Sure, smoothies are easy to make. But I was happy to come across some ways to make them healthier -- and tastier.

8:25 minutes (1.93 MB)
In this podcast, The Supermarket Guru, Phil Lempert, discusses the new Import Safety Panel Bush set up this past week to deal with imported foods issues, the trend toward eliminating high-fructose corn syrup in sodas and juices, and other interesting developments in the world of food health and safety.

 

Another day, another neurosis about eating right and living a good life. Su Avasthi on why it ain't easy being green.

One New Year's resolution we could all benefit from, women especially, is to consume more calcium. Dairy products are one way to get your daily dose of this crucial bone-building mineral. What you don't need are the fat and cholesterol that full fat dairy products also contain.

I buy low fat and fat free dairy products as much as possible. Nonfat yogurt tastes fine to me. Fat free buttermilk? Wouldn't bake without it. And I couldn't make my famous cream-free ice cream without fat free sweetened condensed milk.

But fat free half and half sounds oxymoronic to me. What is half and half, if not fat? A fellow foodie told me it wasn't half bad. Give it a chance, she said.

How did we ever live without high fructose corn syrup? Before the corn industry created this corn starch-based sweetener back in the 1970's, food manufacturers had to rely on plain old ordinary sugar to sweeten their products.

But corn syrup is cheaper than sugar, thanks largely to USDA farm subsidies, so the food industry ditched the sugar for the syrup. The USDA's own figures show that our consumption of high fructose corn syrup has risen 250 percent in the past fifteen years, with a corresponding decline in sugar consumption.