Last night all the BetterU bloggers met Toni Kuehneman at Bergan Mercy. I don’t really know Toni’s title – she’s like the “dietician diva”, the “pharaoh of food labels" the “guru of grams”. All I know is she has a bunch of letter designations after her name and she could tell you anything you want to know about food including what time of day the oats in her oatmeal were harvested and what direction the wind blowing was at the time. (Ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but maybe not!) ;-) Thanks to my FlipCam from Rockbrook Camera, I’ll post a little snippet of Toni’s presentation.

WOW – did I learn a lot! I wish I had known all that stuff when I was young and especially when I was cooking for my children. I do remember the first time I gave one of my kids ice cream – they were about two and once they got that sweet taste in their mouth, that’s all they wanted! I didn’t realize what a disservice I was doing to their nutrition then and their food habits in the future. I’m so happy for my fellow bloggers Colleen and Jennie. They have little ones at home and they are working hard to establish good food habits with them now which not only will be great for their little growing bodies, but throughout their lives. I realize now how important that is.

Alegent has been awesome in helping all of us. Maggie Sweigart (who has a bunch of letter designations after her name too!) is an Exercise Physiologist and stayed after Toni’s talk to give me some tips and exercises to strengthen my upper body. She suggested starting with bands versus free weights – they are more transportable and less expensive and I can already feel they are going to be effective!

If you’re wondering the answers to those title questions . . . 1) Yes, peanuts have lots of protein, but skip the chocolate; other than the split second euphoria you feel eating it, there’s nothing too good about it. 2) Yes, wine does have health benefits, but no more than a glass of grape juice and not having the alcohol as a toxin in your system is even better!

So will I give up chocolate and wine? Probably not, but I learned if I’m going to indulge, dark, quality chocolate is better than milk chocolate and 4 oz of wine is what I should limit myself to. (We’ll see how that goes!) ;-)