In this video, join Sonima chef Andy Clay and his daughters, in assembling the perfect quesadilla. In just a few simple steps, Clay explains his tricks of the trade, and has his little helper chefs share some of their favorite healthy meals. All you need is a pan, oil or butter, a tortilla, cheese, and any protein of your choice.

Related: Healthy Breakfast Recipes for Kids

Photo by Ben Gately

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First, a brief history lesson: In the late 19th century, French scientist Louis Pasteur developed a processing technique called “pasteurization” that heated up milk briefly—from 140 to 160 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 seconds to 30 minutes—to kill off disease-causing bacteria such as salmonella and E. coli without changing its nutritional profile. While eliminating harmful microorganisms linked to then common health threats (i.e., tuberculosis, listeriosis, and typhoid fever), Pasteur also introduced a way of extending dairy’s shelf life (keeping it in the fridge). By 1924, the U.S. Health Service began promoting this practice across the country. Today, less than 1 percent of milk sold in America is unpasteurized.

Related: How to Make Fresh Almond Milk

The theory that sparked the new movement is that fresh unpasteurized milk—when produced in sanitary conditions where pastured-raised cows are infection-free—contains anti-bacterial components that naturally prevents the absorption of pathogens and strengthens the immune system, according to RealMilk.com, a 16-year-old project from the nonprofit Weston A. Price Foundation . Some European studies support this, including research published in 2001  and 2006  suggesting that raw milk may help reduce the risk of asthma and rhinoconunctivitis (a condition that causes a stuffy, runny, or itchy nose, post-nasal drip, and red, itchy eyes) in kids. The downside of these studies is that they both looked at “farm milk” in general, which includes raw and boiled (aka processed) milk , so it was not clear that the unpasteurized variation was the key component. Also, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration states that both raw milk and pasteurized milk can cause allergic reactions in people sensitive to milk proteins.

In 1987, the government banned the sales of raw milk for human consumption (with the exception of certain cheeses) across state lines. Since then the laws on selling unpasteurized dairy have differed from state to state. In recent years, more and more states, including Arkansas, North Dakota, and Michigan (29 states total as of 2009) are allowing some form of on- or off-farm raw milk sales (with strict regulations) within their borders.  Both the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are completely against it. They each have dedicated several web pages to educating consumers about unpasteurized milk, and how it does not destroy harmful pathogens nor does it contain more nutritional value than regular pasteurized milk (what most of us buy in stores). In fact, drinking the so-called “real milk” could result in some serious consequences as this CDC statement warns:

“Raw milk can carry harmful bacteria and other germs that can make you very sick or even kill you. While it is possible to get foodborne illnesses from many different foods, raw milk is one of the riskiest of all. Getting sick from raw milk can mean many days of diarrhea, stomach cramping, and vomiting. Less commonly, it can mean kidney failure, paralysis, chronic disorders, and even death.”

Terrifying as this sounds, the risk is worth it for some folks, especially people who have invested in herd-share programs that pay farmers a fee to board, care for, and milk cows that keep the raw beverage on tap.

“I’m not a scientist, but I’ve heard a lot of testimonies from our customers who say they haven’t been sick in two or three years since they started drinking raw milk. It’s hard to say that if that’s the milk or not, but these people seem to think so,” says Zopher Sabo, a herdsman at Sustainable Settings, a 244-acre working ranch in Carbondale, Colorado, that also operates as a learning center. “Having the full fat and all the vitamins in raw milk is probably the best health benefit,” he says.

Related: Making Sense of the Science on Fat

All natural, however, is not always better. “I would never recommend anyone consume unpasteurized dairy products. It’s too dangerous,” says food scientist Joy Dubost, Ph.D., R.D., a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Statistics show that between 2007 and 2012, raw milk products were responsible for 81 percent of all foodborne illness across 26 states, according to the CDC.  “Anyone with a compromised immune system, like the elderly or children, were most affected,” Dubost says. A 2014 article in the Washington Post reports that raw milk pathogens caused kidney failure in more than a dozen cases and paralysis in two.

