I’m thrilled to be speaking to parents at the Streetsville Children’s Centre next Thursday evening, March 21

The topic will be “How To Raise A Healthy Eater”

Did you know that how you feed your children is just as important as what you feed
them? Helping your child to become a lifelong healthy eater is an essential part of
effective parenting. Children who have a relaxed and positive relationship with food
and eating are much less likely to struggle with health and weight problems as they
grow up.

Join me for an informal and interactive workshop that will give you a clear sense
of what it takes to raise a healthy eater. I will provide you with simple, practical
strategies for feeding your family at any age and stage, and I will leave you with
tips to prevent and deal with the most common feeding and eating challenges.

Participants will leave this workshop with:
• A clear picture of what a “healthy eater” looks like
• A simple, powerful strategy for empowering your children to become healthy, independent eaters
• Confidence in understanding what not to worry about when it comes to feeding your kids
• Practical tips for preventing common pitfalls
• Tools for successfully managing the challenges of busy family life
• Strategies for handling picky eaters
• Simple rules for healthier eating in the real world

Time: 7:00 – 9:00pm

Cost: $20 per person

Please contact Diane in the Centre’s office  at 905-813-7318 to register and reserve your spot!

I hope to see you there!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Here we are again. The day that motivates us to wear our hearts on our sleeves, to tell those special people how we feel, and to probably indulge with some flowers, sweets and treats.  If there’s one holiday that screams “chocolate,”  this is it!

So, how does all of this go down with someone who works through the year to promote healthy eating?  Well, if you called me last night (as a future client did), you’ d have caught me in the middle of baking these decadent treats for my sweetheart and my family. As I explained to the shocked voice on the other end of the line, I believe that all things can fit in a healthy diet.  It just comes down to how often you eat them.  I also believe that if you’re going to indulge, then make it worthwhile.  You won’t catch me eating that waxy,  ”chocolatey-flavoured” stuff or baking with artificial ingredients.  No, if I’m going to have some chocolate or bake some treats they’re going to be real food all the way!  I find that when it’s top quality, a little bit goes a long way to making you feel satisfied.

Helping your kids to manage the onslaught of sugary hearts can be a challenge.  You have to do what you feel comfortable with, and there’s a host of outside influences you have to balance.  My best advice is to help your kids understand the difference between “every day foods” and “sometimes foods.”   That’s a much better approach than labeling foods as “good” or “bad.”

Many schools are now opting for non-sugary celebrations, and there are plenty of ways to create Valentine’s treats that don’t rely on candy.  From heart shaped fruit and veggie cutouts to homemade messages of love and friendship, kids can certainly get the point that candy hearts are not required to make this day a special one.

Here’s a fun idea for your kids.  Take a look around and see what amazing real foods you can find that are natural “valentines”.  Sometimes simply slicing fruits and veggies in different ways can reveal magical things!  As you can see, I’ve found a few pictures for inspiration.  Let me know what else you find!

Have a sweet and wonderful day!

If you’d like to book Janet  for an entertaining interactive workshop or presentation with your group or organization,  click here.

Is there anyone out there who doesn’t agree that eating more veggies and fruit is good for you? Probably not, but in case you’ve missed the message about the simplest way to improve your overall health here’s one more piece of wonderful evidence:

In a new study that was just published in the British Journal of Health Psychology, researchers found a strong link between consumption of fruit and vegetables and improved mood!  They surveyed 281 young adults, and found that, “on days when people ate more fruits and vegetables, they reported feeling calmer, happier and more energetic than they normally did.”  Now that sounds like a good thing, doesn’t it!

I’m well aware that it’s tough to establish a cause-and-effect relationship in research of this type and the researchers agreed as well.  However, they did additional analysis and found that increased fruit and vegetable consumption was actually predictive of improved mood the following day!   Pretty convincing stuff I’d say.

So if you’re still feeling the effects of Blue Monday and struggling with the bleak reality of yet another day of sub zero temperatures, help is easier than you think.  Throw together a big, beautiful salad, pop an extra piece of fruit in your lunch bag, and toss together a rainbow-inspired stir-fry for tonight’s dinner.  It might just make you smile!

Have a wonderful day!

 If you’d like to book Janet  for an entertaining interactive experience with your group or organization,  click here.

Happy New Year!

