Restaurant food is generally served in large portions and typically high in calories, sodium & fat, contributing to childhood obesity.

We’re all looking for tools to help make smarter dining out choices for our children. The National Restaurant Association launched Kids LiveWell, a website providing nutritional information for healthier meal options for restaurant dining.

You’re invited to a Twitter party hosted by @resourcefulmom this Thurs. Feb. 9 from 2-3 PM to celebrate the growth of Kids LiveWell. A registered dietitian will answer participants’ questions about eating well on-the-go, and will share info about new restaurant partners, and the mobile site.

Twitter party attendees using the hashtag #kidslivewell are eligible to win gift cards from participating restaurants such as Outback Steakhouse, Au Bon Pain, and IHop.

Visit http://m.healthydiningfinder.com/ –Kids-LiveWell to find a Kids LiveWell meal
http://resourcefulmommy.com/category/twitter-parties/  to RSVP or learn more about the Twitter party

Upset about what your child eats at school? Here’s a chance to voice your opinions about your child’s school meals and school partnerships with fast-food restaurants.

The public is invited to a free Community Health Forum, 6-8 PM at Savannah Civic Center.

Healthy Savannah will join with local co-hosts St. Joseph’s/Candler Health System, Memorial Medical Center, Savannah State University, Junior League of Savannah, A Phillip Randolph Institute, GeoVista Credit Union and 100 Black Men of Savannah to sponsor this first Community Health Forum.

Healthy Savannah is working on several issues including getting junk food out of public schools. Find out more here.

Can anyone pry chicken nuggets from school lunch menues? Maybe Chef Jamie Oliver, who successfully reformed the school meal system in the United Kingdom.

In the UK, Oliver spearheaded a healthy school lunch campaign that persuaded the government there to allocate more than $400 million for the lunches.  Can he do it here with the new TV series “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution?

Oliver will be on CNN’s Larry King Live at 9 PM Thurs. March 25

Krispy Kreme school fund raisers. School spirit night with Pizza Hut. Elementary school carts that hawk Snickers to first graders.

All done in the name of raising money for budget-strapped schools.

The school system has the difficult task of fitting school meals into caloric and fat-content guidelines, but also making those meals appeal to kids. All with a limited budget of a little more than $1 per plate.

Yet, individual elementary schools can hold a Little Caesars School Spirit Night fund raiser or sell snacks, no matter how high the fat and caloric content, to raise money.

What’s your take on fast-food partnerships in elementary schools? And school snack carts that sell candy to students? My Sunday newspaper column on the topic has generated a slew of hate mail from folks who see nothing wrong with elementary schools endorsing fast food. “Don’t blame the obesity problem on fast-food” one reader wrote. So getting kids hooked on eating a school-endorsed meal of nuggets and fries at an early age doesn’t have any effect on the obesity problem? Seriously?

There have to be better ways to raise money. St. Andrew’s, a fast-food free school on Wilmington Island, hosted a successful school benefit last year that was the opposite of fast-food fundraiser: a slow foods dinner with local (non-fast food) restaurants to raise money for an outdoor classroom that will be a place for gardening and ecology. The benefit featured foods by Brighter Day Natural Foods Market, Cha Bella, Local 11 Ten, The Sentient Bean and Thrive.

Schools have been successful in reducing or eliminating soft drinks from cafeterias: Can’t they do the same with fast-food?

Parents fed up with their kids’ schools for pushing sugary snacks and junk food are banding together to fight for healthier school menus through groups like Better School Food and Edible Schoolyard.

But the problem isn’t just with notoriously unhealthy lunch menus in elementary schools and older, but also in preschools that dole out cookies and lollipops to appease the tots.

Which is why I want to do a shout-out in praise of my 3-year-old’s preschool, Discover Montessori on Whitemarsh Island, known as the best kept secret when it comes to quality Savannah preschools.

Director Margie Carfrey goes above and beyond in encouraging healthy eating in various ways such as:  limiting sugary snacks; planting a garden with the kids; and even occasionally offering organic snacks such as local organic eggs and veggies. For the Valentine’s Day tea party, she gently suggested that parents who want to bring something opt for snacks other than frosting-laden treats and candy.

