You: On a Diet (October 1st - December 31st)

[jezzie]

Welcome to my world - Won't you come on in


The first four YOU threads are here:

4) YOU: On a Diet ( June 5th - Sept. 25th )

3) YOU: on a Diet ( 03/01/08 - 05/31/08 )

2) YOU on a Diet ( 11/01/07 - 02/29/08 )

1) YOU on a Diet .....

[jezzie]

Dr. Mehmet C. Oz, M.D.

Dr. Oz is Vice-Chair and Professor of Surgery at Columbia University. He directs the Cardiovascular Institute and Complementary Medicine Program at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

His research interests include heart replacement surgery, minimally invasive cardiac surgery, complementary medicine, and health care policy. He has authored over 400 original publications, book chapters, and medical books and has received several patents. He performs over 350 heart operations annually.

In addition to belonging to every major professional society for heart surgeons, Dr. Oz was elected as a Global Leaders of Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum, won the prestigious American Association for Thoracic Surgery Gross Research Scholarship, and has received an honorary doctorate from Istanbul University.

He was voted “The Best and Brightest” by Esquire Magazine and was elected one of the Doctors of the Year by Hippocrates magazine, and Healers of the Millenium by Healthy Living magazine.

He is annually elected as one of the best physicians in the USA by the Castle Connolly Guide as well as other major ranking groups.

[jezzie]

•What Should You Eat?

As you choose from the five major food groups, focus on foods that are low in calories and high in nutrients. Eating this way helps you get the necessary vitamins, minerals, protein, carbohydrates, and fats without getting more calories than you need to maintain your weight. And eating this way can make your RealAge as much as 4 years younger!

After you've kicked out nutritional felons like simple sugars and trans fats, stock your fridge, freezer, and pantry with these items:

Fruits and veggies: Aim for four servings of fruit and five servings of vegetables daily. A serving fits in the palm of your hand.

High-fiber fruits and veggies: like broccoli, apples, and raspberries will help satisfy your hunger longer than low-fiber produce. Are you getting enough fruits and veggies?

Whole grains: Whole-grain breads, cereals, rice, and pasta are high in fiber and B vitamins. They slow digestion and help keep blood-sugar levels steady.
How many years younger could you be if you ate 25 grams of fiber -- instead of just 12 -- per day?

Low-fat or nonfat dairy: Yogurt, cottage cheese, and milk provide calcium for strong bones.

Lean meats: If you eat meat, choose skinless chicken and turkey for lean protein options. Fish is another wise choice because it's a great source of heart-healthy fats.

Nuts: Crunchy, satisfying, and full of healthful fats, an ounce of nuts per day makes the perfect snack for people managing their waists.

The best diet meets your nutritional needs and provides just enough calories to fuel your day. So if you're satisfied with your current weight, balance your daily calorie intake with your physical activity level.

If you're trying to shed a few pounds, making the kitchen switches outlined above is a great first step in getting more of the healthy-but-still-fills-you-up foods into your diet.


*** My daily plan is six grains (minimum), five vegetable, four fruit, nuts and low fat dairy.

[jezzie]

•Restock Your Fridge

The first step to getting on the path to better eating is to take stock of your pantry! Dr. Oz and Dr. Roizen say there are five ingredients that should be banned from your diet forever.

The first ingredient to avoid is hydrogenated oil, which often masquerades as partially hydrogenated oil.

Dr. Roizen says we should also eliminate sugar and high fructose corn syrup from our foods.

"We eat 63 pounds of [high fructose corn syrup] a year, which puts 33 pounds on the typical American," he says.

Enriched flour is the fourth ingredient to avoid. "[Enriched] means they took all the good stuff out and put a little back," Dr. Roizen says. In 1960, Americans didn't use enriched flour, but today we consume 63 pounds a year, he says. The fifth offenders are white foods —including bleached flour.

Finished clearing your kitchen of bad fats, sugars, and carbs?
Start shopping for the good-for-your-waist foods that make it easy (and automatic!) to eat right.

Include fire-extinguisher munchies -- good foods that will put out three-alarm starvation fires. Pick up ready-to-eat snacks for those times you're likely to reach for waist-killing chips or sweets.

Our list includes almonds, peanuts, or walnuts; bags of prechopped fruits and veggies; dried fruit (apricots, cranberries); and edamame (soybeans -- look for microwavable bags in the frozen-food section).

Plus, snacking on edamame will boost your bone health, and munching on a handful of nuts will promote heart health.

[jezzie]

•Food Shopping


Whole grains (bread, cereal, rice, pasta) provide the foundation of a healthful diet.

You should consume 6 to 11 servings a day from this food group.

