Health And Food

16/04/2015

16/04/2015

Mango Salsa

Swapping mangoes for tomatoes lends a fresh, sweet taste to this dish. Serves 4 to 6 (about 43 calories each, not including chips)

15/04/2015

Four-Berry Salad

Balsamic vinegar and brown sugar make a sweet-tart dressing for the berries. Serve as is or, for an extra crunch, with toasted nuts. Makes 4 servings (69 calories each without nuts).

15/04/2015

Tropical Fruit Parfait

In a small glass -- or a jar with a lid, if you're on the go -- layer 1/2 cup fruit cut into 1/2-inch cubes (kiwis, mangos, and pineapples are nice) with 1/4 cup plain low-fat yogurt. Top with 1 tablespoon toasted sliced almonds. Makes 1 serving (100 calories).

12/04/2015

Pork Loin with Seared Plums

This menu is perfectly suited to holiday entertaining or a special family celebration.

12/04/2015

Make-Ahead Holiday Dinner

The holidays are for spending time with family and friends, not dazzling them with feats of culinary wizardry. Save your complicated 12-part recipes and souffles for another day, and instead create a menu full of dishes that only look hard to make. If you use fresh ingredients, you won't have to try too hard to produce something flavorful and memorable.

Avoid the last-minute scramble with our plan-ahead menu, and wow your guests with scrumptious yet simple dishes. The bonus? Each recipe features healthy ingredients that naturally help keep nerves in check.

12/04/2015

Grilled Chicken with Spinach and Whole-Wheat Couscous

This quick chicken-cutlet dish gets Moroccan flavors from cumin, cayenne, raisins, and couscous. Spinach gives fiber and iron.

11/04/2015

Red Cabbage Salad with Spicy Grilled Chicken and Pepitas

Cumin and cayenne give this Southwestern-inspired grilled chicken cutlet in this dish heat, while pumpkin seeds and cabbage make it crunchy.

11/04/2015

Crunchy Chicken Tenders with Herb-Buttermilk Dressing

Get the heat of hot wings without the skin or fat in this take on the protein-packed game day classic.

11/04/2015

Almond Chicken Soup with Sweet Potato, Collards, and Ginger

This hearty, warming soup gets a creamy texture from sweet potato and almond butter, while collards bring antioxidants and iron.

08/04/2015

Lift Your Mood

You spill a cup of coffee all over your desk. How do you react? If you're chatting on the phone with a new love interest, you shrug and chalk it up to giddy distraction. If it's right before an important meeting, you feel annoyed, even angry with yourself. Why the difference? In one scenario, it's just an accident. In the other, it goes to prove your day is doomed.

There's a reason for this: We view the world through mood-colored glasses, interpreting events according to how we feel at the time. But while we may swear that the guy who cuts us off in traffic ruined our morning, it's the way we respond that creates our experience. Life's little annoyances themselves don't sour a day; they serve as a reflection of the mood we're already in. "When you focus on negative thoughts or memories, you begin to interpret events around you through that lens, which generates more negative thoughts," says cognitive psychologist John Selby, coauthor of "Take Charge of Your Mind." It's a vicious cycle -- and one that can cause even the best of moods to plummet.

Research in cognitive psychology shows that our thoughts determine the quality of our emotions, moods, actions, and life experiences. "So nothing is more urgent or more important than learning how to take charge of our thinking," says Selby. He created a technique to break "thought addiction," or an inability to let go of past regrets and future worries in order to enjoy the present moment. The approach uses "cognitive shifting," which helps you move between states of mind and optimize your mental performance. In pairing that mental shift with specific phrases you say to yourself, you build a powerful habit that can overcome the tendency to "read" events in a negative way. In short: You stop letting little things upend entire days.

Although his sequence of exercises is deceptively simple, like any good skill, it requires practice. "You'll feel the effects right away, but if you continue to do it for two or three weeks, you will experience even more powerful results," he says. Then those flat tires, missed appointments, insensitive emails, and torn hems won't rankle you as they once did.

07/04/2015

Goal: Find Your Healthiest Weight

If you want to lose weight before bathing-suit season, concentrate on dropping no more than a pound or two a week. "Anything more than that usually means you're depriving yourself," says New York City-based nutritionist Sharon Richter, R.D. "And when you deprive yourself, sooner or later you're going to binge and gain it back."

Operate on a 500-calorie-a-day deficit. "A pound is 3,500 calories," explains Richter. "So if you cut 500 calories a day for seven days straight, you'll lose a pound a week right there