But the school does this all without going overboard or being overly strict. For example, parents can bring in special treats for a child’s birthday etc. And there’s certainly no shortage of fun school parties and celebrations. Holiday festivities include hay rides, costumes, games, performances and a last day of school circus show – all without a tidal wave of sugar.

Now, if only we can find an elementary school that values nutrition and healthy eating  as much as Discover Montessori does.

Any parents out there frustrated by your child’s unhealthy school menus – preschool, elementary or higher – or these questionable partnerships between schools and fast-food restaurants (Little Caesars Pizza Days, Chik-Fil-A fundraisers)? If so, please email anne@southernmamas.com to comment for a potential newspaper article on this topic.

You’re trying to keep your kids healthy this flu season by stuffing them with nutrient-rich meals.

But what to do with veggie-phobic tots? Convince them to take on what writer and mom Charlotte Hume calls
the World’s First Great Big Vegetable Challenge.

Charlotte convinced her 7-year-old son Freddie to take a vegetable journey of a lifetime, getting him to eat through the ABCs of veggies, trying each vegetable from asparagus to zucchini in alphabetical order.

Freddie had to try at least two recipes with each. His mom found recipes that she thought would appeal to her finicky eater’s appetite. The challenge resulted in Charlotte’s extremely helpful blog full of kid-friendly veggie recipes. Think
zucchini turkey burgers and a canneloni recipe with butternut squash.

Join the Great Big Veg Challenge here.

A thank-you to Urban Baby Daily Picks for letting us know about such a useful kid-friendly recipe blog.

Have you noticed all those misleading “Smart Choice” labels on cereals like Kellogg’s Fruit Loops and “Healthy Choice” labels on General Mills’ Cocoa Puffs?

Cocoa Puffs a healthy choice? Not many parents would fall for that.

Researchers at Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity analyzed the marketing and nutritional content of breakfast cereals and found that kids are a big target for heavy marketing of sugary cereals

Check out the home page of their new report, Cereal FACTS (Food Advertising to Children and Teens Score) The lowest-scoring cereals, nutrition-wise: Kellogg’s Corn Pops – Chocolate Peanut Butter and Quaker’s Cap’n Crunch w/ Crunchberries.

The top-scoring cereal, from a nutritional standpoint: Kashi’s Puffs — 7 Whole Grains Puffs. The cereal most heavily marketed to children: General Mills’ Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Here’s the full report.
 
The FDA plans to step in and take a closer look at misleading labels and plans to develop a nutritional gold standard for products labeled as “healthy.”

The slow foods movement is coming to Wilmington Island.

St. Andrew’s School will host a slow foods dinner on Sat. Nov. 14 from 6 – 7:30 PM on the Wilmington Island campus. Proceeds from the dinner will support the school’s green garden, an outdoor classroom promoting whole foods, community service and environmental stewardship.

The goal is to celebrate local cuisine, teach young people gardening skills and enjoy wonderfully prepared foods by Brighter Day, Cha Bella, Local 11 Ten, The Sentient Bean, Thrive and our own St. Andrew’s cookbook crew – First Come, First Served.

For tickets or more information, please call 912.897.4941. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for students.

Alison Zielenbach!

Alison wins a $25 gift certificate to SproutBaby, an online source for organic, affordable baby food and products for eco-conscious parents.  SproutBaby sells Sprout Foods, the organic baby chow created by celeb chef (and dad) Tyler Florence.

Thanks to everyone who participated. There’s also another to chance to win big from  SproutBaby,

To celebrate SproutBaby.com’s first birthday, the online store is kicking off  its new referral program with a $2,500 giveaway.

SproutBaby.com will award one lucky winner a $2,500 cash prize in a random drawing for all customers making purchases between Oct-15 (today) and Dec. 15.

SproutBaby.com is also launching a new referral program for parents and families to earn unlimited cash back for referring their friends, relatives and colleagues. For more information, contest rules and referral program guidelines, please visit: store.sproutbaby.com/birthday and store.sproutbaby.com/referral

This week, a lucky SouthernMamas reader will win a $25 gift certificate to the new planet-friendly online shop SproutBaby, which sells Sprout Foods, the organic baby chow created by celeb chef (and dad) Tyler Florence.

