Family Nutrition … it’s our “Beat”

by The Meal Makeover Moms on March 10th, 2009

March is National Nutrition Month, and tomorrow is officially National Registered Dietitian Day.  Admittedly, we never knew there was such a day, but then again, there’s a National Pigs-in-a-Blanket Day and a National Blueberry Pancake Day, so we’re thrilled registered dietitians get their own day too.

To celebrate, we’re participating in an RD Blogfest (AKA blog carnival).  For the event, dietitian bloggers across the web are showcasing what it means to be a dietitian and highlighting the different career paths they’ve chosen (see links below).

Dietitians do a host of things.  Those with clinical backgrounds often work in hospitals and nursing homes while others, trained in the area of media and communications, bring their talents to public relations firms, food corporations and major magazines and newspapers.

As The Meal Makeover Moms, we consider ourselves family nutrition experts.  Our journey down that path began in 2004 with the release of our book, The Moms’ Guide to Meal Makeovers.  The book highlights our simple food philosophy that kids – even picky ones — will eat nutritious food without complaint as long as it looks and tastes great. To write the book, we drew upon many experiences – Liz worked as a producer for CNN and PBS for many years, writing and reporting on food and nutrition, and she was also trained at The Cambridge School of Culinary Arts in Cambridge MA; Janice, the uber organizer between us, worked as the dietitian for the U.S. Senate in Washington and spent over a decade collaborating with award-winning chef Daniel Bruce at the Boston Harbor Hotel.

Timing is everything. In 2004, when the web was really starting to take off we launched MealMakeoverMoms.com, our online Meal Makeover Moms’ Club (now over 6,000 members strong), and a monthly e-newsletter.  At that time, we also began hosting hands-on cooking classes for fellow parents and wrote for several parenting magazines including Nick Jr., American Baby, and Kiwi.  Today, we co-host a weekly radio podcast, Cooking with the Moms (anyone can tune in either on our website or on iTunes).  In addition, we have a newly-designed food blog, Meal Makeover Moms’ Kitchen, where we post kid-friendly recipes, mealtime tips, and new food product news several times a week. We mastered a lot of new technologies along the way; we’re still amazed that Janice learned how to edit the podcast and that Liz finally figured out how to post to the blog without breaking out in a cold sweat!

As busy moms, we understand the daily challenge parents face when breakfast, lunch, and dinner rolls around.  By sharing our tried-and-true recipes — Cheeseburger Pizza, Mommy’s Edamames,  Apple Butterscotch Cake to name a few — and realistic mealtime advice, we aim to make a positive impact on families everywhere.

Blogfest contributors:

Beyond Prenatals -
Food vs. Supplements and Real Advice vs. Fake Advice
Annette Colby -
No More Diets! A Registered Dietitian Shares 9 Secrets to
Real and Lasting Weight Loss
Ashley Colpaart -
Dietitians working in food policy, a new frontier
Diana Dyer -
There & Back Again: Celebration of National Dietitian Day
Marjorie Geiser -
RD Showcase for National RD Day - What we do
Cheryl Harris -
Me, a Gluten Free RD!
Marilyn Jess -
National Registered Dietitian Day--RD Blogfest
Julie Lanford -
Antioxidants for Cancer Prevention
Renata Mangrum -
What I'm doing as I grow up...
Liz Marr -
Fruits and Veggies for Registered Dietian Day: Two Poems
Jill Nussinow -
The Registered Dietitian Lens I Look Through
Wendy Jo Petersen -
March 11 is our day to shine!
Diane Preves -
RDs & the White House Forum on Health Reform
Andy Sarjahani -
Green Eggs and Ham and a Sustainable Food System
Rebecca Scritchfield -
Big Tips from a "Big Loser"
Anthony Sepe -
RD Showcase: Registered Dietitian Day, March 11, 2009
Kathy Shattler -
RD Showcase for Nutri-Care Consultation
UNL-Extension, Douglas/Sarpy County -
Nutrition Know How - Making Your Life Easier 
Monika Woolsey -
Dietitians--Can't Do PCOS Without Them!
Monika Woolsey -
In Honor of National Registered Dietitian Day
Jen Zingaro -
My life as a Registered Dietitian


