Change4Life: Be Food Smart

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It's a while since I've written a post about Change4Life so I pleased to be asked to promote their Be Food Smart campaign. Apparently too many of us still don't know about the hidden sugar, salt and fat in our foods. The majority of respondents (including me!) scored 50% or less in the quiz... The Be Food Smart campaign wants to show parents where the hidden ingredients are so that we can make better choices when feeding the family.

Everyone signing up to Change4Life will get a free meal mixer:

This has ideas and recipes for healthy breakfasts, lunches and dinners! You just flip over the cards to get a combination of meals for the day.

In order to promote the campaign I've been asked to run a competition to give one lucky reader a £50 voucher for the Co-Operative plus their very own Meal Mixer. What you need to do is pop over to the Be Food Smart IQ Quiz take the test then post your scores in the Rafflecopter widget. I also want you to give me your top healthy eating tip for families - be it a recipe or any other way you keep your family healthy. There are additional entries possible once you have left the comments.

Good luck and stay healthy!

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Crazy Soap - Review and Giveaway

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I was sent two sets of Crazy Soap to review with my children and the chance to give away 5 sets to my readers. The sets contain three items:

• Crazy Soap Foam (RRP £2)
• Crazy Soap Paint (RRP £2.49)
• Crazy Soap Bath Goo (RRP £2.99)

My daughter was very keen on being the first of my children to try out the products! She decided which colours were hers and headed for the bathroom. The instructions on the goo say to scoop and put under water for bubbles. By the second bath I had got the hang of putting it under running water to get great bubbles:

Competition with ExperienceDays.co.uk

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The lovely people at Experience Days UK  have asked me to give away a £50 Gift Voucher to use against one of their Experience Days. In return I get entered into another draw to try and win one myself. So if you are feeling a bit flat after Christmas and New Year then why not enter the draw? 


I am trying out Rafflecopter for the first time to see if it works for me. The only compulsory part of the draw is to comment on what your ultimate experience day would be. Here are some ideas to get you thinking:

• A chocolate workshop
• A Bungee jump
• A Spa day
• Scuba diving

Just use the options below to gain a maximum of 6 entries per day. Draw closes at midnight on 30th January.

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Friday review and give-away: The Oxytocin Factor

I was sent a copy of this by Pinter and Martin publishers to review as it's newly out in paperback. The publishers specialise in books about non-mainstream medical and health issues and there are plenty of other interesting sounding books on their site. The write up on the back of the book states:

The Oxytocin Factor is the first book to reveal the importance of the whole oxytocin system for a general audience. Both the new research findings and the potentially beneficial applications of this hormone in reducing anxiety states, stress, addictions, and problems of childbirth are fascinating and of great significance in all our lives.

The author Dr Kerstin Uvnas Moberg is a Professor of Physiology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala and also researches at the Karolinka Institute in Stockholm. She has written over 400 scientific papers and somehow found the time to have 4 children!

Like many people I was aware of the existence of oxytocin before reading the book but thought it was only of relevance in childbirth and for breastfeeding. After reading the author's findings I now know that it has far more wide ranging effects on both females and males.

The book explains in layman's terms about how the human body's nervous system works and how the oxytocin hormone impacts on it. Most of us know that we have a "fight or flight" system which uses adrenalin. Well it appears that oxytocin is the antithesis of adrenalin as it is the body's "calm and connection" hormone. I was amazed at what an influence one hormone has on us:

• growth and healing in the body
• easing child birth
• encouraging breast milk production
• maternal, social and sexual bonding
• short and long term stress relief
• appetite and thirst

Altogether an incredibly busy hormone! Its made me reexamine potential ways to improve mine and my children's lives by utilising some of the findings in the book.

I am giving away my review copy to one lucky reader - just leave a comment under this post (UK only I'm afraid!). If you don't win then you can obtain a copy through the publishers' web site Pinter and Martin.


Draw on August 1st!


And the winner is....

Comment number 1 The Book Analyst!