The writer of a recent article on kids and nutrition points out that rewarding them with sugary desserts like ice cream is a very shortsighted way to get children to eat their vegetables.

It’s far better to reward cooperation at the dinner table with something delicious — yet wholesome and nutritious.  Like maybe a fruit smoothie concocted in your handy kitchen blender!  After all, if fatty, sugary treats like ice cream are held out as “prizes” worth striving for, then the unfortunate lesson learned by your own kids might be that vegetables are what is to be avoided once they turn to adolescents able to make dietary decisions on their own.

Developing healthy eating habits in children is a daily concern to knowledgeable parents.  Putting more healthy and delicious rewards in front of kids is a fruitful (sorry!) strategy many parents simply don’t think through.  Why not raise kids who value the natural delights of strawberries and bananas, over the unhelpful caloric overdose contained in that ice cream treat you served last night?

Remember the great taste of those raspberries you picked as a kid?  What if that had remained your own ultimate dietary thrill instead of the high-calorie substitutes you’ve learned to love too much?   Wouldn’t you now most likely be wearing clothes at least a size or two smaller?

The YoNaturals product line stands as an excellent addition to any healthy family nutrition plan, with five hundred of the tastiest snacks and drinks that ever graced the display window of any vending machine.  Chosen for their wholesome nutritional value, they represent some of the best away-from-home “rewards” anyone can imagine.

But if your kitchen is without its own organic vending machine — maybe fruit smoothies are the sensible way to win smiles from your kids!

If you are interested in starting your own organic vending business, please get in touch with CEO of YoNaturals Mark Trotter today.

When considering nutrition, it’s important to remember that it is usually best for your body to get vitamins, nutrients, and minerals through eating a balanced diet. However, due to circumstances that are often beyond our control, many people need to supplement their diet with nutrients that are not normally found in their food. For example, some people are not able to supply their bodies with an adequate amount of calcium through the food that they eat (usually because of a restriction on including dairy in their diets), so they are able to provide their bodies with additional calcium through non-dairy foods that are fortified with calcium.

That said, there are many foods at your local grocery store that are either labeled as “enriched” or “fortified”, and those terms are definitely not limited to calcium. In fact, the two terms are similar in purpose, both indicating that nutrients have been added in to a food to increase its nutritional value. The difference is that “enriching” a food means that the added nutrients are replacing the same nutrients that were lost during the processing phase, and “fortifying” a food means adding nutrients to a food that were not there to begin with. For example, milk is often fortified with vitamin D to simply enhance your body’s ability to absorb calcium, whereas white flour is often enriched with vitamin B because those vitamins are lost during processing.

Whether the vitamins and minerals are coming from enriched or fortified foods, there are few who will deny the value of these nutritionally enhanced products. In fact, in many instances, these so called “functional foods” go beyond the basics, providing consumers with additional nutrients that can offer protection against common diseases or stave off other problems.

Even when choosing between two similarly healthy foods, remember the benefits that can come from eating enriched or fortified foods as a part of an overall balanced diet. And choose YoNaturals products to meet all your nutritional needs: enriched, fortified, or otherwise. Choose it for your health!

If you want to maintain good health, it’s important to also make sure you have good nutrition. Eating properly will assure that you are always in the best of health by keeping your immune system working effectively. Even children who eat properly suffer less lost time from school due to illness than those children who do not thus proving that the foods we put into our bodies have a lot to do with our overall health. Good nutrition goes beyond eating three meals a day but rather includes eating the right kinds of foods to allow the systems and organs of the body to perform their jobs efficiently.

One of the problems that plagues our population today—children and adults—is the misconception that proper nutrition has to include meat at every meal. The reality is that the basis of our diets should be comprised of fruits and vegetables rather than meat. We need the meat for the protein, but if we can obtain protein from other sources, we will be just as healthy. There is sometimes a problem with this for those who follow a vegetarian diet because many fail to eat enough of other foods that contain protein which can cause a problem with blood clotting. It’s essential to make certain the diet you follow provides all the nutrition you need even if you have to take dietary supplements. Though natural nutritional components are preferred, dietary supplements are better than nothing.