Check out the rules below to enter to win:

•Visit SproutBaby.com, click on Shop and tell us what product you’d love to buy by commenting below this post.
•Entry period closes 9 pm Thurs. Oct. 15. Please tell us your name. We’ll pick a name at random and announce the winner Fri. Oct. 16.
•You have to be a SouthernMamas subscriber to participate. Subscribing is free. Click here to subscribe.

SproutBaby.com is the brainchild of parents and professionals that saw an unexplored area of parenting and shopping and wanted to bridge the gap between making healthy choices and making easy choices.

As SproutBaby.com grows to include more options to fit more needs, the company will provide comprehensive, eco-conscious, e-commerce and social shopping which is centered around making it easy to make mindful decisions about the products parents choose to put on, in and around their children and families.

Love your baby. Love the planet.

Now that Francie is six months old and starting on solids, I am making her baby food instead of relying on the jarred stuff.

I did the homemade baby food route with my son as well and IT IS REALLY EASY, even for a cooking-challenged mom like me.  Making your own baby food is as simple as pureeing steamed veggies and raw fruits.

A number of books and Web sites offer recipes for the basics – mashed bananas and avocados – as well as advanced dishes and make-your-own-baby-food tips. The resources also provide advice about food allergies and ideas for taking your home prepared foods on the road.

While convenient, commercial baby foods often contain more water, starch and sugar than homemade ones. Plus, you can’t help but wonder of those jarred strained peas on the shelf might be older than your baby is. There are other advantages to making fresh pureed baby foods.

For more how-tos and some baby food recipes, visit Wholesomebabyfood.com, a one-stop online source for any parent interested in ditching those jars. There’s also Homemade Baby Food Recipes.

UPDATE: Just for Baby & More at 7701 Waters Ave. has a new item- the Wean Machine. It is a portable, compact, self -contained “food processer” that prepares baby food. You just fill it squeeze and feed. Cost: 27.99.

Allison Kelly!

Congratulations. Allison wins a $100 Gift card from Crate and Barrel and a free 1-year gift subscription to Relish!, a truly cool meal-planning service for busy parents.

Relish! helps you prepare healthy, creative meals every week. For subscriptions as low as $5 a month, you’ll end up with five complete dinners for a family of four running you less than $85.

What delicious comments everyone left to enter this week’s contest! Thanks for entering. Look for another giveaway from a different business to be announced here Monday.

Meal planning just got a million percent easier. And cheaper.

Until we can all afford our own personal chefs, the next best thing is easily Relish!, a truly cool meal-planning service for busy parents.

This ingenious, easy to use (really), mom-run website helps you prepare healthy, creative meals every week that rock, from what we’ve seen. You pick from a ton of excellent tested recipes, a very cleverly organized grocery list is automatically created, then all you do is hit the store for five days worth of home-cooked meals–not one of which takes more than 30 minutes to prepare.

You’ll find a whole lot to choose from including freezer meals, vegetarian menus, picnic and camping menus, and tons of kids faves that don’t include the word “nugget.”

For subscriptions as low as $5 a month, you’ll end up with five complete dinners for a family of four running you less than $85. Between the money savings and the angst savings, we say you’re coming out way ahead.
(Pssst…living gluten-free? Check out their sister site, Gfree! Gfreecuisine.com)

This week, a lucky SouthernMamas reader will win a $100 Gift card from Crate and Barrel and a free 1-year gift subscription to Relish! If you sign up for Relish! and win the subscription, you will be credited.

Here are the giveaway rules:
# To enter to win, tell us your name and favorite summertime dish or food by commenting below this post.
# Entry period closes 9 pm Thurs. June 11. We’ll pick a name at random and announce the winner here Fri. June 12.
# You have to be a SouthernMamas subscriber to participate. Subscribing is free. Click here to do so. We’d also love for you to become a SouthernMamas fan on Facebook (we’re just a few fans away from a tally of 500!!)

The u-pick blackberry field is now open @ the Bamboo Farm and Coastal Gardens.

Cost is $3 per pound.  9 am-4 pm (or until picked out for the day)  Mon-Sat.

Call ahead to make sure the field is open. 912.921.5497. The field can be picked out quickly at the beginning and end of the season.

More information can also be found here.

You can shop The Market @ Trustees Garden in downtown Savannah while the kids watch the BEE Movie for free.

