How To Cook Bok Choy! :>

Electrifying greens. Broccoli, Shanghainese bok choy, @costco roast chicken, rice. #dinner #semihomemade #nom #nutrition


This semi-homemade dinner was posted on Instagram and someone asked: How do you cook the bok choy? Looks yummy!

This is how:
Heat some oil in a pan. If you want to give it even more flavor, add some sliced garlic and let it infuse a little-- but not brown-- throw in the bok choy, toss a little, cover. Let it cook via the heat from the bottom and steam through the top. After the steam condenses on the lid and before it starts to brown, mix it a little. Add a little water to give it some steam-room so it'll soften and prevent it from getting brown (ahem, burning) on bottom-- veggies have sugars too :> Cover. Pierce with a fork til it's the tenderness you want. Toddlers like soft.

What veggies do you like to cook? Share below, we'd love to hear! :> :>

Nuk Sippy Cup Review!

Not all sippy cups are created equal. That's the beauty (and waste!) of options.

In this episode of From Baby Bottles To Sippy Cups, piecesofm reviews the NUK Sippy Cup, comparing it to previously-tried baby/toddler drinkware and on its own.



Here are some features piecesofm looks for when buying cups for baby/toddler:

• Spill-proofability
• Cost
• Size— capacity and weight
• Number of parts/ease of washing
• Durability
• Handles
• Shape— ability to fit in tray holders
• Colors

What do you look for when purchasing sippy cups? And, if you tried the NUK, what did you think? Share below! We'd love to hear!

Happy Healthy Juicy Sippy Cups!

How To Wean Baby Off The Bottle! And Nuby Sippy Cup Review!

Babies (and parents) have a steep learning curve in the first few years in nearly every category, drinking included. Breastfeeding is best, no doubt, but even being the most 'natural' way of feeding your baby, that, too, requires a process of learning, practicing, and getting used to before it actually feels 'natural'.

The funny thing about the learning curve, it seems, like with drinking, once the child gets used to one means or method— ie. the routine is mastered— it's time to move onto the next... challenge. Good news is, the more times the child overcome a 'challenge', or stage of development, the quicker they learn and are able to adjust next time around.

Like most (if not all) topics in parenting, there is no one or right way of transitioning your child off the bottle and onto a sippy cup. The process starts around 12 to 16 months old.

To transition, some parents might just do it cold turkey. One day, they'll just take the bottle away and only offer a sippy cup. The child might refuse for a day or two but will quickly take to the sippy cup because, really, there is no other choice. It'll be a rough few days for both parties but, once passed, the tides will calm again.

Alternatively, some parents might do it gradually— perhaps provide the sippy cup only at a certain mealtime(s) and not the bottle; or perhaps offer the sippy cup at every meal and resort to the bottle if needed.

A few things to remember in either case is...

• Look for signs that the child is ready. Biting through the nipple is one example. Seeing like-age kids use sippy cups is another.
• Keep offering the sippy cup even if you 'know' your baby will likely refuse. Like introducing new foods, which sometimes might take 15-20 times (or more!) of offerings before the child will eat and maybe even like the new food, it might take a while and definitely requires repetition and persistence, not to mention patience.
• Remember: There is no right or wrong time/way to transition your child off the bottle. Weaning your baby off the bottle is the same as weaning him/her off the breast— it should depend on both you and your child.

Below is piecesofm's second episode of the mini-series From Baby Bottles To Sippy Cups, where she reviews the very first sippy cup she tried post-baby-bottle— the Nuby Sippy Cup. Have you tried it? What did you think? Or, will you try it? Share your thoughts and experiences below, we'd love to hear! :>

Enjoy and thanks for watching!



Happy Healthy Juicy Transitioning To Sippy Cups!

From Bottles To Sippy Cups! Avent Baby Bottle Review!

There is a lot of baby gear out there and it can be quite overwhelming when it comes to figuring what to buy and what's best for both baby and you. Drinkware for the kiddies is no exception.

Choosing a bottle can be a task in and of itself when baby is kicking around in the womb and you have a million of other things to do research on and purchase. Nonetheless, though, they're pretty standard knowledge. Most, at least, know what bottles are and what they vaguely look like, right? But just wait til you get to the store and there's a wall full of them in all shapes, colors, textures, materials, sizes, and prices.

