato slices in it, in overlapping layers. Season, and drizzle with 2 tbsp olive oil. Spread the bread crumb mixture evenly over the top and drizzle with 2 tbsp olive oil.
- Bake for around 30 minutes until the crumbs are crisp and nicely browned.
Healthy eating for kids
Nutrients your child may be lacking
A UK nutrition survey of children aged 4-18 found that two vital nutrients were the most likely to be under-supplied in children's diets:
- Vitamin A Needed for good eyesight, healthy eyes, skin and growth. Get more from dairy produce, eggs, liver, and orange, yellow and red fruits and veg.
- Zinc Needed for normal growth and development, immune system and healing. Get more from red meat, dairy produce, nuts, seeds and whole grains.
- Make sure your child has a good varied diet, and he or she should get all the vital nutrients. Aim to give lots of different coloured fruits and veg - think dark greens, bright red, orange and yellow. Be generous with wholegrain products like bread and cereals, make sure they have daily protein in meat, fish, eggs, dairy, nuts or soya, and keep an eye on fat intake.
Building your own website
You can do what I've done!I've been thrilled to bits this month, because Healthy Eating Made Easy has featured in the top 1% of websites on the Internet. How do I know? It's all to do with numbers, and something called an Alexa ranking, which shows how successful sites are. You can see my site, and lots of other really successful ones, here.
But for me, the really great thing is that I built this site out of my own interest in healthy eating - and now, not only is it successful, but it's making me some useful income, as well. So, if you have a passion, and a bit of time to spare, maybe you could do the same thing that I've done, and build a little web-based business. I'll be telling you a little more about how it's done in future issues, but if you'd like to know more, do get in touch via the contact button below, or take a look at this simple explanation of how it all works.
Send me your favorite healthy eating tip or recipe. You can get in touch here.