While I generally recommend eating whole fruits rather than drinking juice, blueberry juice is an exception … The research is simply too impressive to ignore … It’s great for your heart, prevents bad cholesterol from building up on artery walls, and helps you to maintain healthy blood pressure.

Did I mention that blueberries are high in anti-oxidants and can even help slow down the aging process by strengthening collagen formation?

Lucky for us, an 'all natural' (no High Fructose Corn Syrup), tasty blueberry beverage is available from TrueBlue juice company. Voted "Best New Blueberry Beverage in 2005" and "Best Beverage in 2006", I was fortunate enough to try two of their nutritional drinks. The drinks, TrueBlue Blueberry and TrueBlue Blueberry Blackberry are yummy to say the least. While many other blueberry drinks seem to taste a lot more like grape juice, TrueBlue Blueberry earns it's name and tastes exactly like the little super-fruit.

It even makes a great mixer on a night when you just want to chill out with an adult beverage.

Refreshing, tasty and good for you -- what more could you ask for?

Hold onto your bread knife and butter. There's a better grain in town.

Try: Organic sprouted 100% whole-grain flourless bread. It's made with fresh grains and legumes, such as wheat, barley, beans, spelt, and millet, that are first allowed to sprout instead of being ground into flour. Then the sprouts are formed into batches of dough and slowly baked.

Why it's healthy: Sprouted-grain bread has more protein, fiber, and B vitamins than bread made with refined flour.

Where to find it: Look for the most widely available brand - Food for Life's Ezekiel 4:9 - in the freezer aisle of your grocery store's health-food section. Because it has no preservatives, it must be kept frozen until sold.

That’s what a call a good slice of life.

Cod's out, tuna's out and Atlantic salmon's off the menu - mercury and PCB's have made most of us order the chicken instead.

We all know we should eat plenty of fish, but what is there left to buy?

Enter: Kona Kampachi, a designer yellowtail bred in Kona, Hawaii. Fortune Magazine even goes so far as to dub it "the wonder fish" and it seems that chefs from around the world will agree that there isn't a better fish in the sea. It has twice a much omega-3 fatty acids as Atlantic salmon and has undetectable levels of mercury. This mild, versatile fish is raised sustainably on farms off the Kona coast and is also called Hawaiian yellowtail.

Already popular in the culinary world, it's been seen on the menus of top restaurants from San Francisco to New York.

The prized fish's only blemish: It's pricey — almost $20 for a pound — but the benefits might outweigh the costs.

Looking for a fabulous feast? You can find it right inside Universal. I did. No kidding.

Two theme parks, three hotels and the restaurant-packed Universal CityWalk complex offer dining choices aplenty to Universal fans. In the parks, I was surprised to find that every ingredient is made from scratch. Executive Chef Steve Jayson would rather his team cut and steam fresh green beans than buy them frozen, for example, and he never brings frozen fish onto the premises. The result? Satisfying meals at all price levels.

Mythos (which I discovered too late) located within the Islands of Adventure theme park, is the most magical of Universal's theme park eateries. The dining room resembles an underwater Greek grotto, but I'm told that you won't notice once you begin sampling Chef Mark Wachowiak's fabulous fare. At Universal Studios Florida, plan your day around lunch at Lombasrd's Seafood Grille.

For easier access to excellent food, book a table at Emeril's Orlando, a CityWalk white-tablecloth oasis with Creole-inspired creations by celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse. Lagasse also serves sensational Polynesian-inspired meals at Emeril's Tchoup Chop (pronounced Chop-Chop), where we ate (with kids) in the Royal Pacific Resort. We had the Seared Sea Scallops on Double Fried Plantains with Garlic-Lime Butter Sauce and Jicama Salad. Need I say more! If you have a longing for risotto and pasta, peruse the menu at Portofino Bay Hotel's Bice Risorante. And when nothing but prime steak or lobster will do, head to the Hard Rock Hotel, where an Orlando offshoot of our favorite restaurant, The Palm, serves classics in a masculine dining room. This time (adults only) we had a five pound lobster, caesar salad, filet mignon and creamed spinach! It was so good that before we left, our friends became members!

