Lunch is important! Whether you’re working from the 5^th floor or the 5^th grade, it’s a fact of life: the better you eat, the better you feel – and the better you feel, the better you work!

So tell us. What kind of brain food do you pack in YOUR lunch? Do you include a mid-morning snack or a mid-afternoon pick-me-up? Is there a secret ingredient you just can’t leave at home?

We’re looking for the yummiest, healthiest, most creative lunch ideas you’ve got! And the winner is up to YOU.

This is a new kind of contest for the blog. Here’s how it works:

1. Leave us YOUR lunch idea in the comments.
2. Send your friends to this entry!
3. Tell them to click “like” next to your comment.
4. At the end of the week (that’s 5:00 pm on Friday, August 6^th), the comment with the most votes WINS!

First prize will be a $150 Earth Fare gift card. Second prize is a $75 Earth Fare gift card. And third prize is a $50 Earth Fare gift card. So, come on – tell us what you pack for lunch!

UPDATE: Our commenting widget is currently being buggy – for now, leave your vote in the form of a comment. Just tell me the name of the person you’re voting for, and I’ll track the votes that way. I’ll let you know if anything changes!

But, during this last episode of Glee (yes, I’m a Gleek), I decided to pay attention to the commercials. And. WOW! I was completely shocked by what I saw.

Here’s how it broke down. During the first set of commercials, I saw Red Baron Pan Pizza and Burger King BBQ Ribs. While pizza in moderation is fine, there’s little that’s fine about Burger King’s BBQ Ribs. The sauce is made of high fructose corn syrup! (I’m sure you saw that one coming!) And, even worse, there are 1,290MG OF SODIUM! That’s more than HALF the amount of sodium that you should eat in one day.

The only fresh veggies that I saw during the first GLEE break were the lettuce and tomato. And, considering how those usually look in fast food restaurants, they can hardly be considered FRESH!

And, this was just the first set. The next set was even worse: Coca Cola (HFCS to the max!), Hershey’s Smores, more fast food burgers, steak and Sonic ice cream. And, later, we had M&Ms (here come your artificial colors!), Domino’s, BK Slurpie, Subway, McDonalds…and the list goes on and on and ON!

So, in my humble opinion, YES, TV food ads promote unhealthy diets. What do you think?

Some people claim that it is extremely difficult to eat healthy while traveling.  Earth Fare completely disagrees.

Regardless of the number of fast food restaurants on the road, or in the airport, healthy eating while traveling IS possible!  Here’s how:

• Eat Healthy BEFORE travels. Filling up on a good, hearty meal filled with whole grains, fruits, vegetables and proteins before traveling will help stabilize your appetite.  If you are not ravenous when you hit the road or get to the airport, that sticky bun’s sweet woos won’t have much success.
• Hydrate! Make sure you drink enough water while traveling.  A lot of times, people mistake thirst for hunger.  Carrying water has become difficult especially at airports, but as soon as you get through security, make sure to get some water and drink up!
• Pack your own food! This isn’t always possible (depending on your reason for travel), but with a little planning, bringing your own food ensures you won’t eat fast food or airplane food.  Pack some fruits, unsalted nuts, or a sandwich with lean meats/vegetables in your carry-on or in a cooler for the car.  If you’re traveling for business, stop by a local grocery store and pack some healthier options before you hit the airport.
• Healthy Snacks. Pack some baby carrots, other cut vegetables, and fruits in your carry-on or car.
• Find a Grocery Store on the Road. Finding healthier options may be worth a slight detour.  When stopping for gas, do so off the highway and stop into a grocery store to find some fresher, healthier options.
• Think fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, and whole grains. Whenever making food choices, fill up on these food items before anything else.  The protein and fiber will keep you fuller longer.

Watch out for those pastries at a hotel continental breakfast bar

If all the above is not possible, follow the tips below to avoid pitfalls.

At the Continental Breakfast Bar:

• DO EAT: fresh fruit, whole grain cereal with low-fat milk, yogurt, hard-boiled eggs.
• AVOID: the sugary muffins, breakfast pastries, sugary cereals

At the Rest Stop:

• Single-serving cereal cups. Who said cereal was just for breakfast?  When you’re in a bind, choosing a whole-grain single-serving cereal cup with low-fat milk is a good choice.
• Protein Bars. Watch the sugar levels, but this is much better than a chocolate bar!
• Nuts. Try to find packages of unsalted nuts.  The good fats, protein and fiber will keep you fuller longer.