What about dairy farmers who have been raised on raw milk? They may be better equipped to handle its harsh components. “Maybe the mircroflora in their gut is a little different than a normal person and they’ve been fine with it,” Dubost speculates.

The bottom line: Much more reliable research is needed to prove that the benefits of raw milk products outweigh the risk of hospitalization or, worse, death. For now, don’t press your luck. Check the label for the word “pasteurized” on all dairy products.

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We all know children are notoriously picky eaters. It can often be frustrating and tiresome trying to get your child to eat a wholesome breakfast, or eat any healthy meal for that matter.  In this tutorial, Andy Clay, a Sonima chef, shares some creative and nutritious breakfast recipes that his daughters love. Watch the video above to learn how to make a “hole in the wall” breakfast sandwich and a fresh berry parfait.

Related: The Benefits of Cooking Together as a Family

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From the moment we’re born, movement is integral to our development. Crawling, walking, running, climbing—all these activities and many more are key to the growth of our muscles, our bones, our internal organs, everything. The more naturally our movement is allowed to develop, the more likely we will avoid physical compromises. Take, for instance, crawling.

Crawling isn’t just something we do in order to cope until we can walk. Crawling is something we do in order to develop the body we need to walk properly. Babies are born with flat feet, and crawling is instrumental to developing arches. With those arches, we are able to walk with a proper foot-striking action of heel, balls of feet, toes. Without those arches, we end up walking in a compromised manner that leads to future dysfunction and pain. Anyone with planter fasciitis will tell you just how much life without proper arches hurts.

But it’s not just about the arches. In general, we are too eager to get our kids walking. Many believe that walking is a sign of progress, a sign of intelligence, a sign of advancement in their children. It’s simply not true, but since so many parents believe it is, they encourage walking prematurely in many ways, not least of which is buying their children shoes with hard soles to give them support. But in so doing, they’ve interrupted the metabolic processes of growth.

Related: The Surprising Ways Baby Shoes Affect Alignment

Walking requires many motor skills, chief among them balance and a proper heel, ball, toe foot strike, which is possible with arches. When parents put hard-soled shoes on their children too soon, they render the proper foot strike unnecessary; kids now have a platform with which to push off, and further development of the arches is impossible. In addition, since proper foot striking is no longer necessary to walk, balance becomes the main issue a toddler must confront. How best to keep balance on shaky legs? Turn those feet out. Thus, those hard soles pave the way for our children to learn how to walk with their feet pointed out, and by the time they’re ten or eleven, those feet have been pointing out for a long time. Which has subsequently taught the knees to respond in a compromised fashion, subsequently leading the hips to respond with their own compromise.

So what can we do? Well, a few things.

First, get your youngsters crawling again. Seriously. Whether they’re seven and eight or 11 and 12, get their shoes off and get them back down on the ground. It will probably be easier with the younger ones because you can trick them into getting down with some games that involve crawling, bear crawling, whatever. The constant act of getting up and down will also help, and you can certainly devise ways to get your kids to do that. The older kids might be a little tougher although getting kids to frolic like kids again is a good thing and might be easier than you think. You might take the honest approach, too, by showing them how their feet are everted and telling them that bear crawls and crawling can help correct it.

Another great way to remedy physical compromise is simply get children doing whatever they’re not doing. If they don’t usually climb a tree, get them to climb a tree. (In fact, anything off the ground is good—monkey bars, jungle gyms, whatever. It engages a range of muscles often under-utilized on the ground.) If they play a lot of baseball, take them swimming. In general, too much of any one thing is bad for the development of our children. Every professional athlete I have known, as well as every high-level coach and trainer, agrees that specializing in one sport at a young age is a foolish mistake.

