NutritionDoc

Everyone knows the simplest way to make tuna: open a can, drain the liquid, and mix with mayo. WRONG! StarKist's Tuna Creations make it even easier.Just tear open the pouch and eat. There is no liquid to drain and no mayo to mix, because the tuna has already been seasoned. Choose from Herb & Garlic, Hickory Smoked or Zesty Lemon Pepper. Add them to your salad, mix them with sauteed vegetables and pasta or layer them with lettuce, tomato, and onion between two slices of crusty whole grain bread. No mayo means fewer calories - half a pouch (2 1/2 oz) has only 75 to 100 depending on the flavor. The fats are almost exclusively unsaturated - including some heart saving omega-3 (fish oil) fats. The seasoning adds salt, but just a bit more than you would get in ordinary canned tuna. And the tuna is light so it has less mercury than white (Albacore). A tuna sandwich from the deli may be more convenient. But most of us could do without 700 calories and 1000 mg of sodium for lunch. May be it is time to throw StarKist's blue bag into your brown bag. Food is your friend - enjoy.

Whole grains are showing up in new places. First out of the gate in the frozen-dinner race: Lean Cuisine's delicious new line of Spa Cuisine Classics. Each of the 8 entrees is made with 100% whole grain rice or pasta. You get whole wheat orzo in the (wild) Salmon with Basil, whole wheat spaghetti in the Chicken Mediterranean and Chicken in Peanut Sauce and brown rice in the Chicken Pecan, Lemon Chicken, Lemongrass Chicken, Rosemary Chicken, and Pork with Cherry Sauce. Just about all of them have at least one serving of vegetables. According to the box, the Lemongrass Chicken has a full cup of broccoli, baby corn, carrots, red peppers, and spinach. The Salmon with Basil has 3/4 cup of spinach and carrots. That is no mean feat, since each entree has only about 250 calories. Bonus: you will not find a drop of trans fat, and only one (Lemongrass Chicken) has more than 2 1/2 grams of sat fat. Spa Cuisine is not perfect. Sodium - which ranges from 540 mg to 720 mg - should be lower. But you could do a lot worse with Stouffer's, Marie Callender's Life Choice and other frozen meals escept Healthy Choice and a few others. I can't wait to see them ALL made with whole grains. Food is your friend - enjoy.

The iceberg age is over. For years, fast-food salads were little more than iceberg lettuce, tired tomato and shredded carrots, and maybe some chicken that had been sitting in the cooler who knows how long. Humble patrons were grateful to have a salad - any salad- on the menu. Burger Kings's new Fire-Grilled Chicken or shrimp Garden and Caesar Salads have set the bar several notches higher. The shrimp or chunks of chicken are served hot in a packet that BK calls "The Pouch". Just rip it open and scatter the contents over the cool, fresh lettuce (including iceberg) grape tomatoes, baby carrots, red onions, cucumbers, and shaved Permesan cheese. If it were not for the price tag ( I paid around $5 ) you would think you were dining at a classier joint. The salads' Achilles' heel: sodium. The veggies plus seasoned (read:salted) chicken or shrimp start out with 900 milligrams - 1,020 mg if you dump on the Garlic Parmesan Toast croutons. To keep the sodium down to a dull roar, stick with the Hidden Valley Fat Free Ranch dressing, which adds another 370 mg if you use the whole 40 calorie packet (3 tbls). Fast-food salads have come a long way . . . and not a minute too soon. Food is your friend - enjoy.

Long gone are the days when a frozen dinner meant Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes, turkey and gravy with mashed potatoes, or fried chicken with mashed potatoes. But even the newer favorites - like chichen parmesan, pasta primavera, and beef teriyaki- can get old after a while. That makes a brand new line of frozen entrees like Healthy Choice Flavor Adventures a sight for tired tast buds. From the Roasted Chicken Chardonnay to the Grilled Chicken Caesar,Beef Merlot and nine other varieties, HC's chefs know their stuff. Check out the yellow carrots in the Creamy Herb Roasted Chicken and the green and yellow zucchini in the Chicken Tuscany. More veggies would be better, but at least these dishes have moved beyond green beans. The company has to keep a lid on sodium (as well as saturated fat) or it can not use the word "healthy" in its name. The government's 600 mg limit for "healthy" meals is! a far cry from low. But you could easily find far more than that in the frozen-food aisle, not to mention your local takeout restaurant. The sodium and sat fat limits keep Healthy Choice's food developers on their toes, always looking for new adventures. Too bad most other companies do not bother to do the same. Remember: food is your friend - enjoy!

Nothing beats a handful of fresh berries in your cereal. But once blueberries or raspberries or strawberries are out of season, you are out of luck. Some companies now add freezedried berries to their cereals - Berry Burst Cheerios, for example. But they have got more added sugar than the original Cheerios, and you can only eat so many Cheerios. Enter Cereal Toppers. Now you can toss your own freezedried fruit into a bowl of All-Bran, Wheaties, Wheatena, oatmeal, or whatever. Just add milk and you have got scrumptious slices of apples, strawberries, or bananas or whole blueberries or raspberries. No more Quaker Instant Strawberries and Cream Oatmeal which has more sugar and creaming agent than fruit (dehydrated apples pumped up with artificial strawberry flavor, sodium sulfite, citric acid and Red 40 to be precise).
Each serving of Cereal Toppers supplies one to four grams of fiber, depending on the fruit. They need no refrigeration or preservatives. Except for a touch of added sugar in the dried apples, fruit is the only ingredient.BUT why stop at cereal? Cereal Toppers can work their magic in yogurt, cottage cheese, smoothies, pancakes, even salad. Or you can munch on a handful right out of the (resealable) bag. No muss, no fuss . . . and no more excuses for that bag of chips. Food is your friend - Enjoy.