Wendy’s Double Bacon Deluxe
AD	REALITY

Arby’s Beef ‘n Cheddar
AD	REALITY

Burger King’s Bacon Double Homestyle Melt
AD	REALITY

Burger King’s Double Cheeseburger
AD	REALITY

McDonald’s McRib Sandwich
AD	REALITY

McDonald’s Sausage Egg Cheese McMuffin
AD	REALITY

Subway’s Buffalo Chicken Sandwich
AD	REALITY

Wendy’s Baconator
AD	REALITY

Next time, don’t be fooled! Enjoy REAL, fresh foods that don’t pretend to look better than they are!

The real question is: will the legislation work and is it necessary to invest more money in the school lunch program? 

Before answering, consider this: Currently, schools only have about $1 per child to spend on buying actual ingredients.

This is not much money, and schools are struggling to produce fresh meals from good ingredients for just a buck.  In fact, last December, USA Today found that fast food meat was safer than school lunch meat provided by the USDA!  In other words, beef from Jack in the Box is better than a hamburger served in a school cafeteria!   Jack in the Box sets higher limits (10x stricter than USDA’s) for amount of certain bacteria allowed in their burgers.  Companies like McDonald’s, Burger King and Costco check ground beef for bacteria 5 to 10 times more often than the USDA does.   

Want to know something even more shocking?  Meat that KFC won’t buy because it’s from old birds, or “spent hens,” that would usually go into compost or pet food is…being put on kid’s lunch trays.  There were quality issues with this chicken meat, but it is being fed daily to the 31 million students who participate in the National School Lunch Program.   

Oh, and don’t forget that french fries are considered a vegetable according to school lunch guidelines. 

Fortunately, after much understandable outrage, the USDA announced reforms to ensure safety and quality of school food.  In February, the USDA said that it would tighten requirements on companies supplying ground beef, test beef more often and improve communications within the USDA to identify food safety issues. 

If we as a country know that childhood obesity is a public health crisis, why is the taxpayer’s money being used to feed today’s children the lowest quality, over-processed, and unhealthy foods? 

What do you think we can do to help? 

“Hungry” to know more?  Sites Earth Fare visited for this post:
(1) Lincoln Unveils Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act
(2) National School Lunch Program
(3) “US Senator seeks junk food ban, school lunch boost” (Reuters)

By Maria DiLalla, Community Relations Coordinator, Raleigh

In Part 1 of The Fast Food Budget Challenge, I showed that it IS possible to enjoy fresh, healthy meals on a budget!   How did I do it?  Below are some tips I follow for stretching a dollar at Earth Fare:

• Buy pantry staples in bulk
  • Flour, sugar, sea salt, whole grains, herbs & spices are cheap when you buy them in bulk, and you don’t have buy 25 pounds worth of product to get the price break!
• Re-use foods – get creative! 
  • Stale bread?  Use it for breading eggplant & chicken!
  • Leftover chicken or vegetables?  Throw it into pasta! 
• Use the same ingredients in multiple recipes for variety:
  • The main ingredients are the same in: Pasta & eggplant parmesan, frittata, and roasted vegetable quinoa
• Buy whole-wheat products: it keeps you full longer
• Coupons, coupons, coupons!
  • Sign up for Earth Fare’s Newsletter at the bottom of our homepage here, and receive coupons via email!
  • Download our Monthly Flyer for deals
  • Check the Healthy Savings section on Earth Fare’s website for deals. 
  • Become an Earth Fare fan on Facebook to receive notifications on our deals!
  • Follow us on Twitter to get our Tweebies!  

Earth Fare gives out awesome deals and it’s easy to build entire meals with them!  Remember the free Rotisserie Chicken with $10 purchase coupon? Buy sweet potatoes & broccoli, and then dessert for $10.00, and then you get your entrée for free! 

So, if someone says it’s not possible to eat healthy on a budget, show them these tips!  How do you stretch your dollar?

Eating healthy should be possible at every price point.  But, is it true that fast food is the only affordable food?  I set out to see.

THE CHALLENGE:
Create a variety of easy, healthy and fresh meals for a family of four on a fast food budget.

I set my budget at $14.36 – the lowest possible combination of two fast food kid’s meals & two adult combo meals at a famous fast food chain.  How many fresh meals could I make for under $15.00 using ingredients from Earth Fare?  A lot more than one!  Below are three easy-to-make recipes on a budget:

(1) Frittata with Mixed Green Salad – TOTAL COST: $12.70

Ingredients:
6 eggs ($1.84)
1 c. milk ($0.87)
½ organic red pepper ($2.00)
¼ lb bulk white mushrooms($1.00)
2 green onions ($0.99)
Salt & Pepper
Mixed Greens ($3.50)
EF Salad Dressing ($2.50)
Add ins: Not restricted to red pepper, mushrooms and green onions.  Use whatever vegetables that you like or have on hand; add a piece of bacon or cheese.

