Celebrity dietitian and motivational life coach Tanya Zuckerbrot, author of www.ffactordiet.com and founder of www.skinnyandthecity.com, has helped thousands of people lose weight and keep it off with her program. Her philosophy? Tanya believes you should never sacrifice taste, even when you're eating healthy foods. Send us an email to reciperehab [AT] thatsfit [DOT] com to submit a recipe for a makeover!

Recipe may vary from photograph. Photo: Mark Thomas, jupiterimage

One of my favorite desserts is fruit crisps, especially during the summer months. I love going to the farmers market, where the freshest seasonal fruits are at their peak. Fruit crisps usually contain a variety of fruits blending sweet and tart flavors. Unfortunately most crisps usually contain close to 400 calories and well over 10 grams of fat, so although it's my favorite dessert, it's an infrequent indulgence.

I was determined to create a healthy alternative. It tastes decadent, but is surprisingly low in calories and fat. Plus, it packs a nutrition punch: Blueberries contain the highest amounts of antioxidants of any food, which has been shown to help fight cancer and cardiovascular diseases. They also contain high amounts of vitamin E and C. In a study published in the American Journal of Nutrition, vitamin C was associated with fewer wrinkles, which are frequently caused by soaking up too much summer sun. This recipe can be used with both fresh or frozen fruits,making this summer time favorite a year-long one!

And the winner is: The frozen açaí berry, boasting an antioxidant score of 10,000 (for about a half a cup). We're talking ORAC scores here -- oxygen radical absorbance capacity. Ideally, you should get more than 5,000 ORACs per day. Clearly, this berry delivers. Here's how some others stack up. Serving size for all is one cup.

Blueberries, fresh or frozen: 9,697
Cranberries, frozen: 9,584
Blackberries, fresh or frozen: 7,700
Raspberries, fresh or frozen: 6,005
Strawberries, fresh or frozen: 5,151

I'll admit it: I'm a bit addicted to Starbucks. It's just so darn convenient. There's one near my house, my office -- heck, there's even one in my grocery store. Since coffee is definitely a staple of my diet, I end up in the Starbucks line-up fairly often.

And I usually do stick to coffee, except on a rare occasion when I've either forgotten to pack a healthy snack or was in too much of a hurry to grab a healthy meal. In such an event, the baked goods call out my name from their home behind the glass window, and, with stomach grumbling uncomfortably, I am powerless to resist.

I'm not a fan of super sweet cakes and donuts, so I tend to stick to things like muffins and scones. But are they any healthier than the sweet stuff?

Source

The blueberry muffin: an eternal favorite, bursting with moist flavor, sabotaging diets everywhere. Your love of blueberry muffins doesn't have to translate to bigger hips; you can have your muffin and your slim figure.

The trick is this: adding more nutritious ingredients while cutting out the excess bad fats and calories. In a past post, Jessica has rehabbed blueberry muffins into a pretty decent healthy breakfast treat. Let's take it several steps further.

Add more nutrition
Blueberries are one of the top antioxidants, but you can add more goodies to your muffins to make them even more nutritious:

• sunflower seeds, which also add a nice crunch, about 1/4 cup
  
• lemon peel and/or juice, zest and juice of one lemon
  
• whole oats, about 1/2 cup
• chunks of other fruits, like apple, pear or other berries
• nuts of your choice, 1/2 cup
• ground flax seeds, about 1/4 cup

I always thought blueberries were tops when it comes to antioxidants. Nope. The acai (pronounced "ah-sigh-EE") takes tops honors and may beat out every other fruit or vegetable by a mile, says RealAge. Consider this: The freeze-dried berry has 30 times the disease-preventing anthocyanins of red grapes. Sounds pretty good to me.

Acai berries are so good they can help lower cholesterol, minimize inflammation, fend off arthritis, and fight cancer -- in one study, the berry extract killed between 45 and 86% of a sample of human leukemia cells.

Antioxidants aside, acai berries are also full of B vitamins, magnesium, copper, zinc, phosphorus, and sulfur. Want to give them a try? Stop by your local health food store for juices, smoothies, and other products containing the nutritious fruit.

Source

Each week, I head to the farmer's market. It's always fun to see what new fruits and vegetables are at the market. Produce never tastes better than when it's fresh from the farm. Take advantage of summer's bounty and preserve some fresh produce.

You can can or freeze many fruits. I remember spending many summer days helping my mom freeze and can fruits and vegetables. My favorite was (and is) sliced and frozen peaches -- they're so delicious when they're just partially thawed. You can also try some of these recipes from Cooking Light and create yummy jams, chutneys, and relishes for use throughout the year. Some of their recipes include:

• Spicy Cucumber Relish
• Blueberry-Chipotle Chutney
• Raspberry-Almond Jam

Source

One of the best parts about summer is all the fresh fruit that comes into season -- not only does it taste so much better when it didn't have to get shipped across the world but freshly ripened fruit is also full of much more in the way of nutrients, enzymes, and other health benefits. And although pretty much all fruits are good for you in one way or another, here are a few you'll want to make sure you incorporate as much as possible into your summer diet:

Source

Following close to 50,000 men for more than a decade, Japanese researchers uncovered a potential link between green tea and the reduced risk of prostate cancer.

But, it appears as though it takes drinking quite a bit of the tea . Men who consumed five or more cups of green tea daily had the greatest risk reduction, compared to men who drank only one cup or less per day.

