Day on the Bay: A Health and Wellness Multicultural Festival

Thank you Supervisor Dave Cortese and the Santa Clara County Parks and Recreation Department for organizing this great event. We talked to more than 200 people at our Community Health Institute booth.

We covered 2 major subjects for this event. The first topic was “ How the Low Glycaemic Index Food impacts your weight? " Surprising; most of the people had no clue about what the Glycaemic Index means.
No wander our country has a big weight issue.

The 2nd topic was “How to read the Label?”. Somehow more people were interested in this subject. We display 8 popular energy bars on the market, plus 1 Hershey chocolate bar on the table. I cannot believe 99% of the audience were eating those Junk bars (with high Sugar and Sodium) for a long time. We showed there was little or no difference between a Hershey bar and the energy bars.

I am grateful that I had this opportunity to inform people about their own health.

The Big Issue of our children

Today's youth face more pressures and influences than ever before.
Those burdens carry tremendous weight - both physically and emotionally.

Obesity is a serious health concern for children and adolescents in our county.
The statistics are daunting. Over the past three decades, the childhood obesity rate in America has skyrocketed. Today, approximately nine million children over 6 years of age are considered obese and 54 percent of American children say they are concerned about their weight.
TLS Shape Up is designed by kids, for kids. There are no gimmicks, just proven results. It teaches goal setting and planning skills while instructing kids the fundamentals of good nutrition and exercise. It helps not just kids, but families understand that their decisions today will affect them tomorrow.

Below is a great interviews with Dr. Marla Sanzone (Clinical Pyshcologist), Dr. Nancy Miller-Ihli and Lydia Martinez (Fitness Specialist).

2nd Annual Day on the Bay, A Multicultural Festival!

Come to visit me this Saturday, 9/17 at the Alviso Marina County Park from 11AM to 4PM. Our organization "Community Health Institute" will have a booth at this event.

This festival will feature a section focused on health and wellness in our community. We plan to do free flu shots, diabetes testing, and offer a fitness clinic for youth and young adults, all intended to help motivate the community to make positives change in health behavior.

Admission is Free to the general public and the event will have something for everyone. Free pumpkins for the kids. Arts and crafts and live entertainment including face painting, fire trucks, kayak trips in the Alviso Slough and...more.

Loving recommendation from Mr. Gu

Mr. Gu is one of my students from my Health class at Newark Garden Senior Center. He wrote a loving recommendation about me. I am sorry if you can not read Chinese...This letter is based on the “Blood Sugar & Exercise” presentation that I gave for 100+ low income seniors in east bay. Normally we will have the Chinese class first and the English one after. Sometime even I wonder which language I am speaking in class....

 

Cooking Demo at Whole Foods

I appreciated Tina Manickam (Marketing and Community Outreach Team Leader) from Whole Foods Market to host a great event for Children and parents. 

Why only the little kids love to take a picture?

I made 3 simple Healthy lunch ideas with few ingredients in one hour. I really enjoy doing that. Now my goal is to have our own kitchen with classroom setting for cooking class in the future. 

Enclosed some comment and picture from Whole Foods!

picture from Whole Foods Market

http://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/?set=a.10150428907464478.456617.115268524477

Lunch Ideas for kids

This coming Saturday 8/27 I will have a cooking demo at Whole Foods Campbell. It will be a perfect event for kids and their parents to learn some healthy ideas for weekday meals. I plan to make 3 different lunch dishes for kids, of course for adults too. Can not wait to see all the kids taste the food.

Dish #1. Banana Strawberry kiwi peanut butter sandwich. (pairing with Cheese)
Ingredients: Banana, Strawberries, Kiwi, Lemon, Peanut butter and 365 Organic Mighty Multigrain bread. (Almond butter for Children under 8 or allergic to peanuts)

Dish #2. Pink Salmon Lavash roll. (pairing with Dried Fruit)
Ingredients: Wild caught Alaskan pink Salmon without bone/skin (6 oz can), Hummes, Roman lettuces, Garlic, Green Onion, Black Pepper, Lite Soy Sauce and California Lavash. Optional: White Wine to cook out the fishy taste.

