Ginger Hudock

Latest Author Features

Should You Eat Healthy While on Vacation?

Many more people will be traveling this summer than last, thanks to the lifting of COVID restrictions. Vacations are times when we want to relax and enjoy ourselves, escaping the routines of daily life. For some, this escape also means changing the normal eating patterns, especially for those going on a cruise or to an all-inclusive resort. The 5 – 10 pound weight gain during a cruise is, unfortunately, usually a reality. Even if your vacation is not a cruise, how should you think about eating while on vacation? Are You an Abstainer or a Moderator? The author Gretchen Rubin has suggested that people are either abstainers or moderators when it

Kitchen Tips for Healthier Eating

One of my main purposes as a nutritionist is to help my clients figure out ways to eat healthier. The majority of them have a good idea what is on the list of healthy foods they should eat more of. They are also aware of the unhealthy foods they should eliminate. The problem for them is how to do it. I spend a lot of my time helping clients understand the bad habits they may have around eating. Then we work on strategies to change those habits. Gretchen Rubin is one of my favorite nonfiction authors. Her book Better than Before is about how people develop habits and strategies for

Take Action to Change Your Results

Did you gain the “COVID-19” over the past year? It is similar to the “Freshman 15” — a number of studies show that many people did gain weight in 2020. In a poll taken by WebMD®, 50% of women and 25% of men reported they had gained weight during the pandemic lockdowns. Another survey by Weight Watchers® had similar results. About a third of the Weight Watchers respondents said they gained weight, with the average gain of 12 1/2 pounds. Another study of nearly 8000 adults was taken last April, with results published in the Journal of Obesity. Almost 28% of the total sample reported weight gain. Individually we can

Love and Lemon Pound Cake

I was walking through the market area in Charleston in May of 2019. As I was noticing the sweetgrass baskets, kitschy T-shirts, spice mixes, and beach treasures, I spied some bottles of extract. This was a brand that I had not often seen since childhood. There, among the many items of the market, were bottles of lemon extract. Seeing them took me back to the kitchen of my childhood home in Greensboro, North Carolina, some 45 years earlier, where that extract could be found on the spice rack. “Hi Mom! Hi Nano! I’m home from school!” I yelled to my mother and grandmother as I opened the back door that

Say “I Love You” with a Healthy Chocolate Dessert

Valentine’s Day, celebrated on February 14, is set aside to honor those you love. Traditional expressions of love on Valentine’s Day are cards, flowers, food, and jewelry. One of the foods of love is chocolate. The botanical name for chocolate is Theobroma cacao, which means “food of the gods”. But you don’t have to be a god to love chocolate! The Aztecs thought that chocolate was an aphrodisiac. Research has now shown that the ancient wisdom could be true. A recent study showed the connection between eating sweet foods and romantic feelings. Specifically, chocolate helps to release dopamine and serotonin in the brain, and those are some of our feel-good

Should You Eat Healthier In 2021?

“Little by little, one travels far.” Attributed to J.R.R. Tolkien [editor’s note – although this is frequently attributed to Tolkien, it is actually a translation of a Spanish proverb.] Every January many Americans make New Year’s resolutions. One study last year found that 38% of people made one or more of them. The most popular resolutions are related to improving health by losing weight and exercising more. While I am all in favor of this, there are certain people for whom healthy eating is more critical than others. As data has shown this past year, people who suffer from obesity, heart disease, or diabetes are in much more danger of

HOW TO Celebrate the Holidays WITH SPECIAL DIETARY NEEDS

In 2008 I finally figured out that the health problems I had been experiencing for over a year were due to food allergies and sensitivities. There were a number of foods that caused my symptoms, the primary ones being gluten grains (wheat, rye, barley), corn, soy, and milk. I began to feel much better during the summer after I eliminated these foods. During the fall I began thinking about the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday meals that would be coming up. I could not eat the traditional turkey dressing, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, or my mom’s pecan pie. Even the canned cranberry sauce was off-limits for me because it

Giving Thanks with Restricted Eating

It is November and Thanksgiving is at the end of the month. Thanksgiving in this strange year of 2020 will be different for almost all of us. You may not be able to celebrate as you usually do, in the same location or with the same people as in previous years. For some of you this may be the first Thanksgiving that you have some sort of dietary restriction. You may have limitations on the amount of sugar, other carbohydrates, or fat you can eat due to diabetes. Those with heart or kidney disease may have to restrict animal foods or fat. Some of you may have food allergies or

Eating Healthy on Hilton Head Island

My husband and I have been going to Hilton Head Island on a frequent basis since we got married in 2006. As a popular tourist spot, the island has many different and varied restaurants. We have tried many of them over the years. Because I have a number of food allergies and sensitivities, I have learned where to get healthy food that can accommodate my needs. I encourage Bella readers to try any of these the next time they take a trip to Hilton Head. Cooler’s Grocery Store My first recommendation is actually not on Hilton Head. Cooler’s Store and Exxon station is on Highway 462 near Ridgeland. We stop

Dairy Sensitivity and Dairy Substitutes

When she was first at college, my daughter came home and told me a friend of hers at college was sensitive to dairy. She was interested in learning what she might have instead of milk and other dairy products. What are the potential problem components of dairy? Most people who have a dairy allergy or sensitivity are reactive to either the proteins in dairy or the milk sugar, lactose. Lactose intolerance is very common in adults and can be identified by a lab test. Dairy has a number of proteins that may cause allergies or sensitivities, the two most common being casein and whey. There is a less common protein