Another mistake many people make is thinking only children need snacks and that they have to be full of sugar. The truth is fresh fruits and raw vegetables are the best snacks for anyone, child or adult. With so many people looking to provide healthier snacks for their children, vendors such a Healthy Student Vending are being contracted as an alternative to vendors that fill their machines with candy, cookies and other unhealthy snacks. Instead of soda students should have access to natural and organic fruit juices. If parents and schools cooperate we will certainly be providing our children with much healthier snacks and meals. Schools need to stop catering to what the children want and provide healthy meals—forget the pizza, hot dogs, hamburgers and other unhealthy combinations. Remember for some children what they eat in school is the only full meal they will have, so you want to make it a nutritious one.

Author: Brenda Coxe

If you’re like the average American working man or woman, then you are probably well versed in the choices that your workplace vending machines offer to you and your coworkers. In fact, if you begin to think about it, you may realize that you are relying upon these machines a little too much for your personal comfort. And if that indeed is your situation, then there are two pieces of good news for you: (1) you are not alone, and (2) there are things that you and your colleagues can do to make sure that the snacking does not get out of control.

Considering the number of working hours that most people log during the course of a normal week, it should not surprise anyone that vending machines provide a popular solution to forgotten lunch boxes and afternoon energy slumps. These machines are always ready to provide a quick snack to knock out hunger pangs or to give the consumer a quick boost of energy. Also, no matter how close the nearest restaurant (or cafeteria) happens to be, there are some days when people simply don’t feel like going to the trouble of leaving their workplace to obtain their lunch. It’s a fact of life. And that’s where vending machines step in: they fulfill our need to eat while also satisfying our desire to not leave the office.

Unfortunately, while the basic idea of snack and soda vending machines is a good one, it is not found without fault. First of all, the snacks and sodas from traditional machines are usually not very healthy. The chips, candy, and soda pop are loaded with fat and calories, and provide little nutritional value to the consumer of such products. Secondly, if someone considers themselves too busy to stop for a proper lunch break, then they are also not very likely to slow down to enjoy their snack either. That is, if you’re in a time crunch, it’s likely that you will scarf down your snack while still working at your desk. It’s called mindless eating, and it often leads to a person eating more than their body would have needed to overcome the hunger pang or energy slump.

So, besides packing your own snack and bringing it from home, what’s a health conscious person to do?

There are two things that you can do to improve your diet, even if you are reliant upon a vending machine for parts of it. Number one, make sure that the snacks that you are choosing are the healthiest available options. If possible, choose food from YoNaturals organic and natural vending machines, which focus exclusively on vending healthy foods. Otherwise, use your best judgment to select something that is filling as well as somewhat nutritious. The second thing that you can do is try to step away from your desk for a bit while you eat. Taking even just five minutes to enjoy your snack can improve your satisfaction while limiting your overeating, and those two things will make you a more productive employee in the long run. Everyone wins.

One of the problems that we must overcome as a society before we can begin to reduce the instances of childhood obesity is the notion that a fat baby is a healthy baby. This line of thinking is where the problem of obesity begins—parents overfeed their babies either because they really think they are hungry or because they listen to well-meaning parents and grandparents who tell them their infant needs to put on some weight. As the baby grows, the parents continue to overfeed the child still thinking the child needs to be chunky or overweight to be healthy and happy. Before the age of cable television, computers and computer games this would not have been a real problem because the child would begin walking and go outside to run off all that excess energy.

Because children are less active today than they were during the early to mid 20^th century, there is a decreased need for food in our children. Providing the same amount of food to an active child as to a sedentary child is going to cause the child to become overweight and even obese. It is absolutely essential to make sure a child receives meals and snacks in accordance to his or her level of activity. A child that is only moderately active does not burn off as many calories as a child who is very active and thus needs less food.