I hope you had a wonderful holiday with all the special people in your life.  We enjoyed a restful and relaxing time with the whole family – it’s always a real treat for me to have all of my kids under my roof.

So here we are… January 3!  It’s minus 10 degrees outside, and it’s been snowing for almost 2 days straight.  While a few members of my family are back to work today, I’m sitting here at the kitchen table, browsing through all the news and blogs I’ve neglected over these past few lazy weeks.  I’m always struck by the barrage of energy, enthusiasm and … plans that spring forth in the early days of every new year. Everywhere you turn there is someone trying to get you to shape up, detox, cleanse, de-clutter, and generally whip your body and your life into shape!  Is it just me, or is it all a bit overwhelming?  I have to be honest; right now I feel like retreating under the covers for a cozy nap!

I’ve written before about NewYear’s resolutions and why I’m not a fan.  I prefer to keep things simple and realistic, and I think that it’s much better to take a look at what you do every day all year, rather than trying to overhaul your life because the calendar rolled over.

While the notion of a shiny new year can be motivating, the reality of post-holiday sluggishness and chilly, dreary weather can undermine the best laid plans.  Let’s face it; winter is a time to retreat, hibernate, curl up and reflect.  For me, it’s a season of hearty, warming soups and stews; of cinnamon and ginger, and the earthy comfort of  root vegetables.  So get cozy and enjoy this lovely season. Spring will come rolling by soon enough, and then we can burst forth with the sunshine and sprouting seedlings!

If you must make any resolutions at all, here’s a good one to try:  why not resolve to make more of your own food from scratch?  There’s no better way to ensure that you’re eating and feeding your family better.  You’ll end up eating more whole foods, less junk, and  you’ll probably save a bunch of money too!  Pretty much anything you make yourself is sure to taste better than store-bought too!

Here’s a wonderful place to start:  This granola recipe is adapted from this one.  I cut down the sugar and upped the spices to suit my taste.  It’s super easy, and sooo delicious!  It’s also a great recipe to get the kids involved with.  I gave jars of this as part of my holiday gifts this year, and it was so well received.  Give it a try!

Easy, Cozy, Yummy Granola

3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 1/2 cups sliced or slivered almonds
1 cup raw pumpkin seeds (pepitas), hulled
1 cup coconut chips
3/4 cup pure maple syrup
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

• Preheat oven to 300°F.
• In a large bowl, combine oats, almonds, pumpkin seeds, coconut chips, maple syrup, olive oil, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon and spices.
• Spread mixture on a rimmed baking sheet in an even layer and bake for 45 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes, until golden brown and well toasted.
• Let cool and store in an airtight jar.

 If you’d like to book Janet  for an entertaining interactive experience with your group or organization,  click here.

Click on the link to view the flyer with all the details:

Dec 1 Canning Flyer revised

Last weekend I partnered with Fresh City Farms and led the first of a series of workshops introducing people to home canning.  Now transferring knowledge is wonderful and important, but the real mission of these workshops is to empower people with skills.  I told the group that I’d feel successful if they went on to actually try some home canning themselves.  Being able to confidently and safely preserve the bounty of the harvest is a wonderful way for people to get closer to fresh, local food all year long.

So, back to the email.  Yesterday morning I noticed it in my inbox.  It was from Trevor, a participant in one of last Sunday’s workshops.    The subject line simply said “One week…” and then the first line read, “…and look at our efforts!”  He attached this picture:

I was completely blown away!  To see the incredible work that Trevor and his friend had done within one week after attending my workshop made me feel like such a proud mom.  They are definitely on the way to becoming seasoned home canners!  To think that I played a small role in enabling them to reach that point is both humbling and exhilarating.

I launched Rainbow Plate this year because I believe with all my heart that connecting people with food is crucial for a healthy future.  We are living in a world where people will sit on the sofa for hours watching celebrities cook, and then go and order take-out pizza for dinner.  Many kids don’t know the difference between a tomato and a potato, and they aren’t sure exactly where these healthy foods come from!  So, after years teaching nutrition in an academic setting, I decided to use my skills and experience to help inspire, engage and connect people with beautiful, fresh, real FOOD!