The movie will be shown @ 5:30 PM inside the Charles H Morris Center during Market Hours. The Market will be located in the Brown Tent from 4-7 PM.   Seated dining area to watch movie.

The Market @ Trustees Garden includes artists, organic farmers, live music and local fare. It’s held Wednesdays (4-7 pm) and Saturdays, (9 am-3 pm).

If the 60 Minutes segment with “Slow-Food” legend Alice Waters last Sunday has you jazzed about buying more organic fruits & veggies, check out the Trustees’ Farmer Market this Wednesday (4-7 pm) and, starting this week, on Saturdays, (9 am-3 pm) too

The Market @ Trustees Garden in downtown Savannah includes artists, farmers, kids activities, local organic farmers, live music and local fare.

This Saturday is the launch of the Saturday markets and will include facepainting; Leopolds Ice Cream; The Puppet People; puppet making workshop (all from recycled materials); a stage for kids to present a puppet show; ponies; live animals by Critters to Go Petting Zoo; and storytelling.
All with organic local farmers & fresh produce, cooking demos and more.

To find out more about the twice-weekly farmers’ markets, click here.

Operation Red Meat is under way @ our house, now that my toddler has been diagnosed as slightly anemic thanks to my distaste and distrust of mainstream meat. So now my guilt-ridden grocery store shopping sprees involve lots of over-priced grass-fed, hormone-free beef.

Are you also wary of conventional meat, but tired of shelling out big bucks for organic beef @ grocery stores? Then check out the Savannah Food Co-op, which helps families obtain healthy and sustainably-produced food and dry goods at affordable prices.

The co-op, started by some innovative local moms, offers primarily regional organic produce, Georgia-produced natural milk and butter, Georgia-produced organic pasture-raised ground beef, Georgia-produced artisanal pastured cheese, Midwest small-farm-produced organic yogurt, local pastured organic eggs, locally-made natural baked goods, fair-trade organic locally-roasted coffee, and natural drugstore items.

Read a Savannah Morning News Article here by Mary Landers about this much-needed local service and check out the co-op here.

This week’s Market at Trustees Garden will be all outside. Come and see new farmers, kids activities and local art 4-7 pm Wed. Nov 12, @ Charles H Morris Center (10 East Broad Street). FREE!

The market is held every Wednesday and includes cooking demos, organic farmers, local arts & crafts, local and organic food from Savannah restaurants, live music, plants, herbs, kids activities, sustainable/green education. Interested in being a vendor at The Market? Contact Maria Castro 912. 844.3184 or mfcastro@greenlifespace.com

If the day-after Halloween had your kids hyped up on all that Halloween candy, here’s an idea from GreenHalloween.org you may want to consider.

Invite the Sugar Sprite/Halloween Fairy/Great Pumpkin to your home after trick-or-treating. Your kids can choose a small amount of candy (such as one piece for every year of their age) to keep and the rest goes back in their pumpkin and out on the porch where a “magical” swap will take place. One or two gifts are left in the candy’s place.

OK. OK. We know this sounds like a big buzzkill. After all, as parents we remember our own Halloween traditions and want to re-create them for our own children, which may include savoring all those Jolly Ranchers and Milky Ways well into November.

But according to Green Halloween, kids surveyed at their events actually like the Halloween fairy tradition. This is from their Web site: “not one child of any age (from two to teen) said that they would rather have conventional candy when they saw the alternatives we were suggesting. Not one.”

Green Halloween is a non-profit, grassroots community initiative to create healthier and more Earth-friendly holidays, starting with Halloween.

The Halloween Fairy alternative is also highlighted in this Atlanta Journal & Constitution article.

Thanks to SouthernMamas reader and mother of two candy-lovers Ashley Waldvogel Gaddy for this holiday tip.

Still concerned about using plastics containing the risky chemical BPA, even though The Food and Drug Administration says the chemical is safe?

Perhaps you should be. After all, today an expert panel asked to review the FDA’s handling of the controversial substance found the FDA ignored evidence when concluding that a chemical in plastic baby bottles is safe. Read the article here.

BPA-laden baby products could pose harm to children at levels at least 10 times lower than the amount the FDA says is safe, according to the report written by outside scientists asked to review the agency’s handling of the controversial substance.

To learn how to tell if your baby’s bottle or sippy cup are safe from BPA, click here.