Juicing it up for kids!

Fruit is an essential part of a healthy balanced diet. It provides fibre, vitamins and minerals and protective substances like antioxidants, which help in the prevention of developing some cancers.

Children aged between 4 and 11 years need to eat at least one serve of fruit a day, which many children are not doing. One of the reasons is that children find eating whole fruit boring! Making your children juices or smoothies is a great way to increase their fruit intake.

Many parents believe that all fruit juices are healthy options. In fact we often start the familyís day with a glass of commercially made or concentrated juice. Many of these juices are high in sugar or high in concentrated fructose and may also contain several artificial colours and preservatives. These are linked with undesirable health problems in children including tooth decay, diarrhoea and reduced appetite.

Commercial juices while high in kilojoules often lack dietary fibre, which is thrown away during the juicing process.

Making your own juices is the best option to retain fibre and all the other natural goodness in the fruit. Thermomix is a great appliance for doing this. In just a few seconds, you can crush many kinds of fruit with ice or fresh or frozen yoghurt to prepare delicious fruit drinks the whole family can enjoy.

Thermomix juices offer the additional benefit of maintaining all the fruitís fibre, nutrients and enzymes. Best of all, youíll save money and have the peace of mind of knowing there are no unwanted colours, preservatives or additives. And unlike home juicers, Thermomix is quick and easy to clean so making juices is no longer a chore!

Try our Tutti Frutti Crush for a good start to the day!

Tutti Frutti Crush

With an abundance of fresh fruits coming into season, choose your favourite combinations for helping the little ones enjoy a healthy glass of dietary fibre and Vitamin C!

ï 2 oranges, peeled & pith removed, cut into chunks

ï 1 punnet strawberries, hulled

ï 1/2 a fresh pineapple, skin removed, cut into chunks

ï 10 ice cubes

ï 250ml cold water (for thinner consistency)

Place all ingredients into the Thermomix bowl (or a good blender) and process on Turbo for 2 minutes.

Makes about 750 ml

Extra Tips

For a thicker texture, add more ice cubes

To create a fruit smoothie with added goodness, use frozen cubes of yoghurt or milk instead of ice

Any combination of fruit works ie. passionfruit, banana, kiwi fruit, rockmelon, honey dew, mango or mixed berries.

Pasta Fresca 'Recipe for success'
- Earn money in your own time

Every family needs food, and Pasta Fresca has come up with a great way to combine fantastic food with making money.

Pasta Fresca has been in the business for 15 years and is offering people the chance to become a Distributor and earn full time money in part time hours. Simply organize a 'food tasting' to get you started with family and friends. We guarantee, everyone will love the food, place an order and you simply deliver the food to them. We will even supply to first lot of food (subject to minimum order) for free!

Everybody needs food so they will be reordering again soon along with new customers.

For those not interested in becoming a distributor, why not host your own tasting, and earn $50-$350 food credits, we supply the food and demonstrator.

Pasta Fresca is a great time saver for busy families as it means less shopping, meal preparation, cooking and dishwashing time.

Pasta Frescaís food is:

ï All nature, no chemicals, preservative, colourings or additives

ï Restaurant quality

ï Economical - service a family for under $10 with rice/pasta

ï Low fat choices, no added sugar

ï Large range to choose from

ï Long life range ñ four weeks in your fridge

ï Able to be frozen

ï Easy to store in small fridges

ï Quality ingredients used

ï Simply heat and eat

ï Large range suitable for Coeliac Sufferers

For more information on becoming a Pasta Fresca distributor or hosting a food tasting phone Julie Gilbert on 9388 1556 or email pastafresca@swiftdsl.com.au to request an information pack. Or fax 9388 0810

"The Secrets of Good Sleepers"
- Caroline Radford RN, RM, CHN, B Nsg

Having sleepless nights for weeks, months and sometimes years can be devastating.  Approximately 45-55% of Australian babies are still waking through the night in the second year of life.

With sleepless families in mind "The Secrets of Good Sleepers" has been written, by the staff of Ngala, as a guide for parents to help improve sleep for children aged 0-5 years.

The "Secrets of Good Sleepers" provides information about how children sleep, why sleep problems occur and how to make gentle changes to help improve sleep for families.  Information in the "The Secrets of Good Sleepers" helps parents to understand how there child communicates through crying, how to recognise tired signs and tired crying and respond appropriately.

Tips and strategies through the book are designed to be user friendly!  For example, keeping your eyes closed through those night feeds helps to reduce stimulation to your child.  This will help your child to return to sleep faster and some parents find keeping their eyes closed even reduces the number of night feeds.

Another helpful strategy is to develop a night and day rhythm for sleep by settling  your child to sleep in a dimmed (but not dark) place through the day and keeping the environment dark in their sleeping place at night.  The trick at night is to avoid artificial, especially overhead lights.  If you need some lighting near your baby/child at night, try a toilet or hallway light and keep the room they are asleep in as dark as possible.

The "Secrets of Good Sleepers" is available for sale from Ngala at $16.50 plus postage.  For more information visit our website www.ngala.com.au or ring (08) 9368 9370.

How to raise your child' self esteem

Sifu George Michieslen from the Chinese Kung Fu & Tai Chi Academy in Balcatta and O'Connor believes we live in a largely negative world and unless your are vigilant, that negativity will drain the self esteem from your son or daughter. 

A non competitive sport, such as Kung Fu, is great for those kids who don't do well with competition and is also good for all children to exercise regularly, helping them to feel good about themselves.  Some other tips for parents to develop and protect their child's self esteem are: 

ï Always remind your child of their past accomplishments or victories no matter how small.

ï Eat a balanced diet

ï Appearance counts!  Guide your child into taking pride in their appearance.

ï Pick a couple of activities that are important to your child and help him or her to master them!  Don't allow them to flit from activity to activity.

ï Try to guide your child toward friends who have high self-esteem.  Help them avoid negative people.

ï Provide feedback; don't be overly critical.  If you do have to give negative feedback, especially to an older child, always criticize privately; on the other hand, always praise publicly.

For more information contact the Chinese Kung Fu & Tai Chi Academy on 9240 4240 (North) or 9331 7337 (South).