Since February I’ve worked with wonderful groups of children and adults, ranging in age from 2 to 80!  I’ve sat on the floor surrounded by a rainbow of vegetables,  

I’ve motivated elementary kids to chop, dice and cook vegetables for “rainbow soup” and “rainbow wraps”  

and I’ve engaged parents in discussions of how to eat real food as a family and how to raise kids who are healthy eaters.  

And yes, I’ve recently been teaching people how to preserve rainbows of beautiful food through the age old art of home canning:  

It’s hard to believe that it has only been seven months since I took a leap of faith and made this my full-time work!   No matter what I’ve been involved in, the greatest rewards have come from feedback that I have made a difference. To hear a parent say that they tried a new food or approached feeding their toddler differently, or to hear that a child helped create a rainbow plate at dinner has made my heart sing.  When Trevor emailed me the photos of his accomplishments I was beyond thrilled.  Helping people to do things differently is what I am working towards.  Thank you so much to all those who have shared your feedback and comments to let me know that I am on the right track!

With a new school year beginning tomorrow, I’m so excited to say that my calendar is filling up with wonderful opportunities.  Rainbow Plate will be reaching out and engaging hundreds of people in the months ahead.  I can’t wait.  We’re going to have so much fun!!  

Wishing you all the best for the new school year!  I’m looking forward to working with you!

Janet

If you’d like to book Janet  for an entertaining interactive experience with your group or organization,  click here.

Image source: NBCnews.com

Heading off to college or university is a huge step for most teens. For some, it may be the first time they will be living on their own away from home. There are so many things to do and so many new experiences to prepare for. Getting ready involves choosing courses, picking roommates, loading up on school supplies and dorm or apartment essentials.

As parents, we do everything we can to set our kids on the path to success. In the flurry of activity as you prepare your child for departure, have you spent any time talking to them about how and what they will eat?

For a limited time I’m offering FOOD 101: a small-scale, hands-on, interactive workshop designed to prepare your child for success away from home.

Each three-hour workshop is limited to only 5 participants.  Together we’ll discuss the importance and challenge of eating well while away at school, and I’ll provide the students with the information and skills to make it easy.

The workshop will cover:

• How to avoid the “Freshman 15”
• What to stock in your apartment kitchen or dorm room fridge
• How to make the best choices in the cafeteria or fast food restaurant
• How to eat for optimum energy
• How to eat well on a student budget
• Simple, delicious recipes that you can make, even if you’ve never cooked before!

I’m only offering this workshop three times, so register soon – spaces will fill quickly!

Saturday, Aug.18      2-5pm
Tuesday, Aug. 21      7-10pm
Thursday, Aug. 23   7-10pm

All workshops will take place in Thornhill, ON

Fee:  $125 plus hst  (includes all materials)

To register:  Email me at janet.nezon@rogers.com

I’m looking forward to helping your kids get off to a healthy start!

Are you looking for a way to preserve all that local, seasonal goodness you’re enjoying right now? Join me for one of the canning workshops I’ll be leading, sponsored by Fresh City Farms.

If you don’t already know about them, Fresh City is an amazing organization, working to “create and perfect new ways to connect food makers and eaters.” They are an innovative and entrepreneurial group of individuals.  Here’s a short quote from their website:

Fresh City strives to play a role in challenging the status quo. We want to re-connect people with the rhythm of farming by re-introducing it to their daily lives. For most of us today, farming is an invisible activity.  Many of us have lost all contact with the very activity that 10,000 years ago set our species off on our present course. By cultivating delicious food right around your corner and partnering with other quality local artisans, we aim to provide you with a food experience that respects our bodies, our planet and our shared tomorrow. 

I’m so delighted to be partnering with this wonderful organization again.  I’ll be leading a series of introductory canning workshops to help introduce you to this age old method of “putting up” the seasonal bounty of delicious produce we’re enjoying right now.

The workshops are 1.5 hours long and workshop participants get a 3-piece canning kit as well as a starter recipe booklet. Workshops are held at two convenient downtown locations including Merchants of Green Coffee (2 Matilda St., Queen/DVP) and Patagonia (500 King St. W., King/Spadina).

In each workshop I’ll cover the basic principles of canning, address health and safety issues, and do a detailed demonstration of a seasonal canning recipe. I’ll then introduce a couple of other recipes to round out the workshop. All workshops will feature the localest, freshest organic produce available through Fresh City Farms of course!

