Fancy a big, heaping serving of salt on your breakfast plate? Yuck. I don't know about you, but the thought turns my stomach. However, recent studies show that many of us are getting our half and sometimes even a full day's worth of salt in our first meal of the day. What's even more alarming about this statistic is that this is true even for those of us who make our own breakfast at home.

I think everyone accepts that a big breakfast of bacon, eggs and hash browns is a salty way to start the day but apparently, many seemingly inauspicious items are also high in salt -- things like Starbucks skinny muffins, as well as many pastries and croissants. Even some toast toppings have more sodium than bacon! Consider this -- a Skinny Blueberry Muffin from Starbucks has 2400 mg of sodium, while a slice of bacon has a mere 303mg.

Do your heart a favor: Check the labels and do what you can to make sure you're not getting too much sodium in the AM -- or any time of day. The daily RDI of sodium here in North America is 2300 mg.

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Mariska Hargitay loves chocolate muffins, and she doesn't need to feel one bit guilty about eating them. That's because they're healthy? What?

Yes, healthy chocolate muffins, made by The Real Housewives of New York City star Bethenny Frankel, who happens to be a natural-foods chef. Frankel uses oat flour, applesauce, and gluten-free chocolate chips and calls her treats Joyful Heart Fudge Chip Muffins -- she named them for the Law and Order: SVU star's Joyful Heart Foundation, which helps sexual assault survivors heal mind, body, and spirit.

Want the recipe? You got it. Right here on Health.com.

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I make a point of always eating breakfast, but if I have to get it on the run, one place I rarely go is Starbucks. Sure, they have some yogurt and fruit (not to mention those fantastic Americanos), but other than that, the options seem limited to sugary baked goods.

Well, good news Starbucks lovers. The gourmet coffee chain is coming out with some new and improved healthier breakfast offerings, currently referred to as Morning Source. USA Today has all the details, but here are some sample items:

• A protein power plate, available with or without peanut butter.
  
• Oatmeal with a variety of toppings, including fruits and nuts.
  
• Multigrain rolls with almond butter and/or fruit preserves
• Bran muffins.
  

What would you like to see on the new menu?

(Via Fitsugar)

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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 like to bake, but I'm not the kind of stay-at-home mom churning out delectable, healthy, homemade goodies on a regular basis. I usually frantically bake for a birthday or fundraiser, with a calmer, mom/child cooking hour thrown in on those 'good mom' days.

So when I came across this recipe for Summer Ice Box Muffins over at Oprah.com, I was intrigued. I rarely buy store-bought muffins, they're typically loaded with fat and calories. But this recipe is healthier and only requires mixing one batch of batter to deliver fresh, warm muffins at your fingertips all week-long.

Prepare the batter, store it in the fridge, take out a portion of the batter, mix in whatever fresh fruit you have on hand and bake. Hmm ... blueberry muffins on Monday, apple muffins with ground flax seed on Thursday, dried cherry muffins with wheat germ on Saturday. My family will think I'm the bomb! This creative recipe yields 30 muffins with less fat and calories and more fiber than the fat and calorie-laden variety I continually bypass at the grocery store.

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Each week, we'll be offering original recipes and unique ways to use those Super Foods that pack nutritional power. After all, you are what you eat -- make it count!

Let's face it -- almost every vegetable is a Super Food, and something we should all be eating, everyday.

The USDA recommends adults eat a minimum of between two-and-a-half to three cups of vegetables daily. If you are active, they recommend more.

It may not seem possible to eat that many vegetables in a day. Snacks are few and far between, or a packaged food on-the-go. You can maybe have a salad for lunch some days, or at least some baby carrots. Dinner is easier, but you'd have to eat a huge meal to get your three cups of veggies in one sitting.

What about breakfast?

Muffins are one of my favorite treats, either for breakfast or as a snack. Unfortunately, many of the ones you find at the grocery store or at coffee shops are high in fat and calories, and are made with excessive amounts of sugar and oil. If you're a fellow muffin-fan and want to try to bake a healthier variety on your own, check out this recipe for ginger bran muffins.

They contain ginger (obviously), which is thought to help settle an upset stomach, and bran (also obvious based on the title), a grain that is high in fib re and may help lower the risk of heart disease. At 136 calories per serving and only 6 g of fat (including only a single gram of saturated fat), and boasting 3g of fib re and 4g of protein, these muffins are a healthy, low-fat and delicious treat that you can enjoy any time.

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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

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