By Stacy Goldberg

February is National Heart Health month…Instead of choosing milk chocolate, try to make the switch to dark chocolate with 60-70% cocoa as a healthy alternative.  New findings indicate that cocoa flavanols may be an important part of a healthy diet for people with cardiovascular disease, which affects more than 80 million Americans, according to research by a team of internationally-renowned researchers, including scientists from Mars, Incorporated.

Baking with cocoa, also is a good way to add these heart healthy flavanols to your diet! Here is an easy recipe for Dried Fruit Balls..Rich in iron and fiber, high on the “YUM Index”, and fun for kids to make with you!  These are great for vegans & vegetarians as well

Read the full post on Dried Fruit Balls.

By Dr. Joe
There are times when change is upon us. Often this is not recognized until later when with hindsight we can easily say,” there were signs of change”. There is certainly change afoot when it comes to food. Within one week there were three signs that I saw in my travels.

Before getting to that it is worth recapping where we are. Prior to the 1970’s most food was eaten at home and was prepared from ingredients that were bought separately and cooked. There was little packaged food and certainly very few packaged “meals”. People tended to get meat from the butcher, fruit and vegetables from the green grocer and so it went.

Read the full post on Knowing Where Your Food Comes From.

- Does the Shake Weight Dumbbell work?
- Can vegetarians be athletic and build muscle?

Thought I’d do some people a favor and publicly answer some great questions that received a lot of attention this week.

Let’s talk about the new commercial that’s setting the airwaves a blaze with a new product called the Shake Weight Dumbbell. By using the “new technology called Dynamic Inertia” you can create firm, tone, muscular arms in “just six minutes a day” or there’s a “100% money back refund.”

Read the full post on Answers to Two Cutting Edge Questions.

The bane of many dieters is weighing themselves daily to see progress. An acceptable weekly weight loss, however, is about 2 pounds. That’s an average of 4.6 ounces per day, which most scales cannot register.

Diet is the single greatest factor related to the likelihood of getting cancer, responsible for some 35% of all cases. Tobacco use is close behind with responsibility for 30% of the cases. Alcohol and sun exposure cause 6% of cases.