It’s a try­ing time for all of us amidst this pan­dem­ic. In ad­di­tion to hop­ing and pray­ing for the best, we can al­so make things a lit­tle bit eas­i­er for our­selves and for oth­ers by be­ing cog­nisant of smart food bud­get­ing strate­gies and avoid­ing food wastage. As­sess­ing what you al­ready have and plan­ning your in­take, tak­ing what you need and not over­buy­ing, as well as util­is­ing what you al­ready have in your pantry, will al­low you to max­imise your food and min­imise wastage while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly al­low­ing oth­ers to ac­cess the food that they need. Food is vi­tal as a source of com­fort and nour­ish­ment and I hope that the fol­low­ing tips can help you max­imise your food and avoid wastage dur­ing this time.

Try out this healthy ba­nana bread recipe, boost­ed with car­rots, raisins and wal­nuts! It’s made with whole­some in­gre­di­ents like whole wheat flour and eggs. Bak­ing this bread is sim­ple and you don’t need a fan­cy mix­er, just a large bowl and a spoon to mix the bat­ter. Sweet­en with brown sug­ar or hon­ey. Pour this bat­ter in­to muf­fin tins and make ba­nana car­rot muffins in­stead.

Since the con­fir­ma­tion of our first Nov­el Coro­n­avirus (Covid-19) case on March 12th in T&T, our worlds have grad­u­al­ly grown small­er and more un­cer­tain due to mea­sures of so­cial dis­tanc­ing to pre­vent the spread of the dis­ease. We have all had to ad­just to a new re­al­i­ty, nor­mal dai­ly rou­tines have fall­en asun­der.

On March 13, 2020 the Prime Min­is­ter an­nounced that schools were to be closed to help re­duce the spread of covid-19. While many chil­dren, mine in­clud­ed, ini­tial­ly cel­e­brat­ed the un­ex­pect­ed ear­ly East­er break, as the stay at home mea­sures con­tin­ue to be ex­tend­ed, chil­dren may now ex­pe­ri­ence var­i­ous emo­tions as a re­sult of the so­cial dis­tanc­ing.

Be­ing Di­ag­nosed with Os­teosar­co­ma – can­cer of the bone - is scary at any age.JBF Talks to 11 year old Gabriel and his par­ents about their jour­ney.

Cake pops are the per­fect­ly cute desserts that can bright­en up your next birth­day par­ty, ba­by show­er and oth­er spe­cial oc­ca­sions. Dec­o­rate with colour­ful rain­bows, these cake pops stand out as ed­i­ble par­ty favours that every­one will love. This recipe is su­per con­ve­nient call­ing for a sim­ple choco­late cake mix you can whip up in a flash. In­dulge in choco­late good­ness with these sweet fudgy cake pops.

Smoth­ered in a Caribbean-in­spired bar­be­cue sauce, they make the per­fect snack along­side some cold drinks. Bak­ing these wings will en­sure they get cooked even­ly in the oven and gain a love­ly crispy tex­ture on the out­side. Next step is to toss the wings in this unique BBQ sauce and then broiled in the oven to carmelize the sauce and get them de­li­cious­ly sticky.

Whether you have the ex­tra yard space or have lim­it­ed space if you’re rent­ing an apart­ment, grow­ing your own veg­eta­bles at home is pos­si­ble. Save mon­ey and time on gro­cery trips by us­ing old pro­duce scraps as plant starters for grow­ing your own food at home. Fresh or­gan­ic food is no­to­ri­ous­ly ex­pen­sive in gro­ceries so why not grow your own for cheap? Check out these healthy foods that you can eas­i­ly re­grow from scraps!

Just be­cause you can’t or­der take­out doesn’t mean you can’t en­joy your favourite fast foods at home! Try out our sim­ple and scrump­tious recipe for a home­made chick­en bar­be­cue piz­za that you and fam­i­ly will love. What’s awe­some about this dish is that it con­tains in­gre­di­ents you al­ready have in your kitchen pantry. The bar­beque sauce adds a tangy flavour over tra­di­tion­al mari­nara sauce. Cus­tomize your piz­za just the way you like it by adding ex­tra top­pings like pineap­ple, olives, pi­men­tos, toma­toes or what­ev­er your heart de­sires.

With in­creased le­gal­iza­tion in many coun­tries, there has been grow­ing in­ter­est in cannabis prod­ucts. How­ev­er, what are the con­cerns about its use in teens and why?

Mak­ing the di­ag­no­sis of Autism can be chal­leng­ing since there are no med­ical tests. Cer­tain ex­ams may be help­ful to rule out hear­ing loss, speech dif­fi­cul­ties, lead poi­son­ing, or de­vel­op­men­tal prob­lems. In ad­di­tion, par­ents are asked ques­tions about their child’s be­hav­ior and com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills. Get­ting a di­ag­no­sis is a two-stage process which starts with your pe­di­a­tri­cian. Every child is as­sessed at 18- and 24-month to en­sure they are on track, even with­out symp­toms. Doc­tor will check the ba­by’s re­sponse to your voice, smile, or oth­er ex­pres­sions among oth­er things. A vis­it with the speech ther­a­pist and a hear­ing test is al­so war­rant­ed to as­sess for prob­lems or de­lays in speech. Most chil­dren with autism will even­tu­al­ly speak just lat­er than oth­ers. They may al­so speak in a sing-song or ro­bot­ic way.

April is Autism Aware­ness Month, and for many liv­ing with autism, the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic brings a set of new chal­lenges. Since the con­fir­ma­tion of our first Nov­el Coro­n­avirus (Covid-19) case on March 12th in T&T, our worlds have grad­u­al­ly grown small­er and more un­cer­tain due to mea­sures of so­cial dis­tanc­ing to pre­vent the spread of the dis­ease. We have all had to ad­just to a new re­al­i­ty, nor­mal dai­ly rou­tines have fall­en asun­der. Cop­ing with the un­known and nav­i­gat­ing school clo­sures, fur­loughs, abrupt changes in rou­tines, loss of in-per­son con­tact with fam­i­ly and friends and fear of con­tract­ing the virus is a bur­den for all of us. All of us are cop­ing with the anx­i­ety gen­er­at­ed dur­ing this pe­ri­od of un­cer­tain­ty. Most of us have the cog­ni­tive and phys­i­cal abil­i­ty to adapt to so­cial dis­tanc­ing. How­ev­er, for those with autism and their fam­i­lies, the ad­just­ment can be par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult. Stud­ies have shown that chil­dren with Autism do not do well if their dai­ly rou­tine is dis­turbed even in the slight­est. The break­down in struc­ture, as well as be­ing con­fined to small spaces through so­cial dis­tanc­ing, could re­sult in dis­tress or, some­times, melt­downs in this group.