Halloween Sweets Can Fit Into a Healthful Eating Plan

As you prepare for Halloween take some time to think about how to manage the candy, cookies and pastries that are so much a part of the holiday. Sweets can add enjoyment and variety to a healthful eating plan but if you aren't careful they will also add lots of fat, sugar and calories. The best way to enjoy Halloween is to have a plan that allows for small portions of treats.

Current dietary guidelines recommend keeping sugar intake to less than ten percent of your daily calories so if you are an "average" adult consuming 2000 calories that would mean less than 200 calories from added sweets. One chocolate candy bar can easily provide 200 calories so think about choosing mini or fun size bars to control your intake.

Some tips can make Halloween enjoyable but also healthy.

• Determine how much candy you can eat per day and portion it out into small bags
• Consume healthful foods outlined in Mypyramid.gov before eating sweets
• Slowly chew sweets so that you really savor the flavor
• Keep activity in your routine to help manage the extra calories

Happy Halloween!

Annual American Dietetic Meeting

The annual Food and Nutrition Conference of the American Dietetic Association wrapped up today. The meeting was attended by more than 7,000 food and nutrition professionals. During this four day meeting attendees had a chance to learn about vitamin C supplementation, the importance of choosing healthy fats like corn, soy, canola and oil instead of butter and animal fats, how sustainability can, and should, include a component on nutrition and more than 70 other sessions.

In addition to the sessions 350 exhibitors displayed their new products, whether they were food, equipment or educational materials. Items found included many gluten free options, even a bread that really tasted good, organic options, healthy products from Starbucks as well as many other companies.

International Congress of Nutrition

Today in Bangkok the 19th International Congress of Nutrition was kicked off by a welcoming address from Thailand's Royal Highness. The conference is off to a good start with several sessions on the issue of undernutrition. In addition a session on sodium reduction looked at sodium intake worldwide and steps that have been taken by Unilever to reduce sodium in their products. The challenge to the audience was to take an active role in educating consumers about sodium and its role in health and food production.

Another session looked at the role of diet in disease development with a special focus on how diet can impact inflammation in a positive and negative way.

Tomorrow brings session on fats, nutrition in pregnancy and more session on genetic modulation and disease. In the evening tomorrow I will coordinate with others to conduct a workshop and cooking demo on the importance of fats in a healthful eating plan and how to choose healthy fats.