NUTRITION QUIZ

Can chewing gum help reduce calories?

Since time immemorial, adults have been telling kids, ''Spit out that gum.'' Turns out, the adults should be chewing gum as a way to reduce calories. Take our gum quiz.

NUTRITION QUIZ

All about tomatoes

We're nearing the year's first tomato harvest in Central California, one of the leading producers of the crop. So why not take our quiz about all things tomato?

CHEW ON THIS

High praise for mushrooms

Gut-friendly bacteria have become a diet staple, so today I will make the case for fungi. Not just any fungi but the long neglected and often odd-looking mushroom. It's no wonder mushrooms are overlooked as health food staples, since they grow on dead and rotting wood or compost, not lush farmland.

Is seafood good or harmful?

We've been told seafood is good for us because it's low in calories and fat, full of protein and packed with Omega-3s, which may protect against coronary heart disease and stroke, and are thought to help neurological development in unborn babies. But we've also been warned about the potentially harmful mercury content in fish. What's with the flip-flop advice?

DIET BLOG

Dietitian invites the world to watch what she eats

On June 2, Cristin Dillon-Jones had Kashi Heart to Heart cereal mixed with Total Cinnamon Crunch, skim milk and blueberries for breakfast, canned vegetarian black-bean chili and a mozzarella/tomato/basil salad for lunch, and grilled salmon and potatoes with steamed broccoli for dinner. And she has the pictures to prove it.

NUTRITION QUIZ

Learn secrets to safe grilling

Barbecue season is here, and with it comes seasonal warnings about potential links between grilling and cancer. With just a little work, barbecuers can mitigate the threat. Take the safe grilling quiz.

HEALTH Q&A

Doc develops a winning plan for losers

After years of complaining about diet books, Dr. Richard Lipman has written his own. Or maybe it's an anti-diet book. In The 100-Calorie Secret, Lipman suggests forgetting most of the diet advice you've heard for the last four decades.

NUTRITION QUIZ

Test your iced tea knowledge

Here's refreshing news: June is National Iced Tea Month. (Gee, wonder why it's not in November?) Anyway, this caffeinated potable is a great way to stay cool in the summer.

Nutrition and cancer

A free four-session cooking course on how to prevent and survive cancer through proper diet and nutrition will be offered at Aventura Hospital and Medical Center.

NUTRITION QUIZ

Questions and answers about caffeine

Everybody gets so jittery about the caffeine content of coffee. So they forgo their cup o' Joe and often substitute some other libation they believe won't give them the caffeine shakes.

'Diet Detective' Charles Stuart Platkin relentlessly pushes clients

If nothing else works, Charles Stuart Platkin, the Miami Beach-based ''Diet Detective,'' will badger you into losing weight. There was Jennifer Cadle, 276 pounds. He bought her a huge chocolate cake -- her weakness -- and had her cut a big slice and put it in a box. ''You'd have to walk 2 ½ hours to work that off,'' he told her.

The pros and cons of your favorite condiments

When President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden stepped out recently for a couple of burgers, pundits and other observers had a lot to say about the topping each chose. As you'll recall, the president asked for mustard, preferably a Dijon style, while the vice president went for ketchup.

MEDWATCH

First Juice a good choice for little ones

Product: First Juice, organic fruit & veggie beverage, $4.99 for 32 fluid ounces at Whole Foods Market, Babies R Us, Target and http://firstjuice.elsstore.com.

GET SMART

Debunking myths about warm-ups, eggs

There are so many things to worry about these days. Wouldn't it be nice to cross something off the list? Turns out you can. Researchers have been busy debunking some common medical myths that have been repeated so many times, people assume them to be true. Here are five misconceptions you can stop biting your nails over now:

NUTRITION

A taste of help to keep cancer patients' pounds up

The statistic is shocking: Severe malnutrition and weight loss play a role in at least one in five cancer deaths. Yet nutrition too often is an afterthought until someone's already in trouble.

NUTRITION QUIZ

Do you know beans about beans?

The latest issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association reports that only 7.9 percent of adults consume dry beans, peas and lentils on any given day. Learn all about the bean in our true/false nutrition quiz:

HEALTH DRINKS

Need a new drug? Focus is on L-theanine

Loaded with caffeine and taurine to stimulate the central nervous system, energy drinks have become the go-to solution when you need a quick, energizing pick-me-up.

EATING WISELY

You can cheat, just do it wisely

Almost everyone needs to indulge once in a while, even people on a diet. Here are some ways to limit the damage, nutritionists say:

NUTRITION QUIZ

Do cooked vegetables lose nutrients?

One reason the raw-food movement is gaining in popularity is the belief that vegetables lose their wonderful antioxidant-building nutrients during the cooking process. But a recent study published in the Journal of Food Science disputes that contention. Take our quiz about some of the findings in that report.

CHEW ON THIS

Soy's back in good graces

If put on a pedestal, you can only go down. That's what happened to soy foods, which were once touted, then controversial, and now more greatly understood.

NUTRITION QUIZ

What do you know about choosing healthy drinks?

Don't drink the Kool-Aid or the soda! That's the overarching message from the Harvard School of Public Health, which recently released a ''Choosing Healthy Drinks'' section on its website.

NUTRITION QUIZ

Is Kamut a better alternative to whole wheat?

Nothing is healthier for you than whole wheat, right? Well, some say that Kamut, a distant relative of durum wheat, is an even better alternative.

When unhealthy foods hijack overeaters' brains

Food hijacked Dr. David Kessler's brain. Not apples or carrots. The scientist who once led the government's attack on addictive cigarettes can't wander through part of San Francisco without craving a local shop's chocolate-covered pretzels. Stop at one cookie? Rarely.

NUTRITION

Try these unsung superfoods in your diet

Step aside, blueberries, spinach and broccoli. It's time to give unsung superfoods a chance. Many of us tend to eat what we know and what we can pronounce and prepare. But mixing things up helps add more healthful micronutrients and phytochemicals into our diets, said Mary Russell, director of nutrition services at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

SUPERMARKET SLEUTH

On the hunt for a butter substitute

Channeling the old Saturday Night Live homage to Barbra Streisand, the Sleuth looks at what's new in the ''like buttah'' aisle. We tested two half-butter, half-vegetable oil products designed especially for baking, plus one spread (Country Crock) that has more vitamin D added.

NUTRITION QUIZ

Test your pork rind knowledge

Everything we know, we learned from Men's Health, and the magazine reports that pork rinds top the list of ''Top 5 Junk Foods That Are Good for You.'' Take our quiz about ''the other crunchy white snack food,'' rival of the beloved potato chip.

HEALTH Q&A

Talking with the woman behind the Hungry Girl

Lisa Lillien, aka Hungry Girl, may be best known for introducing calorie counters to the virtues of Tofu Shirataki noodles -- '' 'pasta' with hardly any carbs or calories,'' as Lillien puts it on her website, hungry-girl.com. As Lillien's PR materials state, Hungry Girl is not a nutritionist; she's just hungry. She'll be at Borders in Aventura Thursday to promote her latest book, Hungry Girl 200 Under 200: 200 Recipes Under 200 Calories.

NUTRITION QUIZ

Got goat milk?

You won't see any advertisements asking, ''Got Goat Milk?'' or cute spots boasting that ''happy goats come from California.'' But goat milk is gaining in popularity.

Weighty issues: Fighting childhood obesity

An overweight child often has more than excess pounds to bear -- they're often taunted by peers and can suffer health problems, now and later.