Napa Valley Spinach Salad with Pinot Noir Vinaigrette and Goat Cheese

If you have never tried any of the variations of Napa Valley Spinach Salad, you are really missing out on a delicious salad option. We eat a lot of salad, with a meal or as the main dinner meal all by itself. Typical “dinner salad” that consists of the basics many people include in their salads can get boring real fast, so we always try to come up with healthy recipes that offer different ideas of fruits and/or vegetables to add to our salads for variety and taste.

I recently enjoyed a version of the Napa Valley Spinach Salad with chicken at one of my favorite lunch spots, and couldn’t wait to make the salad at home for my family and visiting friends. To say that the Spinach Salad was a hit for everyone would be an understatement. There are many different ways of making the Napa Valley Spinach Salad, but the differences only amount to what fruits and/or vegetables you like or don’t like, as most of the ingredients are optional according to your tastes and likes.
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Kids of Working Moms are Fat and Unhealthy Kids British Study Says

Encourage Healthy EatingUh oh.., a newly released British study says kids of working moms are fat and unhealthy, laying the fault right on the shoulders of working mothers. Watch out moms, the Guilt Trip inducing Fat Police are on their way! Hey working moms, do you think mothers that work full or part-time make their kids fat? Are kids fat because of working moms? Will the Mommy Wars ever end?

According to the study involving 12,500 5-year-old kids by Britain’s Institute of Child Health, researchers found that children of working moms are less active, spend too much time on the computer or watching television and are more likely to eat unhealthy foods, compared to children of stay-at-home moms.

The research, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Child Health, concluded that kids of working mothers are more likely to drink sodas and snack on “crisps and sweets” between meals, and less likely to snack on healthy food choices like fruits and vegetables than kids of stay-at-home moms. Ouch.
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Healthy Eating For Kids – How to Get Kids to Eat Healthy Foods

Healthy Eating For KidsGetting kids to eat healthy foods is a growing problem for many parents, especially healthy eating for picky kids. Why is it so hard for parents these days to get their kids to eat healthy foods, I wonder? We hear so much about kids being “picky eaters” and how children refuse to eat anything healthy like vegetables and fresh fruit, and how even toddlers are only willing to eat fried foods, sugary treats, high calorie snacks and junk that have no nutritional value whatsoever.

One of the typical excuses I’ve heard in recent years is that parents are too busy and too tired to prepare and cook after working all day at their jobs, and when they get home after a hard day at work, the last thing they want to do is slave away in the kitchen doing the necessary preparation and cooking to serve a healthy, nutritious meal for their family. Unfortunately, many stay-at-moms have complained about the same problem with their kids. Namely, how to get kids to eat healthy when the kids say they don’t like something?

I’m so glad my kids are all grown now and I don’t have to deal with the problems and struggles of raising young children and teens anymore. Something else I don’t understand is when parents of toddlers talk about their difficulty in getting their little kids as young as 3, 4 or 5 years old to eat anything remotely healthy. Getting toddlers to eat healthy foods is elementary “Parenting 101” as far as I’m concerned.
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