Not only are whole grains nutrient-packed but they are also high in fiber that aids in the prevention of colon cancer and other digestive disorders.

Overall, the trick to navigating through grocery store aisles is to look for less . . . on the label. Generally, fewer ingredients equal better foods.

For instance, natural foods that come from the ground usually don't require labels. That's why any produce is basically OK for you.

One caveat: Make sure it has a great feel, a healthy smell, and has not been waxed.

Also, we believe in working from the inside of the store out, so that heat and bacteria have less time to sap nutrients from your produce before you get home.

[jezzie]

•All About YOU: How to Eat More and Weigh Less

Want to lose a few before the upcoming holiday? Fill up with fiber.

It's no news that boosting your fiber intake is good for your health. But boosting it at breakfast may be the key to staying lean, say RealAge doctors Michael Roizen and Mehmet Oz.

In their book, YOU: On a Diet, they suggest putting fiber-rich foods like oatmeal, whole-grain toast, or a veggie-packed omelet on your morning menu to curb afternoon binging on Cheetos or cookies. That's because fiber acts like a speed bump in your gastrointestinal tract, slowing everything way down, so you stay fuller longer.

This is one way you can use your body chemistry, not willpower, to curb cravings and get to your ideal body size.

Believe it or not, enjoying a fiberful diet -- especially at breakfast -- can reduce your calorie intake for up to 18 hours a day. And it helps control blood sugar and lower insulin levels.

Although you should aim for 25 to 30 grams of fiber a day, avoid adding it all at once or you'll produce more gas than a Saudi oil field, say the doctors.

Start with an additional 1 to 2 grams of dietary fiber -- the amount in a slice of whole-grain bread or 1/2 cup of green beans -- at and between meals and slowly increase from there.

RealAge Benefit: Eating 25 grams (make that 38 grams if you're a man under 50) of fiber per day makes your RealAge 2.5 years younger than eating 12 grams of fiber per day.

[jezzie]

•All About YOU: Eat This First

If you're famished, eat a little fat before you sit down for a meal.

Did we say fat?

Yes, but we're talking about the good kind. Eating some healthy fat 20 minutes before a meal can keep you from stuffing yourself. It fools your brain into thinking you're not as hungry as you thought.

And your waist will reap the rewards. How does healthy fat do it?

About 70 calories of healthy fat just before you eat -- that's 6 walnuts, 12 almonds, or 20 peanuts -- can trick you into thinking you're full.

Eating good fats stimulates the production of cholecystokinin (CCK), a hormone that tells your brain you've had enough to eat and then keeps you feeling full by slowing the emptying of your stomach.

So when you sit down for a meal, you'll eat for pleasure, not for hunger, and you'll be likely to eat less.

Slow It Down

Because the average person is finished eating long before his or her brain gets the fullness signal, you should eat slowly. Quickly downing your food won't give your satiety hormones time to kick in.

RealAge Benefit: Eating only healthful fat can make your RealAge 3.4 years younger.

[jezzie]

•Make Eating Automatic

To lose weight, start each day knowing when and what you're going to eat. Then, don't think about it again.

Plan three main meals plus snacks, so you're never hungry. That way, you'll avert the 180-degree shift between starving and gorging that occurs when you skip meals.

Eating often and automating your eating are two keys to waist management.

Stick with the YOU plan for 14 days and you'll learn to do both, which will start reprogramming your body so that you never again have to sweat over what you're eating.

More: Two more key elements of waist-loss success: Don't eat within 3 hours of bedtime, and make dessert an every-other-day treat.

Also, since research shows that your surroundings affect how much you eat at meals, give some thought to your dining environment.

Specifically, to create a mood that discourages indulgence and overeating, use a little dining room feng shui:

* Choose bright lights, not soft lights.
* Choose a warm room temperature, not a cool one.
* Choose conversation, not music or TV, which can distract you into eating more.

[jezzie]

Practice Food Monogamy

Yeah, sure, variety may be the spice of life, but it also may be the death of dieting.

Having a lot of food choices is what makes us live like we're in a never-ending speed-eating contest. But research shows that if you decrease your food choices, you'll automatically decrease your appetite and waist size.

Pick the one meal you most often rush through and automate it. For most people, lunch is the hurry-up meal. So find a healthy lunch you like -- salad with grilled chicken and a light olive oil dressing or turkey on whole-grain bread -- and have it for lunch every day. Every day. Yes, every day.

Read why a steaming bowl of soup or a crunchy coleslaw are healthy lunch options.

More: In fact, the same old routine is the point. More and more research has found that putting a cap on the variety of foods and tastes you experience helps you control your weight. How does it work?

