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We’re Going to the Farmers’ Market

Written and Illustrated by Stefan Page
Chronicle Books        3/04/2014
978-1-4521-1834-5
Age 1 to 3          14 pages
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“TO MARKET! TO MARKET! We are on our way! Visit local farmers, fill baskets with fresh fruits and vegetables, and then head home to coo a healthy feast all with your goodies from the farmer’s market!”

Opening

“To market, to market, we are on our way.”

Review

What little one does not like going to the store with mom and dad? Farmer’s Market takes young children to an open farmer’s market where they can pick out the day’s groceries from assortment of fine stalls with fresh fruit and vegetables. Start at the dairy and pick up eggs, milk, and a slab of cheese. Next pick out fresh vegetables like lettuce, radishes, onions, celery, and potatoes. Now add those fruits. Choose from tomatoes, strawberries, blueberries, black berries, mushrooms, and kiwi. With a full basket you are ready to head home.

“To kitchen, to kitchen, we, chop, stew,and bake.”

All that is left now is to wait for our feast and watch Daddy ice the cake. Ready? Let’s eat!

Farmer’s Market is a nice board book for younger children interested in grocery shopping, food, or spending time with mom and dad on errand—this time grocery shopping. The view is that of the child as seen in the line waiting for something, the view is of adult legs and hands holding shopping baskets. Oddly, none of the people with stalls to sell food from have a smile. Their looks are one of disinterest.

The pages are thicker than normal so little fingers have a much harder time tearing them. The pages also have a nice finish that let’s things like peanut butter and jelly wipe off the surface without leaving a stain.  And the book is the perfect size (6” x  6”) for little ones to carry and read.

The illustrations in Farmer’s market are basic, making it easier for young kids to understand and know what is illustrated. Each spread has a basic color in the background, such as yellow, green, and orange. The items pictures are large and easy to recognize. Kids will enjoy finding the item you ask them to find, or simply pointing to each and telling you hat it is. They could also then find the same item in your refrigerator or the next time you go to the grocer.

Young children will enjoy reading Farmer’s Market with mom and dad. It can prepare them for an actual trip or help them understand what each item you buy looks like. I think this is sturdy little book for little fingers can help kids learn about basic food, grocery shopping, and enjoying the entire process—especially the cake Dad is icing. Farmer’s Market is Stefan Page’s debut. Also available to enhance the child’s experience are a Farmers’ Market Mobile
and ABC Flash Cards. (images below)

“To table, to table, it is time to dig in!”

WE’RE GOING TO THE FARMER’S MARKET. Text and illustrations copyright © 2014 by Stefan Page. Reproduce by permission of the publisher, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, CA.

Buy Farmer’s Market at Amazon—B&N—Chronicle Books—at your favorite bookstore.

Learn more about Farmer’s Market HERE.

Meet the author/illustrator, Stefan Page, at his twitter page:    https://twitter.com/StefanPage

Find more board books at the Chronicle Books‘ website:    http://www.chroniclebooks.com/

ABC Farmers’ Market Flash Cards

Farmers’ Market Mobile

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Copyright © 2014 by Sue Morris/Kid Lit Reviews

By Michael H. Tunick

Lipids (fats and oils) have historically been thought to elevate weight and blood cholesterol and have therefore been considered to have a negative influence on the body. Foods such as full-fat milk and cheese have been avoided by many consumers for this reason. This attitude has been changing in recent years. Some authors are now claiming that consumption of unnecessary carbohydrates rather than fat is responsible for the epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Most people who do consume milk, cheese, and yogurt know that the calcium helps with bones and teeth, but studies have shown that consumption of cheese and other dairy products appears to be beneficial in many other ways. Remember that cheese is a concentrated form of milk. Milk is 87% water and when it is processed into cheese, the nutrients are increased by a factor of ten. The positive attributes of milk are even stronger in cheese. Here are some examples involving protein:

Some bioactive peptides in casein (the primary protein in cheese) inhibit angiotensin-converting enzyme, which has been implicated in hypertension. Large studies have shown that dairy intake reduces blood pressure.

Cheese helps prevent tooth decay through a combination of bacterial inhibition and remineralization. Further, Lactoferrin, a minor milk protein found in cheese, has anticancer properties. It appears to keep cancer cells from proliferating.

Vitamins and minerals in cheese may not get enough credit. A meta-analysis of 16 studies showed that consumption of 200 g of cheese and other dairy products per day resulted in a 6% reduction of risk of T2DM, with a significant association between reduction of incidence of T2DM and intake of cheese, yogurt, and low-fat dairy products. Much of this may be due to vitamin K2, which is produced by bacteria in fermented dairy products.

