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Jeanne Angleberger, Shaklee Associate for a Healthier Life

Before we greet 2016, let’s recap some healthy memories of 2015.

Here is a recap of the healthy tips shared with The Catoctin Banner readers this year.

Take an evaluation of your health. Get a complete physical. Decide what changes are necessary to improve your health. Make a plan.

American Heart Month encourages Americans to recognize heart disease. A heart-healthy lifestyle should include daily exercise, eating a balanced diet, maintaining a healthy weight, avoiding tobacco use, and moderating alcohol consumption.

Learn to choose a healthy frozen meal by reading the nutritional label. Processed foods are generally higher in saturated fats and sodium.

Environmental Nutrition is a newsletter of food, nutrition, and health. Nutrition Action Healthletter is published by The Center for Science in the Public Interest. Both are excellent resources.

The Blue Zones Solution: Eating and Living Like the World’s Healthiest People is authored by Dan Buettner. He shares the most important longevity-boosting habits of centenarians.

Remember to protect your skin by applying UVA/UVB sun block. Have an annual full-body skin exam by a dermatologist.

Exchange a high-caloric snack for a vegetable or fresh fruit. Freshly picked fruits and vegetables taste the best and have the highest nutrition.

Healthy aging is possible!  Exercising, eating well, spirituality and good sleep have positive effects on physical health.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is now taking steps to remove trans fat from foods. Partially hydrogenated oil is the source of artificial trans fat.

You can add flavor to food preparation without the salt shaker. Citrus fruits offer a bold array of flavor.

People consume an average of 200 more calories a day when dining out. Remember, empty calories can be consumed via sugar-sweetened beverages. Reduce your caloric intake by a home-cooked meal. Family and nutrition make a great combination.

Being committed to living a healthy lifestyle is a choice. Year 2016 awaits your choice—make it a good one!

by Jeanne Angleberger, Shaklee Associate for a Healthier Life

When you cook and eat at home, do you weigh less? Definitely! People who eat out consume an average of 200 more calories a day. So, what can you do to lower your caloric intake? Listen up!

Foods eaten at restaurants and fast-food establishments usually contain more sugar, salt, and unhealthful saturated fats. Sure, the food may taste great, but beware of the extra calories you’re taking in.

The large portions are one of the culprits. People feel they should eat the entire dish. Ask the waiter to put half of the meal in a take-out container before you start eating.

Ordering a sugar-sweetened beverage instead of water adds extra calories. These are empty calories you are consuming—we can sometimes forget about liquids when figuring out our caloric intake.

Having salad dressing and sauces on the side can help with your calorie count as well. They contain fats, sugar, and salt. A healthy salad can become unhealthy right before your eyes!

Hold the bread basket! Usually, freshly-baked bread or rolls are served first. Why not? Yours truly admits that they are hard to refuse. Make the right choice!

Cooking and eating at home can reduce calories. Also, when cooking at home, you can control how much fat, salt, and sugar is added to your meals.

Challenge yourself. Decide to cook at home. A basic meal can be chicken and vegetables. An easy and nutritious vegetable dish is a combination of steamed veggies: Try steaming carrots, cabbage, green beans, and peas; season with pepper, reduced-sodium Old Bay Seasoning, and a dash of Cumin. Tasty and nutritious!

So, how exciting to partake in eating a nutritious meal with your family members. Healthiness is learned. Why not begin with the most important people, your family!

Buck Reed, The Supermarket Gourmet

Just like every other month, June is filled with national and international food recognitions. Some make sense and others were clearly conceived by some advertising agent hoping to make a fast buck. Here are a few.

June is National Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Month. This makes sense because this is the first month in which really good, fresh local produce can easily be purchased. It is also National Iced Tea Month, because we need to be told to drink iced tea when it gets hot out. It should also be noted that Iced Tea Day is also celebrated on June 10. National Steakhouse Month and National Candy Month also fall in June, but don’t we really keep these in our hearts all through the year?

Most perplexing of all, though, is that National Turkey Month is celebrated in June as well. I guess it is just a bit too easy to appreciate turkey in November. Put Ginger Bread Day on June 5 in the same category, and it’s practically Thanksgiving in summer.

Doughnuts and ice cream get their due in June. National Doughnut Day on the June 5 and National Jelly Doughnut Day is June 8. Rocky Road Ice Cream Day is on June 2 and Chocolate Ice Cream Day is June 7. And then we have Frozen Yogurt Day on June 4, to keep something a bit healthier in mind. Don’t forget Root Beer Float Day, officially called Black Cow Day, on June 10, and Vanilla Milkshake Day on June 20. The Baskin Robbins/Dunkin’ Donuts® merger doesn’t seem so crazy now, does it?

And for those who bake, we have Strawberry Shortcake Day, German Chocolate Cake Day, and Applesauce Cake Day. Round it out with Apple Strudel Day, Strawberry & Rhubarb Pie Day, as well as Peanut Butter Cookie Day, and June becomes one sweet month. Maybe we should just celebrate the baker as well. 

So, why do we really have all these seemingly silly holidays celebrating what we eat? It is easy to be cynical and believe some Wall Street mogul, who is somehow leveraging these “holidays” into the cornerstone of their mighty empire, invented all these. At the very least, we can be grateful that the greeting card companies have not wedged their way in yet.

Yet I look on it with a tribe-like mentality. The tribe not only celebrated everything, but also treated it as sacred. At one point in history, our ancestors thought about what they ate and drank. They took the time to appreciate their meals and even celebrated them with others. The idea was that everything had its place in their world. That made everything sacred. And if everything wasn’t sacred, then nothing was.

So maybe taking an extra moment out of our lives to enjoy a glass of cognac with our fellow comrades on National Cognac Day this June 4th is a good start to making our society just a little more reasonable.

Have a question or an idea for an article, please contact me at RguyintheKitchen@aol.com.