Celebrate SUMMER with a MyPlate Picnic

The new USDA healthy eating graphic, ChooseMyPlate.gov, is a simple guide to smart meals anywhere. You can use MyPlate to quickly and easily plan healthful meals at home and on the go. MyPlate is perfect for summer picnics, since many picnic plates are already divided into sections!

PLAN

The KISS Principle (Keep It Super Simple) is a delicious way to make picnics popular with people of all ages. Choose a limited number of foods (no more than 4 to 5 items) that can all be served at the same time. Make the meal fun with a simple theme - like red, white, and blue foods for the 4th of July or an all-kebob meal on small skewers.

• Plan picnics for the yard, park, or lake: A picnic can make any meal special. Use beach towels for lunch in the backyard or pack a weeknight dinner to the park.
• Plan to keep picnic food safe: Always keep cold foods cold and hot foods hot. Frozen water bottles and juice boxes can do double duty as drinks and as chill packs.
• Plan active fun with your picnic: Plan to play before and/or after you eat. Bring along a Frisbee® or two. Pack some balls (or water balloons when it is really hot).
  

EAT

• Go fresh with fruits and veggies: Summertime is a very tasty time to follow the MyPlate tip to fill half your plate with fruits and vegetables. Farmer’s markets and supermarkets have local produce at great prices. It’s easy to prepare simple tossed or fruit salads at home. Or take a bag of baby carrots and slice a melon once you arrive.
• Go hearty with whole grains: Sandwiches, wraps, and pita pockets are perfect for picnics. MyPlate says to make half your grains whole, like whole wheat bread for sandwiches. Whole grains (cracked wheat, barley, brown rice, and the exotic quinoa) also make delicious cold salads, with chopped veggies and light dressings.
• Go smart with protein and dairy: MyPlate suggests protein and dairy foods at every meal. Protein can be tuna in a sandwich or a cold salad with black beans or chickpeas. Serve well-chilled plain or flavored milk (fat-free or 1%) or refreshing drinkable yogurts. String cheese is always popular with kids and easy to carry along.

ENJOY

Treat your family to regular picnic times this summer. Everyone can enjoy time to eat in a relaxed and casual setting. Just remember to keep fun on the menu!!

Super Staycation Tips

There are some great reasons that families are taking a staycation this summer and staying close to home for vacation fun.

Staycations are a great way to save money - and reduce family stress in these tough times. Not only do they help the family budget, they also limit long, noisy hours in a car or the hassles of airplane travel.

Active staycations are also a great way to have play together. Here's a simple way to start:

• Start with a map of Montana - or your state (online, in an atlas, or the highway map available at visitor centers).
• Decide the maximum distance you want to travel in a day (5, 10, or 50 miles, for example). Draw a circle on the map of your chosen distance in all directions.
• Make a family list of all the places and events within the circle that you would like to visit. If you live in Montana and need help finding things to do, go to Explore Montana's Regions & Towns.
• Write each of the destinations on a piece of paper and put them into a hat or bag.
• Pick one fun destination every time you need a place to go. Give all family members a chance to pick the place-of-the-day, the picnic-of-the-day, and how to make the day as active as possible.

These close-to-home vacations can be filled with summer fun:

• Get soaked at a spray park. Many communities have new public facilities just waiting to be discovered, like spray or water parks. Make it a full day adventure by hiking or biking to/from the park. Pack a picnic with plenty of fruits and veggies - and be sure to bring lots of refreshing ice water. Pack non-water toys too (balls, jump ropes, Frisbees®, etc.) for some variety in your activity.
• Explore a local trail map. This one could take a day or a week, depending on the extent of your trail system. Explore all the trails in a town or at nearby historical sites, wildlife refuges, and county parks. Let each family member pick the trail-of-the-day and plan a healthful picnic to fuel your adventures. Be sure to take plenty of silly family photos to document the memories.

There are even staycations you can enjoy without getting in the car. Kids and adults love scavenger hunts and obstacle courses.

• Set up a scavenger hunt. The possibilities are only limited by your family’s imagination! The items to be found can be real or digital (just a picture of something), simple (a rock), or complicated (a fossil). The list can also be as long or as short as you like. Need a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing? Check out these Scavenger Hunt instructions.
• Go for the gold with backyard Olympics. Here’s another staycation that could take an afternoon - or be extended over a week with different games in different places around your neighborhood or town. People can enter as individuals or as family teams. The types of events are unlimited. Maybe you’d like to include the 25-yard lawn crawl, a water balloon toss, a tug-o-war, or a limbo contest? There are also those ‘real’ Olympic sports, such as soccer, tennis, and ping-pong. Other options wacky races (three-legged, egg-on-spoon, etc.) or 3-point basketball in a driveway.

A guest post on The Dairy Report

Taking a short break from this month's theme of getting active outdoors, I invite you to visit my guest blog on The Dairy Report today.

A Toast to the New Dietary Guidelines and MyPlate outlines some of my initial thoughts on the food icon from USDA. Enjoy!!

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I’d like to propose a toast―with a tall glass of ice cold, fat-free milk―to the recent advancements in U.S. dietary guidance: the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) and MyPlate. Both the detailed guidelines and the plate icon serve up unlimited opportunities for Americans to take simple, delicious steps to eat better and feel better every day.