Green tea may or may not be your thing. Some enjoy the flavor, while others prefer the taste of different varieties. If you happen to fall into the latter category, you may want to try one of the many flavored green teas that are now available, such as Celestial Seasoning's Blueberry Green Tea. The better taste may be enough of an incentive for you to throw back the recommended five or more cups a day.

The full study can be found in a 2007 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.

I have a bunch of fun, lower in fat, less bad for you dessert options in the recipe section of my web site Fitzness.com. This Low fat Blueberry Napoleon with pistachio cream is a favorite of mine that is hugely popular at holiday parties. I like sweet treats too, but I'm not willing to stuff myself or my friends with butter or oil. Some of the recipes are real deal healthy, and some of them just offer better versions of the really bad stuff.

I love to bake and my treats are rarely pretty, but they're incredibly low in fat and absolutely delicious. Enjoy! Healthy Holidays from your online trainer Fitz!

Source

If you haven't heard about the benefits of flaxseed yet, where have you been hiding? The superfood is full of fiber, can lower cholesterol as well as reduce the risk of heart disease, may protect again breast cancer and contains tonnes of Omega-3 fatty acids. So if you haven't added it to your diet, now is as good a time as any.

Many people choose to grind the seed, which can be found at most local grocery and health food stores, in a coffee bean grinder and then sprinkle it into yogurt, cereal or even pasta sauce. If you'd like a few new ideas, take a look at the three tasty recipes listed here.

You can treat yourself to a Raspberry Smoothie, try a delectable Banana Chocolate Chip Muffin or whip up some Flaxseed and Blueberry Pancakes, which include another superfood (blueberries) as a main ingredient. Having taken a look at the recipes, I'm already craving one of the Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins.

Source

When it comes to superfoods, blueberries are generally considered as good as it gets as they're full of cancer-fighting antioxidants. But according to a study done in Australia, the super berry has noting on many of the fruits that the country's Aboriginal peoples have been consuming for thousands of years.

Known as 'bush tucker', fruits like Kakadu plums and Brudekin plums have got nearly five times more antioxidants than blueberries, according to scientists, as do other foods like the Tasmanian pepper, red and yellow finger limes, brush cherries and Molucca raspberries. Many of these also contain massive amounts of vitamin C.

Unfortunately, it has taken some time for non-Aboriginal Australians to embrace the food so it is not widely available in that country or any others. So for now, if you really want to try out these superfruits, you'll have to seek them out Down Under.

Source

One of my favorite things about summertime is all of the fresh fruit that is available in abundance from farmer's markets and roadside stands. For a special treat, there are few things better than a delicious fruit pie after a healthy meal. If you're looking for a guilt-free dessert, try this recipe for cranberry blueberry pie. It is relatively easy, and is filled with the blueberries, which ae loaded with vitamin C and are known for being high in antioxidants, and cranberries, which are great for your urinary tract systerm.

There's not much sugar in the pie and most of the flavor comes from lemon juice, cinnamon and, of course, lots of tasty, ripe and healthy blueberries and cranberries. There are less than 150 calories per serving and only a few grams of fat. In addition, each piece contains 2g of fiber and 1g of protein, so this is one treat that you don't have to feel guilty about.

Source

At one place I worked, the boss used to compensate for making us work weekends by buying us a couple of boxes of donuts to munch on. After many a weekend of eating donuts, a few of us started to get bored -- not to mention a bit heavier -- so we asked if we could start adding some muffins in to the mix. Muffins are a healthy alternative to donuts, right? That was the logical conclusion for me, anyway, since my mother allowed us to eat muffins on a regular basis but not donuts. But was mom right? Are muffins actually better for us? How many calories are there in a chocolate chip muffin anyway?

A) 220
B) 450
C) 620
D) 870

Source

In nutrition circles, the almighty Blueberry is often singled out as one of the most potent natural antioxidants known to us. The good news is that blueberries are so darn tasty, we eat them for the taste (and not really the health benefits). well, at least some of us eat blueberries for the health benefits, right? Bethany pointed out the other day that blueberries can help fight colon cancer (like many berries can, in my opinion).

I also wrote about eating all types of berries just the other day. A diet rich in all types of fresh berries (I use frozen ones in many cases) is a great way to get the daily vitamins and minerals your body needs, and in the case of blueberries, a natural antioxidant called pterostilbene may actually help prevent colon cancer (as if we need more reasons to eat blueberries daily).

Instead of that sugary syrup on those whole-grain waffles, try a few spoonfuls of fresh blueberries. It's a great alternative. And, it may help you ward of potential cancer. That's a great one-two punch.

Source

Blueberries, avocados, pomegranates, dark chocolate...what do all these foods have in common? At one time or another, they've been labeled as the latest and greatest "superfood." But what, exactly, is a superfood?

Superfoods are almost always fruits or vegetables, with the exception of chocolate, oatmeal, and tea. And they're also usually the foods with the most research behind them. So what makes them super? Mostly their efforts of their promoters, who tout these foods as possible cure-alls. But really what they're doing is telling us what nutritionists have been lecturing us about for years -- good nutrition equals better health.

Does that mean you shouldn't eat foods that are currently trendy? Absolutely not. "Superfoods" are very nutritious and they definitely should be part of a healthy diet; you just don't want to shun all those poor other foods whose research hasn't yet been funded. Blueberries are a fantastic source of antioxidants, but raspberries and blackberries have their benefits as well. Dark chocolate can promote heart health, but only in small doses. Not only that, combining certain foods may actually give you more bang for your nutritional buck. It's called synergy and it's when the nutrients in one type of whole food boost the nutrients in another.

Source