Are you guys in the midst of this heat wave too? OH MY GOSH!!! It’s so hot. Today it’s supppsed to hit 100 in Baltimore. In times like these I do NOT go near my stove or oven. Yesterday on Facebook and Twitter, I asked for your favorite “no oven required” recipes. Here are a few tried and true recipes …

 Cheese-steak…not cake. I get that a lot when I write that word! Anyhoo…I love eggs! From my head down to my legs. 🙂 Ok, ok…that was cheesy. If you can eat eggs, consider yourself blessed because many cannot post op. I personally don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t. I CRAVE the things. But for me an egg …

 It’s been a while since I posted a protein shake recipe. There is a good reason for that. It’s been a while since I’ve actually had a protein shake. Don’t get me wrong, I still love my shakes. But as I get further out, I’m capable of getting all my protein from solid food and these days I’ve been …

 So…you’ve made it this far, eh? At the beginning you didn’t think there was that much to the nutrition label, did you? And I’ve only given you a glimpse of what there is to learn! There’s even more, believe it or not. Ok, so the last thing I want to talk about is vitamins. Yes, vitamins. Now some of …

Yes, Queen. So, of all the things on the nutrition label, protein is among the most straight-forward. Most of the significance of the protein count lies in how that number relates to other information on the food label. I should point out one thing though. Not all protein is created equal. Folks ask me all the time about pork rinds, …

Dear Friends, I got a message from my good friend Hala about my post on fat on the nutrition label. She pointed out that some studies show that some saturated fats can have health benefits and warned me not to demonize them all. Well Hala…you are absolutely right! And I sort of went against my own policy of not labeling …

Oh, this is where the fun begins. For everything you wanted to know about carbs (well, maybe not everything) check out the BF Basics series, Carb Confusion. But here are the basics of carbs on the nutrition label. The total carbohydrates are all the carbs in the product. This includes the fiber, the sugars and the “other carbohydrates” (usually sugar alcohols). But under …

 Man, nothing can take a good food choice to down faster than the sodium count. I have rejoiced over foods that are low-carb, low-fat, high protein and…VERY high sodium. Sigh. For those not in the know, sodium is a mineral that, in the proper quantities, can be beneficial to our health. The most common source of sodium is table salt but …

Yep…that’d be a pound of fat. Keep THAT image in your mind next time you want a cookie!  This section is important, especially to those of you who have or are at risk for heart problems (dang, I sounded like a pharmaceutical commercial, didn’t I?). Total fat is all the fat that is in the food: the good, the …

 Ah…calories. Never has a concept been so misunderstood and feared.  Calories (or kilocalorie [kcal] if we want to be official) are units of energy. That’s it, that’s all. We can get energy from several sources: from protein, from fat, from carbohydrates. THAT is the information we most need to pay attention to. Calories, in and of themselves, are …