Bringing in the New Year many of us try and make a conscience effort to eat better. Below I created a chart to jump start your New Year with some healthy options. Enjoy and Happy New Year!

Instead of:	Try this:	Even better:
french Fries	baked potato	baked sweet potato
canned vegetables	frozen vegetables	fresh vegetables
soda	100% fruit juice	water with lemon
milk chocolate	70% or more dark chocolate	grain sweetened chocolate
cows milk	vanilla silk soy milk	unsweetened silk soy milk
white pasta	whole wheat pasta	spelt pasta
potato chips	100% stone ground chips	popcorn
canned fruit	dried fruit	fresh fruit
ice berg lettuce	romaine lettuce	spinach
Raisin Bran	Puffins (Barbara’s Bakery)	oatmeal
Nature  Valley granola bars	Barbara’s Bakery granola bars	lara bars or bora bora bars

Ever had an Izze? I love Izze’s. They are so tasty. My favorite is the Sparkling Clementine. I had one the other night and happened to be reading the bottle….I mean I had read the ingredients before, however, never really READ the bottle. I found that their bottle said:

“Each bottle delivers almost three servings of fruit based on the USDA’s 2005 Dietary Guidelines. The guidelines say you should get the majority of your daily fruit from whole fruit. So, love IZZE but eat fruit too.”

What I liked about this is that they are promoting you to eat whole fruit and not to supplement fruit by drinking an Izze. Over all I think these drink products are healthy. They have no refined or added sugars, no caffeine and are 70% fruit juice with a “splash” of sparkling water. Izze’s would also be a better nutritious choice over a soda when you feel like drinking something bubbly, but of course …drink in moderation!