It seems that when you have meals with lots of diverse flavors, it takes more calories to make you feel full. That's why we tend to eat more -- to satisfy our taste buds, not our bellies -- when enjoying foods like Mexican or Indian cuisine.

We definitely don't want you to become bored, but if you make a habit of eating the same food for at least one meal a day, it'll decrease your temptations and help you stop thinking about flavor feasts.

It's one of the ways to automate your brain so that your habits follow.

Reference: YOU: On a Diet. Roizen, M. F., Oz, M. C., New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006.

[jezzie]

•Foods That Fill You Up Without Fattening You Up

Want to eat more and weigh less? Think "density" when you're choosing foods.

In nutrition lingo, foods that are low in "energy density" have lots of water and fiber, but little fat and fewer calories.

How do they stack up nutritionally? Just fine, according to a new study. For example, a piece of apple pie has about 400 calories; for the same calories, you can crunch on five healthful apples -- and since one or two will fill you up, you'll skinny down.

When you eat more foods that are dense in everything but fat and calories -- think juicy melons, pears, cucumbers, broccoli, and berries -- it not only helps keep you slim but also revs up the nutritional quality of your diet.

When researchers compared people on low, medium, and high energy-density diets, they discovered that women who favored foods low in energy density averaged 250 fewer calories a day compared to those in the other groups; men averaged 425 fewer calories.

Yet the nutritional quality of their meals didn't suffer. In fact, they had higher intakes of vitamins A, C, and B6; folate; iron; calcium; and potassium.

In other words, eating low on the density scale isn't just good for your waist, it's good for your health; the extra fiber and nutrients fight disease as well as pounds.

Which foods are naturally dense? - The stars are fruits and veggies.

So although your daily intake should include plenty of whole grains -- and some healthy fats and low-fat protein (beans, fish, lean poultry) -- replace some of these with extra veggies. Later, grab an orange or banana for a snack. Then, watch your waist whittle down.

[jezzie]

Made a Mistake? Make a YOU-Turn

Have you enjoyed a few forkfuls of a coworker's cake or picked at your friend's fries? That's OK.

You're going to make wrong turns. You're going to be tempted by not-so-good-for-YOU foods. Does that mean you should steer off the dietary cliff and fall into the fatty crevasse of destructive eating? Of course not.

Instead of falling into a defeatist mentality by drop-kicking healthy eating the moment you make one bad choice, confront it. How? By repeating the YOU Diet Mantra:

"At the next available moment, make an authorized YOU-turn."

Say it three times, put down the tub of cookie dough, and get back on the right road.

More: What kills any regimen of healthy eating isn't the occasional brownie or slice of pizza; it's the cascade of behavior that happens after the initial indulgence.

Use the YOU Diet Mantra to steer yourself back -- and understand that you can make mistakes, but that you can correct them with some nonjudgmental coaxing. Why does it work?

* It gives you a mental crutch to carry when you're faced with difficult eating situations.
* It reminds you to be confident, to be positive, to know that the harm isn't in the first mistake, it's in not figuring out how to deal with it.

Reference: YOU: On a Diet. Roizen, M. F., Oz, M. C., New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006.

[jezzie]

A Thick and Creamy Weight Loss Aid

If you think it’s too yummy to have any place in a real weight loss diet, think again.

Yogurt -- that rich and creamy stuff that’s full of calcium and "healthy" bacteria -- may actually help you shed pounds.

The Sweet Facts

When obese people followed a reduced-calorie diet that included three 6-ounce servings of calcium-rich yogurt a day, they lost a whopping 61 percent more fat overall -- and 81 percent more fat around their waists -- compared with those who didn’t eat yogurt. Why? Turns out the calcium in yogurt may hinder fat storage and boost fat loss. And calcium-rich dairy products like yogurt may contain additional fat-burning compounds as well.

Good for All of Your Bod

Here are a few more ways yogurt helps do a body good. Yogurt can help you:

* Smell better.
* Feel better.
* Save time . . . in the bathroom.
* Smile.

RealAge Benefit: Consuming 1,200 milligrams of calcium per day can make your RealAge as much as 1.3 years younger.

[jezzie]

Beneficial Bugs

Yogurt fortified with healthy bacteria may help you ward off certain illnesses.

In a recent study, researchers gave workers a daily dose of either Lactobacillus reuteri, a type of beneficial bacteria, or a placebo for 80 days. Only about 10 percent of workers who took L. reuteri came down with a respiratory or gastrointestinal infection that caused them to miss work; more than 26 percent of the workers who took the placebo fell ill.

