How to make healthy food choices

Are you an overwrought mother, forever worrying about the eating habits of your children? You care about your child’s nutrition and know that it is related to growth and development but do not know how to make healthy food choices. Children grow and change rapidly in their early years. Being prepared will make life easier… [ Continue Reading ]

Diet for the Breastfeeding Mother

After months of looking forward to her birth, your baby is finally with you. But you also feel it’s high time you got back into your pre-pregnancy clothes. Hold on! Now you are breastfeeding and the baby depends on you for all her nutrition and growth. It is your responsibility to ensure that you take… [ Continue Reading ]

Breakfast: Is it Really Important?

I have a friend, Lisa, who is always cajoling her 13-year-old daughter, Maria, to have one healthy meal in a day. Maria’s constant refrain, however, is that she is never hungry. To make matters worse, she ignores breakfast completely. Some months ago, not only did Maria develop severe headaches, her performance in school showed a… [ Continue Reading ]

What are Special Foods? Diet Advice for Pregnant Women

When we say special foods, we are referring to anything that is not artificial – it has no preservatives or additives and is in sync with nature. Times are changing and most people have little or no time to cook complete meals. They prefer fast foods and do not mind if they are frozen or… [ Continue Reading ]

Better Methods of Cooking to Preserve the Nutrients

Every mother should have some basic knowledge of the right way of cooking food so that the food value is preserved. Cooking involves many processes like boiling, steaming, frying, roasting, or baking. Boiling and steaming result in comparatively greater loss of nutrients, particularly when the water is thrown away as in the case of rice… [ Continue Reading ]

Pregnancy Diet Pyramid: What to eat when you are pregnant

It’s time you took a long hard look at your diet and told yourself that you need to change some of your eating habits. Now, eating is not just about filling your stomach, but feeding two people. Yes, you’re right – sounds like loads of food. And to some extent, it is. But you needn’t… [ Continue Reading ]

Basic Health Care

The idea of health for all is attainment of a level of health that will permit all people to lead a productive life – socially, physically, mentally and economically. Unfortunately, only 10 to 20 percent of the population in developing countries have ready access to health services of any kind and enjoy all the determinants… [ Continue Reading ]

Spices of Life: characteristics of the styles of cooking in India

The home of spices! Not for nothing is India known by this epithet as over 50 of the widely-known spices and other countless ones are grown here. From ancient times onwards, sailing ships carried Indian spices to the Middle East and Europe. It was the lure of spices that brought western explorers like Vasco da… [ Continue Reading ]

Can a chubby-looking child be undernourished?

Ameya’s parents were shocked. The doctor attributed the plump 12-year-old’s lack of concentration and attentiveness to malnutrition. How could a chubby-looking child from an upper class family be undernourished, they wondered? Obviously Ameya’s parents have mistaken their obese child to be healthy. And obese child usually grows up to become an obese adult. What are… [ Continue Reading ]

Calorie and Nutrient Requirements during Pregnancy

When you are pregnant it is very important to eat regular, well-balanced meals as the food you eat provides nutrition to your baby. While tablets can make up for some deficiencies in a pregnant woman’s diet, the best way to get adequate protein, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals such as calcium, iron and vitamin C for… [ Continue Reading ]