Blog Posts by The Editors of EatingWell Magazine

Make Lasagna Without Turning on Your OvenBy Wendy Ruopp, Managing Editor of EatingWell

When I get a hankering for lasagna, I just want it to magically appear for dinner, without all the boiling and baking usually required.

Related: 5 Secrets to Healthier Lasagna

Poof! The EatingWell Test Kitchen has granted my wish by creating this vegetarian lasagna recipe I can make in my slow cooker (recipe below). No oven required! I don't even have to boil the noodles.

Don't miss: Inside-Out Lasagna and More Awesome Lasagna Recipes

I'm always looking for ways to load up on vegetables, and with all the portobello mushrooms, zucchini and garlic in this recipe there's so much flavor I don't miss the meat. To round out the healthful deliciousness, whole-wheat noodles and part-skim ricotta add fiber and cut back on fat.

Don't miss:
7 Tips for Better Slow-Cooking
13 Summer Recipes for the Crock Pot

Looking for more ways to use your slow cooker for vegetarian meals? Check out EatingWell's collection of

By Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D., Nutrition Editor, EatingWell Magazine

One of the biggest offenders in our diets is an abundance of added sugars. (Find out how much sugar is too much here.) But until an "added sugars" category makes its debut on the Nutrition Facts Panel (the FDA has started to explore the possibility with a consumer study), it's challenging to know just how much added sugar is lurking in your favorite packaged foods. And although more and more food companies are ditching high-fructose corn syrup, their products aren't necessarily sugar-free. In fact, they may contain just as much sugar as before, just in a different form.

Don't Miss:
6 Surprising Sources of Sugar
Healthy-Sounding Food Label Claims to Avoid

Here are 3 tips to sleuth out how much added sugar is in your food--as reported in EatingWell Magazine:

1. Read the Nutrition Facts Panel:
Under a food label's "sugars" designation, both natural and added sugars are included. Natural

By Matthew Thompson, Associate Food Editor for EatingWell Magazine

One of my favorite parts of fall is the return of warming, stick-to-your-ribs comfort foods. And for me one of the all-time classics is oatmeal. I practically lived on the stuff all through elementary and middle school; now I find it to be the perfect cool-weather start to my day.

Don't Miss: The #1 Food You Should Eat for Breakfast

And that's not just a matter of taste. Oatmeal is one of the healthiest breakfasts there is. It's high in soluble fiber, which may help to lower "bad" LDL cholesterol and helps keep you feeling full longer. It has a healthy amount of protein, which, in conjunction with fiber, will help you feel satisfied too. Plus oatmeal is a low-glycemic-index (GI) food--and research suggests that eating a low-GI meal before you exercise may help you burn more fat.

Don't Miss:
25 Breakfast Recipes to Beat Weight Gain
Shed Pounds By Eating These 5 Foods for Breakfast

So, oatmeal

By Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D., Associate Nutrition Editor, EatingWell Magazine

When a new study came out a few months ago stating that high HDL might not directly protect against disease, I paid attention. High HDL cholesterol is often touted as protective against heart disease, while high LDL cholesterol is linked to higher rates of heart disease. So the news that this might not always be true got me thinking about what other cholesterol myths are out there. Here's what I found, starting with HDL:

Related: 8 Ways to Naturally Lower Cholesterol

Myth #1: Having high HDL (the "good" cholesterol) directly protects you against heart disease.
This one's a little tricky. Although it's long been thought that having high HDL is protective, a new study in The Lancet suggests that's not necessarily the case across the board. The study followed people who had genetic markers for high HDL (and had higher HDL cholesterol), but had other similar risk factors for a heart

By Hilary Meyer, Associate Food Editor, EatingWell Magazine

We all know couples that just "work." One person might be a talker and the other a listener. One might be flaky and the other one more organized. Whatever it is, successful couples are often complementary. The same goes for food. One element plays off the strength of another, making it a winning combination--a power couple, if you will (think peanut butter and jelly). Below are 5 fantastic food pairings that play well together. Stick with these and you'll never be disappointed.

Pork and Apples:
Pork has a mild, unobtrusive flavor. It does well with anything that can give it a little jolt. However, the best pairing is with apples. Apples aren't particularly strong flavor-wise, but they deliver both a sweet and slightly sour element that works well with the mildness of pork. Apples are meltingly tender when cooked, which is a nice complement to roasted pork tenderloin or chops that are more savory and mild.

By Wendy Ruopp, Managing Editor of EatingWell

It's a busy time of year--the weather is getting cooler and everything just seems to speed up. It affects people differently: while I'm just trying to keep warm, for instance, my sister works hard and likes to get things accomplished. Although she doesn't come right out and say it (very often), I think she thinks I'm a little bit lazy. Just because my motto is "There must be an easier way to do this," that doesn't mean I'm lazy: I just appreciate a good shortcut. This month's shortcut: dinner recipes with an ingredient list I can count on one hand.

Each of the dinners here has just five ingredients (not counting oil, water, salt and pepper, which I don't--those are just things you never seem to run out of). That kind of simplicity means a lot less work. I only have to remember five things to buy per recipe--and just about all of the ingredients are in the title. That means my shopping list is short and it's just not going to cost

By Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D., Nutrition Editor, EatingWell Magazine

With cold and flu season just around the corner, our precautionary routine has shifted from sunscreen for skin protection to immune defense. There are so many immunity-boosting products out there, and the search for a natural way to enhance your germ resistance has potentially generated an almost endless list of possibilities. (Don't be duped by these 4 immune-boosting myths busted.)

One increasingly popular trend is taking--or eating--probiotics, the live microorganisms found in fermented foods, such as yogurt, kefir, miso, tempeh and sauerkraut, and also available in supplements. But does it work?

Related:
5 Foods to Help Fight Colds & Flu
Home Remedies for Common Ailments

In one study, participants who took a probiotic supplement (50 million cultures of Lactobacillus gasseri, Bifidobacterium longum and B. Bifidum) over two winter/spring seasons shortened any colds they got by about two days

By Matthew Thompson, Associate Food Editor for EatingWell Magazine

Forget spring-cleaning: fall is the perfect time to spruce up your kitchen. Now that you've recovered from the laziness of summer (maybe I'm projecting a bit here) but before the craziness of the holiday season, there's a perfect window for tossing those mystery items in the back of your fridge, replacing that gray-looking sponge sitting by your sink and cleaning those drips from the ceiling of your microwave. And while you're scrubbing your cooking area to make it look nicer, you may as well do a few things to make it healthier too. Here, I've compiled some of the best, simple tricks that we've published in EatingWell over the years that will help make your kitchen a healthier place for you and your family.

1. Print out a list of the Dirty Dozen. Pesticide exposure is linked with diseases of the nervous system and problems with cell growth, including reproductive problems and some cancers. By keeping a list on