Welcome!

Welcome to the Healthy Eating Club! www.healthyeatingclub.com.

New article ‘How well are Australian’s eating?’

Dr Kouris has recently written an article on the site called ‘How well are Australian’s eating?’ This article describes the food and nutrient intakes of Australians using results from dietary surveys conducted in 1993 (CSIRO) and 1995 (Commonwealth).

New recipe section

At long last we have started creating our recipe section, which will contain recipes from a variety of cultures, that are healthy, easy to make, and most importantly, taste delicious! These are traditional recipes, which are often not found in cookbooks, and have been sourced from our international elderly food habits study (which includes Greece, Sweden, Japan and Anglo-Celtic Australians).

We will begin with Greek cuisine, and we are fortunate that our managing editor Dr. Kouris-Blazos is a Greek-Australian who co-ordinated this study of 2000 people, and who is passionate about cooking. She will share the knowledge and wisdom she gained from her experiences with the Greek elderly, and her family.

We will be introducing you to a new recipe in the newsletter each month.

All recipes in this section have been personally tested by the staff at the Healthy Eating Club. If you would like to submit a recipe for us to try, or would like to make one of your current recipes a bit healthier, send it to us and we'll test it out. If we like the recipe, we will publish it in the recipe section along with your name. click here for recipes

Conversions of household measures and serving sizes
of various foods into grams

We have added a new table to the site to help you use our food composition tables easier. View it here.

Good links, articles/resources

New Report: Fats and Oils: The Facts by Meadow Lea Foods

This report is a review of the scientific literature regarding fats and oils and their importance in food and health.

You can download a copy of this report from the Gold’n Canola website. http://www.goldncanola.com.au/overview.htm

There is also an easy-to-read table that compares oils and spreads and their nutrients per 100g. http://www.goldncanola.com.au/canola.htm

Dietary Fats Position Statement

In accordance with the Meadow Lea report on Fats and Oils, we have included a link to the position statement on Dietary Fats from the Heart Foundation’s National Nutrition and Metabolism Advisory Committee in 1999.  Read it here. http://heartfoundation.isa.net.au/prof/13_fats.html

The National Heart Foundation recommends that Australians increase their intake of omega-6 fatty acids. Nutrition experts at the Healthy Eating Club believe that the focus should be more on increasing omega-3 fatty acid intake food foods like fish, soy, canola, green leafy vegetables, and legumes.

You can read articles written by Dr. Kouris-Blazos on our website: Omega-3 fats from plants and Metabolism of polyunsaturated omega 6 linoleic and omega 3 linolenic acid.

How safe is your food?

The Choice website has an instructive quiz on safe food preparation at home. Give it a go! http://www.choice.com.au/cp/food/foodsafety1.cfm

Nutrition Panel Calculator

The Australian New Zealand Food Authority (ANZFA) has developed a Nutrition Panel Calculator to provide food manufacturers with the ability to readily calculate the average nutrient content of their food products and to prepare a Nutrition Information Panel as required in the Food Standards code.

The calculator calculates values for the seven nutrients required in NIP’s – energy, protein, total fat, saturated fats, total carbohydrate, sugars and sodium.

The calculator is available on the ANZFA website free-of-charge. http://www.anzfa.gov.au/mediareleasespublications/nutritionpanelcalculator/index.cfm

Food Labels poster

The Australian New Zealand Food Authority (ANZFA) have recently released a new poster ‘Food labels, what do they mean?’ This poster provides comprehensive, yet easy-to-read information about how to read food labels, and also details the changes made to food label standards effective in December 2002. You can download a PDF version of this poster from their site.

http://www.anzfa.gov.au/_srcfiles/Final%20A2%20poster.pdf