Lifestyle

L.A .Chef Shares Her Secrets of Making a Perfect Thanksgiving Turkey

By Cari Levin
photoFall is in the air. Kids are settled into the rhythm of school and homework. You are once again enjoying the freedom of owning your life from 8 to 3 Monday thru Friday. All is good. And then it hits you, it is “YOUR year” to cook Thanksgiving Dinner.

Visions of cookbooks strewn across the kitchen counter race through your head. What is THIS year’s turkey trend? You escaped the deep fryer, the brine and the infamous ButterBall “pop-up” turkey. Friends swear by cooking it in a brown bag while you continue to wonder why that bag doesn’t catch on fire in a grease filled 350 oven. You’re mother-in-law constantly explains the importance of, “starting the turkey breast side up and FLIPPING it over midway through cooking” and again you can’t help but wonder how safe that is.
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Education

Holiday Survival Tips

By Samara Fabrick, LCSW
samaraThe holidays are fast approaching and we all have different reactions to this time of year. Media portrays this season as a happy one filled with smiling relatives giving expensive gifts and wearing beautiful clothes. Some of you can relate to these ebullient folk as something that resembles your own holiday experiences. However, many dread this “cheery” season and know that the last thing that puts a smile on their face is dealing with their family and their spouse’s family.
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Health

Finding the Right Fibroid Treatment to Maintain Fertility

By Bruce McLucas, MD, Fibroid Treatment Collective
bruceFibroid tumors are benign growths within the uterus. They affect 40 percent of women over the age of 40, and cause problems for countless younger women who wish to have a family.

Fibroids can cause the uterus to change shape, which can decrease fertility. The main problems caused by fibroids are miscarriage, loss of pregnancy, premature delivery, increased chance of cesarean section and bleeding after delivery. In addition, fibroids may cause separation of the placenta from the uterus, with the possibility of death of the fetus. Usually, we do not advise our patients to attempt pregnancy until they have undergone treatment for their fibroid problems.
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Directory

Creating the Perfect Thanksgiving Feast

By Erica Friedman
ericaThanksgiving is the season for celebrating family and friends, which is why this holiday is my favorite. I always go the extra mile to make the festivities fun for kids and meaningful for everyone else.

I like to start setting the mood with decorations and preparations far in advance of actually sitting down to eat. After Halloween has shut down the scary season, I like to take my children to the local farm. We buy small pumpkins and other festive looking squashes. Don’t worry if you can’t make it to a local farm – just visit your local Trader Joe’s, which has really been getting into the holiday season. You can find pomegranates, small pumpkins, squashes, irregular pumpkins, twigs with small pumpkins on them and beautiful colored oversized leaves. You really do not have to go very far to gather a few items to enhance your table and buffet decor.
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Directory

Halloween Party Ideas

By Erica Friedman
ericaBoo. Let the friendly witch hop on her broom so she can spread love, delicious food, touches of elegance and fun and laughter throughout your haunted home.

When hosting a Halloween party, it is always important to figure out for whom you are entertaining. Often times, it is equally for the kid in all of us as it is for our actual children. If you have toddlers, you are going to want to make sure the ghosts and goblins are funny and inviting (think Caspar the Friendly Ghost). But, if you are hosting teenagers, do not be afraid to make it as scary as you can! Either way, the food, drinks, lighting, place settings and décor can all be a lot of fun – fill them with handmade creativity and personal touches.
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Lifestyle

Healthy Halloween Treats On A Stick

By Annie Daulter
halloweenpopsFall is my favorite time of year, but my kids miss the warm summer days. I want to share a festive Fall treat that will trick your little ones into thinking it’s summer time all over again.

Harvest Pops
My 3 year old Bodhi, is a picky eater. I mean really picky, and for a mom like me who is obsessed with good foods, it often makes me crazy that he won’t eat. However, one thing he does like are popsicles! This inspired to me to start making all kinds of healthy pops and so, I did what I do…I wrote a book about it!
These Harvest Pops and many others will be featured in my newest book, Ice Pop Joy next March (Sellers, Spring 2011). So this Halloween, instead of putting candied apples on a stick, puree your apples and some butternut squash and make a fun new ice pop treat! They might sound scary, but the real trick is, they are actually a delicious treat!
Harvest Pops
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Education

Empowering Children to Make Their Food Decisions

By Dr. Judy Bin-Nun
nathlieIt is always best that we see “feeding” as a “Line of Development” as the scholar Anna Freud discussed. Anna Freud’s line went from “feeding to rational eating” as a specific developmental progression.
How to learn rational, intuitive eating unless children are able to explore foods, help themselves to food from a “family platter” or “family bowl?” The more a young child can select on his/her own meal portions, the more responsibility is taken in making independent food choices. Try not to pile food on your child’s plate, see what happens when the child begins to take responsibility for food at mealtime – make this a two-week experiment.
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Health

Tackling the Obesity Crisis

By Peter S. Waldstein, M.D., F.A.A.P and Julia A. White, M.D., F.A.A.P
DoctorStarting a healthy lifestyle is not something you begin only after there is a problem. Proper diet and nutrition in early childhood are essential. A child’s diet in the womb, during infancy, and as a toddler can have lifelong effects on his or her health.

Researchers are showing that baby’s food preference can be traced to the womb. For the first six months of a baby’s life, nutritional needs should be summed up in two words: breast milk. Human breast milk is perfectly designed for the building of infant brain tissue. It has six times the essential fatty acids of cow’s milk. This is imperative since the type of fat a baby consumes at this stage can affect brain development and function.

Babies are usually ready for solid foods after six months, but they should continue breast-feeding until at least one year. Unfortunately, only 15 percent of American infants reach that goal, and only six out of ten breast-feed at all. Mothers should also be concerned about what they are eating during this period. Infants can develop allergies to foods passed on through breast milk.
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Lifestyle

Cooking Healthy with Your Kids

Easy, fun recipes to make with your children.

By Catherine McCord
catherine I get countless emails every day from parents and readers of my website, weelicious.com, looking for advice because they can’t get their kids to eat anything healthy. As a mother of two kids under four, I understand all too well what a stress it can be trying to prepare three meals (and snacks) for your family 7 days a week.

So, how do we get kids to fall in love with fruits and vegetables and actually WANT to eat them? It’s important to realize that kids are told what to do and when to do it almost all day long, so when they have the ability to control something — like the food that goes in their body — they won’t hesitate to do it. And that can make life tough for concerned parents.
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Health

Dealing with Whooping Cough

By Peter S. Waldstein, M.D., F.A.A.P and Julia A. White, M.D., F.A.A.P
Doctor You may have heard about the recent epidemic of whooping cough in the news, and like most parents probably have many questions. Pertussis (also know as “whooping cough”) is a respiratory illness that is characterized by paroxysms of cough. Vaccinations greatly decrease the incidence of the disease, although we do see some cyclical peaks in activity. Now, pertussis has made a come back with this year being on track to have the most cases in almost 50 years. Infants and young children are the most severely affected, and it can be fatal especially in young infants. All of the fatalities from pertussis this year in California have been in children under the age of 3 months.

Whooping cough is a bacterial infection caused by the bacterium Bordatella pertussis. It may also be caused by Bordatella parapertussis, but less commonly. It is spread by contact with respiratory secretions or droplets of an infected person, and is most infectious during the initial catarrhal phase of the illness. A normal incubation period for the illness is about 7 to 10 days, but may be shorter or longer. After this, the symptoms start to appear.
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