This controversy stems from a popular host who features butter and sugar in the majority of her recipes.  She is as far as can be from a show that gives tips on how to eat healthy.  And she is not shy about trying her own recipes and touting their deliciousness.

Her approach to cooking and hosting was not of much concern until she made a surprising announcement.  She has diabetes that is controlled by medication.

The viewers and media personnel who have brought up this issue make the argument that the chef promotes a style of eating that she knows is unhealthy and dangerous, because it is what has led to her disease.

On the other hand, the chef argues that people can follow healthy diets while eating the fatty, sugary foods in moderation.

So what do you think?  In this country, where so many people could benefit from healthy weight loss, should healthy meals and snacks with good nutrition be the only ones published and broadcast?  Are people receiving mixed messages when they watch celebrity chefs eat anything they want, with no mention of diet food?

Take meat and poultry, for example.  You know that these lean protein sources can be a staple of healthy diets, if you choose to eat them.

But you might need to know even more than just facts about good nutrition.  Specifically, it is worth checking into the eating plans of the animals themselves. 

Why should we care about whether our food sources are eating right or on fad diets? 

Well, there have been studies conducted to find out how different diets of animals ultimately affect the nutrients available to consumers.

Milk that came from cows who grazed in fields, therefore naturally eating right, contained a tremendous amount of CLA (an acid that promotes healthy weight loss) as compared to milk from cows who were fed special diets in order to increase production.

Eggs produced by chickens that are allowed to eat what’s in their natural surroundings had a composition of healthy fats that is more beneficial to humans than the composition found in eggs of chickens that were forced to eat a special feed.

This same contrast of omega 6 and omega 3 compositions was found in bison meat, with the healthy ratio being present in grass-fed bison, and the unhealthy ratio in grain-fed bison.

Healthy eating goes beyond choosing baked chicken over fried.  Know what choices you’re making in your healthy meals.

But when lunch programs make up their own fad diets where a slice of pizza can be counted as a serving of vegetables, there is a problem. 

This issue goes beyond the technicality of whether or not there is a whole tomato’s worth of pizza sauce on one slice.  Eating right means eating vegetables, not pizza, for a vegetable serving.  Imagine an adult heating up a slice of tasty, greasy, takeout pizza with all their healthy meals just so they can fit in a serving of vegetables.  The extra calories and fat would make healthy weight loss impossible and would inevitably lead the person to an extremely unhealthy future, if not an early death.

Kids, as well as adults, should know the importance of good nutrition from vegetables in healthy diets.  You might still get the nutrition when your vegetables come on top of a pizza, but you’re taking in more bad things that will ruin any healthy eating intentions you had.

Let’s start being real about diet food and how to eat healthy so that people of all ages can enjoy healthy diets and healthy futures.

One thing Steve Jobs did was choose one diet food to eat at a time.  For example, he might eat nothing but carrots for days on end.  One view of this diet is that several servings of vegetables every day is definitely a healthy eating plan.  And avoiding processed foods, sugar, and all the bad components of other food is certainly beneficial.

But on the other hand, a vegetable or fruit might not provide a person with any protein.  This lack of protein would break down muscles, slow down metabolism, and create an energy deficit.  And, a complete lack of fat might cause further complications.  Organs and body tissues can become more susceptible to injuries and illnesses in general.

When Jobs wasn’t focusing on a one-food diet, he wasn’t eating at all.  He did this for the mental effects, which included a feeling of euphoria. 

Ignoring food altogether may make you think you feel good, but what goes on inside your body is far from it.  When you run out of glucose, which is a normal form of energy, your body has to make an alternative chemical that can be used as energy in its absence.  Too much of this chemical makes you lose water and sodium, two extremely important components of good nutrition.

Being aware of the positive sides of fad diets does not always give you a complete picture of healthy eating.

With so many choices out there, I am sure we would get a lot of different answers to this question.  Of course, with many options, comes lots of information, including some that is truthful, some that bends the truth, and some that conveniently leaves out the truth.

So how do you know what type of sweetener to use in your healthy eating plan?

A plant called stevia answers your questions about how to eat healthy while adding some sweetness.  This plant has an exponentially sweeter taste than sugar.  That’s probably why it has been used as a sweetener in some parts of the world for hundreds of years.  And you can almost consider it a diet food since it has no calories.  Think of stevia as a natural sweetener and a healthier alternative to sugar.

Unnatural and unhealthy artificial sweeteners are the kinds that should never come close to healthy diets, because they don’t belong.  Artificial sweeteners introduce different chemicals into your body.  These chemicals are not supposed to exist in the forms they’re in.  So, while companies may claim that their artificial sweeteners will help you with healthy weight loss, this news is overshadowed by the impending health problems they can cause from their chemical makeups.

If you’re leery about all the sugar substitutes and would rather not try something new, you can stick to regular sugar.  Just don’t forget that eating right with sugar means controlling the amount and combining it with good nutrition.

Do you take any of these diet pills? Are you being fooled by the empty promises?  The information will enlighten you and may even shock you!

This is far from the truth.  Keep reading to find out one more reason to favor whole foods and their natural good nutrition over anything processed, no matter how “healthy” it claims to be.

The unfortunate thing that happens to your taste buds when you choose certain foods is that they get switched off and no longer have the chance to do their job.  This process is part of a big trick to make you think you are eating right.

The way this happens is that companies who make processed foods – things packaged in cans and cardboard and plastic boxes – throw in a chemical that disrupts the function of your bad-taste buds, so that they can use less salt and sugar, and tell you that their food is good for healthy meals.  They hope that you will be attracted by the big LESS SALT and NO ADDED SUGAR bubbles as you walk down the grocery store aisle.

