Not sure what the numbers on a food label mean? Only 28 percent of Americans find nutrition labels easy to understand, and more than half don’t regularly check the ingredient list, according to a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) survey.  But read my article in Consumers' Checkbook and you'll become a label-reading pro--and I bet you'll start eating healthier as well!

A beautiful bunch of greens caught my eye at the farmers market the other day: sweet potato leaves. I’d never heard of them before, and decided to give them a try.

I nipped the leaves off their stems, roughly julienned them (cut into half-inch-thick strips), sautéed them in olive oil flavored with garlic halves and added a very light sprinkle of coarsely ground salt. (They take about three times as long spinach leaves to melt down, but not as long as kale or collards.) The result: The most delicious greens I’d had in recent memory. Mild like spinach, but not as metallic, and meatier, with a consistency you can sink your teeth into. But a warning—they don’t last long in the fridge, so prepare them the day you buy them.

Sweet potato leaves aren’t all that popular here in the United States. That’s too bad, because research shows they are higher in protein and omega-3s than most greens. They’re teeming with disease-fighting phytonutrients as well, including quercetin, an antioxidant that may  fight not only cancer, but inflammation and obesity, too.
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Have you ever tried sweet potato leaves? If so, how did you prepare them? 

Name any common disease associated with aging — cancer, dementia, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, type 2 diabetes — and chronic inflammation will play a role.  Read more on AARP.com

If you're a steak and burger lover, this week's headlines might have seemed too good to be true: Keep eating red meat — no reason to cut back. That's the upshot of a series of articles published in the prestigious... read more on AARP.com

Weight loss is a serious problem for some people with neurologic disorders such as Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease, and stroke, says Nikolaus McFarland, MD, PhD, FAAN, chief of the movement disorders division in the department of neurology at the University of Florida College of Medicine in Gainesville.
 
How to gain weight if you have a neurologic condition?  Read the article on Brain&Life.com.

Story by Janis Jibrin, MS, RD  Recipes by Jennifer Iserloh

Like intellectual stimulation or meditation, the right diet can make a dramatic difference in smarts and mood--today, and years down the road. Here’s how to fuel your way to clearer, happier thinking.

Read the full article on YogaJournal.com