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Whisk together the eggs and milk; add salt & pepper to taste.
3. Cut the red pepper; slice the mushrooms & green onions.
4. Saute the vegetables with a little oil until they begin to soften (add the green onions towards the end), about 2 minutes.
5. Add the egg mixture to the skillet; put the skillet in the oven.
6. Cook for 15min-20mins.
7. Toss your mixed greens with salad dressing.

(2) Eggplant Mozzarella with Mixed Green Salad – TOTAL COST: $14.21

Ingredients:
1 Eggplant ($2.99)
Earth Fare Pasta Sauce ($1.88)
Mozzarella Cheese ($3.00)
Mixed Greens ($3.50)
EF Salad Dressing ($2.50)
Canola Oil ($0.34)
Salt & Pepper

Directions:

1. Cut the eggplant into 3/4″- 1” slices; salt & pepper the slices to taste.
2. Heat 2 tbsp canola oil in a large skillet; saute the eggplant on both sides, until it softens and is lightly browned.
3. Let the eggplant drain onto paper towels for about 10 minutes (it will absorb a lot of the oil so this step will help take some of it out).
4. Put the eggplant on a cookie sheet, and top each slice with some sauce & some cheese.
5. Place the slices under the broiler until the cheese melts (this will not take long).  If you aren’t comfortable using a broiler, put the slices in a 450 degree oven for 10-15 minutes until the cheese is melted.
6. Toss your mixed greens with salad dressing.

(3) Pepper Dog Salsa with steamed green beans -  TOTAL COST: $14.14
Recipe courtesy of Pepper Dog Salsa

Ingredients:
1 jar pepper dog salsa ($4.99)
1 lb ground beef ($5.17)
1 can of EF beans (kidney or black) ($1.49)
1.25 lbs of green beans ($2.49)

Directions:

1. Brown the meat & drain.
2. Add the salsa & beans.
3. Heat through.
4. Serve with steamed green beans.

Challenge Accomplished. It IS possible to enjoy fresh, healthy meals on a budget!  How did I do it?  Check back tomorrow to learn some tips.  For now though, are YOU up for the challenge?

An average cheeseburger may be 590 calories as noted above, but it’s certainly not the max.  Can you believe a Jalapeno burger with fries at a famous retail chain is a whopping 2120 calories?  Worse still, it’s not just fast foods that have increased in size.  Even serving sizes in the American classic, Joy of Cooking, have increased 35% over its multiple editions.  Why has this happened?  Food businesses realized that they could win more customers, looking to get more for their dollar, by increasing sizes for a minimal price.  Larger sizes in restaurants distorted our sense of portion sizes so much that even portion sizes in the home increased!   

To see a visual of how large portions have increase, take a look at this entrée:

 
The steak serving is so big, it is off the plate! 

Maybe the portions in the picture above look normal today, but both the meat and potato portion exceeds appropriate portion sizes for one person.  So what?  Why is it important to understand normal portion sizes?  Knowing the appropriate serving size for one person can help one accurately gauge how much we are eating in a given day.  

Eating the right portion of good foods for optimal health…Easier said than done, right?  We know how hard it is to conceptualize one serving size in a culture where bigger is better.  Well, here’s an easy trick: imagine an everyday item as a comparison to accurate portion sizes.  Check out some examples:  

 
Deck of cards = one serving of meat, fish or poultry

Baseball = 1 cup cooked pasta, rice

Tennis ball = ½ cup of mashed potatoes or ice cream

Computer mouse = 1 small baked potato

4 dice = 1 oz serving of cheese

Golf ball = ¼ cup serving of nuts or dried fruits

Golf ball = 2 tbsp of peanut butter or salad dressing

Do you think imagining various balls and playing cards will help you avoid large portion pitfalls the next time you plan your meal? 

Lose weight today without moving?  Hmmmm… just drive your car and eat fast food?  HMMMM….

Remember Subway’s Jared Fogle?  Taco Bell is following Subway’s marketing success by feeding us yet another gimmicky weight-loss plan.  This time, instead of Jared, it’s Christine Doughtery who lost 54 pounds in 2 years by choosing Fresco items on Taco Bell’s menu.    

We want to challenge, does this diet really prioritize health?  How can a drive-thru fast food diet really be healthy and sustainable?  

