Blog Posts by The Editors of EatingWell Magazine

Are the chemicals in your plastic food containers, water bottles and even baby bottles harming your health? I guess I'm not sure anymore.

The risks are not something I really want to take a chance with. Recently the Food and Drug Administration said that a chemical widely used in plastics is safe for children and adults, even though recent research has raised questions about its safety. Studies have linked the chemical bisphenol-A, or BPA, to increased risks for heart disease and diabetes, according to The New York Times, and to the development of precancerous lesions and reproductive issues in animals.

I realize that plastic food containers, reusable water bottles and plastic baby bottles are so popular because they're convenient. Which is not to be overlooked. But the price of convenience might have a dark side.

I used the facts from an article in a recent issue of EatingWell magazine to help me decide whether to replace my plastic containers with glass or another

I was invited to lecture in Italy and my husband, Mark, tagged along. After my work was done, we hiked a scenic trail and afterward we settled into a small café for a leisurely lunch: a small plate of pasta with pesto, fresh fish drizzled with olive oil and a platter of grilled artichokes and peppers, along with a carafe of the house red. With plenty of exercise, delicious Mediterranean food in reasonable portions and a relaxed pace, I experienced the Mediterranean lifestyle in its home base-and felt wonderful.

Based on the age-old dietary traditions of Crete, Greece and southern Italy, this "diet" or eating pattern, is based on 9 key healthy ingredients, including abundant fruits, vegetables and olive oil, a little meat and daily red wine.

This way of eating not only keeps Mediterraneans lean, it also boasts health benefits:

• Just last week, the British Medical Journal online published a review that linked the Mediterranean diet with a reduced risk of death and lower risk

We love a good challenge in the EatingWell Test Kitchen and finding a way to make comfort food healthy, but still delicious, is the ultimate challenge. We've worked our makeover magic on some of America's favorite comfort foods and here we're sharing our 10 secrets of healthy cooking so you can make your favorites healthier too.

10 Secrets of Healthy Cooking

1. Go for the flavor. Enhance food with bold flavors from healthy ingredients like fresh herbs, spices and citrus. When your food has great flavor, there's no reason to feel deprived. A little Dark Chocolate Sauce goes a long way on low-fat, homemade ice cream or frozen yogurt. Make a batch of this and keep it in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

Dark Chocolate Sauce

2 1/2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into 1/4-inch pieces
6 1/2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/3 cup granulated sugar (use 1-2 tablespoons more for a less-bittersweet sauce)
1/4 teaspoon instant coffee granules

I've got the best problem a gardener can have: too many vegetables. Especially bountiful are tomatoes, peppers, onions and herbs.

Every year, my husband and I turn our late-summer harvest into Salsa Roja, tangy hot sauce, tomato sauce and pesto, and freeze or dry our herbs. And the best part is, we can enjoy the taste of summer long after the season has ended.

So we make several batches and use the lazy way of preserving; we store our salsa and sauces in the freezer until we're ready to use them. When we defrost some in January, we're pulled right back to those late-summer days in front of the cutting board.

Adjust the heat of Homemade Hot Sauce to your preference: in our tests, two habaneros yielded a pleasantly spicy sauce without excessive heat-take it up a notch for spicy-food fans by adding extra hot peppers.

Homemade Hot Sauce

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup diced onion
2 medium chile peppers, such as poblano, New Mexico or Anaheim,

Zesty Wheat Berry-Black Bean ChiliAnything that keeps my mind sharp is OK by me. I mean, who doesn't want to boost their brain power?

I didn't realize how important it is for young women like us to feed our minds. When I think about a boosting brain power, I often think about how crucial it is to ensure a healthy brain as you age (to head off cognitive decline later in life).

In EatingWell's October 2008 issue author Rachael Moeller Gorman writes about the foods and nutrients that are crucial to boost brain power and keep you sharp from infancy into old age. But she includes quite a bit of information for a mid-twenties woman like me and for my friends who are pregnant or raising young kids.

I've pulled out some of the brain-boosting recipes and tips I think are most interesting, or you can check out the full article for yourself.

• Even if you're in your twenties or thirties, studies show that just being mildly iron-deficient affects learning, memory and attention. Make sure you're getting enough

Is sugar just sugar, even if it's high-fructose corn syrup? I thought the answer was no, that high-fructose corn syrup is worse than regular sugar or honey or even plain corn syrup and I should avoid it. And let's not even get into sugar substitutes.

But last night I was watching TV and saw a commercial from the Corn Refiners Association saying that high-fructose corn syrup is no worse for me than regular sugar. (See the commercials for yourself at www.sweetsurprise.com.) Could it be true?

I asked one of EatingWell's nutrition experts to help me sort out fact from hype. We recently wrote about high-fructose corn syrup, and it generated an overwhelming, and impassioned, response from our readers.

Author Joyce Hendley's piece helped me get my facts right and hopefully will help you sort out fact from fiction. I've included the report here so you can see the facts for yourself:

• High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is a manmade sweetener that's found in a wide range of

I love spinach, but not nearly as much as Catherine de Medici, queen of France in the 16th century. Queen Catherine was such an avid fan of spinach she took her culinary demands to diva levels. When she left Florence to marry King Henry II, she brought her loyal cooks with her because they knew precisely how to cook spinach to her liking. Thanks to Queen Catherine, "à la Florentine" has come to mean "served on a bed of spinach." Who knew?

Queen Catherine would be happy that we think spinach deserves a chance to take the starring role. These 5 easy recipes give the royal treatment to this super nutritious green (it's chock-full of vitamins A, C and K, along with a healthy dose of fiber, potassium, iron, calcium and magnesium).

Spinach Salad with Japanese Ginger Dressing puts a spunkier, healthier spin on those iconic salads served at Japanese steakhouses.

Active time: 20 minutes | Total: 20 minutes | To make ahead: Cover and refrigerate the dressing (Step 1) for up to 5

When I was a kid, eating out at a diner was a treat. We used to take weekend trips to the tiny town of Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, which was about a four-hour drive from our house just outside of Philadelphia. We went for basically one reason (from my perspective anyway): to eat at the Wellsboro Diner. We loved their patty sausage with tons of sage and their perfect hash browns.

Diner food-with its beautiful pies rotating in glass cases, griddled hamburgers, open-faced hot turkey sandwiches with gravy and chicken-fried steak-has always been comfort food in my family. And we didn't just go out for it.

My mom cooked all the time and had plenty of specialties in her repertoire. Her meatloaf recipe is a family treasure passed down from my grandmother. Her mac-and-cheese is covered in an almost-too-good-to-be-true golden crust of cheese and breadcrumbs. The smell of her coffee cake is ambrosia.

Unfortunately there's only so much of that sort of food I can pack in before I start