Dish #3. Chicken cold noodle. (pairing with smoothie)
Ingredients: Rotisserie Chicken, Dry wheat noodle, Thai Peanut Sauce (SAN-J), Carrots, Japanese or Persian Cucumber, Soy Sauce, Sesame Oil and Rice wine Vinegar.

Detail recipes and pictures are coming soon.....

Festival in the Park Where wellness meets FUN 2011!

Our organization; Community Health Institute participated at Festival in the Park, Where wellness meets FUN. This is an annual event hosted by Santa Clara County located at Hellyer County Park San Jose. This fair informs, educates and inspires families from the county to take charge of their health, exercise, fitness and living a healthier lifestyle. It was a perfect fit for us. The event ran from 11am to 4 pm and had 3500 or 4,000 people attend. This year we had a great spot, booth #25 in the middle of row.
We set up at 8:30am, the weather was still a little chill and windy. We quickly finished setting up our booth, so we would have time to enjoy breakfast. The County provided breakfast for all the Exhibitors, but when I walked to the table and I cannot believe what they served; mini Danishes with sugar on top and mini donuts, of course two big pots of Coffee too......SooooSooo disappointed! Is this a Healthy event??? Are we supposed to set a healthy example for others? Some of the exhibitors even brought cases of soda with them. What’s wrong with all the people? Can they just leave the soda at home? I am glad that I always well prepared; I packed my own breakfast, so I wouldn’t be hungry.
Don’t know what happened. Most of the exhibitors show up around 10:30am. Is the event starting at 11:00am?
Because most of the attendees are lower income families, we decided to give everybody a chance to find out their Healthy Weight for No charge (Usually this evaluation goes for $50). I am not a big Fan of the body mass index (BMI), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index . BMI does not actually measure the percentage of body fat. It based on an individual’s weight and height. For example according to the BMI and I am under Weight. It was so wrong...
We were so busy measuring and calculating people’s ideal weight.  At the same time I educated and answered questions and by 1:00pm I almost lost my voice.
The weather turned out just perfect for the event. There were so many activities for family with kids to do. Hope some of the people learned something about improving their lifestyle.
Thanks for the County for organizing this great event and thank for all the volunteers for helping out! See you next summer at Hellyer Park :)  

Event Pictures

Zucchini Pancake

Welcome the summer is here! Big surprise from my front garden, one healthy Zucchini plant came out from the compost pile. This plant produces 1 or 2 Zucchini every day; it is difficult for us to keep up the pace with. Zucchini bread, Zucchini pancake, stuffing Zucchini, Zucchini ice cream all in my head now.
A lots of people love to eat but doesn’t means they know how to enjoy the food. I love to eat but sorry No Junk food! I treat cooking like Art, I start cooking at age 7 and never learn cook from recipes book. Big challenge for me is to write the recipe. After a lot of friends request and I finally to remember to record the measurement of all the ingredients.
Zucchini Pancake is born. This pancake is very easy to made and tasted.  Of course Healthy too. Hope everybody will enjoy making this perfect dish for summer.

Ingredients:
1. Zucchini – 1 cup shredded.
2. Carrots – 1/3 cup shredded.
3. Potato – 1/3 cup shredded.
4. Green onion – 1. Slice thin 2” long, or chopped for someone doesn’t know slicing.
5. Sea Salt – 1 tsp.
6. White Pepper – 1 pinch.
7. Egg – 1 large one.
8. Pancake flour – 1 cup.
9. Whole wheat flour – ¼ cup.
10. Water – 1 cup.
11. Oliver oil – 2 tablespoon.
Steps:
Get a big mixing bowl. Beating the egg first and adding ingredients 1 to 4 mixing together. Gently adding pancake flour and whole wheat flour, and then salt and pepper. Slowly adding water and mix the same time.
Heat up the flat pan with medium heat spoon ½ tsp Oliver oil into the pan. Using small ladle to scoop the mixer into the pan. Make a 2” size pancake shape and thinner is possible. Cook 10 minutes and adding ½ tsp oil into pan before flap the pancake. Continues cooking another 10 minutes until it done and serve.

You can have this pancake with Salad or just the way it is with some homemade yogurt sauce . I made the Lion Pork Chop with cherry chocolate sauce with pancake. I know I should be a chef at fancy restaurant, right?? Most shaking thing is I don’t eat meat, so I didn’t taste the pork or sauce. But whoever ate that all love it.