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By Julie Smolyansky on 2/2/2012 2:44 PM Two weeks ago we challenged you to drink Lifeway Kefir every day with the promise that you would feel better. Along the way, we have offered up healthy lifestyle tips and recipes for you and your family. The team at Lifeway asked me to contribute a post for the end of this challenge. Losing weight is a top resolution every year – but studies show that more than half of people who make resolutions break them within six months. I think in part this is due to all the marketing by companies promising a quick fix. “Eat this and you will lose weight!” “Drink this and shed those pounds!” “Buy this and you too can look like this!” But in real life, no one looks like those images! So we can never achieve the unrealistic goals we set for ourselves, and when we don’t, we feel like we failed. Just last week I came across this spoof about Photoshop, it’s a funny video but the message is serious.
Frankly, I’m angry - just like we all should be! I’m sick of hearing about girls on diets as young as six years old. Recently Katya Zharkova, a size 12 “plus” size model stood side-by-side embracing a traditional model, and the image was shocking. She went on to state that most runway models meet the Body Maxx Index criteria for anorexia. On the other side of the pendulum, we have an obesity epidemic in this country - both children and adults overweight to the point that we have a health crisis on our hands. It is apparent to me that we have forgotten how to nourish our body and souls. We have lost our consciousness.
I stopped dieting, obsessing over fat and calories, and even buying fashion magazines when I was pregnant with my first daughter. I wanted to protect my children against comparing themselves to society’s brand of beauty and feeling bad about themselves. Instead of being victims to the diet industry, we focus on being a healthy family. We eat healthy and organic as often as possible; we stay active, and we contribute to our society. In other words, we live consciously and with intent.
We don’t call food “good” or “bad” - it’s all just food. We shop our farmers market every few days for local and in-season fruits and veggies, and we certainly get our fair share of probiotics and kefir daily. My partner Jason and I have been known to bike over 100 miles around the city in one week with our kids hitched on the back. I’ve trained for six marathons along Lake Michigan over the last 10 years – and I pushed a stroller along in two of them.
There’s still room for the occasional cupcake! I would even go so far as to dub my family a “family of cupcake connoisseurs,” and I personally love a Vosges truffle with my evening glass of red wine. (Dark chocolate and red wine - both loaded with antioxidants!) Instead of thinking of all the things you can’t eat while on your diet, try thinking of all the wonderful things you can add to your LIFE – even if in moderation.
How you eat does matter – but not in a calorie-counting sense. When you put wholesome, real food into your body - with ingredients you understand and can pronounce - you feel better! Eat 21-35 colorful, conscious meals and snacks over the week - loaded with fresh fruits, veggies, fish, grains and healthy dairy like kefir – and you’ll feel good (inside and out.) You’ll have more energy, and your skin will glow. You’ll even notice a difference in how you spend your time, your money, and your focus. Living your life with purpose and intent will lead to more quality time with people you love, and more time to be creative. Less time in front of the TV and on Facebook, and more time enjoying your Facebook friends in real life!
To quote my favorite artist Eddie Vedder, “I know I was born and I know that I'll die. The in between is mine. I am mine.” Own that “in between” and make it great; make it intentional.
This year I resolved to empower and inspire as many people as I possibly could. I hope to use this space to do that every now and then. I want to hear about how your life changed when healthy eating became second nature to you! Did you start a new community project? Did you reconnect with lost friends? Twelve days isn’t enough time to make lasting lifestyle shifts, but it’s a good start. Twelve days will turn into 12 weeks, and 12 weeks into 12 months of conscious living and by then, you’ll be well on your way to changing your life and maybe changing the world. Collective consciousness has a ripple effect and I can’t wait to hear what you have done with yours.
