Easter Baskets For A Healthy Bunny
Easter is a time to rejoice the com
ing of spring. It’s a time to allow
senses to become refreshed with
bright colors and fresh air after a long
winter. It’s no wonder that the perfect
Easter basket is one stuffed with rich
and exotic colors, bright and cheery
reminders of the approaching secrets
of spring. Unfortunately, for most of
us-and especially children-Easter
can also be a time of over-indulgence
in candies, chocolates, and other
sweets.
So what is a health-conscious
bunny to do? How can parents pro
vide a fun and meaningful holiday,
replete with Easter baskets and hid
den egg hunts, without putting chil
dren into sugar overload?
A typical Easter basket, stuffed
with chocolate bunnies, marshmal
low eggs, jelly beans, and foil
wrapped chocolate eggs, can have
more than 2000 calories and 100
grams of fat. With a little creativity,
that same basket can be packed with
just as much fun, but with half the
calories and twice the nutritional
power.
The first key to a fun and healthy
Easter is creativity. The second key is
moderation. This means including a
few of your child’s favorite tradition
al treats m the Easter basket, and
using your creativity to round out the
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basket with such nutritious food and
interesting non-food items such as
those suggested below.
• Instead of jelly beans, fill plastic
eggs with peanuts, raisins, and
shelled sunflower seeds. Mixed
together, this combination is known
as CORPS (Good old raisins,
peanuts, and sunflower seeds).
• Other good plastic egg fillers
include a few grapes, animal or gra
ham cracker cookies, popcorn and
mini pretzels.
• Bunnies like carrots, and so do
children. Look for mini-carrots in
single serving packages in your
supermarket’s produce department
These make a colorful addition to
Easter baskets.
• Other colorful basket staffers
include fruit roll-ups, a box of fruit
juice, grapes, and other assorted
fruits.
• With a little creativity-and
j-fiisins, mini-marshmallows, fruit
leather, and peanut butter-apples and
pears can be transformed into Easter
mascots just waiting to become
healthful snacks.
• Easter can be a great time to
introduce your child to a new or
unusual food. Kiwi fruit, with its
fuzzy skin and bright green
flower-pattern inside, makes a per
fect egg-shaped surprise. Since the
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HUNDREDS OF OTHER ITEMS!
3019 Hempland Road, Lancaster 397-6241
f Stores In; UNCASTER • YORK • CARLISLE, PA
STORE HOURS: Mon.-Frl. 9-9 • Sat. 9-6; Sunday 12 to 5 PM
• No Rsfunds
99H •No Exchanges For pureham with a chock, bring FINANCING
• Cash A Carry drivers llcansa and phona mimbart AVAILABLE
Nol responsible lor *ypagraphical errors Ws reserve the right to substitute grtl Items
Kiwi bird is New Zealand’s national
bird and kiwi fruit is its national fruit,
a story about kiwi eggs is not too far
fetched.
• Emphasize non-food items. How
about a pocket-sized book, box of
crayons, or Play-Doh 9
• Nestle colorful packets of veg
etable seeds in your child’s basket,
and make plans to start them in a gar
den box on your window sill.
Finally, good old-fashioned hard-
boiled eggs are high in protein and
fun for kids to eat. Beautifully deco
rated Easter eggs are still a healthy
bet for most children. Make sure your
eggs are well cooked and refrigerat
ed. Hide plastic eggs and allow chil
dren to trade one in for a colored egg
from the fndge when they’re ready to
eat it.
On Being a
Farm Wife
(and other
hazards)
Joyce Bupp
Cross paths with someone from
another part of the country, and
immediately following introductions,
there will be an inevitable questions.
“Where’re you from 9 ”
The response when you share that
you live in southcentral Pennsylvania
is. I’ve discovered, almost universal.
“Ooohhh, that’s a really pretty
area.”
Yes, thank you very much, it is
indeed. A very pretty area. And we’re
quite proud of it, too.
Each season hereabouts brings its
own special beauty. Summer is rich
with the colors of green, growing
corn and golden gram waving in the
breeze. Autumn glows with the reds,
beiges, rich browns, golds and every
thing in between splashed over the
fencerows and hardwood stands of
the area woodlots. Winter is more
subtle in shading, hues of somber
greens and muted browns, blanketed
periodically with pristine snow or
glittering coats of ice.
But spring - especially now in
mid-April - is our debutante season,
young and fresh and eager to embrace
new life. Its pastel loveliness is gently
stroked by warming breezes, bringing
promises of planting and the bustle ot
accompanying preparations.
A bevy of blooms burst from
bulbs tucked earlier in the ground,
dormant for months as they made
preparation to bring forth the start of
a new generation. Flowers are so
beautiful that it’s sometimes hard for
me to remember that they are merely
the delivery vehicle, the initial form
of the seed capsule which will ulti
mately regenerate more of the same
Or maybe more of something dif
ferent, depending on what those
flowers are fertilized with by their
random encounters with Mother
Nature’s pollination army of bees and
bugs.
Regardless, the seasonal parade of
blooms gets well under way in spring
(early this year with our extra warm
weather) with clusters of daffodils in
yellow and whites, the crayon-box
brilliant tulips and pastel ovals of fra-
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, April 15, 2000-B5
grant hyacinths.
While Washington, D.C., makes a
tourist celebration of the blooming of
the cherry trees, we probably take for
granted the loveliness of our flower
ing hillside of orchards. The variety
of fruit trees cultivated here-from
apricots and nectarines to peaches,
pears and apples - produce a parade
of several-weeks-worth of consecu
tive blossoming as each bursts into
color to attract the pollinating insects.
Flowering ornamentals add to the
beauty of the area, from the showy,
snowy-white of the pears, to the
weeping cherries, to crabapples,
enhancing the lawns and backyards m
which folks around here take particu
lar pride. While their petals are cas
cading to cover the grass beneath,
white and purple lilacs are already
pushing out pudgy blossom clusters
perfumed with a delicious fragrance
Even the hardwoods are decked
out in spring finery, as they send out
modest blooms and infant leaves,
mostly in shades of pale greens and
reds Their delicate, fledgling leaves
dress the woods m a wispy, hazy look
for several days, before swelling to
the full-size and deeper colors of
maturity.
Meadows and pastures have
turned green with recent rams and
warming sunshine, tempting the cows
and heifers to come, munch their fill,
then stretch out a spell to chew their
cuds. It’s a personal thing I know, but
what could be more of a peaceful,
pastoral scene than a herd of cows
lolling around a meadow of lush
green grass 9
Except maybe for a flock of sheep
with a couple of lambs dancing
around - curly-coated, stiff-legged,
spring-loaded babies leaping into the
air with the sheer joy of being alive
Look over any rural vista in mid-
April and it’s easy to agree with folks
around the country
We are blessed with beautiful,
rural, picturesque countrysides
Let’s hope we can find the means
- quickly - to make certain what's
left stays that way