This is the perfect event for you if you’re a novice to the world of canning and preserving, or if a bumper zucchini crop is looming in your garden! You’ll be amazed at how simple it is to preserve the beauty and goodness of the harvest yourself.

I hope to see you at one of the workshops.  Leave a comment below and let me know if you’re coming!

More magic!!

If you read my last post then you saw the beautiful veggies I magically pulled out of my garden the other day.  You also read that I planned to re-create an amazing dish I had last week at Life Alive – an incredible restaurant in Salem, Mass. Well, there it is!

Now, it’s not always possible to exactly replicate a particular dish, but this is a pretty good spin on the Goddess bowl that I enjoyed there. As usual, this is less of a recipe and more of a suggestion. I always forget to document exactly what I’m doing while I do it! Don’t worry – cooking is all about messing around with lovely fresh food and making things turn out to suit your own taste!

So here’s what I did:

• Cooked up some short grain brown rice in my rice cooker. (If you don’t have one of these, I highly recommend getting one!)  Of course you can use any whole grain you like.
• Set up my steamer basket over some boiling water in a large stainless steel pot. (I just put in this link so you can see what I mean. You can buy these for a few dollars at most grocery stores.)
• I washed and trimmed the veggies I picked from my garden: 4 beets, 4 carrots (in various colours!), a handful of kale, a handful of rainbow chard.  I cut the stems out of the kale, but chopped and used the stems from the chard.
• I put the veggies into the steamer basket in order of how long they would take to cook:
• First the beets (about 10 min), then the carrots (about 4-5 min) then the kale, and finally the chard. As each veggie was done I just took it out and placed the next one in the basket.
• While the veggies were steaming, I made some tahini-ginger sauce to drizzle on top:  I put about 1/2 cup of tahini, a scoop of sunflower seed butter, a big chunk of peeled fresh ginger, a clove of garlic, a generous splash (a few tablespoons?) of tamari, and a small drizzle of agave into my blender.  I kept blending it up until it was smooth, adding warm water to thin it out (maybe 1/2 cup?) and adjusting the seasonings until I liked the taste.  Of course, you can modify this however you like.  A bit of lemon or lime juice, hot sauce, cumin, or cayenne would all be great.
• Finally I added some shelled edamame to the steamer and cooked them until they were just tender-crisp.
• I sliced the carrots, peeled and diced the beets, and chopped the greens.
• I layered everything on a plate in this order: rice, greens, edamame, carrots and beets. Then drizzled it all with the sauce.

This was dish mostly organically grown right in my backyard, beautiful to look at, and most importantly – it was sooooo delicious!!  Now get going and give it a try!  Why don’t you send me a picture of what you cook up!

If you’d like to book Janet  for an entertaining interactive workshop with your group or organization,  click here.

This is just a short little post, but I’m so excited that I just had to share it with you!

I’ve always had a few tomato plants in my yard, and over the last few years I’ve had success with greens like kale and chard. This year, for the first time, I expanded my veggie gardening horizons. I enriched the soil with lots of compost and I carefully sowed rows of seeds. I planted carrots in three different colours, and my favourite veggie – beets! I watched as those seeds sprouted up and their leaves took shape. I have carefully tended my little plot through this terribly dry summer; faithfully watering when things were looking rather parched.

When growing root vegetables, the urge to pull them up to see if they are ready is hard to resist. I’ve held back and only given in once or twice, just to be disappointed by the miniature carrot on the other end of those leafy fronds. So I’ve watched and I’ve waited…

In the past few days we’ve had an incredible amount of rain here. It almost seems to cancel out the dry conditions of the past 2 months. Today I decided it was time to see what was lurking under all those leafy greens. I grabbed hold of the greens and pulled, and … voila!

If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is! Now if a grownup like me can get this excited by a few root veggies, can you imagine how magical this would be for your kids? I’ve said it before – kids will eat what they have helped to grow!

I pulled up a little rainbow-coloured harvest for tonight’s dinner. (Don’t worry – there’s still much more to come!)  I’m going to try and re-create a dish that I had at Life Alive last week when we were on vacation. It’s called The Goddess. Brown rice topped with steamed kale, carrots, broccoli and beets; with sprouted legumes and a ginger sauce on top! It was so delicious – and beautiful!

If you’d like to book Janet  for an entertaining interactive workshop with your group or organization,  click here.