Here are some of my family’s staple pantry items to get you started. Do a big round of produce washing and chopping, or buy them pre-chopped so they’re ready to eat when you want them! - Watermelon
- Mangoes
- Tomatoes
- Cucumbers
- Strawberries
- Carrots
- Jicama
- Oatmeal
- Almonds
- Coconut Water
- Lifeway Kefir & ProBugs
- Granola
- Cheese
- Sliced turkey
- Tuna Salmon
- Balsamic vinegar
- Whole wheat breads and tortillas
- Eggs
- Peanut Butter
By LifeWayKefir LifeWayKefir on 1/26/2012 9:20 AM We've spent quite a bit of our 12 days together talking about food. But it's not just what you eat that can change the way you feel - how you eat is just as important. If trying to get your kids to eat well is stressing you out, take a few minutes to check out this guest post from healthy food blogger Amelia Winslow.
Many of us were raised hearing things like “You’re not getting up from this table until you finish your lima beans!” or “Eat all your peas or there will be no dessert for you, young lady!” on any given evening. Our parents weren’t militant, they were just traditional – because in previous decades, food scarcity was a real issue and our parents wanted our bellies full.
But times have changed. With so many American children overweight and struggling with weight-related health problems or body image issues, the “clean your plate” philosophy is no longer appropriate. It’s time to update our parenting strategies to encourage children to eat healthy but also have a healthy relationship with food.
Of course there are many theories on how to raise healthy eaters. The following are my own thoughts on how to help your kids enjoy healthy food without making mealtime a battleground.
- Don’t make food a big deal. It’s not worth it. Both you and your child want mealtime to be a positive experience, and if you fight about what/how much/when to eat every time food appears, it will be hard to show your kids that a healthy relationship with food is possible. All kids go through phases in their food tastes and appetites, and if you’re somewhat flexible with them, they won’t constantly struggle with you to regain some control over their own hunger.
- Model good eating habits. Growing up, my brother rarely ate anything besides cereal, Haagen Dazs, and fruit. He just wasn’t interested in other foods. My mom gave up fighting him, but she continued to prepare healthy meals for the rest of us which we ate together every night (my brother sat at the table too with his bowl of Kix). Over time, he began to try new foods, and now at 28, he buys all the same groceries that my mom kept around when we were young – including kale, squash, and plain kefir! So remember that even if your kids aren’t eating what you eat, they’re still watching you and will one day be likely to model your eating behavior.
- Involve kids in shopping and meal planning. Turn veggie-eating into an adventure by letting your kids loose at the farmer’s market or in the produce section and allowing them to pick one thing they want each week. Then involve them in the preparation of their item. They’ll be much more likely to try and enjoy whatever they’ve selected, and will find food preparation fun.
- Appeal to kid tastes. Kids often like crunchy raw veggies with dips, or cooked veggies topped with cheese or butter. No need to fight this! Try serving these types of things at meal time and your kids will be more likely to try new healthy foods. Here are some easy dip recipes, or you can go crazy and make this Cheetos-topped broccoli (you can replace cream with whole milk), or try these stuffed sweet potatoes, which can be altered to suit your family’s taste.
- Avoid using foods as rewards or punishments. The days of saying “if you eat all of ___ , you can have dessert” are over. Using treat foods as rewards or “healthy” foods as punishment does not promote a healthy relationship with food. Think of non-food ways to reward your child when she does something good, and try to avoid making her eat something she doesn’t want to as means of “earning” something else.
- Deal with dessert. Many families find dessert time a challenge. Avoid battles by deciding whether you’ll have a few “dessert nights” each week (on designated nights) where everyone gets a treat regardless of what they ate for dinner, whether you’ll allow “one treat per day,” or some other household policy you feel comfortable with. And remember, what “dessert” means is up to you – so stock up on things you want your kids eating, like frozen kefir with berries, smoothies, or little handfuls of trail mix. You get to decide what a treat is!
- Set limits. You’re the parent, and you’re in charge. This is your kitchen and your money buying food, so you have a lot of control over what you bring into your home in the first place. Decide what kinds of foods you feel comfortable keeping around the house, and stick to it. It’s important to make eating enjoyable and fun, but it’s also important that your kids know who rules the roost!
