PROGRAMS

Nutrition

“A healthy outside starts from the inside.”
— Robert Urich

NUTRITION IS A MAJOR FOCUS AT BRIGHT DAYS. We serve breakfast, lunch, and 2 snacks to your child each day. As your child receives approximately 75% of their daily intake of food while in our care, it’s our job to ensure that they receive all of the nutrients required to promote growth and healthy development. How your child eats today will have a significant impact on their health throughout adolescence and adulthood. Consuming nutritious foods helps children grow, develop, do well academically, and feel good about themselves.

NON-GMO, 90% ORGANIC FOOD is served at all Bright Days child care homes. Children fed an organic diet have much lower levels of metabolites of high-risk insecticides in their bodies. We also know that choosing organic food reduces the risk of exposure to toxic pesticides, and endocrine-disrupting chemicals in their diet. Infants and children are particularly vulnerable to chemicals, partly because their immune systems are still developing and also, because pound for pound, they’re exposed to more chemical residues than adults. Therefore, even if your child does not eat all-organic at home, you can rest easy knowing that vast majority of their daily intake of food is organic.

The reason that we do not serve 100% organic food is to ensure that we can offer a wider variety of fruits of vegetables, instead of relying solely on the limited in-season organic options available at stores. The only foods that may be served that are not organic include non-GMO produce that has previously been tested by the USDA for pesticide residue and listed as the “clean fifteen” due to their lack of residue found. To see the details of the testing and reporting, please check out the Environmental Working Group’s website→

ALL MEAT IS SOURCED FROM A LOCAL FARM. Bright Days is proud to serve locally sourced, certified organic meat at all child care homes. Sunworks Farm is the home of owners, Ron and Sheila Hamilton and is located near Armena, Alberta. The organic certification ensures that the animals are only fed certified organic feed and are not given any antibiotics, growth hormones or animal by-products, and there has been no herbicides or pesticides sprayed on their land for over 25 years (since 1992). Their calves are fed only certified organic grass, hay and alfalfa, which means a life-long diet of 100% organic grass. They take pride in that fact that none of their products contain any nitrates, nitrites, sulphates, sulfites, or MSG. All products have zero preservatives and are dairy, nut and gluten free (no fillers). In addition to the high quality food they produce, their farming practices and values demonstrate their strong belief in the principals of organic and holistic agriculture, as well as the importance of ethical/humane handling of all creatures, including farm animals. To learn more about Sunworks Farm, check out their website→

CREATING A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP WITH FOOD is an important focus at our child care homes. Not only do we provide your children with nutritious meals and snacks, but we also focus on helping them prevent future issues such as picky eating, eating disorders, obesity, dental cavities, and iron-deficiency anemia.

This is done in a variety of ways, including set meal and snack times, well balanced and tasty meals, teaching the children to eat mindfully using all of their senses, and listening to their intuitive hunger cues. At our preschool programs, meals are served ‘family style’. There is growing evidence that family-style meals where children are allowed to serve themselves their own desired portions of food from common serving bowls help children learn to tell when they are hungry or full and self-regulate their food intake. It also develops motor skills related to scooping and selecting food and passing bowls and plates. Our Educators that have experience with family style meals, have found that children are more willing to try new foods when they see other children choosing them. Healthy eating habits that start in early childhood are more likely to continue through to adulthood.

OUR CUSTOM MEAL PLAN was created specifically for Bright Days by pediatric dietician and nutritionist, Sarah Remmer RD — Canada’s child and family nutrition expert. The meals are prepared by the Early Childhood Educators, from scratch, in the homes. In addition to ensuring that all meals and snacks are “kid-approved”, the meal plan includes the following features:

• Only milk or water served at meals and snacks (no juice)
• Whole grains served 100% of the time
• 6–10 servings of vegetables/fruit per day
• At least 4 different colours of vegetables/fruits per day
• 2–3 servings of meat and protein-rich foods per day
• 2–4 servings of milk and dairy alternatives per day
• Minimum of 2 servings of oily fish per week
• No processed foods containing trans fatty acids
• No refined/added sugars, with the exception of small amounts of pure maple syrup, honey, or organic cane sugar

About Sarah Remmer, BSc. RD

Sarah Remmer is a Registered Dietitian, freelance writer and owner of Sarah Remmer Nutrition Consulting, a Calgary-based pediatric and family nutrition consulting and communications company. She’s also also a Mom of three!

Sarah obtained her Bachelor’s Degree in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Alberta, where she then went on to complete a year-long dietetics internship in Calgary. Sarah’s dietetics and counseling experience spans across many areas, including infant and child nutrition, pre-natal and post-natal nutrition, healthy weight management and eating disorders.

Sarah’s true passion lies in teaching parents not only what to feed their kids, but how. She does this by giving them invaluable tools that help them to nurture their children’s relationship with food for life. Sarah shares her passion not only with parents and kids in a one-on-one counseling setting, but also as a freelance nutrition writer who contributes regularly to many well known parenting resources. A few of these include Canadian Parenting magazine, Today’s Parent, the Globe and Mail, Chatelaine Magazine, Glow, Flare, and was also a guest speaker at the 2017 National Dietitians of Canada Conference.

You may recognize Sarah from the media as well, as she has partnered with CBC Parents to host a videos series on picky eating, and helped create a CBC Kids cartoon TV show called “Ollie the Boy Who Became What He Ate”. She has also appeared on City TV’s Breakfast Television Calgary, Global News, CTV Morning Live Calgary as well as CBC Radio National news.

Sarah is also an internationally recognized nutrition and parenting blogger, contributing regularly to the Dairy Farmers of Canada blog and maintaining her two popular blogs The Non-Diet Dietitian, which is found on Erica Ehm’s Yummy Mummy Club, as well as her own blog.

Sarah is a proud member of the College of Dietitians of Alberta and Dietitians of Canada. To learn more about Sarah, check out her website, or like her Facebook Page to get access to great childhood nutrition tips, recipes, and parenting advice!