April Foods Day….
By Deborah Yaffee, CH, CN 
April is International Humor Month and I’d be a fool if I didn’t share some April Foods tips with you to bring in the month with a smirk on April 1st. Don’t be shy… go ahead and throw a huge dinner party. Serve the courses in reverse…starting with dessert, then the entrée, then the salad, and finally the appetizer. Sure, let them eat dessert with the butter knife and give them a spoon to attack the salad with. Don’t forget to put salt in the sugar bowl…oh, right, this is a nutrition article: remember to put the Celtic sea salt in the Succanat bowl. And how about some hearty tomato soup in the coffee cups?
What’s Green, Sometimes Irish and Helps You Lose Weight?
By Deborah Yaffee, CH, CN
If you guessed tea, you’d be right!
Researcher Dr. Carrie Ruxton, of King’s College in London, has shown that tea just might be even healthier for your body than plain water is. Tea contains many antioxidants that may help to protect against heart disease, stroke, cancer, and other compounds that help protect the brain and prevent bacterial infections. Dr. Ruxton found that it takes about 4 cups per day to get the full health benefits of tea.
Celebrate National Heart Month on Omega-Fat Tuesday
by Deborah Yaffee, CH, CNIn the Christian world, Carnival is the time traditionally between 12th night (after Christmas) and Lent, the 40 days of fasting and purification in preparation for Easter. Eat, drink and be merry is the theme of the Carnival season as soulful Christians prepare to embrace leaner times ahead. The word Carnival is from the Latin carne (meat) and vale (farewell) and traditional specialties involve meals that bid a lavish farewell to meat for the season.
The culmination of Carnival is the festive Mardi Gras. The phrase is French for Fat Tuesday. Rich, dripping meals made of fat, cream, butter and meat are the centerpiece of the Fat Tuesday table. I’ve seen a lot of pancakes swimming in butter and donuts topped with chocolate syrup and whipped cream go down on this day.
Fables with Labels: Zero Trans Fats… Not!
By Deborah Yaffee, CH, CN
It’s rare that I actually feel so very strongly about an ingredient that I will outright insist on telling folks to remove it entirely and as soon as possible from anything that is going in their mouths, their family’s mouths, their friends’ mouths, their neighbors’ mouths. Trans fat is on my small “nutritional hit list”. If the label says “hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated fat or oil”, do not eat it!