Eating routines are different in every household, and most of us turn out OK, so don’t fret too much if these tips are far from what you’re currently doing. If you’re up for making some changes to promote your family’s healthy relationship with food, start with one tip at a time; once it’s mastered you can begin to work on another one. Before long, you’ll have some systems in place that work well for both you and your kids.
Amelia Winslow is a nutritionist, food lover, new mom, and the founder of Eating Made Easy, a blog that makes healthy eating easier for busy people. Get recipes, food news, nutrition tips, answers to your burning questions and more on Eating-Eade-Easy.com.
Don't forget to sign up for money-saving coupons and stay on track with your 12 days of drinking kefir!
By LifeWayKefir LifeWayKefir on 1/22/2012 7:51 PM The hottest meme racing around Facebook right now has to do with people’s birthdates. You click on a web site and find out what song was number 1 on the day you were born. Imagine our delight when we plugged in 1986 (the year Lifeway was founded) and learned Live To Tell by Madonna ruled the airways. We’re huge Madge fans and have been spending the past few weeks gearing up for her fast-approaching Super Bowl halftime performance at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on February 5.
Read More »
By LifeWayKefir LifeWayKefir on 11/20/2011 2:40 AM Occupy Wall Street has taken over headlines, with thousands of protesters calling attention to perceived social and economic inequality.
Lifeway kefir is jampacked with seven to ten billions CFUs of probiotics, live and active cultures that occupy your GI tract to calm tummy troubles and boost overall immunity.
We matched them head to head – see which occupier emerged on top. Read More »
By Julie Smolyansky on 9/12/2011 1:40 PM On November 6th, I‘ll be running the New York Marathon with Every Mother Counts, Christy Turlington Burns’ advocacy and mobilization campaign dedicated to increasing education and support for maternal and child health. While this will be my fifth marathon (Chicago 2001 and 2002, London 2002 and Madison 2003), it will be my first one since becoming a mother, and I can’t imagine a better charity to support or help raise funds and awareness for. As you may know from my past blogs, I spent part of my summer vacation with Every Mother Counts in Bangladesh, so when Christy emailed me with the question, “Want to run the New York Marathon with me?” I instantly and eagerly replied “YES!” I have always wanted to run the coveted New York Marathon and had actually been training for the Chicago Marathon when the invitation to travel to Bangladesh arrived. Going for a run in Dhaka proved to be pretty difficult for a variety of reasons (running the streets covered head to toe in 100 degree weather would have been too dangerous). But I never actually thought that after having two little girls, Leah and Misha, I’d ever be running another marathon. And yet, my youngest just turned one this summer…and here I am just finishing up the Chicago Half Marathon.
I never thought of myself as a runner. As a matter of fact, I vividly recall walking “The Mile” in high school during Presidential Physical Fitness Testing, and finding every excuse in the book not to break a sweat. Finally, after about four attempts to get me to run, my gym teacher threatened to flunk me if I kept walking. And so, kicking and screaming, I picked up the pace. It’s not that I wasn’t athletic – I figure skated for 15 years, played tennis, rode horses and was even an aerobics instructor in college. I simply hated running. After college, I became a gym rat, addicted to cardio kickboxing and Jane Fonda aerobics. Meanwhile, Lifeway was sponsoring the Chicago Marathon and other races. I saw all sorts of folks, young and old, with all different body shapes, saying “I do” to 26.2 miles…and a seed was planted. If they could do it, so could I. I think the real kicker was when I got stuck in Chicago traffic during the marathon and watched as an older man - he had to be 70 plus - making his way through the streets of Lincoln Park. Now the seed was watered. In 2001, I found myself in NY for work for what seemed like a month. All of the local aerobics classes seem to be at lunch time, which didn’t work with my schedule, and I began to fret about my workouts. Kicking and screaming again, putting one foot in front of the other I “ran” to Central Park. These first days