After The Palm, we rode home in a rickshaw, where our driver told us that Tommy Hilfiger was the rider right before us ... we went back to the hotel and Tommy, well, he stopped by Margaritaville!
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Think plain yogurt is blah? Try the Greek version, which is showing up in specialty food stores and select supermarkets. Thicker and creamier than the typical U.S. varieties (and loaded with protein), it's perfect for adding body and a mellow tang to dips, soups, and sauces. Or just enjoy a bowlful, like I do, drizzled with honey and granola. Greek yogurt is traditionally made from whole cow milk, but one brand - Fage, my absolute favorite - also offers reduced-fat and fat-free versions with the same indulgent taste and velvety texture. Infact, the 0% fat ones seem to be the latest cult item being hoarded by both men and women, for me though, I love the whole-hog super-fat version.

12 grams! Heavens to Betsy!

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In college, beer drinking, beer pong and beer bongs were not only acceptable, they were respectable modes of social interaction.

But shotgunning PBRs and tapping kegs don’t provide the euphoria they used to, nor are they very good for the waistline. So, embrace the good taste (and your age) but watch what you drink and how many.

To make things easy, Beer100.com has done all you beer belly fools a favor and listed the calories to over 99 different brands of beer; Domestic brands that is.

And, for those of you who really love beer (and who doesn't), Portfolio magazine gives us a six-pack of Beer-Festivals most worth traveling to this season.

It’s not like you don’t try. When you and your vegetarian friend get together (everyone’s got one), you smile through adventures in Soyland. Mmmmm, "Fib Ribs", Tofurky jerky and mock lobster. I know it too well; but aside from being polite, there is another reason to gulp down one of those meatless burgers.

It turns out your vegetarian friend is smarter than you.

According to a recent study, it seems that Vegetarians are brainier than the rest of us. A Southampton University team found those who were vegetarian by 30 had recorded five IQ points more on average at the age of 10.

Lucky for you: It's never to late to change. Start by visiting 101cookbooks.com. Written and photographed by Heidi Swanson, her web sites and cookbooks are not to be missed. This woman makes veggies not only taste good but look good too.

Just what we need: More smart, long-living vegetarians who'll have even more time to be superior to the rest of us.

It seems that Scientists will be serving up leaner beef, tastier cheddar and healthier ketchup. Just ask Rena Marie Pacella over at Popular Science.

According to her, if the biotech industry has it's way, ordering hamburger might soon sound something like this: "one charbroiled cloned-beef patty, with genetically modified cheese, lab-grown bacon and vitamin-C-fortified lettuce, on a protein-spiked bun." Basically, the burger of the future is delicious, nutritious and contains more engineering than a stealth bomber. With the Food and Drug Administration ruling in January that meat and milk from cloned cows, pigs, goats and their offspring is safe to eat, the only thing keeping the superburger off your dinner plate is time.

Hey, I'm a pro-science gal .. but in this case it seems to me that the only people who benefit from cloned meat is the manufacturer. Why do we need to clone? Are we all of a sudden short on cows and pigs?

What is it? The Evian Palace bottle. It comes in three pieces. First, a metal base with the embossed Evian logo that sits on a table (at exclusive restaurants only) as a suggestion device prior to the arrival of the waiter. Second, the 750ml bottle itself is made of glass-like PVC and is more slender than its mass-market cousin (the Palace design has an embossed Alps logo around its base and downplays the pink and blue Evian logo at its neck). Lastly, waitstaff add a stainless steel pourer on top after removing the regular cap.

The overall effect: The bottle looks like a carafe, sits on its own coaster, and the pourer is designed to slide a stream of water into your glass with as few bubbles as possible. (The restaurant keeps the metal components and recycles the bottle.) Evian will only allow the bottle in establishments where the waitstaff has been properly trained to use it.

Who is buying it: The rich (and the crazy).

Why this is significant: Evian Palace represents yet another attempt by marketers to turn a mundane, unbranded act that usually occurs free of charge into a ritualized "event" that can command a premium. It's the “elite hydration experience” for the contemporary consumer.

So it’s like 1:30 a.m.

And, as usual, your late-night rounds to the fridge have you feeling guilty — with all the midnight snacks you can find. In fact, the last time you sat down after midnight to eat you recreated an entire Thanksgiving dinner with all the left overs.

Know what you need? A lift’n’shake salt & pepper shaker.

Okay. So need is a strong word. But it wouldn't be unwelcome at a moment like this.

While you pile on the salt and pepper, like we all do for left overs... this little guy will remind you what a fat slob you are becoming and to go to the gym; possibly he'll help to curb your appetite.

Just lift and remove the barbell for use.