Your goal this summer is to reduce sugar consumption. While it is fairly easy to regulate your own personal sugar intake, your focus now is going to be your kids!
You have a plan in place and goals set, but most importantly you are planning for success instead of simply winging it. If sugar consumption concerns you, it might be time to join the journey to create healthier meals and snacks. Sometimes having a plan and working with a team of others can help you achieve your goal if you are all in it together. Doctors and research studies alike have shown that eating sugar increases levels of glucose in the bloodstream, which, in turn, causes the pancreas to release insulin. Higher levels of insulin, as a result, cause a person’s body to store more food calories as fat. An even more serious consequence is that insulin also affects leptin, a hormone. This natural appetite suppressant tells the brains that the body is full and can stop eating. Imbalanced insulin levels, however, along with high consumption of fructose and other specific kinds of sugars has been linked to a condition called leptin resistance. This is a condition where the brain no longer receives the the message to stop eating, which leads to weight gain and obesity. And while reducing sugar consumption can seem like a noble goal, it is really a diet change that can be very difficult. For many of us, our bodies are conditioned to craving sugars and the process of reducing sugar consumption can be a real challenge.
What Are You Doing This Summer to Improve Your and Your Family’s Eating Habits?
Whether you are going to take on the daunting task of reducing sugars or you are simply going to add more dark green leafy organic micro greens to your lunches, it is always important to have a plan. Without one, it is far too easy to slip back into your old ways. Ways that are more simple because they often involve boxed cereals and prepackaged frozen, canned, or boxed meals.
Adding microgreens to salads and finding varieties of edible flowers, in contrast, can seem like a great idea if you plan ahead and make sure that you have a reliable resource for these items. Some of these items, like organic micro greens and other specialty produce may be found at some grocery stores. Many other stores, however, do not safe shelve or produce space for organic micro greens on a regular basis. The upscale segment of the restaurant industry makes up approximately 10% of total U.S. restaurant sales, and many of these establishments have long worked with specific suppliers to gain access to some of the more trendy, healthier foods. Now that the general public is getting better at studying labels and understanding the value of certain foods, however, it should come as no surprise that they are also in the market for a more healthy meal plan.
From reducing sugar intake to trying to create more attractive meals for family members of all age, summer is the perfect time to tackle new goals. Did you know, for instance, that when it comes to food presentation or plating, children prefer six different food colors and seven food components while adults prefer three colors and three food components.