Paul Szmal: FLX Morning continues, it is 8.40, just a reminder there is that winter weather advisory that's in effect for the Finger Lakes region and points east and south until 6 or 7 o'clock this evening depending on what county you live in and also we'll keep you up to date on any cancellations or closings or postponements, things of that nature throughout the day online at FingerLakesDailyNews.com. Currently still snowing across the Finger Lakes and way out into central New York and beyond that, temperature is at 27.
Let's welcome in our guests from UR Medicine and Finger Lakes Health. I'll start as always with Kim Malacqua joining us here. Kim, good morning. How are you this morning?
Kim Kilaqua, Amanda Vadala, Rose Copper-Brown: Good morning, Paul. How are you?
Paul Szmal: So I just want to announce we just celebrated Thanksgiving on Thursday and then Friday was Black Friday, Saturday was Small Business Saturday, yesterday was Cyber Monday, so today is Giving Tuesday. Yes. So I just want to make a plug for the Finger Lakes Health Foundation. It's very important that we have local health care for our community so we encourage people to make a gift to our foundation. It goes to support Geneva General Hospital, Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hospital, our four long-term care centers, helps with nursing scholarships, so it's just really important to help support your local health care system. So if anyone's interested in making a gift, you can make a gift online at FLHealth.org and we just really appreciate your support.
Okay. And the holidays happen to be the topic of conversation today.
Kim Kilaqua, Amanda Vadala, Rose Copper-Brown: Yes, they are. So as we know, we just celebrated Thanksgiving, everyone had a lot of food, I know I did, so very excited to bring on our two registered dieticians today to talk about healthy holiday eating. So we have Amanda Vidala, who is our Corporate Chief Dietitian of Nutritional Services at Geneva General Hospital, and Rose Copper Brown, who is a Dietitian for Nutritional Services at Geneva General. And they're going to provide us with a lot of information on how to eat healthy over the holidays. And we've got to give an attaboy to Amanda because she road-tripped in from Baldwinsville this morning.
Paul Szmal: Yes, it was quite an adventure, but we made it.
I can imagine it was, certainly. Well, I appreciate both of you being here and, you know, I think a lot of people when they first hear the idea of eating healthy for the holidays, their nose probably turns up a little bit because they're thinking, aw, that means I can't have anything good. That's absolutely not the case.
Kim Kilaqua, Amanda Vadala, Rose Copper-Brown: Correct. That's not the case. This is Rose. We want you to enjoy the holidays because it is a very social event and food is one of the things that is very much around the gathering of the social family and friends gathering. So maybe just think of things like smaller plates instead of the large plates when you're going to places. If your gathering is towards the evening, don't skip meals because if you skip breakfast or lunch, then you go to a place very hungry and then you tend to overeat. So if you still have a little bit for breakfast or a little bit for lunch, then you can still enjoy things. Another tip is also to bring things that are lower calorie but still healthy. For instance, the vegetable tray. I've seen some things on Pinterest and Facebook of vegetables that are in the shapes of Christmas trees and things like that. So they can still be decorative but healthy.
Paul Szmal: There's a social and there's a psychological element to trying to eat well for the holidays. Socially you want to be able to participate. So denying yourself, Amanda, that's not always a great idea because you're basically setting yourself up for failure.
Kim Kilaqua, Amanda Vadala, Rose Copper-Brown: Absolutely. And I say pay attention to what you're eating. Enjoy the flavors. Take the time to put a little bit on each plate and just take a little bit of time to actually pay attention to what they taste like rather than devouring everything. But we definitely, I say enjoy everything you eat. I mean, food can be such a great thing. I think when people kind of have a misconception of, oh, I can't eat this, I can't eat that, well, you can. Just enjoy it more. Pay attention. The more you pay attention, the less I think you're apt to just devour things very fast.
Paul Szmal: Rose, you pointed out the idea people think they can skip a meal to make room for the extra food.
Kim Kilaqua, Amanda Vadala, Rose Copper-Brown: Yeah, that doesn't ever work.
Paul Szmal: No. No. Another trick might be to also stay hydrated through the day but also maybe drink a glass of water before you go to the event. Also the fluids and beverages can add up with calories. So again, not denying yourself but maybe have some of the punch or a drink but then the next glass be a glass of water or low-cal seltzer or low-cal soda and then go back to maybe another beverage.
