Healthy Holidays: Total Health Entertaining All Year Round

You will be so happy you bought this book if you have kids. It really educates you on the "junk" we are feeding our kids, and gives healthy alternatives that kids will still love. Not only does she give some good background on the healthy principles she believes in, she backs it with science. We've made several of the snack recipes, and my kids and hubby have loved them. The Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins were a real hit!! It's a great investment in the health of your child. I'm going to buy copies for my friends and families with kids.

I wanted to add a good review for this book because people have written negative things about it. The recipes are so good! I made several for different parties and everyone loved them. There's lots of other info, but if you're not interested, don't read it! Yes, it's true that the index is not thorough enough for a book that's organized differently like this one is, but that's the only drawback to this healthy cookbook.

As an avid follower of Marilu's books and nutritional ways for the past two years, those that know me know that I spend only the time I need in the kitchen, and mostly that is food prep and fruit and veggie prep!! I received a copy of Healthy Holidays as a gift two weeks ago and already I made a whole PILE of stuff from the Halloween section...my kids were DELIGHTED to follow the recipes on their own for GOBLIN CRUNCH and CREEPY SPIDERS while I made the BRAINS and SKELETON and WITCHES HANDS..what a wonderful way to spend time with the kids and for the FIRST TIME EVER, I brought food to a function....my friends were SHOCKED!! I think I will entertain more often as this book makes it so easy to prepare the recipes AND has such fun and silly suggestions to lighten up the holidays! Enjoy!~

Even though I am a vegetarian and eat very healthy, I have felt a little lost about how to pass on the importance of healthy food to my daughter. People are always asking me how will I handle certain situations when she is no longer a baby and I do not control everything that goes into her body. For example, how to handle McDonald's birthday parties or school snacks without making her feel like the odd one in the bunch. This book gives great advice on how to handle these situations in a positive manner as well as how to make healthy eating a lifestyle for the entire family. I also love the recipes and knowing that I can still bake homemade desserts for my family, just without all the processed sugar and dairy. I have already tried some of the recipes and they have been a hit so far. Thank you Marilu - every parent should read this book!

Please read this book and take action to help save our children from the health crisis that threatens their entire lives!While they are many excellent resources for adults on how to eat right, exercise, control weight, and avoid harmful substances to reduce the risk of disease or reverse the effects of disease already experienced, little is said about children. This publishing focus reflects a national obsession with helping adults while assuming kids will be all right. Not true! We are in the midst of a terrible tragedy in terms of undermining children's health before they are even through their full physical development. Ms. Henner deserves a huge thanks for taking this subject on, and doing a fine job with it!The data are clear. Children of five often have unhealthy cholesterol levels. Childhood obesity and many related diseases such as diabetes are on the rise. ADD and depression are soaring. Allergy-related problems are often chronic by age six. Many of these problems will stay the same or get worse in adult years. For example, those who are obese while young will usually be obese as adults. That increases the risk for many diseases, especially diabetes and heart problems. The causes relate to eating the wrong foods, too little exercise, and parents doing a poor job of offsetting social influences (like advertising to kids, vending machines for candy at school, and supersize meals at fast food restaurants) in these areas. If your kids are having a lot of ear infections, are tired all the time, are grumpy or hyper alternatively, have asthma, or are overweight, this book will probably help you make changes that will enable your child to improve. If you want a quick overview of the problems and the solutions, Dr. Peter S. Waldstein's foreword captures the key points. While many books on subjects like this rant about the problem but provide little guidance, Healthy Kids is a happy exception. There's lots of practical advice about what food to buy and prepare at home, what to do when eating out, how to improve the food at school, ways to increase exercise, and suggestions about getting rid of and avoiding toxins. The book contains over 100 healthy recipes for foods that kids like, that can substitute for traditional, unhealthy ways of preparing the same or similar foods.I was particularly impressed by the detailed advice related to each age group through college. The book begins by pointing out that 85 percent of children today don't get enough breast milk for proper brain development. Human breast milk has six times the fatty acids critical for brain development that cow's milk has. And cow's milk can cause allergies for some that lead to respiratory and ear infections. My only complaints about the book were that it did not take a look at how blood type affects different youngsters; usually ignored the differences between what girls and boys need; argued for separating and combining different foods without making a case for