The problem is that these claims are not necessarily a good indicator of how to eat healthy.  The food is still processed, and if there is one body-altering chemical in it that you did not know about then there might be more, so it definitely does not belong in healthy diets.

If you don’t like the idea of being tricked by corporations without even finding healthy eating options behind it, then stick to the stuff you know: whole, unprocessed foods that your taste buds can enjoy without being punished.

Some convenience foods do contain wholesome ingredients.  After all, a bag of frozen seasoned vegetables contains a staple diet food, right?  Of course vegetables need to be in your diet, but their good nutrition can be overshadowed by all the ingredients and artificial additives that are thrown in.

Preservatives and other additives don’t really have a place in healthy meals.  The best way of how to eat healthy is to fill your meal or snack with as much good nutrition as possible, and artificial ingredients don’t do this.

Even people who are focused on eating right are probably doing the wrong thing with convenience foods every once in awhile, because a study indicated that almost all home-cooked dinners in the U.S. take advantage of some sort of packaged food.  The study also found that the amount of time it takes to prepare whole foods for healthy meals is actually not that much more than the time it takes to put together different packaged foods for a meal.

Of course your time is precious, but so is your health.  Spend a few more minutes each day to ensure good nutrition and healthy meals for you and your loved ones, instead of always reaching for the more convenient alternative.

Do you take any of these diet pills? Are you being fooled by the empty promises?  The information will enlighten you and may even shock you!

This is more than just kids having fun with their food.  This is a healthy eating sabotage.  Food dyes (like red 40 and yellow 6) are used in all kinds of products that are marketed toward children.  These foods are usually high in sugar, fat, preservatives, and other additives.  They have no place in healthy meals.  But they are what kids choose to eat because marketers have made them look so appealing.

We might not be talking about this issue if foods for healthy eating were enhanced by these dyes.  If that were the case, then at least the artificial coloring would lead kids to good nutrition and help them learn how to eat healthy by making good choices.

Another possible problem with using artificial food dyes is that they may actually cause health issues.  Some reports say that their presence in food have led to cancer and hyperactivity in kids.  There are other conflicting reports that say there is no causal link between food dye and health problems.

In either case, the foods that contain all kinds of additives and artificial coloring are not healthy eating choices, so they should be avoided.  Instead of buying these processed foods for your children, add naturally-colored fruits and vegetables to their healthy diets and let them enjoy the real thing.

Have you read this eye opening report about fish oil that a colleague and I created?  The information will enlighten you and may even shock you!

And it could affect you if you’re not eating right.

The condition is called metabolic syndrome.  People who have it are at a high risk of developing cardiovascular disease.  If your heart is unhealthy, many catastrophic things can happen in your body.

Since nobody talks about metabolic syndrome, how can you know if you have it?  It might seem logical that if you’re eating diet food and experiencing healthy weight loss, you don’t have to worry about this condition.  But that is not the case. 

Insulin resistance, high blood pressure, high triglycerides, and low HDL cholesterol are some characteristics that indicate metabolic syndrome when combined with each other.  Another characteristic is excess fat concentrated around the middle of your body, your waist.  However, this isn’t always present in people with metabolic syndrome because it is possible to follow fad diets that spur weight loss but create unhealthy conditions inside the body.

Knowing how to eat healthy, truly healthy, is so much more important than knowing how to cut calories or measure portions.  The fight against metabolic syndrome is not all about healthy weight loss.  You must take a look at your body composition and start creating healthy meals out of good nutrition and the right supplements.

Check back later for specific healthy eating and lifestyle tips that will make metabolic syndrome a non-factor in your life.

Do you take any of these diet pills? Are you being fooled by the empty promises?  The information will enlighten you and may even shock you!

A whole grain carb would be carbohydrates that are considered a good source of fiber.  You’ve heard about staying away from white breads, white rice, and things like that.  To a point, there’s validity to why people say that.  I don’t know that they always know why they are saying it, but the reason that you should try to limit those is because those are usually made with processed carbohydrates and very little fiber content.

Processed carbohydrates and a lack of fiber are two components that are going to dramatically increase your insulin level, and obviously we want to keep our insulin low and our insulin response low when eating right, so fiber is going to help do that job.

Whole grain carbs are really anything that says "100% whole grain."  "Whole wheat" needs to be examined carefully because some breads will be labeled "wheat bread" and you think it is for healthy diets.  In actuality, wheat bread is just white bread that hasn’t been bleached.  So you need to look for the whole grain or the whole wheat wording in it to find out, and look at the fiber source for good nutrition.  Most of them should have at least 2 grams of fiber per serving, if not 3 to be considered a good fiber source.

So, that will help you with your healthy meals.

When you read a food label for whole wheat bread, you’ve probably seen enriched flour as ingredient.  100% whole wheat is the one main ingredient in whole wheat bread that we’re looking for.

How do we truly know that it’s whole grain and acceptable for our healthy diets? 

You want to look within the first 5 ingredients for something that says "whole grain" or "whole oat."  Avoid the enriched ones because that’s the processed portion.  Then you also want to look at the fiber content, because that’s also going to help.  If it’s whole grain it will have fiber in it and it will be a decent source of fiber.  If it has one gram or less of fiber in it it’s not going to be 100% whole grain and shouldn’t be a large part of your healthy meals.

To be whole grain usually means that they keep the skin or the husk of the kernels and different oats attached and that’s what gives it that fiber.  To make the white breads, they shuck all those outer skins off and just use the insides and that’s where you get just your white breads and your plain wheat breads that haven’t been bleached.

Follow these tips when choosing breads for your healthy meals and you will be well on your way to eating right.

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