Related: A College Football Coach Reveals His #1 Advice to Parents of Young Athletes

But it’s not just sports. Years ago, I had some parents call me because their eleven-year-old son suffered terrible headaches. The child was a piano prodigy, so when I visited him, I naturally joined him on the piano bench. He showed me how, when he had to reach with his left hand, he couldn’t play as effectively. I wasn’t schooled in music enough to hear any difference, but I could see a difference in his body when he struck the keys in front of him compared to when he struck the keys to his distant left. I told him to get up and follow me outside. His father was an avid softball player, so I had the son play softball with me. I had him hit while I pitched; I had him throw me the ball with his right hand then throw with his left. In other words, I got him to engage a bunch of new muscles. When we returned to his piano bench forty-five minutes later, he was amazed to see that when he had to reach left to play, there was no difficulty.

That’s the amazing thing about the body. It is always ready, even eager, to return to an uncompromised posture, and the younger the body and therefore less entrenched the development, the quicker and easier it will respond to corrective measures. But the sooner you tend to your children, the better. For compromised posture untreated only gets compounded with time, and that has led to the epidemic in today’s teens of surgeries, headaches, and an untold number of premature physical maladies.

No, parents, those teenagers’ shoulders aren’t hunched because of texting. But I’ll address that in a separate article.

Known as the Father of Postural Therapy, Pete Egoscue has helped relieve thousands of people from their chronic pain, including many of the world’s leading athletes. For more information on Pete and any of his 25 clinics worldwide, go to egoscue.com.

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Nowadays both kids and adults lead overwhelmingly structured lives, even when it comes to time to burn off steam during sports practice or at the gym. In this segment, Pete Egoscue, an alignment and movement expert, acknowledges this problem and responds by designing an exercise that allows anyone to come up with fun games and activities. Just making up moves with different types of balls will stimulate creativity and make exercise feel less like a chore. Try this drill with your children to challenge their minds while also creating a play-based workout, or do it yourself when you’re looking to add some variety to your routine!

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Peanut butter isn’t just turning off concerned parents and those with food allergies. Health-conscious food shoppers are also making the swap for seemingly healthier nut butters made with almonds, cashews, or sunflower seeds. Interestingly enough, the nutritional differences between these butters in terms of calories, fat and protein—with the exception of sunflower seed butter—are slight. In fact, peanut butter may actually be the better option for you, offering the most protein of the bunch. Here is a comparison of the nutrition of popular nut butters:

If peanut butter is nutritionally on par or superior to its peers, why is it getting a bum rap among non-allergic consumers, too?

First let’s look at the different kinds of peanut butter: regular and natural. Regular peanut butter contains partially hydrogenated oil (less than 1 gram, on average), added sugar, and doesn’t separate like natural peanut butter. Natural peanut butter usually only contains peanuts and sometimes salt. Organic peanut butter is a natural variety made with peanuts that were grown without pesticides and contain no genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Products advertised as “all natural” may be misleading, says Kelly Pritchett, R.D., National Media Spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, because this just means the product is free of hydrogenated oils, so some natural peanut butters’ hydrogenated oils can be replaced with palm oil, a form of vegetable oil. All natural peanut butters can also contain added sugar.

The Problem with Regular Peanut Butter
Hydrogenated oils (trans fats) were designed to keep food on the shelf for long periods without the fats becoming rancid, but they’re not good for your body and the government has made efforts to remove them from packaged products to reduce exposure. Different fats affect your good cholesterol (HDL) and bad cholesterol (LDL) in different ways. Good cholesterol helps clear out the artery-clogging bad cholesterol. Unsaturated fats raise HDL, which is a good thing. Saturated fats raise LDL, which is a bad thing. Hydrogenated oils are a double-whammy, as they lower your HDL and raise your LDL.

