Fruit season is generally not associated with wintertime. Summer brings berries, peaches, plums, nectarines, mangos—pitted fruit that make you salivate just thinking about them. Truth is, I get excited about two fruit included in winter’s crop: pears and mandarin oranges. Let’s not get into the citrus family right now, but concentrate on the rose family, specifically the much under-appreciated pear. Unbeknownst to most people, pears are some of the most nutritionally valuable fruit. Relatives of the ...

Vitamin deficiency may not be on the forefront of your health concerns, but maybe it should move up the priority list just a little bit. Granted, scurvy and rickets don’t hold the world in a grip of terror, but there are other diseases and illnesses associated with not getting enough of the right kinds of vitamins. Let’s do a quick refresher on what happens when you do and don’t take your vitamins. Vitamin A Vitamin A is ...

A roommate of mine in college used to joke that calories in drinks didn’t count because you can’t drink calories. That couldn’t be more untrue. The average American doesn’t realize that perhaps too many of their daily intake of calories are in liquid form. My dad used to pound down an average of 5 Pepsi’s each day, until he retired and realized that the extra 700 calories he had been drinking were not compatible with a healthy ...

America needs a nutritional overhaul, there’s no question about it. Obesity and diet-related diseases such as diabetes and gout are on the rise, now beginning to seriously threaten a sizeable population of the nation. While many Americans are getting gym memberships and avoiding the ice cream aisle, the fast food industry just won’t quit. For example, Taco Bell’s latest slogan promotes a “Fourth Meal” as its marketing focus. The concept of needing to eat a full meal ...