Book Review - Tall and Tasty Fruit Trees by Meredith Sayles Hughes

This is a fun book with lots of photos, graphics, and even a few recipes.  It explores apples, peaches, mangoes, figs, and citrus fruits, and it would be a great way to add some depth to your children's study of nutrition.

Apples

The book discusses the history of each of these crops, but in a way that keeps the reader engaged.  It covers the use of apples in legends, for example, such as Snow White and Merlin, the magician in King Arthur's court.  Johnny Appleseed is discussed too, as well as practical information like grafting and growing apples, pesticides and their effects on ecosystems, a bit on the different varieties of apples, and how to prepare many apple dishes and apple cider.

Peaches

Did you know peaches originated in China?  Me neither!  They were eventually brought to the Americas by European explorers in the 1500s.  Peaches have since become a staple crop in the southern US.  The book also explains the difference between the cling and freestone varieties, how to grow and harvest them, and a bit about their nutrition.  They're high in vitamin A!

Mango

The mango used to be an exotic fruit, but has become much more mainstream in recent years.  Most mangoes are from India, but they're also grown in Florida and Hawaii.  Mango trees are tropical evergreens that don't lose all their leaves.  It was very interesting to learn about the proper way to slice a mango, which can be tricky because of the wide, flat pit.

Figs

Figs are an interesting fruit that comes in a variety of shapes and sizes.  They're very sweet, but also contain fiber, and wow, a single fig contains as much calcium as half a glass of milk!  Want to try making your own fig pudding?  There's a recipe included in the book.

Citrus

The final part of the book takes a look at citrus trees.  I really enjoyed the pictures of Florida citrus trees, loaded down with fruit, and the huge trucks carrying loads of oranges to market.  Some commercial oranges are sprayed with a chemical called ethylene that makes them uniformly orange by getting rid of their green spots.  Some of the more unusual citrus fruits are covered in the book too, like the pummelo and citron.  Kids will love the recipe for making a secret invisible ink from lemon juice, too!

Tall and Tasty Fruit Trees is a fun look at these 5 types of fruit trees that would appeal to a wide age range.  There's something for everyone in this book, from historical information to recipes, and everyone can learn a little something by spending a few minutes flipping through the pages.

A is For Apple - Learning Alphabetical Order With Fruits and Vegetables

Here's an ABC order activity for the new spellers in your family:  Can you think of one fruit or vegetable that begins with each letter of the alphabet?  Ooh - harder than it looks, huh?

I started this project with my little ones this week, and we're making each letter into a fruit or vegetable.  This takes an awful lot of creativity!  Start by making a list of one fruit or vegetable for each letter.  Once that's done, you can brainstorm with the kids on ways to make the pictures.  (Use the internet for ideas!)  If nothing else, it will teach the kids a little about ABC order. but hopefully they'll learn enough to count this as a nutrition lesson too!  You could even stretch your art curriculum with a fun project like this.    

So let's see....A is for Apple, B is for Banana, C is for Carrot, D is for....???

Can Diet Soda Help You Lose Weight?

Contrary to popular belief, diet soda does not help with weight loss.  This seems backwards, doesn’t it?   How can the diet sodas so many people use to help keep them thin, and with virtually no calories in them, actually cause weight gain?   Unfortunately, the artificial sweeteners in diet sodas, as well as many other products on our grocery store shelves, have plenty of ill effects on our health.  If you think about it though, it makes sense.  How could a cocktail of chemicals be healthy?

A study at the University of Texas Health Science Center investigated the relationship between diet soft drink consumption and waist circumference.  The study tracked hundreds of participants over a 10 year period and found a 70 percent increase in waist circumference among those who reported drinking one diet soft drink per day.  Shockingly, participants who consumed 2 or more diet soft drinks per day had waist circumference increases of 500 percent over those who did not drink diet soda.   Unfortunately, this is only one of many research studies that have detected a correlation between obesity and diet soda consumption.