Products are allowed to advertise that they are trans fat-free as long as they contain less than 0.5 gram trans fats per serving. While avoiding trans fats entirely is the best idea, it is unlikely that such very small amounts will cause much harm as long as the person is not entirely sedentary and does not have high cholesterol—these individuals should try to avoid trans fats completely. In general it’s best to look for a jar with peanuts as the only ingredient, without salt and sugar, and it should be the kind you have to stir, says Pritchett.

The Problem with Peanuts
The dangers of consuming copious amounts of peanut butter don’t lie in the calories and fat alone. Peanuts have a mold that grows inside the shell called Aespergillus niger, or black mold. This mold (also found on pistachios, Brazil nuts, seeds, beans, corn and wheat products) gives off a toxin called aflatoxin which has been shown to be toxic to the liver in rodent studies, so presumably could be harmful to humans as well. Farmers try to minimize aflatoxin contamination by applying treatment to their crops, but so far, this hasn’t proven 100 percent effective against the dangerous mold growth. To help minimize risk, the FDA tests foods that may contain aflatoxins. Peanuts and peanut butter are the most rigorously tested products by the FDA because they are widely consumed. “You may reduce aflatoxin exposure by choosing only major brands of nut butters, nuts, and discarding any nuts that look moldy, or shriveled,” says Pritchett.

Besides the risk of food allergies and mold, peanut butters may also contain harmful bacteria from the crop of nuts. Just last summer, six brands of peanut butter as well as almond butter were recalled for possible salmonella contamination. If they aren’t grown organically, peanuts and other nuts are often treated with pesticides and are genetically modified organisms (GMOs). This means the plants’ DNA has been modified without using natural methods of reproduction. The crops produced this way are often sprayed with herbicide that kills weeds without threatening their harvest, but some people are concerned that these herbicides might cause cancer and we don’t know the long-term effects of consuming GMO foods. For a list of companies that are non-GMO, check out NonGMOProject.org. As for peanut butter and other nut butters, it comes down to consumer choice if you are trying to avoid GMOs, says Pritchett. “At the moment, we don’t have enough evidence to suggest that non-GMO peanut butter is better,” she says.

Related: Understanding the Science and Controversy of GMOs

The Bottom Line
While Pritchett says she thinks it’s good idea to switch up the your nut butters occasionally, since almond butter is higher in monounsaturated fats, vitamin E, and magnesium than peanut butter, it’s up to your taste preference since the health benefits aren’t monumental. The idea that other nut butters are significantly better for you than peanut butter is generally a misnomer, says Christopher Ochner, PhD, a USANA nutritionist.

While alternative nut butters such as almond and cashew butters are usually less processed compared to peanut butter, they’re two to three times more expensive, too. Processing aside, peanut butter is very similar to other butters in terms of macronutrient profile, and the nutritional differences are incremental, not life-changing unless you have a peanut allergy, of course, he explains.

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“Families that play together are the most fun,” says Pete Egoscue, an alignment and movement expert who founded the Egoscue Method for pain prevention. This playful family fun workout was designed by Egoscue with that philosophy in mind. The routine is suitable for all ages and can be done in any space. In addition to having fun together, you’ll strengthen muscles throughout the whole body, especially in the arms and legs, and you’ll practice stretches that will help you move fluidly and comfortably. Get ready to bond with your family through the collaborative spirit of group workouts.

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If your kids are turning into couch potatoes, or they have more energy than they know what to do with, this fun routine is a good way to get them moving in a healthy way. Just clear some space and let them experiment with play-inspired movements like bear crawls, inchworms, hopscotch, and more. This living room workout will get their hearts pumping and help them feel strong and confident.

Related: A Workout the Whole Family Will Love

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Get moving as a family with this group workout that’s fun for adults and kids of all ages. This interactive routine encourages movement of your body’s major joints and also calls upon multiple muscle groups to help improve mobility and balance. Most importantly, this family workout provides a reminder that exercise should be enjoyable and doesn’t have to be complicated. That’s an idea both little ones and grown-ups can embrace.

Related: It’s Time to Bring Happiness to Your Workout

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