On a recent airline flight, one of the attendants ended her string of instructions with this: "That does it for the do's and don'ts. Make sure you do the do's and don't do the don'ts and everything will be just fine."

Good advice, I'd say. Here are some others as well:

DO eat more protein for breakfast. A high intake of protein has been found ...Read more

Some refer to it as "cultured" or "cell-based" meat. Others call it "fake" meat. What is it? It's a new technology to grow meat in the laboratory and it may show up in the meat sections of our supermarkets someday soon.

Cultured meat has nothing to do with its social standing. Rather it is meat produced when cells from animals are "cultured" or...Read more

I tend to have a pumpkin obsession this time of year. And it's fueled by all the products from pumpkin bagels to body cream that are marketed in autumn. Nutritionally, pumpkin is a seasonal vegetable; it reaches its peak ripeness for harvest in these cooler days. Other produce abundant in the fall includes apples, beets and sweet potatoes.

Some...Read more

There is an unofficial condition coined "orthorexia" in which a person is excessively preoccupied with eating healthy food. I'm pretty sure my three amigas and I did not suffer from that on our recent horseback adventure.

First stop when they arrived in Denver before heading to the wild blue yonder: Trader Joe's. Four chattering women throwing...Read more

It occurred to me that not everything we "hear" about nutrition is indeed fact. Here are a few things I've heard or overheard in my years as a nutrition professional. (Don't worry, I won't use names.)

"I don't eat red meat. I only eat pork." Uhh ... although the ad campaign is very catchy, nutrition experts do not consider pork in the white ...Read more

A reader writes: "I have a question about eating cinnamon buns on a regular basis. My cycling group likes to ride 40 to 70 miles at least twice a week. They also like to eat cinnamon buns and have gone so far as to rank the best buns. I wonder, considering the high fat and sugar content of these sweets, is it a good idea from a health standpoint...Read more

My 4-month old pup, Belle, is learning about life. Patience ... stay. Discipline ... no. Pride in accomplishment ... good girl! And I'm learning from her. Be playful. Listen to instructions. And always be happy when you get pats on the head.

We came home from her recent veterinarian visit with clear instructions. Give her extra calcium and ...Read more

A reader writes: "I am a 70+ woman who is losing her hair! I'm not on radiation or chemotherapy and am in generally good health. A couple of years ago, I noticed my hair falling out, and now as it tentatively grows back very slowly, it is even thinner and finer than before (and continues to shed).

I began taking biotin at my (doctor's) advice....Read more

Reader Patricia P. writes: "Read today in the Stockton Record about the need for whole grains in diets. What books give suggestions and amounts to eat? I've been sticking to a Keto Diet but realize the short falls of always eating that diet. I wonder how to not gain back weight supplementing with whole grains and beans at meals. I would ...Read more

Most of the questions I get from you, dear readers, are easy, such as Skip's inquiry (in the spirit of my corny joke column), "How do you know when blue cheese has gone bad?" Baa ha ha.

Other letters spur me on to do more research on a topic. A recent reader, for example, scolded me for taking peanuts on a recent flight to a family wedding. (We...Read more

In a recent column, I stated, "Even if we entirely avoided all carbohydrates, our bodies would use protein in an alternate recipe to make glucose (sugar) to fuel our cells."

A reader in Ontario, Canada, responded: "According to Dr. Jason Fung, author of "The Obesity Code," if one eats a diet of 65 percent healthy fat, 35 percent protein, and 5 ...Read more

On our peanut flight to a family wedding in Oregon, my six year-old granddaughter chattered, "Guess what my brother (age 4) can make in his mouth out of peanuts?"

What? I asked.

"Peanut butter."

Not a bad snack either way, I thought.

When we landed at our destination, she watched out the window as workers for this particular airline ...Read more