And, as if that weren't enough, after you choose a bottle, a year later, where do you go from there? Welcome to the land of sippy cups, straw cups, lidded cups, so on and so forth.

In this new mini-series, piecesofm shows you her journey From Baby Bottles To Sippy Cups, reviews the drinkware she tried, what to look for, what she learned and how she helped her daughter transition her way through the land of drinkware to the bowl/cup.

In this first episode, piecesofm starts from the beginning, reviewing the Phillips Avent baby bottle.



Have baby bottle opinions of your own? Share below, we'd love to hear! :> Happy Healthy Juicy Baby's First Drinkware! :>

How To Buy HealthyButJuicy Kid's Yogurt!

What is essentially bacterial fermented milk— yogurt— has come a long way within the last five decades or so, not surprisingly along with America's tech-savvy of playing with food and its expanding waistline.

Remember Colombo Yogurt? Remember its minimal Ingredients List? Supposedly, it was one of the pioneers to introducing Americans to yogurt in the late 1920s and then was later bought out by General Mills, only to be discontinued because of Yoplait.

Yoplait! You know, the brand with that commercial where the woman is telling her friend on the phone all the delicious 'food' she's been eating while losing weight, while her husband is eaves-dropping and frantically looking in the fridge for her goodies. He missed the stacks of light yogurt right in front of him with flavor names such as: Thick & Creamy Cinnamon Roll, Black Forest Cake, Apple Turnover, Red Velvet Cake, Boston Creme Pie, Pineapple Upside Down Cake, Thick & Creamy Cherry Cobbler... Pretty much every decadent baked good you can think of in the form of yogurt.

Sigh.

According to Wikipedia:

Yogurt's popularity in the United States was enhanced in the 1950s and 1960s, when it was presented as a health food.

Sigh again. And there began the demise of yogurt. Deem anything healthy and you can count on Americans to bastardize it. (No offense, America... love you.) But now, yogurt doesn't just take a slither of an aisle but spans an entire one. So many options! Lions and tigers and flavors and sizes and prices and consistencies and packaging and nutritional profiles, o my!

But still, we'd like our kids to eat yogurt because of those originally-known benefits— live cultures, or 'good bacteria'— as well as source of calcium and protein. But how and/or which to choose??

Run down the whole yogurt aisle and watch and learn which are HealthyButJuicy's top picks and why!



Agree or disagree with what you saw? Comment below your thoughts, opinions, and tastes! We'd love to hear! :>

Trader Joe's Bacon & Spinach Salad Review!

There's a lot of food out there. With so much to choose from, it's hard to tell what's healthy and what isn't. So HealthyButJuicy is starting a new series of food/product reviews! Want something tested and reviewed? Comment below your requests and we might just try it! :>

Salad = Healthy, right? An olio of fresh produce and unsaturated fat for dressing usually is but 'salad' has come a long way in how we classify the dish. Depending on what's in it and how much you eat, salad can actually be more unhealthy than a value meal at McDonalds! Seriously.

In this episode of HealthyButJuicy Reviews, we taste and rate Trader Joe's Bacon & Spinach Salad. We love Trader Joe's but just like Whole Foods, their products aren't always necessarily good for you. By law, ingredients are listed by weight; this product's name (unfortunately) is not much different and, well, the name says it all.

We love salads and getting pre-made ones like this is a great means of 'fast food' when grabbing a quick bite for lunch. But how does this salad rate in terms of nutrition, value, and taste? Watch and find out!



What kind of salad have you eaten lately? Comment below and tell us about it, we'd love to hear! :>

What A Nutritionist's Daughter Eats

If you ever wonder what a nutritionist's daughter eats, this is something along the lines of what it looks like: From left to right: Noodles, No-Salt-Added Stew [Pork, Tomatoes, Edamame, Carrots], Baby Bok Choy— all on an alphabet plate! :>— accompanied by Whole Milk.

You've got your carbs, protein, vegetables, fiber, rainbow, fat, calcium, and explosion of taste. It's a win-all situation— good and good for you!

So what are you feeding yourself and/or your kids these days? Comment below, we'd love to hear! :>

Happy Healthy Juicy Feeding Our Future Right! :>