Making healthy food choices while at school is important and can have an impact on a child’s overall health and well-being. However, our research shows that children don’t eat enough vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and healthy protein foods on school days. As parents, we often face multiple challenges when trying to pack a healthy lunch box, ranging from lack of ideas to limited time, picky eaters and food waste, school food allergy policies, food safety, and rising food costs. In response to these challenges, our team developed 15 Better Lunch Box recipes to make life easier and help you enjoy packing tasty lunches. These are guaranteed to meet the discerning taste buds of picky eaters and get your kids excited about lunch time.

A nourishing lunch box full of fresh foods gives your child energy to play, concentrate, and learn all day.

Canada’s Food Guide recommends limiting highly processed foods. These foods contribute excess sodium, sugars, or saturated fat to the diet which can increase the risk of chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and some types of cancer. 

To help Canadians make informed choices, Health Canada has introduced a nutrition symbol for the front of prepackaged foods that are high in these nutrients. 

Our team has developed this new mini-cookbook to help you and your family build important food skills and make homemade, convenient, and delicious recipes without excess sodium, sugar, and saturated fat.  We hope you enjoy it!

Food waste is a serious emergency in Canada and around the world. Here are four practical steps we can take this Earth Day to eat more healthily, reduce food waste and save the planet. Read the full article here: https://theconversation.com/earth-day-2024-4-effective-strategies-to-reduce-household-food-waste-224224

In today’s episode of Healthy Habits Happy Homes podcast, we are delighted to have Timothy Caulfield, a Professor in the Faculty of Law and the School of Public Health, the Research Director of the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta, and Canadian Research Chair in Health Law and Policy. Tim delves into challenging myths…

In this week’s episode, we are delighted to feature Nicole Osinga, a Registered Dietitian and Certified Diabetes Educator. Nicole joins us in discussing the influence of social media on family diets and the significant responsibility of online influencers in disseminating health information. Transcription:   Healthy Habits, Happy Homes Podcast Season 6, Episode 9 Guest: Nicole Osinga…

This week, we have a special and unique Healthy Habits Happy Homes podcast episode featuring the excellent work of three groups of fourth year Applied Human Nutrition students. These students were given the opportunity to conceptualize and develop a podcast episode as part of their fourth year Nutrition Education course. In today’s lineup, we feature…

In this week’s episode, we are joined by Dr. Amar Laila, a post-doctoral fellow with the EAT-Lancet 2.0 Commission and the Guelph Family Health Study. Dr. Laila shares insights on the role of fathers in mealtimes, discussing their influence on children’s development, their unique contributions to family dynamics, and offering strategies for fathers to become…

Obesity is considered a modern pandemic —and it is on the rise. One of the reasons health experts give for this phenomenon is the consumption of increasingly processed foods. A new study from the Guelph Family Health Study found an association between ultra processed food intake and markers of obesity in adults, but not their…

Plant-based proteins are protein-containing foods that come from plants instead of animals. Common plant-based proteins include foods such as beans, nuts, seeds and tofu.   Adding more plant-based proteins to your diet can provide multiples benefits.  Key among these include improving your health, improving the health of the planet and reducing your grocery bill. Read the…

Plant-Based Proteins: Recipes Made Easy-Peasy is a new, free cookbook available for download in English and French on the GFHS website that integrates plant proteins into both new and well-loved recipes. The 30 recipes in the e-book are designed to be great tasting, simple and quick to prepare for busy families with young children. Alongside…