Although meals have some bearing on childhood obesity, the real problem lies with the snacks the children eat. Parents are prone to feed their children cookies, cakes, candy and ice cream beginning at a very early age. In fact, some parents allow their children high calorie soft drinks before they even have teeth—no child should ever have soft drinks unless instructed by the doctor for nausea or an upset tummy. School Healthy Vending and Healthy Student Vending are two organizations that YoNaturals supports as providers of healthy vending machine snacks in the schools the children attend. Though not the only solution to childhood obesity, providing healthy vending machine snacks is a step in the right direction toward reducing childhood obesity.

The most familiar food label is the nutrition facts panel that is most often found on the side of a box or the back of a bag of canned, frozen, or otherwise processed food. As the name suggests, it provides information on the nutritional content of the food contained within the package. At the top of the label you will find information on the suggested serving size and the number of servings per container. You should pay special attention to the serving size that is listed on the panel and recognize the fact that all the other nutritional information found in this panel is calculated based upon the serving size. For example, people are often surprised to learn that the people who make labels for 20 oz. bottles of soda pop count only 8 of those ounces as one serving, and that anyone who drinks an entire bottle of it should actually multiply all of the nutritional information by 2.5 to get more accurate numbers regarding calorie intake, as well as sodium and sugar intakes!

Don’t worry, even though these estimations are on the lower end of the spectrum regarding the amount of food that people normally eat, the calculated serving sizes are still provided in units that most consumers are familiar with: measurements such as cups, tablespoons, or pieces. Additionally, these measurements are also displayed by another value that is the serving size’s calculated metric value.

Once you have a grip on the serving size that the manufacturer had in mind when labeling the food, then you can begin calculating the amount of calories, fat (saturated and unsaturated), cholesterol, sodium, and carbohydrates that are contained within the product. You will also find on this nutritional panel a column that is titled “Percent Daily Value” that will give you an idea of how much of a nutrient will be provided by the food product. Remember though, those percentages listed on the panel are calculations based on the typical adult’s 2000 calorie per day diet, and will change based upon the total number of calories that you eat within a day.

As stated above, with this one simple (and easy to read) label, the power to make more informed decisions about where you and your loved ones are obtaining most of your calories and other nutrients is in your hands. The rest is up to you

The hope that organics may become more commonplace has been a long-held hope among those who are avid organic consumers, yet it would seem that that future dream may become a reality sooner than we could have hoped. Of course, the reasons behind this move towards a more commonplace lifestyle of organics and healthful eating do not come from such a hot place for America in general, but the current economic hardships in which our country presently finds itself may do something to finally make people realizes the changes in lifestyle that can be brought about simply by changing the way we eat and the relationship that we have with food and with farming that food in general.

As gasoline prices continue to rise and fuel gets most costly, farming is becoming a more and more daunting way to earn a living, when the additions of pesticides and other chemical poisons are added into the equation, the price of farming climbs even higher and we are faced with the fact that conventional methods of farming may simply not be the most cost-effective means of raising produce and making a living, in general. Looking aside from the income of the farmer himself and the money he must spend to glean whatever profit he can out of the lands which he lovingly works and farms day in and day out, we must look at the American population in general, as we are trying to save ourselves money first and foremost.

Land has always been expensive, that is a fact that cannot be denied, but now that it is getting even more expensive to drive tractors around this land, and to use the various other machines that are necessary in the modern world of farming today. The land itself is hardly the only expenditure for the modern farmer, the machines are also not the end of the money he must put out in order to produce the foods that will earn him a profit. Indeed, the modern farmer must spend money on the seeds he will plant and the mass amounts of fertilizers and growth aids he will need to make sure his plants have the nutrients necessary to grow and flourish.

In addition, the most expenditure the modern farmer has, generally-speaking and in terms of conventional farmers, is pesticides. Pesticides that make specific crops almost impervious to insects and other creatures that would destroy a crop and make an entire seasons’ worth of work futile, insects that can be headed off with the poisons that many conventional farmers still use. However, these poisons hurt the people who eat the foods, and they hurt the soil in which these crops are grown. Yet, farmers fear moving away from using these pesticides because they do not want to lose out on the crops that earn them their profit.