Taco Bell states that the trademarked Drive-Thru Diet menu is “not a weight-loss program” (oh, then why are they marketing it as one?). Christine says that “she made other sensible choices” (does “other” mean foods outside of Taco Bell?  What are these “other” foods?), and also says that “these results aren’t typical” (then why the frequent commercials encouraging everyone to drive-thru Taco Bell as if weight-loss is guaranteed?).

Fresco Items – are these really weight-loss foods?

Don’t be fooled by Taco Bell!  Did you know that Fresco items are only 20 to 100 calories less than their normal items (Taco Bell writes this in fine print)?  Fresco simply means that cheese is replaced with salsa.  How did Christine cut 500 calories then?  The math does not add up.  How did Christine really lose the weight?  She must have made many, many, many other “sensible choices” outside of Taco Bell!  Hm…maybe she was eating most of her other meals at Earth Fare…

The real question is: Are Fresco items healthier?  No.  The Fresco Burrito Supreme Chicken is loaded with 1410 mg of salt — just 90 mg shy of the total daily recommended amount.  Also, with 25 mg of cholesterol, and 70 calories from fat, it’s not really providing a nutritional punch.  Take the Fresco Crunch Taco — half of its calories come from fat and it does not have enough protein to be considered a healthy, balanced meal.  In fact, none of the Fresco items offer a healthy, balanced meal on their own. 

Fun Activity: Find those veggies!

We do not want to undermine Christine’s success nor do we want to discount the fact that at least Taco Bell is trying to offer “healthier” options since fast food is generally known to be unhealthy and sometimes the only option (on road trips, for example). 

If Taco Bell is serious about weight-loss and healthy eating, why doesn’t it just get rid of its really unhealthy items like Volcano Nachos with 1000 calories and 62 g of fat?   

ANSWER: Taco Bell is being very opportunistic by marketing a weakly related weight-loss story around New Year’s.  After all, Fresco items have been on the menu for years now — if they help so much with weight-loss, why didn’t we hear about them earlier? 

Christine lost weight because she ate less and made sensible choices — NOT because she ate Taco Bell.  She could have lost weight eating double cheeseburgers as long as she kept her caloric intake to 1250!  But, weight loss is not just about calories, and health is not only about weight loss!  Success on the health journey should be about enjoying fresh/nourishing foods, feeling better, and getting stronger everyday.   

So, don’t believe the opportunistic marketing going on.  To lose weight AND feel better, eat fresh, and nourishing foods! 

When we asked YOU what you thought it would take to lower America’s obesity rates, you sent us a comprehensive, yet creative, list of why our nation continued to grow obese: poor nutrition education, lack of access to fresh foods due to poverty, large portions, and lack of physical activity.  Okay so clearly, we all understand the risk factors.  The real question, which we posed before, is how do we actually overcome these obstacles?    

Where are the veggies?

To see drastic reductions in obesity rates at a national level, less emphasis must be placed on individual behavior because our surroundings make it almost impossible to resist unhealthy foods! Think about it…most Americans live in obesogenic – promotes weight gain rather than loss – environments where:

• It’s easier to find 5 fast-food restaurants than a  safe walking path
• Tomato and lettuce can only be found…on a cheeseburger
• Big gulps keep growing
• Flashy ads make 99-cent processed sweet & salty “foods” irresistible
• Fast food restaurants take any measure, including putting TVs in restaurants, so customers will stay longer, and eat MORE. 
• At the same time, fast food restaurants also encourage convenient eating in the car (forget the table manners grandma taught) with 24-hr drive-thrus. 

So, we understand – fast, convenient foods are hard to resist!  Overcoming the many challenges in our environment requires:

• Community Involvement: Fostering healthier lifestyles may mean building safer bike lanes, more playgrounds, parks, walking paths, and improving public transit
• Increased access to fresh fruits and vegetables: More must be done in communities where only corner convenient stores with processed foods are present, or in schools where school lunch standards are poor. 
• Change our relationship/understanding of food: With so many fast food restaurants with large portion sizes around, we must reacquaint ourselves with real food and appropriate portion sizes.  Have you ever investigated what’s REALLY in fast, processed foods and how the ingredients affect your health?  You may be surprised…
• Individual commitment: With knowledge about real food, and conviction, it IS possible to move more and make each bite count.  People are taking steps towards better health everyday, and believe it or not…they’re enjoying delicious foods, too!      

Do you think our nation is up to the challenge?  Think we can decrease obesity rates as fast as they increased?