Health advice from mom to mom

We face dilemmas on a daily basis – home cooked meal versus the convenience of quickie take-out; dealing with screaming and fighting because we need to clean up the mess in the kitchen… Countless obstacles! And frankly we can use all the help we can get in navigating some of them. To that end we’re loving the new book, Healthy Mom, by Iva Young.

Iva, a mother of two, shares her expertise when it comes to health and nutrition (including helping us out with suggested supermarket shopping lists for Wal-Mart, Costco, Whole Foods, etc…), and shares over 100 of her filling, healthful, and easy-to-master time tested recipes. She helps demystify complicated and often confusing nutrition facts, highlights the specific benefits of common fruits and vegetables and guides us to the best sources of all the vitamins and minerals we should be consuming daily. Lastly, she has come-up with plans for balanced meal schedules that we can follow to take the thinking out of meal time.

Along the way she separates fact from fiction when it comes to artificial sweeteners, organic foods, dioxins, supplements, antioxidants, and a whole lot more. It’s an engrossing read for any mother - whether you’re a health-conscious foodie or couldn’t taste the difference between fresh or overly processed and canned.

The one drawback: the book might leave you feeling extra guilty about OK’ing all those Oreos and doughnuts…or is that good food for thought!

Dish with us: How closely to you monitor the nutritional value of what you feed your kids?