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8 Comments | Filed Under CulinaryAdventures, Misc., Website 

New Blog Highlights

by The Meal Makeover Moms on February 24th, 2009

Thanks for visiting our new-and-improved blog, Meal Makeover Moms’ Kitchen.  Before we tell you all about it, we want to extend a huge and hearty thank you to social media guru, Susan Getgood, and to Samantha from Temptation Designs for helping to create this new, vibrant gathering place!

Here at Meal Makeover Moms’ Kitchen, you’ll find fresh ideas for feeding your family a healthy diet, simple and nutritious recipes that appeal to kids, recommendations for must-have kitchen gadgets and new food products, cool giveaways, and a whole lot more.

Some of the new blog post features you’ll see on this site include:

  • Recipe Rescue:  If you have a favorite recipe — a gooey dessert, a rich and creamy soup, a stick-to-your waistline casserole – that needs a healthy makeover, send it our way.  Each month, we’ll select one recipe to be “rescued” and feature it right here on the blog.
  • No Whine with Dinner:  Spending precious time making dinner only to have the kids whine when it’s served can be frustrating for busy parents. Once a month, we’ll feature a guest post from a fellow blogger who’s created a recipe so yummy, so kid friendly, and so easy that nobody whines when dinner is served!
  • Healthy Meal with Kid Appeal Award:  As dietitians and moms, we’re on a mission to help families eat a healthful and delicious diet. One way we do this is to search for family-friendly recipes from fellow bloggers. We try them out in our own kitchens and if they pass the “thumbs-up” test with our families, we give them our Healthy Meal with Kid Appeal Award — a Meal Makeover Mom “seal of approval” if you will.  We created a cool badge (check it out in the left sidebar) which we send to award winners.

Thanks for visiting, and please don’t hesitate to post a comment if you have a question or something you’d like to share.

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6 Comments | Filed Under Website 

Check out our new Website!

by The Meal Makeover Moms on September 30th, 2008

We’re happy to report that our website has undergone an extreme makeover and is ready for all to see and surf.  The website features lots of new recipes, over two dozen nutrition articles, and mealtime tools to help you plan fast and healthy family meals (even if you have picky eaters at home). While you are on the site tune in to our weekly radio podcast (Cooking with the Moms), sign up for our e-newsletter, and watch one of our many cooking videos. We hope we live up to our new tagline for MealMakeoverMoms.com: Healthy Meals with Kid Appeal.

As you can see, our blog has been redesigned and is housed on our own site, not on Blogspot.  We’ll still be blogging at least once a week to this new blog on MealMakeoverMoms.com.  We are anxious to hear what you think of all our changes!  Once you have had a chance to visit, please post your feedback right here on our blog. Happy surfing!

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8 Comments | Filed Under Website 

Bags, Wrinkles, and Roots

by The Meal Makeover Moms on May 16th, 2008
Before The Moms’ Guide to Meal Makeovers was released, we were photographed for the back of the book and our website. Almost five years later, in desperate need of updated photos, we hired photographer extraordinaire David Shopper. Our directive to David was to photograph us in the kitchen doing what we do best: slicing, dicing, and cooking up a storm.

Though we have not yet seen the final photographs, our hope is that he’s able to touch us up a bit to lessen the bags under Janice’s eyes, our wrinkles, and Liz’s grey roots. Having make-up artist Jeri La Shay on the “set” came in handy too.

You’ll be able to see the final photos when we unveil our new website in the next month or so. As you can see from the amateur photos we took with David, Jeri, and Janice’s daughters, by the end of the day we were all a little bit loopy.
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2 Comments | Filed Under Website 
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