Whole Grain Pasta: New Food for a New Year

The next time you’re buying pasta, STOP. The new year is a good time to try new things–especially if they’re healthy and not hard at all. Find out how two ordinary home chefs are discovering and experimenting with some of the new, whole grain pastas–and finding that they pass the taste test, even for picky eaters.

Convenience Foods: Would You Buy a 4-Seat Sedan for a 5-Person Family?

What’ s the biggest barrier we face on the journey to healthful eating? Surprisingly, it’s not that we can’t cook, don’t have the right recipes or need more gadgets. No, that devil Time is what gets in our way. Are convenience foods the answer, or are they like buying a 4-seat sedan for a 5-person family?

Holiday Dinners: The Salad Strategy

If you care about weight maintenance, holiday dinners are where your resolve gets tested.   Assuming there are any healthful options at all, it’s most likely a gloppy coleslaw, tray of cold raw vegetables with ranch dressing, or whatever other tasteless nod to nutrition a deli can concoct. Theoretically, you could be virtuous and subsist on … Read more

Diet Season Is Coming! Plan Now for After the Diet

By definition, a “diet” is an interlude of eating differently than normal, and at some point, that interlude has to end. Since we know that’s the ending to every diet story, why not plan for a good exit strategy? What will eating look like for the rest of your life, once your diet interlude it over?

Processed Foods: The Good, the Bad and When to Break the Rules

If there’s a reliable dietary culprit, “processed food” would be it. In fact, “processed foods” has become practically synonymous with bad-for-you food. However, most of the foods we eat are “processed,” subjected to some kind of “process” from simple cooking, grinding and fermenting to complex hydrogenating, modifying and refining. So in a practical sense, how do we implement the experts’ advice to eliminate processed foods? Instead of an either/or definition, I use the far more helpful “Tree to Test Tube Continuum” to sort out good from bad and when it’s OK to break the rules.

Women, Weight and Protein

Did you know there’s a connection between what’s in your pantry and what’s on your thighs? It’s true, so pay attention to this often overlooked part of the kitchen–not only to what’s there, but also to what’s not there–like high-quality canned chicken that can stave off a hunger attack in a hurry.

The Whole Kitchen Way to Wholesome Meals

It’s a mystery: How can we have good recipes, but they don’t show up on the table? Maybe because we are playing the game with only a half (or quarter) of the kitchen, not a Whole Kitchen. Find out what you might be missing.

Nurture Your Vegetables . . . So They Can Nurture You

We hear a lot about how vegetables nurture us. But did you know that it works the other way, too? Nurture vegetables and they can do a better job of nurturing and nourishing us.