This is a guest post by Lisa Cain, PhD, a.k.a Snack-Girl.

We all love to snack. And we love convenience too. Unfortunately that comes with a price – unhealthy additives meant to preserve packaged pastry for months, artificial and cheap ingredients, and unreasonable amounts of sugar, sodium and fat.

I write about about healthy snacks made with real food.  Here are 5 of my junk food “makeovers”.  The idea is to eat something nutritious and delicious without breaking your wallet. You will have to invest a few minutes in the kitchen though…

1. Great tasting banana bread. Low in sugar and butter free. The key is that the bananas are sweet so you don’t have to add a lot of sugar to make it taste really great, and you use buttermilk which is a great low calorie substitute for butter.

2. Quick and healthy pizza. Here is a really simple suggestion to satisfy a pizza craving and it is an excellent snack size serving.

3. Homemade energy bars (less calories and no packaging). For the price of a bag of flour, oats, and raisins, you can have 24 bars for about the cost of 2 packaged energy bars. Is this savings worth your time? If you make $100 an hour, probably not, but the rest of us could use the money.

4. Homemade microwave popcorn – You CAN make popcorn in the microwave without the prepackaged products from the supermarket. All you need is popcorn, lunch bags, tape, and some flavorings.

5. Yogurt dip with much less fat – a yogurt and dill dip that is truly tasty and has very little calories. The secret is a substitute of the fat filled sour cream that goes into regular dip – Greek Yogurt. It has a thicker consistency than regular yogurt which makes it feel and taste more luxurious.

Lisa Cain, Ph.D., is an avid snacker, foodie, published author, and mother of 2. An evolutionary biologist by training, she has become obsessed with how food contributes to our overall health. Check out snack girl for other healthy snack ideas.

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If you’re like most people, this Thanksgiving you’ll be having cranberry sauce with your turkey and stuffing. But what is cranberry sauce anyway?

It’s actually more of a jam or jelly than a sauce. The tart acidic flavor of the berries is buried under an avalanche of sugar (or high fructose corn syrup) in order to create this holiday classic.

We took a look inside the label of Ocean Spray’s Whole Berry Cranberry Sauce.

What you need to know:

The product has just 4 ingredients:

Cranberries, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup, Water

If the company had used just sugar instead of corn syrups, the list would have been even shorter and better.

Nutritionally there’s not much here, as the processing has taken away most of the fiber from the cranberries. A serving is a quarter cup, or four tablespoons. It contains 22 grams of sugar, or about five and a half teaspoons worth. Most of the 110 calories from this serving come from sugar. There are virtually no vitamins here, despite a high vitamin C content in raw cranberries (25% of the daily value).

If you think about it, a serving of cranberry sauce on the dinner plate is sort of cheating -  you’re having dessert before the main meal is even over.

In the past, and in some places to this day, the cranberry sauce is not as heavily sweetened. It adds a delightful twist to your stuffing and turkey without the empty sugar calories. Too bad Ocean Spray doesn’t have a less sweetened option.

What to do at the supermarket:

Unfortunately, all the big brand and store brand cranberry sauces are more or less the same. But if you want to make your own, less sweetened sauce, it couldn’t get any easier:

In a small pot, mix 4 cups of fresh or frozen cranberries with one cup of water and half a cup (or less) of sugar, bring to boil and then simmer until the cranberries “pop”. Cool. The sauce thickens as it cools. Best to prepare a day or two in advance.

You can also opt for an uncooked cranberry sauce. Here’s an interesting option from Maria Rodale.

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Does the world really need another soft drink?

And a carbonated dairy drink with 7 teaspoons worth of sugar at that?

The Coca Cola Company seems to think YES, and is rolling out vio – “the world’s first vibrancy drink” – initially in New York City for a trial run. The marketing copy includes “ultra hip” one liners such as It kinda tastes like a birthday party for a polar bear…It kinda tastes like a first kiss…

The products  boast natural cane sugar, no artificial flavors, calcium, and antioxidant vitamin C.

We have sacrificed ourselves for you dear readers, and took a bottle for a test drive. Here is what we discovered… Read more…

1. Over 45 Million pounds of Avocado will be consumed today, Superbowl Sunday!

2. Avocado competes with buffalo wings and pizza as The Superbowl Food, thanks to a successful marketing campaign by avocado growers over the past 2 decades.

3. All Haas avocados are genetic replicas of a single tree planted in the Haas family grove in the 1920’s.

4. A shortage of avocados is looming this spring, due to the 2008 drought in southern California, where 90% of domestic Avocados are grown.

5. Have no fear, Mexican avocados will be here to supplant any shortage. In fact Mexico is the world’s largest Avocado producer.

6. Avocados are unique fruit. They have a high fat content, but this is a “good” fat – monounsaturated fat.

7. A whole avocado contains 200-300 calories and is a good source of vitamin A, C, E and the B vitamins, as well as fiber and potassium.

8. Guacamole is Aztec for “Avocado Sauce”, the original recipe calling for crushed avocado, tomatoes and salt.

9. Supermarket guacamole tastes plain bad. Avocados don’t store well, that’s why store bought guacamole needs a lot of help from food additives. Here is a sample list of ingredients you’ll find in a ready made container -
Food Starch,
Sodium Alginate (emulsifier – keeps oils and waters mixed together),
Xanthan Gum (increases viscosity),
Erythorbic Acid (retains food’s color) ,Potassium Sorbate (anti mold), Sodium Metabisulfite (anti spoilage)

Ouch.

Luckily, making your own guacamole is quick and easy. Spend ten minutes to make your own. The difference in flavor, let alone chemicals, is worth it:

Simple Guacamole Recipe (serves 4-8 people):

Ingredients:
4 ripe avocados
2 limes (lemons OK)
2 tomatoes (optional)
half a medium onion
1 TBSP Dijon mustard (or more, to taste)
cilantro or Italian parsley (not a must)
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. halve the limes.
2. peel and pit the avocados, immediately squeezing 2 lime halves over the the avocado meat to prevent browning.
3. dice one avocado into quarter inch cubes, and crush the rest with the back of a fork. place in large bowl.
4. dice the tomatoes. add to bowl.
5. finely dice the onion and cilantro. add to bowl.
6. add the mustard.
7. mix everything with a wooden spoon (or your hands).
8. taste. add salt and pepper (you’ll need a bit less than normal due to the mustard)
9. douse with juice of the second lime and refrigerate till game time.

Enjoy!

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The New York Times extols yogurt at all hours:
Yogurt is a bona fide superfood with live bacterial cultures that make it unique…Yogurt is wonderful to cook with, much more than a breakfast food, and this week’s recipes will showcase a variety of dishes made with it.

What to look for in the supermarket:

Look for plain, minimally processed brands with no added gums, stabilizers or sweeteners. I prefer low-fat to nonfat, which can be watery and sour, and may contain fewer fat-soluble vitamins.