of running were really more run/walk/run/hobble/walk/hobble stints. But I absolutely loved Central Park. It was that magical, sprawling park that got me through those first weeks of becoming a “runner.” By the end of the month, I could run for two hours without stopping and was so proud of myself. I had no idea the distance I was doing - it could have been three miles for all I knew – but it felt great. When I returned to Chicago, I went for another two-hour run and figured out I had gone about 12 miles. That’s practically a half-marathon! I was ecstatic – that was a large enough distance to push me to sign up for the 2001 Chicago Marathon. It was official…a runner was born. During those months of training, I learned about energy gels, wicking clothes, Body Glide, and chafing on areas of my body I never dreamed could chafe. I experienced the ever-famous runners high, as well as hitting “the wall”, when the high wears off and the crash rains down. I could eat what seemed like unlimited amounts of chocolate chip cookies and still lose weight. My favorite place to shop was my local running store, where I stocked up on fun running gear and became a total running nerd. More importantly, I always finished my run with a glass of Lifeway Kefir and a banana. Kefir is actually great for distance runners because the protein helps with muscle repair and the immune boosting elements were helpful because distance runners really put their body through torture at times. (Hey, I have to sell a little ,too  ) And then came that gut-wrenching day, September 11th. I continued on with my training that night, but this time with no music. Five miles with nothing but my own thoughts, grief and sadness. I bowed my head to other runners on the trail. The sky was still, planes grounded, streets quiet. Shortly thereafter, my 20-miler came up and all I could think of was the thousands of people who woke up to go to work on 9/11 and some never came home. Some ran for their lives, 25+ miles in work clothes, heels, under intense fear and stress. Here I was, prepared for 20 miles, wearing comfortable running gear, under the sunny, still, quiet sky of Chicago. I don’t want to say my first 20 miles was easy, but I guess I don’t think it was that hard, either. The streets of Chicago were still under heavy patrol by Chicago Police and I felt tremendous gratitude for their presence along the path. And, as I learned in Bangladesh, the freedom to practice sport out in public wearing shorts and a tank top is not a freedom all women in the world have. My running life started in Central Park and I couldn’t be more thrilled to pay tribute to the great city of New York on the 10th year anniversary of 9/11 by giving it my first 26.2 miles as a mom. Here’s to you, New York. And here's the part where I ask you to open your heart and your wallet for maternal health. Please visit my Crowdrise page and help make every mother count. Thank you.
By LifeWayKefir LifeWayKefir on 8/10/2011 2:29 PM 
The Lifeway family is always busy at events during the summer. We love to cool off Chicagoland crowds with kefir at Lollapalooza, Pitchfork Music Fest, 5K runs and Lincoln Park Zoo events, but we also wanted to take a week to show our appreciation for a state we weren't able to fit into our 25th Anniversary Tour earlier this year. Minnesota, here we come (with a brief stop in Wisconsin)! Come get your daily dose of probiotics and meet Kefir Joe at one of the locations below...
Thursday August 11, 2011
Woodmans 12:00pm - 3:00pm
3817 Milwaukee Street Madison, WI 53714
Friday August 12, 2011
Byerly's 10:00am - 1:30pm
13081 Ridgedale Drive Minnetonka, MN 55305
Lunds 2:30pm - 6:00pm
3455 Vicksburg Lane Plymouth, MN 55447
Saturday August 13, 2011
Jerrys Foods 9:30am - 1:00pm
5125 Vernon Ave S. Edina, MN 55346
Cub Foods 2:00pm - 6:00pm
2021 Robert Street S. West St Paul, MN
Sunday August 14, 2011
Minneapolis Farmers Market 6:30am - 1:00pm
312 East Lyndale Ave N. Minneapolis, MN Monday August 15th
Cub Foods 3:00pm - 6:00pm
1801 Market Drive Stillwater, MN Tuesday August 16th
Whole Foods 10:00am - 1:00pm
3060 Excelsior Blvd. Minneapolis, MN
By LifeWayKefir LifeWayKefir on 8/3/2011 10:57 AM Congratulations to commenter "Ant" who suggested Neapolitan Kefir and wants to see Girl Talk. Random.org selected your number, so prepare for Lollapalooza! Thanks to all of the participants -- we've got some great ideas for future kefir flavors now. Ant, we'll contact you soon with details!
