I don’t get very creative when I eat canned tuna. I usually just squeeze some lemon, add some black pepper, and a tiny bit of low-fat mayo and call it good. So I was excited to see this recipe spice things up with cumin, lime juice, and avocado. Mmmm… avocado! Thanks to our friends at HealthyTuna.com for sharing.

Ingredients:

One 6-ounce can chunk light tuna, packed in water, drained and well flaked
1 avocado, peeled, pitted, and mashed
½ cup diced tomato
2 tablespoons lime juice (juice of 1 lime)
1 tablespoon fresh chopped cilantro
¼ teaspoon ground cumin
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 small whole wheat sub rolls
2 large lettuce leaves

Instructions:

Combine the tuna, avocado, tomato, lime juice, cilantro, cumin, and salt and pepper to taste in a bowl.  Divide the mixture evenly between the sub rolls, top with a lettuce leaf, slice in half, and serve.

Recipe by Janice Newell Bissex, MS, RD & Liz Weiss, MS, RD
Authors, The Moms’ Guide to Meal Makeovers

Nutritional Information:
450 calories, 19g fat (3g saturated, 0.5g omega-3), 610mg sodium; 46g carbohydrate, 12g fiber, 30g protein, 10% vitamin A, 50% vitamin C, 10% calcium, 20% iron

[Recipe reprinted with permission]

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Could your cookware be raising your kids’ cholesterol levels? A new report finds chemicals used to make non-stick coatings on cookware and to waterproof fabrics may do just that. Researchers found children with the highest levels of these chemicals in their blood had higher levels of total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol compared with children with lower readings. The findings don’t necessarily mean the exposure to the chemicals caused the higher readings, but researchers say they need to do more studies on the link.

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You know all those fruit and veggie chips out there? They’re like potato chips, only they come in flavors like tomato, sweet potato, and berry. I have never tried them, but every time I see them I wonder if you can really munch on them to score a serving of fruits or vegetables.

Here’s the scoop on two popular brands of fruit and veggie chips – Flat Earth and Terra. Terra says you can get a full serving of vegetables when you eat one ounce of its Sweet Potato chips.

Tara Gidus, RD, Spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association, tells FatFighterTV there is some nutritional value in Terra chips.

“The sweet potato has the most with 50-percent vitamin A in a one ounce serving. The rest of them have less than 10-percent of any vitamins and minerals, though,” says Gidus. “They may have enough actual vegetable to be considered a vegetable serving, but at 130-150 calories per one ounce serving, that will take a lot of calories to get your recommended veggie servings for the day.”

Flat Earth has similar claims. It says its baked crisps have half a serving of real fruits or vegetables in every ounce.

“The Flat Earth brand seems to have the first ingredients as rice flour and potato flakes,” notes Gidus. “They have dehydrated vegetables or powders of vegetables and also do not have a significant amount of nutritional value with the exception of some Vitamin A which appears to be coming from pumpkin.”

Because of the high fat, calories, and sodium in these fruit and veggie chips, the bottom line from Gidus – eat some in moderation, but don’t substitute them for the real deal.

What do you think of the various fruit and veggie chips?

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Congrats to FatFighterTV friend – Joanna – for winning last week’s giveaway for the Dreyer’s/Edy’s new Antioxidant Fruit Bars in Pomegranate and Açai Blueberry. Enjoy!

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Question: What did one baby carrot say to a Cheeto?

Answer: Orange-cha scared we’re gonna crush you?

Game on!

As kids head back to school, Bolthouse Farms and about 50 other carrot growers are launching a $25 million marketing campaign to take on salty snack foods with the hopes of landing in some school lunch boxes.
The strategy includes packaging baby carrots in Doritos-like bags, selling them in school vending machines, and promoting them with slogans like “The original orange doodles.”

Will kids pick the hip packaged carrots over junk food? Who will win the battle of neon orange snack buying? Do the carrot marketers have a good *ahem* vision?

We’ll see…

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Images of buff sun worshippers in Brazil are fading into those of bulging waistlines. A new report shows nearly half of adult Brazilians are overweight and about 15 percent are obese. Brazil’s Health Minister calls it “a situation of absolute red alert.”

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Today,  I am happy to bring you a guest post from Carmen Staicer  – Chief Mom at Diets In Review, a site which provides the tools and information needed to shape a healthier you. Carmen recently lost 80 pounds, is raising six loud, opinionated kids, and training for her black belt in Muay Thai Boxing.

Ten years ago, I gave birth to my fourth child. At that time, I was a comfortable size 14. Not too big, not too small – just the size that a mom of four might expect to be, yes?

And then I had another baby. And 17 months later, a sixth. And suddenly I’d bloomed from a comfortable size 14 to an uncomfortably tight 20. And I had no idea how it had happened, but I had a sneaking suspicion that it might have had something to do with the fact that I didn’t exercise and had developed a love for all things calorie laden. Have a hard day with the kids? Go to Starbucks, you’ve earned it. Finally get the kids to bed at night? Boy, wouldn’t a brownie sundae taste amazing? Go ahead, you deserve it. And so maybe I was a little bigger than I wanted to be, but, hey, I was a busy mom of six kids. What Mom of a Large Family wasn’t a little heavy, didn’t carry some extra weight. I wasn’t THAT big.

Only I was, and it took the words of a slightly rude 11-year-old to tell me so. During an argument that one of my daughters had with her friend, the parting shot was a zinger. “Well, at least I don’t have a fat mom like you do!” Ouch. My daughter wondered at the comment, though, for she didn’t see me as fat. Those words caused me to take a good look at both the image in the mirror and the size tag in my jeans and I wasn’t happy with what I saw. I started a lifestyle change that very day and although it was tough, I lost 80 pounds and created a love for exercise that I hope will stay with me for the rest of my life.

It might not be the words of a slightly rude 11-year-old that you need to hear. Maybe it’s time to take a serious look at yourself in the mirror. Have you become a bit too comfortable on the couch? Traded your trainers for flip flops? Stopped swimming laps and taken to lounging poolside? It’s not too late. It’s never too late. Pick up your healthy habits and begin again. After all, there is no moratorium on second tries.

Think you don’t have time to devote to exercise and eating healthy? Think again. You are worth every bit of time and effort that it takes to fit it in – and trust me, you will be able to fit it in. If your child or spouse needed extra time for an event that was important to them, you’d make the effort to squeeze it in. Love yourself at least that much. You are worth it.

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[Disclosure: I received a complimentary sample of this product. My policy is to only post giveaways about products I honestly like, or those I think FatFighterTV members would enjoy.]

How about one last burst of frozen treats before the official end of summer? Not that you can’t have frozen goodies after Labor Day or anything. But if you want a frozen fruity way to cool off while it’s still warm out, Dreyer’s/Edy’s new Antioxidant Fruit Bars in Pomegranate and Açai Blueberry may do the trick.

The bars are made with real fruit and are a little bit of tart, tangy, and sweet all mixed together. Each Açai Blueberry bar has 60 calories; the Pomegranate ones have 70 calories each. Plus they both have antioxidants, like Vitamin C.

Up for grabs this week – one person will get one box of each of the two flavors – Pomegranate and Açai Blueberry. To enter for a chance to win, just head down to the comments and tell me which fruit you have enjoyed the most this summer.

Me – a mix of a ton of strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries! I’m not ready to let go…

Contest runs through midnight EST this Friday, September 3, you have to have a U.S. mailing address to enter, and we will use random.org to pick the winner.

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Congrats to FatFighterTV friend – Aisling – for winning last week’s giveaway for the Adidas performance tank. Enjoy!

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