For Smarter Nutrition (02)

The Food and Nutrition Center: Smart Eating Choices
This is the website of the Food and Nutrition Center, brought to you by the United States Department of Agriculture. You’ll find spotlight articles on healthy eating habits for teens, kids, infants, toddlers and adults. Information about how to keep a healthy lifestyle is include including nutritional data about hundreds of foods all available with the click of your mouse. Topics range from A to Z, and users can look at dietary guidelines and calorie content in their favorite foods.

Calcium Rich Foods: Even if You’re Lactose Intolerant!
HealthCastle.com, a site for nutrition information, has a good section on calcium nutrition. It provides a discussion of calcium rich foods, and provides a chart showing how many milligrams are in specific dairy, soy and canned fish foods with high calcium content. It ways that adult men and women need at least 1000mg of calcium per day, but post-menopausal women should take up to 1500mg per day. People with lactose intolerance can take pre-treated milk with 99 percent less lactose, and some dairy products, like firm cheese, yogurt and buttermilk, are naturally low in lactose. Other alternatives are calcium supplements and non-dairy foods high in calcium such as dark green vegetables and dried beans. While most people know that calcium is important for building and strengthening bones and teeth, calcium also helps to maintain a normal heart beat, regulating blood pressure, and for keeping the nervous system healthy. The site provides related articles, such as Calcium Citrate vs. Calcium Carbonate, Vitamin D and Bone Health and calcium diets for pregancy and menopause. There are FAQs on calcium supplements, tips for women, and the benefits of soy.

Vegan Nutrition for Kids
This site is devoted to raising vegan children. Vegans don’t eat beef, chicken, pork, veal, milk, cheese, butter or eggs. The site says that kids on a vegan diet eat more fruits and vegetables, and they are sick less often and have less food allergies. This covers all aspects of vegan nutrition, including feeding vegan babies, vegan infants and vegan kids. These are suggestions for foods that vegan children will enjoy, such as spaghetti and tomato sauce; peanut butter and jelly, whole wheat bread, fruit on waffles, romaine lettuce salad, mashed potatoes, backed French fries with ketchup and tofu meats. It also discusses vegan nutrition during pregnancy, and gives a sample diet for vegan mothers-to-be.

Nutrition from Plants: The Basics
This site is from the Institute for Plant Based Nutrition, and it exists to educate people about the kind of nutrition we can get from plants, such as nuts, breads, fruits and vegetables. It includes resources that offer nutritional guidelines, links to other plant-based information, and a demonstration of the site owner’s garden project. It shows pictures of gardens and how people can eat the food that they grow at home.