Elaine McFadden, Smart Health Talk Radio Show Host would like to get people excited about cooking again.  “The new concept of food at home is not just putting one person in charge, but making it a family responsibility where creativity and trying new healthy foods is encouraged and adds to the fun that all members get to share together.  Meals have more value when those eating them feel they have contributed in bringing the food to the table for all to eat.  It doesn't have to be that they cooked it, they could have helped choose which recipe version would be made, helped shop for the ingredients, or set the table for dinner.  It all counts as contributing to the meal."

With all of the fast food options today, making dinner in a kitchen from scratch is becoming a forgotten skill.  People that have been raised on fried foods, meat at every meal, and refined carbohydrates, may not be sure how to cook any other way and are overwhelmed with the idea of having to change what they have learned and believe about cooking.

Thanksgiving is great in that it can inspire people that may not have ever considered themselves cooks, to get in the kitchen and give it a try.  Making a Thanksgiving meal can help some rediscover just how rewarding it can be to prepare a home cooked meal for those we love.  Getting any adult or child in the kitchen for the first time can help them discover they have found something they are passionate about, cooking!

Sitting around a table for a meal with family, and working to make that a nutrititious meal has the potential to improve the health of our families, teach our children healthy cooking skills and habits, and bring a sense of sharing that only food can deliver.

Because Thanksgiving comes with no prerequisite of decorations and gifts, just down home cooking and family time, it can become a starting point for more higher quality home cooked meals served per week.  Maybe even build a garden together.  

Once these types of skills are learned at home, children become more willing to try new foods, and as they grow up begin to recognize and appreciate the advanced culinary skills of chef prepared meals.  Turning meal preparation into a family affair makes it easier to incorporate new healthier foods because everyone feels they OK'd it so when it is served they can follow the "three bite rule" and give the new food a chance.  Sometimes it can take more than one try, and even up to 10 tries before people like a new food so don't get discouraged that a new healthy food is not a hit for everyone.  Keep trying and be a role model yourself.  Parents have the most influence over what their kids eat than anyone else in their life. 

Getting family members involved in recipe choice, shopping, ingredient choice, meal preparation, and table display helps them learn more about all aspects of meal production, and gives parents more opportunities to pass on skills such as food handling and safety, kitchen clean up, table setting, and table manners.  Something you rarely regret you have taught your child, but can be hard to teach if you are not in a situation to do so. 

After eating home cooked meals for awhile, most often the preference will switch from the predictability of fast food flavor, to the surprise taste variations that happen at home or when skilled chefs push the creative ingredient scale to new levels at restaurants around the country.  

Teaching healthy cooking and eating skills to our children could have more impact on their lifelong health habits than anything else.  Those eating habits could later impact their risk for disease and ultimately save their life if prevented.   Eating healthy family meals works to protect health both ways that include parent and child.  When parents become healthy eating role models, they also reduce their risk of disease and increase the chances they will be around to watch their children grow up and mature.  

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Some of us may discount organizations such as PETA because we don't see ourselves as a full on vegetarian, but the fact is they do have a point when it comes to the inhumane treatment of the animals that feed us.  We have to ask is that really necessary?  Obviously not, because we are smart enough to figure out how we can avoid treating animals in that way and still have food we can afford.  Unfortunately tax dollars go to support farm operations that use these practices, and therefore not everyone is on a level playing field when it comes to pricing.  That also means that the way things are set up makes it easier and cheaper for us to support the unethical farming of animals.  Treatment that would be upsetting to most of us if we really looked at the reality of it all.  

One side effect that is spreading across the country and world are Round Up Ready pesticide resistant weeds.  The weed that won't die no matter what you spray on it.  The whole reason to use the spray in the beginning.  If this is what happens when you try to outsmart weeds, then we need to instead work with them.  Once read how an organic farmer knew the weed life cycle so well, he tilled them under at the perfect time that reduced seed formation and added organic matter to the soil at the same time.  Other farmers thought he was crazy when they saw his messy orchards with all those weeds growing around the trees compared to their weed free orchards.

Does it really matter that we have to look at weeds?  Could they actually have an important role in preventing insect infestations?  

Smart Health Talk Radio Show brings the latest in health information so listeners can decide what is best for them.

Most consumers are bombarded with sensational messages on the latest health or nutrition research study not knowing if the research is sound or weak.  It is hard to sort out what to do when a new headline contradicts the last.  

Smart Health Talk will walk listeners through the facts and provide suggestions on how to apply life and money saving principals to their everyday routine. 

Nutrition principals covered on the show are meant to be something that can be adapted to an individuals own likes, dislikes, and financial resources.

The goal of Smart Health Talk will be to help our listeners get the biggest nutrition bang for their buck.

We vote with our dollars, but most of us have little knowledge on purchased products.  Those products go in our homes, bodies and on our skin and potentially have a direct impact on short and long term health.   If you are a celiac, and eat gluten it will attack intestinal villi.  A diabetic that eats a high refined carbohydrate meal will have a corresponding rise in blood sugar.  These are obvious, but others maybe not so obvious.  Those can impact health as well.  By making even small changes we can decrease chronic disease risk.

As consumers we are influenced by a constant stream of advertising designed to change our buying behavior.  To override bad choices that are usually based on emotion and waste precious dollars that could be applied to improving health, we need to educate our brain to replace impulse buying with rational educated decisions that put our best interests first and will in the end offer more freedom to do the things we love most.

People are missing opportunities all the time to pump up energy, strength, and immune function.  When the body receives quality nutrition, together with positive lifestyle choices, the risk for chronic disease is reduced.  How many of us feel run down and tired, but somewhere inside know it should be better?  How can we enjoy life to the fullest if we have no get up and go?

Science has now proven the key role nutrition plays in disease prevention and quality of life.  This is no longer an unproven fact.  Disease can be costly both in treatment, loss of freedom and the ability to provide for our families, and possibly life.  Health insurance is beyond the reach of many Americans, but by applying the preventive principals of nutrition to everyday choices, disease risk and medical expenses can be reduced.

Listeners will learn from host advice, guest interviews, caller questions, and referrals.  Smart Health Talk's host, Elaine McFadden, is serious about health and wellness.  "We want to let people know what they can do today to help improve their life tomorrow.  Hard sell in a world hungry for instant gratification."

Those with ideas for the show can fill out our suggestion form, and share their health stories on the air so others can learn from their experience.  Fill out the form here.  

People can only count on themselves to make the right health choices.  When we become motivated to experience the best possible quality of life and health, the food industry will have to respond.  By becoming educated consumers, and therefore buying the best products that support our health, we are working together to eliminate bad products from store shelves, and sending the message we deserve better and will settle for nothing less.


Everyone deserves healthy food, by tuning in to Smart Health Talk and listening to the information we have for you, knowing how to choose which products give you that kind of quality will become second nature.

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