If they stopped earning a profit on those poisonous crops anyway, however, they might be more inclined to grow organically. They would have nothing to lose if they were already making no money off of the crops that they doused in chemicals and then sold to the public. This is where the American public comes in – if we continue to buy organic and to let farmers know that we want to eat only those foods that are healthiest for us, then they will respond to our desires by growing more crops organically, and the world will be healthier because of it. So come on America, band together, and fight for what you know you deserve!

Author: Lisa Arnold

Here at YoNaturals, we believe that Finding ways to relax is one key to enjoying life. Relaxation calms your fears and helps you release stress. Less stress is very helpful for combating diseases and for the enjoyment of good health. Life can be stressful and very demanding at times and not knowing how to handle these pressures causes stress.

Finding ways and time to relax is not an easy thing to do. It is important to have a positive attitude. The following are a few tips on relaxing:

·         Watch a funny movie or your favorite sitcom. Laughter is excellent for relieving stress and anxiety

·         Listening to your favorite music can also be very relaxing. It is best to listen to soothing music

·         Set aside quiet time for yourself every day. Five or ten minutes a day of “me time” is an excellent way to unwind from the many stresses of the day. This time can be spent reading a novel, sipping a cup of herbal tea, painting, knitting, sewing or just sitting quietly.

·         Keeping a journal is also very calming. At the end of the day writing down the many events and thoughts of your day will help to clear your mind and erase many frustrations which increase the level of stress.  You will get a better night’s sleep if your mind is clear of stress.

·         Yoga is also very relaxing. It can be done in the comfort of your home or by taking a class.

·         A bubble bath is divine for relaxation. Soft music, scented candles, a good book or magazine and a glass of wine will make a warm bubble bath even more inviting.

·         Imagine yourself in calm and serene places. This is a great way to relax. In your mind you can “visit” places where you feel peaceful such as a white sand beach or gazing at a Hawaiian sunset.

Take things slowly, there is no need to rush through life. Take time to really enjoy the little things in life such as a good dinner with friends, nature walks with your mate or movie night with the family.

There are many things that you will find relaxing, and YoNaturals of California encourages you to find out what those are.  There is nothing more calming that watching a sunset or a sunrise. The key is to learn to be more patient and peaceful. Meditation, massages, relaxation tapes, taking a short nap are things you can do to relax. Stress will age you. If stress is eliminated or drastically reduced the quality of your life will be greatly improved.

One of the difficult parts of getting healthy is developing the habit of eating healthier foods. The problem many people find with eating healthier is that it forces them to stop eating many of the junk foods they now consume in an effort to save time. One question to ask yourself is: Do I really save time by eating fast food? Think about it—you have to drive to the local fast food place, pick up your order and drive home before you can eat. In the time it takes you to do all that you could make a fast meal at home. Look at the number of cookbooks that are on bookstore shelves that offer menus you can put together in ten minutes or less.

If each of us would take the time to prepare more meals at home the number of people fighting overweight would decrease immensely. Even eating in family or fine dining restaurants adds calories to our food—when we cook at home, we know what ingredients are in a recipe. We also need to learn how to bake, roast or broil meats instead of frying them. The key to cutting a great deal of fat out of foods is the way we cook them—steamed vegetables are certainly better for us than mixing them together with all kinds of ingredients that are unhealthy. For instance, many people refuse to eat broccoli unless it is smothered in cheese sauce. Is that a healthy choice? Not healthy at all—eat all the broccoli you want but steam it with natural herbs and spices instead of high calorie and high cholesterol butter.

Each of us can learn how to eat healthier meals if we just take the time to cook instead of buying processed foods. Does it take more time? Perhaps it does, but there are shortcuts we can take such as preparing the food the night before so we only need to put it on the stove or in the oven. You can completely cook your meals and heat them in the microwave instead of buying meals already prepared to go into the microwave. One of the best tools is a crockpot or slow cooker—put it on in the morning, and it will be ready when you return.  Healthy eating in a portion of the time it takes to run to a fast food place, by YoNaturals vending, for a healthier tomorrow.