By LifeWayKefir LifeWayKefir on 8/2/2011 3:01 PM
Here at Lifeway HQ, we receive lots of messages from parents telling us how much their kids adore our kefir and ProBugs. There’s just one issue: Lots of kids have a difficult time pronouncing “kefir,” or simply prefer to call it by another cute name. We’ve gathered a list of some of our favorites – please add your kiddos’ kefir nicknames to the list in the Comments section!
Carollee: “My three-year-old son loves your strawberry Kefir. He calls it "Bieber,” like Justin Bieber"!
Eric: “One of our sons can't get enough "Bug Juice" and our younger son will NOT go anywhere without his blanket and “Keyoh.” Kefir is a staple in our house like bread or milk is to everyone else.”
Eden: “My two boys call kefir ‘special smoothies.’”
Erika: “I just wanted to write and tell you how much my 22 month old son, Drake, LOVES your kefir yogurt smoothie in every flavor! Every time he wakes up, gets home from daycare and many other random times throughout the day, he yells "Smoothie, smoothie!" and that's what he is asking for! He has special cups that he brings to me that we only use for kefir smoothies and he just loves it! He just tried the new birthday cake flavor and loved it!”
Melanie: “We call it ‘Strawberry shake’ in our house.”
Charlotte: “My four kids just call it ‘Yogurt drink.’ Not too original, but they love it!”
Some more ideas from our crack team of researchers:
-Milk Slushees
-Bottle o’ Bugs
-Dream Cream
-Morning Mojo Milkshakes
Speaking of kiddos, we were poking around BabyCenter.com and came across this:
“Kefir” as a boy’s name is ranked #30326 out of all names. Rather inexplicably, the web site suggests Cooper, Asher and Wes as like-minded alternatives. We beg to differ – and we think Kiefer Sutherland would agree.
By LifeWayKefir LifeWayKefir on 8/1/2011 8:55 AM
When people ask us what our favorite time of year is, we always say "Lollapalooza!" While it's not technically a season, the festival holds a special place in our hearts, and we want to share that wonderful feeling with the Lifeway kefir community. We've got a pair of three day passes for one lucky kefir lover! Leave a comment below, telling us your idea for a brand new Lifeway kefir flavor and which act you're most excited to see. We’ll pick a winner using random.org this Wednesday at noon and announce the results in a blog as well as on Facebook and Twitter.
Good luck! Remember to cool off at Lollapalooza with some delicious kefir from Starfruit Cafe. Be sure to visit the Lifeway kefir booth at Kidzapalooza if you're attending with the little ones in tow!
*The winner will be responsible for travel and lodging accommodations, so please keep that in mind before entering the contest.
By Julie Smolyansky on 7/19/2011 10:15 AM It was a 15-hour flight from Chicago to Abu Dhabi, followed by a two-hour layover and yet another five-hour flight to Dhaka, Bangladesh. I was greeted with a custom form inquiring, “Do you belong to your father or your husband?” Yes, it did.
Practically the instant I stepped off the plane in Abu Dhabi, I felt the incessant stares of men and women - moreso if they were in a larger group. I wrapped myself in my scarf, put my sunglasses on and bowed my head down trying to draw as little attention to myself as possible (A little bit of a challenge being the fair skinned blond I am). This proved incredibly difficult for me: I am a friendly, confident, self assured American businesswoman, not used to bowing my head down and attempting to render myself invisible. I was angry, but I also wanted to be culturally sensitivity. I walked past young women dressed in full burkas, some with a small eye slit; other had their eyes covered as well.
I couldn’t help but feel a pull at my heart as I wondered, “Did these women agree to this or was it forced on them? Did they have any choice in the matter?” I was a guest in their country, but I felt great empathy for the girls and women live in this region of the world. I wandered the gift shop for a souvenir for my girls and was excited to see a Barbie collection. I thought it would be interesting to bring back an Abu Dhabi Barbie for the girls but all I could find was Nightclub Barbie.
