Introducing Our Food and Healthy Lifestyle Expert- Annette Sym

I am SO excited to announce our first new contributor to the Best Products blog, Annette Sym.  I had the pleasure of meeting Annette in Phoenix a year and a half ago while on a media tour and instantly felt a deep connection to this lovely woman.  At the time, Annette was here in the states from Australia, promoting her 5th bestselling cookbook.  Today, Annette is back again in the U.S. promoting her 6th cookbook.  She will join us by providing her knowledge and expertise (and of course her yummy recipes) about a subject we have been grasping to understand- FOOD and how it affects us.

With no tertiary education or previous business experience, Annette has turned the triumph over her own weight loss and health struggles into a multi-million dollar business and to date has sold nearly 3 million cookbooks all self-published. Having successfully remained in her healthy weight range for over 18 years now using her low-fat recipes and healthy lifestyle, she truly ‘walks the walk and talks the talk’ to show others that they can stop fad dieting, beat the battle of the bulge and lose weight the healthy “Symply Too Good To Be True” way.

All of Annette’s six best-selling, healthy low-fat cookbooks have met the strict guidelines to be endorsed by Diabetes Australia. Her cookbooks are often recommended by dietitians and health professionals throughout Australia to help manage diabetes, cholesterol, heart health, and weight issues.  

Annette is a mentor to those wanting to lose weight, adopt a healthier lifestyle or succeed in a competitive business world. As one of Australia’s most prominent small business entrepreneurs and weight loss and health gurus, Annette inspires others through the story of her own journey. With a genuine desire to see people’s lives transformed, Annette takes people step-by-step into ‘her world’ and offers practical tips, delicious recipes, nutritional advice, weight loss motivation and the secrets to her success. 

We are so blessed to have her with us! 

Each week we will be featuring a recipe and fun facts about healthy eating habits.  We will also have fun information and recipes for the kids.  For more information about Annette’s cookbooks, visit her at- www.SymplyTooGood.com.

Stay tuned for more upcoming announcements and new contributors!

Save Money and Cool Kitchen Products! Oh and a great Playdough Recipe!!

I’m about to head out for a morning show tour to talk about making your first place a home.  Some of the ideas I came across putting this tour together are fantastic Parent Products as well, so I wanted to share them here.  The First involves saving $$$.  I’m not a guy who will sort through the paper or piles of junk mail for the 5 coupons I always wish I had when checking out the staple products I use religiously as a parent.  Thanks to Proctor & Gamble, the products themselves are now starting to come with piles of coupons in the products.  Open up a box of Tide and score – anywhere from $2 -$55 worth of coupons for the stuff you’re gonna buy again anyway….  Boom Done – Now I can afford college for Garrison….ok maybe a stretch but that’s the idea anyway.

If you love to cook for your family like I do then it’s worth checking out some of these SmartGadgets from Copco.  I just got the Scraping Wisk (works better than any other wisk I’ve had and we made playdough yesterday with it – recipe at bottom) and Bag Caps which will keep my mini marshmallows nice and mellow instead of hardening into mini weapons.

Lastly, as a new parent, I have hung my tool belt on a hook a little higher these days, and being a perfectionist I have to say I’m always a little hesitant to hire out for projects I used to do myself.  I have started using the Superpages search engine because its local, but mainly because its the only one that offers the Supergarantee program which basically guarantees that if the job isn’t done right, Superpages will make it right.  I’m thinking that to qualify for their program most contractors have to pass some fairly stringent standards since I’ve always been pleased the first go round, but since it’s a 100% free program, it just makes me feel a little better….

Mom’s PlayDough Recipe:

1 Cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup salt

1 Tblsp. oil

1 cup water

1 small package kool-aid (for great color and smell)

Mix all ingredients in a saucepan.  Cook over med Heat, stirring constantly until you can no longer stir (this is where I swithed from the scraper wisk to a spoon)  It will look like a clumpy mess!  Turn out on counter top and let cool enough to handle.  Knead into a smooth ball and store in an airtight container.

Enjoy!

~Evan Farmer

Ps – Sorry I wasn’t able to load pics or hyperlinks – On the road with my ipad….

A Healthy, Natural and Organic Snack Your Kids will Love!

As a mom of four, I am a stickler about health food and healthy snacks for my kids.  To this day, my 13-year-old still gets annoyed with me when I ask him if something he reaches for has high fructose corn syrup in it  (not in our house, mind you :o)  I feel I do a good job substituting a lot of the traditional kid food with healthier alternatives, but I still pay attention to even the healthy version of things, because sugar is still sugar. 

This summer, I settled on a healthy snack for my daughter that pairs fruit, yogurt and even a little whipped cream sweetness for her after lunch treat.  Every couple of weeks I make a trip to Trader Joe’s where we have fallen in love with their fantastic tubs of organic yogurt.  They have a variety of flavors like strawberry, banilla (banana- vanilla), vanilla and plain.  Her favorite flavor is strawberry, so to make it a little more exciting and add in an extra serving of fruit, I cut up some fresh organic strawberries (our local Target has been selling them for $2.49 a container, which is better than the price of regular strawberries) and add them to her yogurt.  Now that is definitely a perfect afternoon (or after school) treat and complete in and of itself.

To give it a little extra pizazz, I add some whipped cream to make it a healthy, fun dessert.  Not just any whipped cream will do (like I said, I am still a stickler for healthy alternatives).  Our favorite whipped cream is Vermont’s own Cabot premium whipped cream.  Free of all chemicals, artificial anything, and preservatives, Cabot is the best natural whipped cream there is. 

What better way to get your kids to eat a fun, healthy, and fruit filled snack that is also natural and organic too! 

Have thoughts?

 We would love to hear from you!  Send us your healthy snack ideas, and we may feature you in our upcoming healthy kids section, featuring Australian cookbook author and speaker- Annette Sym.

**Part of our goal with this site is to educate parents about things we have learned, experienced or been educated about with regards to our children, our families and our health.  I reference high fructose corn syrup and how I don’t allow it in our home.  Aside from the affect it has on the development of our children’s brain function,  I recently read this article, and want to share it with you.

~In health,

Tara