You know, the staying hydrated thing, I think that's one of those hidden tips because when you think about it, there's a lot of sodium that you can ingest during the holidays with the holiday dinners and the sides and things of that nature. Even in some of the sweets, the cookies and pies and stuff like that. So staying hydrated, that's going to help flush your systems out and that can really be beneficial. And not only that, drinking a glass of water or two before you actually sit down to the meal is actually going to make you feel a little bit fuller. So there's that self-psychological element going on where it's like you get to a certain point and you're like, oh, I feel like I'm really full. And it's before the point where you would possibly wind up gorging yourself.
Also if you can bring something, maybe bring something that you know is a little bit healthier to the gathering. Try fun recipes.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. You made the point that if you go on social media, there's so much stuff out there. You can go on Facebook or as you said, some of the other sites. There's recipes galore that use healthy substitutions to make things that we're used to having during the holidays. You pointed out like the veggie tray in the shape of Christmas trees. That's a novel idea. Everybody's going to be able to enjoy that. We all enjoy a veggie tray during the holidays. Maybe you want to do something with a dip, like substitute like a Greek yogurt versus the sour cream when you're making the dip.
Kim Kilaqua, Amanda Vadala, Rose Copper-Brown: Rose always says do the dip on the side, do the gravies on the side. I learned from you. Dip your food in it on the side because if you put it on the top, you're going to eat a lot more than you would if you just dip it and pay attention to it.
Paul Szmal: Now that's genius. I never would have thought of that. But yeah, that makes complete sense to dip it on the side, shall we say. What do you think about leftovers from the holidays? Because that can be a little bit of a bugaboo sometimes.
Kim Kilaqua, Amanda Vadala, Rose Copper-Brown: Well, I just froze a turkey carcass for later. And I think that you can do that with a lot of your different other products, too, like the mashed potatoes. They can either be potato pancakes for breakfast the next morning or again, you can freeze the meat, freeze the carcass, make soup and then pull it out and then make soups later. And then with the soups, you can add a lot of vegetables and make it healthier using the low sodium broths and things like that.
Paul Szmal: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That that is one of the big, excuse me, big catches I find around the holiday season is not so much the fat content, but sodium content, a lot of stuff. Yeah. So I in fact, I made our stuffing this year and other things with the low sodium vegetable broth and low sodium chicken broth.
All right. So to wrap up here, I'm going to ask each of you if there's one piece of advice you could give people for eating during the holidays, what would it be?
Kim Kilaqua, Amanda Vadala, Rose Copper-Brown: Mindful eating, pay attention, pay more attention to what you put in your mouth and take the time to enjoy it. You'll be less worried and enjoy food, you know, doesn't have to be negative, can be fun and exciting.
Along the same lines, again, not skipping meals so that you can enjoy, enjoy the foods that you don't usually have. That's another thing is if you go to a place and crackers and cheese, you can eat crackers and cheese anytime. But maybe there's a couple of dishes that you don't see very often. So enjoy those and maybe leave the crackers and cheese for the next gathering.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. All right. Good advice from both of you. Thank you so much for being here.
Kim Kilaqua, Amanda Vadala, Rose Copper-Brown: Thank you. Thank you.
Paul Szmal: If people want to get dietary information or maybe set themselves up to get an appointment with a dietician to work on their eating, they can go to the website, correct?
Kim Kilaqua, Amanda Vadala, Rose Copper-Brown: Well, we're working on getting an outpatient. So hopefully next year at some time, we will have an outpatient. Right now, we currently don't, but we're going to work on that.
Paul Szmal: Excellent. We know it's something that we need in the community.
Excellent. Excellent. Well, great to have you on board. Thank you for making the trip in in less than ideal conditions this morning. Have a great holiday season to both of you. Kim, you as well, obviously.
Kim Kilaqua, Amanda Vadala, Rose Copper-Brown: Nice to see you.
Yes. We want to have people enjoy their food.
Yes. And thank you so much.
Yes. Glad to be here. So go enjoy the holidays and just be responsible with it. You'll be just fine.
Paul Szmal: It is 8.51 now on FLX Morning.