Disappointed I made my way to the gate, passing a glass room not more than 5 ft x 5 ft filled with smoking middle eastern men. I thought to myself, “Don’t make eye contact, don’t make eye contact” followed by, “Guess they didn’t see Christy’s PSA”.
I landed in Bangladesh at 4am and was welcomed by four men holding up signs reading, “JULIE SMOLYANSKY.” Boy…they really know how to welcome a gal to Bangladesh! Christy had made sure there were people on the ground ready to greet me and move me through customs in the most smoothest way possible. I arrived at my hotel safely; two hours later, I joined Christy, Erin Thornton, Executive Director for Every Mother Counts and Heather Armstrong, aka “Dooce”…the famous mommy blogger. Also in our group: Photographer Josh Estey and Dina Hussin, the producer for Christy’s No Woman No Cry documentary. In route to our first destination, a rural village outside of Dhaka they briefed me on what I had missed the first day, as well as the state of affairs for woman and children in Bangladesh. Most promising is the fact that the programs that have been in place for a decade or more are really starting to make an impact in maternal and infant health including the fact that there is a wider understanding of rights, the influence of traditional media, economic opportunities such as microcredit and community involvement.
Bangladesh is half the population of the United States -160 million people - but the size of Iowa. Per capita, it is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. Most of its citizens survive on less than two dollars a day. Ninety percent of the population is Islamic, seven percent Hindu, and the rest, Christian and Buddhist. Undoubtedly, women and children suffer the most here. The average age of marriage is 15 years old and most girls never finish secondary school.
As we made our way through legendary Dhaka traffic, I was greeted with cows and goats walking along the road, side by side with cars and endless colorful rickshaws. Small shops and street vendors lined every inch of the road.
Honking the horn seemed to be the country’s pastime. Woman and men carried baskets of fruit on their head dressed in colorful saris and ethnic cotton tunics, respectively. My senses were in absolute overdrive. We arrived at our first stop, a CARE project (CARE is a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty with special focus on working alongside poor women) in a rural village in Narshingdhi, where a trained community health worker was sitting on the floor of a straw hut surrounded by a pregnant woman and her family.
Since it is difficult to reach a clinic or a hospital- if all is going well, the women deliver at home, hopefully with a skilled attendant by her side. However, it is important to educate the entire group of decision makers (mother in law, husband, sisters ,etc) about how to best care for the woman during her pregnancy and what the possible signs of complications might be so that she can seek additional care as needed. The village had suffered several maternal deaths and they were grateful to receive this training.
About a mile down the road, another meeting was taking place outside in the center of the village. This time it was a group of community health workers, sitting on the ground in a circle and discussing different cases of pregnant woman in the village. They mapped out the village on a poster, plotting out all the pregnancies by hand.
Using this map, health workers are able to visit expectant mothers month to month to monitor their health and vital signs. Another interesting development since Christy filmed two and a half years ago was the use of mobile technology: A handful of village people own mobile phones; health and development workers are able to send text messages to disseminate health information to the public using this advancement. MAMA (Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action) an initiative which was recently launched by Hillary Clinton will scale up the use of mobile technology to reach more women in this manner. The goal is to reach 500,000 women in three years with health information across the country. Such technology has led to a decrease in maternal death; I can only imagine how the community and country could benefit from internet and smart phone applications.
We headed down to the hospital where there was a long line of mostly mothers and babies, waiting for their vouchers that provide money for the extremely poor families of infants.
We entered the room where c-sections are conducted and it suddenly became very apparent why women in the villages were afraid to come to the hospital for their delivery.
Most shocking: This hospital had just underwent a renovation just two years ago - yet it looked like in belonged in another century. I again thought back to my own delivery. I was terrified in even one of the most sterile, technologically advanced hospital rooms in the world…this was downright frightening. I think I too would rather risk death by staying at home then come to this place to delivery my baby.
Coming up: Bangladesh Slums
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