A toast is especially in order because of a concept that has never before appeared in American dietary guidance. The very first tip on the revamped USDA MyPlate website reads: Enjoy your food, but eat less. The inclusion of enjoy in the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans and MyPlate serves as an effective recognition of how important the taste of food is in helping consumers make healthier choices. This is a positive and realistic way to inspire Americans to get the most nutrition for their calories by focusing on enjoying food instead of avoiding food.

The new guidelines also urge Americans to be more adventurous in choosing healthful, nutrient-dense foods. Recognizing that new worlds of taste and texture exist when families explore new foods, MyPlate tips suggest dozens of tasty ways to expand food horizons to enjoy a variety of tastes from each group, every day. A few examples include:

• Get creative with your salad: Toss in shredded carrots, strawberries, spinach, watercress, orange segments, or sweet peas for a flavorful, fun salad.
• Ingredient switches: When recipes such as dips call for sour cream, substitute plain yogurt. Use fat-free evaporated milk instead of cream, and try low-fat ricotta cheese as a substitute for cream cheese.
• Be a good food role model: Try new foods yourself. Describe its taste, texture, and smell. Offer children one new food at a time. Serve something your child likes along with the new food. Offer new foods at the beginning of a meal, when your child is very hungry. Avoid lecturing or forcing your child to eat.

A new tool from National Dairy Council―Filling Your Plate The Dietary Guidelines Way―serves up the new advice in a practical meal plan. This simple plan provides a flexible and realistic way to get the most nutrition for your calories by focusing on nutrient-dense foods and beverages such as low-fat or fat-free milk and milk products, fruits, vegetables, lean protein and whole grains―just like the 2010 Dietary Guidelines and MyPlate. The plan also directly addresses the “gap nutrients” identified as nutrients of concern by the Guidelines: potassium, dietary fiber, calcium and vitamin D. It provides delicious sources of these critical nutrients in vegetables, fruits, whole grains and milk and milk products.

In three balanced meals and two easy snacks, Filling Your Plate the Dietary Guidelines Way illustrates how easy and tasty healthy eating habits can be. Here are a few of the highlights:

BREAKFAST: Jump Start the Day Parfait

• This super-simple, eat-anywhere breakfast supports the DGA guidance to wake up to a nutrient-dense breakfast every day in order to help meet nutritional recommendations and help manage weight. This meal helps fill those nutrient gaps for potassium, dietary fiber, calcium and vitamin D if the yogurt and/or cereal is vitamin D-fortified.

LUNCH: Hearty Roast Beef Sandwich

• This satisfying lunch could easily be brought from home and similar options are increasingly available from delis and restaurants. The glass (or carton) of fat-free milk delivers nine essential nutrients important for good health, including calcium, potassium, phosphorus, protein, vitamins A and D, B12, riboflavin and niacin (niacin equivalents). Few foods provide this unique contribution of nutrients.

DINNER: Salmon with Fruit Salsa

• This colorful meal is an almost picture-perfect example of the MyPlate icon, with salmon for protein, rice for a grain and half the plate filled with green beans and a tropical fresh fruit salsa. The glass of low-fat or fat-free milk helps meets the DGA and Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) recommendations for three servings of low-fat or fat-free dairy foods per day, a strong testament to the value of dairy in the diet.

SNACKS: Apple Dippers and Hummus/Veggie Plate

• Both smart snacks illustrate practical ways to increase fruit and vegetable consumption for both children and adults. The crunchy textures and flavorful, protein-rich dips are fun ways to satisfy between-meal hunger and give your taste buds a treat.

5 Smart Ways to Keep the Fun in Fishing

A day of fishing can provide hours of family fun and plenty of physical activity too. To make the most of your fishing hours (and perhaps to make a few more catches too), pay attention to nutrition and safety before you start and once you’re on the water. The Scout motto of “Be Prepared” is always a good one to keep in mind (as my brother, nephew, and friend are here on east Rosebud Lake).

1. Eat breakfast.

Even when you are eager to start casting, a balanced breakfast is worth the time it takes. For maximum mental focus, enjoy a morning meal with a mix of carbohydrate and protein. A hearty bowl of oatmeal with raisins and nuts will stick with you for several hours. A breakfast sandwich, wrap, or burrito with eggs and some lean meat will also do the trick.

2. Carry smart snacks.

If you’re walking a stream or hiking to a mountain lake, you’ll need snacks that are big on nutrients and energy, but easy to carry. Cheese, nuts, and jerky as well as fresh and dried fruit are great choices. If you’re packing a cooler for a drift boat or canoe, pack it with cut-up veggies, fresh fruit, and sandwiches on whole grain breads, along with a few chips or sweets.

3. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.

Even a little dehydration can spoil an otherwise wonderful day of fishing. Avoid headaches and crankiness by drinking plenty of refreshing fluids. Frozen water bottles are the perfect choice for hot days, since they keep food safe and then provide an ice cold beverage. Save any alcoholic beverages for the end of the trip; they dehydrate when you need fluids most.

4. Practice sun protection.

Hot summer sun and the glare from the water can be very hard on skin and eyes, even on seemingly cloudy days. Keep covered with a hat or visor and a light, long-sleeved shirt and pants. Apply sunscreen before you dress (to cover hard to reach areas) and every 2 to 3 hours throughout the day. A good pair of sunglasses is also essential.

5. Be water safe.

Since bad weather or an accident can happen anytime, always practice water safety. Make sure that everyone has a properly-fitted life vest and that they wear it at all times. Choose snug fitting water shoes; bare feet get banged up easily and make it difficult to get around on slippery rocks. Be aware of lightning; get off the water and get fishing poles on the ground.