AAHH: updates and questions answered

Your doctor wants you to eat...chocolate? I know what you're thinking. "Does chocolate really belong with all these other healing foods?  I've heard him touting the delights of tofu, and beans, and vegetables, and fish... there must have been some mistake." But no, for you chocolate fans, it's your lucky day. With a slight catch. Let me explain.  Chocolate is actually a very imprecise name, for any number of blended foods that contain some amount of cocoa (produced from cacao beans). And yes, the "a" and the "o" are reversed depending on whether you are talking about the beans or the solid extract from the beans. Actually in the case of "white chocolate" the only ingredient from the cacao bean is the fat (cocoa butter) that was pressed out of it, so it's not really chocolate in my view, just fat and sugar (hint: stay away from that one....) But on the "real chocolate" continuum, there's a lot of variety.  It...

Let's take a fresh look at an old friend.  Apples are as familiar as any food in the kitchen , and it's hard to find someone who doesn't like them, so let me spend a few minutes encouraging you to spend more time with this beautiful fruit and not take it for granted.  What's so great about apples? One word: fiber.  Well actually, two kinds of fiber: soluble and insoluble.  Apples are a good source of both, and therefore carry a double serving of benefit for your health.  The soluble fiber is primarily pectin, which like similar soluble fibers FOS and inulin play a role in the health of the intestinal lining.  The soluble fiber, known as a prebiotic, provides its intestinal benefit at least in part by encouraging the growth of healthy probiotic bacteria in the intestine.  This in turn benefits immunity and seems to decrease the likelihood of colon cancer.  Soluble fiber also decreases LDL cholesterol, improving heart health.  And ...