Jerry the Blogger

I have to confess that I'm not a major fan of frozen or canned meals ... particularly when it comes to pasta. That's why I had my doubts about the new Healthy Choice Fresh Mixers I found at the local grocery store. Much to my surprise, these microwave meals taste surprisingly like freshly cooked meals and come in just the right portion sizes.

My personal favorite is the Healthy Choice Fresh Mixers Ziti and Meat Sauce. I was simply amazed by the amount of meat in this sauce and the perfectly reasonable portion size of the pasta. The key benefit is that the meal contains only 6g of fat and 340 calories. The Fresh Mixers are a little more expensive than many frozen meals, but as I mentioned this meal tastes better than most frozen meals.

I will say that the Fresh Mixers require slightly more preparation than just tossing it in the microwave. First, you have to remove the outer safety seal, then remove the steamer lid (yes, the meal comes with its own steamer lid/pasta strainer) then you remove the sauce, add water, microwave the pasta (or rice, depending on the meal), then microwave the sauce and mix the sauce and pasta together.

The entire process takes 4-5 minutes from start to finish, and you end up with a meal that tastes great and seems like a fresh entree from a restaurant. If I had any criticism, it might be that the plastic rim/handles for the cooking container are a little small, so it can be difficult to drain the hot water from the pasta without exposing your fingertips to extremely hot water. However, Healthy Choice deserves some praise for making some innovative packaging that allows you to cook fresh pasta and meat sauce while still using a minimal amount of packaging material. I like it when the packaging for the food I'm eating doesn't make a huge impact on the environment.

Bottom line, if you're like me and want to find convenient ways to eat healthy without microwaving a nasty frozen meal then you should really consider the new Healthy Choice Fresh Mixers.

If you're anything like me then you're always looking to cut down on the unhealthy ingredients used in your cooking. Whether it's using Egg Beaters rather than eggs, or I Can't Believe It's Not Butter rather than butter, chances are there is a healthy alternative to the unhealthy ingredients your currently using in the kitchen.

That's why a new project conducted by researchers at Sheffield Hallam University is so interesting to me. University researchers and a company called "Seagreens" are working togetheer to develop a use for seaweed granules as an alternative to salt (sodium chloride) in processed food.

Approximately 75 percent of our daily salt intake comes from processed foods, and the average American adult consumes 50 percent more salt per day than the recommended daily limit of six grams. Excess salt leads to high blood pressure, which in turn can triples a person's chances of suffering a heart attack or stroke.

What makes seaweed so compelling is that it does more than just help reduce salt levels in food. Seaweed also has other reputed benefits such as helping to reduce obesity, diabetes, thyroid problems, breast cancer and cardiovascular disease. Nutritionally, the seaweed granules contain a mix of mineral salts including sodium at around 3.5 percent, instead of 40 percent typically found in table salt.

Not only did researchers show that the seaweed granules match salt in terms of food flavoring, but that seaweed can also effectively extend the shelf life of food, makes it a superior alternative for improving the taste and quality of our food on a much wider basis.

It's studies like these that always make me wonder about the things we take for granted in our foods. Most consumers blindly purchase pre-packaged foods without any regard for the salt levels or the amount of high-fructose corn syrup in the list of ingredients. How many other basic ingredients in our foods do we take for granted? How else might we be able to improve our health by making just a few simple changes?

A new study published by The American Physiological Society shows that mice given quercetin, a naturally occurring substance found in fruits and vegetables, were less likely to contract the flu. The study also found that stressful exercise increased the likelihood of flu symptoms, but quercetin canceled out that negative effect.

Quercetin is present in a wide range of fruits and vegetables, including grapes, red onions, broccoli, blueberries, tea and red wine.

Earlier studies with mice have found that stressful exercise can increase susceptibility to upper respiratory infections, although it is not yet clear if the same is true for humans. Two groups of mice performed three days of running to fatigue on a treadmill to mimic a short period of stressful exercise. One group of runners received quercetin, the other did not. Two additional groups of mice did not exercise. One non-exercise group received quercetin while the other did not. All four groups were then exposed to a common flu virus.

The researchers found that:

• Stressful exercise increased susceptibility to the flu. A total of 91 percent of the mice that exercised to fatigue for three days developed the flu while only 63 percent of the mice that did not exercise developed the flu.
• The mice that exercised developed the flu roughly twice as fast as the mice that did not exercise.
• Mice that exercised and took quercetin had nearly the same rate of illness as those that did not exercise ... suggesting that quercetin cancels the negative effect of stressful exercise.

Although this study was done with mice, a recent human study found that people who took quercetin suffered fewer illnesses following three days of exhaustive exercise compared to those who did not. However, in the human study the participants were not intentionally given a virus as part of the study.

Will eating large quantities of fruits and vegetables prevent you from getting sick this flu season? Well, the jury is still out. However, the point to take away here is that researchers continue to discover new ways in which fruits and vegetables help keep us healthy. Fruits and vegetables (and foods that include fruits and vegetables in their ingredients) need to be a major part of your daily nutrition ... and they might just keep you from getting sick.