Metabolic syndrome increases the risk for T2DM and heart disease, but research showed that the incidence of this syndrome decreased as dairy food consumption increased, a result that was associated with calcium intake.

There is evidence that lipids in cheese are not unhealthy after all. Recent research has shown no connection between the intake of milk fat and the risk of cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, or stroke. A meta-analysis of 76 studies concluded that the evidence does not clearly support guidelines that encourage high consumption of polyunsaturated fatty acids and low consumption of total saturated fats.

Participants in a study who ate cheese and other dairy products at least once per day scored significantly higher in several tests of cognitive function compared with those who rarely or never consumed dairy food. These results appear to be due to a combination of factors.

Seemingly, the opposite of what people believe about cheese turns out to be the truth. Studies involving thousands of people over a period of years revealed that a high intake of dairy fat was associated with a lower risk of developing central obesity and a low dairy fat intake was associated with a higher risk of central obesity. Higher consumption of cheese has been associated with higher HDL (“good cholesterol”) and lower LDL (“bad cholesterol”), total cholesterol, and triglycerides.

All-cause mortality showed a reduction associated with dairy food intake in a meta-analysis of five studies in England and Wales covering 509,000 deaths in 2008. The authors concluded that there was a large mismatch between evidence from long-term studies and perceptions of harm from dairy foods.

Yes, some people are allergic to protein in cheese and others are vegetarians who don’t touch dairy products on principle. Many people can’t digest lactose (milk sugar) very well, but aged cheese contains little of it and lactose-free cheese has been on the market for years. But cheese is quite healthy for most consumers. Moderation in food consumption is always the key: as long as you eat cheese in reasonable amounts, you ought to have no ill effects while reaping the benefits.

Michael Tunick is a research chemist with the Dairy and Functional Foods Research Unit of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service. He is the author of The Science of Cheese. You can find out more things you never knew about cheese.

Chemistry Book Giveaway! In time for the 2014 American Chemical Society fall meeting and in honor of the publication of The Oxford Handbook of Food Fermentations, edited by Charles W. Bamforth and Robert E. Ward, Oxford University Press is running a paired giveaway with this new handbook and Charles Bamforth’s other must-read book, the third edition of Beer. The sweepstakes ends on Thursday, August 14th at 5:30 p.m. EST.

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Image credit: Hand milking a cow, by the State Library of Australia. CC-BY-2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

The post The health benefits of cheese appeared first on OUPblog.

        

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They say that new authors should write about what they know, and I can say that this is a very good idea and has given me publication success in non-fiction and fiction.

My first success was in 1999 with a Viewpoint column in the Lady, but they no longer do that, which is a shame.

I began writing short stories after I found two small press magazines called Crystal and Creature Features, and the one I've had most success with is CF all about animals. I created two series: a kitten based on antics of cats in my area in next door, and the other about an unlucky squirrel based on antics of squirrels I've seen in my garden. The latest success in CF was about an incident with a dog I had as a child. If you write about yourself it can be a good idea to add a touch of homour. Eg the end of the piece I put a bit about when I was born.

'I was born in 1970 and guess what Chinese year that is? Yes, you're right. It was the Chinese year of the dog. Any significance? No idea. Your guess is as good as mine.;

I've also began a series about birds I see in my garden and elsewhere and what happens. Again what I know about.

I also enter competitions and the one I had success with, coming second, was subconsciously, based on a girl who bullied me at school, who gets her comeuppance from magical shoes.

Then a few years ago I started to read health magazines and began to write reader letters to them. Again this was about things I knew about and am interested in such as using natural beauty products. Since then I've had success after success. So far this year I have had letters in Healthy winning a set of Dead Sea Spa magik toiletries worth £35, in Green Parent magazine winning a set of JASON toiletries worth £48 and a letter in Amateur Gardening winning a £5 National Garden voucher.

There is one other way I write about what I know - novels. My first children's book was all about healthy eating at school, something I am passionate about. In this I wrote that some of the girls had illnesses that I had experienced myself eg. bloatedness from drinking fizzy drinks, and sleep deprivation due to stomach pains in the night. The latter I had years ago and I now realise comes from a dairy intolerance.

My second book is about helping the environment at school, something else I am passionate about, and the third I'm currently editing is about using natural products at school. All topics I've had experience with and am passionate about and write about.

So what successes have you had writing about what you know? Let me know.