But why?

Researchers believe that the artificial sweetener often found in soda, aspartame, actually increases blood glucose levels.  The exact mechanism by which this occurs is subject for debate, but one possibility is that when the body tastes something sweet, a chain of events is set in motion to mobilize insulin in the bloodstream to deal with the expected onslaught of sugar.  In the case of artificial sweeteners, that insulin proves useless.   But elevated insulin levels are a precursor of type II diabetes, obesity, and related conditions.

Speculation also abounds that since artificial sweeteners are many times sweeter than regular sugar, our taste buds react to them by expecting a sugary treat, triggering chemical changes that result in those same elevated insulin levels.    Scientists don’t yet know for sure, but it is certain that the use of artificial sweeteners do predispose people to obesity and elevated insulin.

What Can You Do?

It’s best to limit soda consumption to an occasional indulgence, and then to drink soda with real sugar, not high fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners.  If these studies are any guide, at least your body knows what to do with real sugar, and the insulin it releases is used appropriately to allow that sugar in your blood to enter the cells.

Better yet, since a diet soda has no nutritional value whatsoever, just imagine what a relative 500 percent increase to your own waist circumference might look like, and opt for water instead!

Blog Writing For Middle School

Trying to homeschool middle school?  If your kids are old enough, they might enjoy writing their own blog.  By middle school, most kids are at an age where they understand the writing process well enough for blogging.  For this age group, it can be as simple as telling about their day, or as complex as writing elaborate works of fiction.  My middle schooler is writing her first novel, or maybe it just seems that way!  :)

Kids like the combination of writing and internet, so go with it and make it work in your favor.  Add some photos or graphics and have fun with it.  A blogging project would be perfect if you want to call it schoolwork, but writing for fun is a great thing to encourage too.

How about keeping a food diary on a blog?  Have the kids write down everything they eat for several days or a week.  Then go back and figure out how many servings of protein, vegetables, etc. they ate.  Have them brainstorm ways to improve their nutrition.  They'll be learning good eating habits and working on their writing skills too!

Preschool Nutrition Flashcards

One of those most basic parts of teaching young children about nutrition is learning which foods fall into which food groups.  What kind of foods are peanuts, celery, lentils, or butter?  Learning the food groups is the first step in learning how to eat healthy.  Preschool games and flashcards work well for younger kids, and can even be fun for older ones.

Have your kids draw pictures of different types of food on index cards, or cut out pictures from magazines or grocery store sales ads and glue them onto the cards.  Hold them up and see which of your children can name the food group first.  You could make the game harder by using flashcards of foods with more than one ingredient, like a turkey sandwich, for example.  Can the kids figure out all the food groups present in a turkey sandwich?   How many servings of bread are in that sandwich?

Most early child education only gives nutrition a passing glance, but if you start with some fun flash cards and games to learn the food groups, you're building a foundation of nutrition knowledge for kids to add to later.   They can't plan a proper meal if they don't know what they're eating!

Here's a great tool for inserting images onto printable flashcards that works well for this project.  http://quizlet.com/faqs/faq-how-do-i-add-images-to-my-flash-cards/

Are You On Track For 2014?

We're into the first month of the year, and with so much of 2014 still before us, it's a great time to sit back and reflect on our homeschooling experience.  From the first phonics curriculum you chose, to the high school writing class they will someday take, and everything in between.  How has the last year of homeschooling been?  Are you on track for 2014?  If not, take a minute to rethink your homeschooling goals and how to get there.

What's so amazing to me is that my kids are turning out pretty well, in spite of all the mistakes I've made, and all the things I would have done differently if I could go back and do it all over again.  I'm sure that's not a sentiment unique to homeschoolers, but in terms of our curriculum choices especially, etc. it's never a bad idea to re-evaluate and try to improve.

If you haven't started the nutrition lessons here yet, the new year is a great time to emphasize nutrition and healthy eating.  It's that time of year, after all!