These Are Four Star Foods!

Here are the four criteria for making this list:
* food is nutritious (benefits exceed deficits by wholesome margin)
* food is inexpensive (no need to trade health gain for wallet pain)
* food needs little/no prep time (no kitchen fatigue)
* food is portable (not too heavy to carry, before or after you eat it)

Here they are:
- banana
- clementine
- apple
- yogurt
- kirby cucumber
- grape tomatoes
- baby carrots
- snow peas
- yams (see earlier post)
- hard boiled egg
- applesauce (in ready cups)

Most of these items are readily available year round.
Hard boiled eggs can stay up to a week in the frig.
A small (8 oz) plastic bottle of water frozen can provide
extension of quality. (Allow room for ice expansion).
What other four star foods can you add to the list?

Experts Find Yams to be a Healthy Choice

Yams show up on many tables on Thanksgiving,
and they are a good choice any day. Yams are:

• included as a "sidekick" in Dr. Steven Pratt and Kathy Matthews' Superfoods,
  
• a main choice in Dana Jacobi's: 12 Best Foods Cookbook
  
• a regular in Dr.Michael Roizen and Dr. John LaPuma's Cooking the RealAge Way

Preparation:
Place 4-10 yams on a foil-lined, low-sided baking pan at 350 degrees.
Smaller ones will be soft in about 60 minutes, larger ones may take almost twice as long. Position and remove accordingly.
Not only are yams nutritious, they are convenient:
Baked yams freeze really well - for a month or more - in freezer bags, either individually or in groups.
In warm months, yams can be eaten as a cold snack.
In winter months, yams can be heated, even taken on an outing and used as a "handwarmer" until eaten!