Herbs, seasonings and spices can be your best friends when you're trying to cook healthfully. They add tons of flavor without upping the calorie or fat content.

"Fitness Magazine" has seven great spicy recipes that will fit into your healthy lifestyle. Their Hearty Beef Chili recipe is jazzed up with some smoky cumin and it gets its heat from chipotle chili pepper, Thai Pork Stir Fry gets a kick from curry, and fresh ginger flavors the Chicken with Rice Noodles.

All those seasonings and spices can really add up when you buy them at the grocery store. Consider buying them from a health food store instead; you can usually buy just what you need. Also, whole spices tend to have more flavor, so grind your own when possible. To get the most life out of your spices, keep them in air-tight containers in a cool, dry space, preferably away from light.

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In January, when the days are short and -- more notably -- cold as all heck, nothing hits the spot quite like a warm bowl of spicy soup. I like to hit up a little Vietnamese place a few blocks away, where the beef soup -- known as Pho -- is cheap, fast and delicious. And it's always served piping hot with a side of hot sauce.

Asian food tends to be healthy, but what about this dish? It's got veggies and fresh spices, but it's also got beef and lots of starchy rice noodles. So, what do you think?

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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!

According to the bloggers at The Daily Tiffin, a site devoted to fun and healthy lifestyles, chili peppers are one heck of a Superfood. High in antioxidant carotenes and flavonoids and containing about twice the amount of vitamin C found in citrus fruits, chilies can be added to just about any dish. Homemade soups, stews, chili, salads, and salsas are just a few.

Chilies, believed to have been around for more than 6,000 years, are a member of the plant genus "capsicum" (cap-sih-kum) and contain high levels of special compounds called capsaicinoids. This is what makes them so super. Capsaicinoids are responsible not only for the well-known spicy heat of chilies but also the anti-inflammatory, analgesic, anti-cancer, and heart-healthy effects offered by these potent peppers.

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Want a healthy recipe? Here's a sure thing. This recipe, which grew out of research and education projects supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, supports this group's goal of helping Americans keep their hearts strong by reducing their intake of calories, fat, cholesterol, and sodium. If you like this one, you might want to give these others a try too.

Spicy Baked Fish

Ingredients

1 pound cod (or other fish) fillet
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt-free spicy seasoning
Non-stick spray

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350.
  
• Spray casserole dish with nonstick cooking spray (Canola makes a good one).
• Wash and dry fish. Place in dish. Drizzle with olive oil and seasoning mixture.
• Bake uncovered for 15 minutes or until fish flakes with fork. Cut into four pieces. Serve with a side of your choice -- make it veggies and you'll have one healthy meal.
  

Each serving -- this recipe makes four -- has 134 calories, 5 g fat (1 gram saturated), 60 mg cholesterol, less than 1 g carbohydrates, 0 g fiber, 21 g protein, 93 mg sodium, and 309 mg potassium.

Yummy.

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While I'm not a vegetarian, I don't eat much meat either so I'm always on the hunt for yummy veggie recipes that use healthy protein alternatives like tofu and Quinoa. I suspect there are other people like me out there, so I decided I had to share this yummy recipe that I found through SELF Magazine: Spicy Asian Eggplant with Tofu and Red Pepper. Check it out! I had it for dinner tonight.

I'm a habitual recipe-modifier, so of course I made some changes, name adding more vegetables -- including zucchini and green onions. And all the produce I used was picked up this past weekend at my local farmers market, so it was all really fresh. And I served it with a side of Quinoa.

What's your favourite veggie recipe?

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I love spicy food -- though not as much as my partner Jon does (he's notorious for putting hot sauce on everything.) -- and it's a good thing I do because spicy foods are actually really good for you (though they might be hard on your gut if you're not used to them.) According to Fitsugar, spicy foods can do the following for you:

• Help you lose weight
• Help you build muscle
• Help you fight off Alzheimer's
• Help improve your overall mood

So now it's your turn -- what's your favourite spicy food? Me, I love curries, particularly Penang and green curries from Thailand. I also love pretty much all foods Indian and Mexican.

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I'll admit, veggies aren't my favourite thing, and I'd always rather have the pizza than the salad when I'm ordering my meal at a restaurant. But I know they're necessary to a healthy diet so I'm always looking for yummy ways to get more produce in my diet.

One of my favourite bloggers, Linda aka Sundry, came up with this salad which she shared on her Sundry Buzz site. She aptly calls it the 'Spicy shrink-yer-butt Salad', since it is chalk-full of healthy stuff and free of all the high-calorie additives that can make some salads not so good for the waistline. And I had to share because it is delicious. And good for you. What more can you ask for?

What's your favourite salad recipe?

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For as long as I can remember, I've struggled with IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) and while I try not to let it control my life, I find myself avoiding foods I know are hard for me to digest because, even though I love them, it's not worth spending the day in pain for. But even if you don't have a digestive system condition, there are just some foods that are harder for your body to break down than others, leading to an array of problems from heartburn to bloating and everything in between. MSN has come up with this list of things that are hard on your digestive track. Things to avoid include beans, ice cream, chocolate, broccoli, citrus fruits and spicy foods, plus some surprising things like chicken nuggets and--who would've thunk it--mashed potatoes.

What do you think? Do these things leave you running for the bathroom?

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