December 2011

Greek Yogurt: Once a Niche Health Food, Now Mainstream

"The only downfall of Greek yogurt over traditional yogurt is the price"

A great "health" food that has now been introduced to mainstream America is Greek yogurt. What is not to love about this yogurt? It has a great, traditional yogurt taste with twice the protein of typical yogurt. It has calcium, all of those healthy yogurt cultures and probiotics, and comes in many wonderful flavors. This is my new obsession, and it is thankfully now available at supermarkets everywhere. There are mainstream yogurt brands that have now introduced a Greek version. Yoplait and Dannon are the two that I have tried.  This is what I thought of them:

Vegetarian Faux "Meat" Products: Are They Really Healthy?

" My advice would be to not "live" off of these products if you are a vegetarian"

I used to be a vegetarian. I was one for 20 years, actually. It was more than a little experiment for me; it was a lifestyle choice. If you told "vegetarian me" that I would eventually start eating chicken, turkey and fish, I would have told you that you were crazy. I eventually did add white meat to my diet just a few years ago. I will get into the details of that on another post. Today, I am going to talk about the faux "meat" products that I ate abundantly when I was a vegetarian. There is faux turkey, faux chicken, faux hot dogs, and even faux bacon. While the appeal of these "meats" to a practicing vegetarian is obvious -- they get to eat "meat" without actually eating an animal -- the question is: how healthy are these faux meats?