Spring Clean Your Pantry

It's that time of year again where we are often inspired by the nice weather to clean and organize our households. So, why not spring clean the pantry too? Going through your pantry food stock can be a great way to draw attention towards foods that should be used up soon, thrown out, or stocked up on, in order to make healthy eating easier.

6 Dietary Changes You Can Make to Combat Inflammation

Acute inflammation occurs as a result of our bodies' healing process and is beneficial when we are trying to heal a cut, for example. Chronic inflammation on the other hand, is a long term response whereby the acute inflammatory processes fail to heal our injury or infection. This type of inflammatory process can be a risk factor for conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. The impact of dietary habits on inflammation are still not completely understood. However, there is evidence to suggest that some foods have the capacity to help reduce and combat inflammatory processes. There is by no means a magical food that will serve as a cure all to inflammation, although there are several dietary changes you can make that have been shown to have a positive impact on inflammation.

What to eat (and not eat) when you have a cold

It is that time of year again, cold and flu season. When we inevitably do catch a cold, we all would like to get back to feeling our best as soon as possible. While there is little we can do to cure our cold, there are some ways we can use food and nutrition to help strengthen our immune system to give our bodies the upper hand in fighting that nasty bug. Adding these foods to your diet can provide a variety of nutrients beneficial to your health, outside of just helping your body fight off a cold.

Do Physicians Know the Facts on Nutrition? MD versus RD

We all know the saying 'an apple a day keeps the doctor away' and the relationship between what we eat and our overall health. But should your doctor be the one helping you to determine what you should be eating to keep you healthy?

New Year, New Nutrition Changes!

New Year, New Beginnings (including the start of this blog!). Welcome to A Dietitian's Intuition! I am really looking forward to relaying information on popular nutrition topics, recipes, and other nutrition tidbits to you all during 2017 (and beyond...). 

Currently, I am experiencing some unexpected flight delays during holiday travel and unfortunately did not pack any snacks to hold me over until I arrive home. I turned to the airport food vendors to make a selection (ideally a healthy one) and was reminded how challenging it can be to eat healthy on the go. 

Fortunately, beginning January 1st, 2017, Ontario will become the first province to implement calorie counts on menus, helping us make more informed decisions when eating out. Larger food service operations (with 20 locations or more) will be required to publish the calorie content of each food item and beverage on their menus or food tags. These establishments will also be required to provide consumers with educational statements surrounding what a calorie is (aka how much energy we require each day), what the average caloric intake is (~2000 calories per day), and what factors can influence an individual's caloric need (age, activity, gender, etc). 

See this link for more specifics: https://news.ontario.ca/mohltc/en/2016/12/calorie-amounts-coming-to-ontario-menus-beginning-january-1st.html

Will the caloric content of these on the go food options at restaurants, convenience stores, movie theatres, etc., influence the choice you make? Will the calorie content of these foods surprise us and increase our awareness of what we are really eating when we are away from home?

Hopefully, positive changes will stem from this change. Until then we will have to wait for 2017 to find out!

Happy New Year!