Beneficial bacteria inhabit your intestines, preventing infection by harmful bacteria and aiding in digestion. Antibiotic use or bouts of diarrhea or vomiting can disrupt the balance of intestinal bacteria, leaving you more vulnerable to illnesses.

Lactobacillus reuteri, a type of beneficial bacteria, may help prevent harmful bacteria from colonizing in the gastrointestinal tract and enhance the function of immune cells that combat viral infections. Not all kinds of yogurt contain L. reuteri. Read yogurt labels carefully.

RealAge Benefit: Protecting your immune system can make your RealAge as much as 6 years younger.

[jezzie]

•The Skinny on Fat

Too much saturated fat in the diet appears to raise your risk of yet another health hazard: diabetes.

Saturated fats promote insulin sensitivity and the metabolic syndrome, conditions that increase your risk of diabetes, a study suggests. Keep tabs on both the quantity and quality of the fats you eat.

Choose mostly healthy fats, such as those in nuts, olive oil, and avocados, and limit total fat consumption to 30 percent of your daily calories.

Easy ways to get healthy fats into your diet are to serve salmon or tuna instead of red meat, dress salads with olive oil and vinegar, and add nuts to salads, cereals, and low-fat yogurt.

Salmon, tuna, olive oil, and nuts all contain polyunsaturated and monounsaturated forms of fats, which are a much healthier choice than saturated fats and will help your body regulate insulin.

Saturated fats, found in red meat, butter, creamy salad dressings, and full-fat dairy, not only interfere with the body's ability to properly utilize insulin, but they also raise your LDL ("bad") cholesterol and promote heart disease.

RealAge Benefit: Eating a low-fat diet--and eating healthful unsaturated fats when you do eat fat--can make your RealAge as much as 6 years younger.

[jezzie]

•Accolades for Olive Oil

Starting an olive oil habit could be as healthful as kicking a smoking habit. And the proof is in your urine.

Microscopic substances in your urine reveal how well your body is defending against everyday cancer-causing cell damage. Think of the substances as shrapnel -- too much means your body is taking some serious hits. Enter olive oil.

In a study, men who upped their intake had less of the damage-signaling shrapnel in their urine samples. How much less? The drop was similar to what smokers experience when they quit. Now that's some potent oil. Here's why it's so good for you.

Olive oil is full of good-for-you substances. So which one is responsible for the cancer-fighting effects?

Until this recent study, researchers suspected it was the phenolic compounds in the oil; phenols have antioxidant properties. But the phenolic content of the oils seemed to have little impact in this study.

Three different types of oil with varying amounts of phenolic compounds were tested, and the type made little difference in the amount of cell-damage markers found in urine samples.

Researchers suspect there is something anticarcinogenic about monounsaturated fat, in and of itself.

Which would mean that olive oil, rich in monounsaturated fat, is not only a heart helper but may also deter cancer. That helps explain why, compared to Northern Europeans, Southern Europeans, whose diets tend to overflow with the oil, have lower rates of both heart disease and cancer.

But one caveat to keep in mind: The men in the study didn't add olive oil to their diets. They used it to replace the fats they normally consume -- about 5 teaspoons total per day.

Use olive oil to chase out the butters, margarines, and shortenings in your diet so you don't increase your overall calorie count; if you go overboard on calories, you're looking at a different set of health problems.

[jezzie]

•Dining Out Dilemma

Get your priorities straight when making a move to dine out.

Research shows that for most people, healthy menu options aren't a top priority when choosing a place to dine out. Instead, most people are more focused on convenience and value.

Make your favorite dining-out venues the ones that offer lean cuts of meat, whole-grains, fresh fruit, and vegetable side dishes.

The average American eats out almost six times per week. But dining out may lead to poor eating habits if healthy menu options are not available at the restaurants you frequent. Pick venues that offer low-fat and low-calorie menu options.

When ordering, avoid foods that are fried or flavored with cream sauces or butter. Opt for grilled, baked, or broiled fish or other lean forms of protein.

Choose vegetables that are lightly steamed or sautéed in a bit of olive oil for your side dish. And substitute whole-grain breads and brown rice for white breads and white rice whenever possible.

Being conscientious about the food choices you make when dining out can help keep your healthy eating habits on track seven days a week.

[jezzie]

The Tastiest Way to Drop Blood Sugar

It's great on french toast. It's lovely in apple pies, oatmeal, and eggnog. And now, cinnamon may be good for your blood sugar, too. One study found that people with diabetes who ate three-eighths of a teaspoon of the spice a day had better blood sugar levels after a little more than a month.

Cinnamon is well known as a stellar antioxidant and a potent germ-killer, and there's a growing -- but not perfectly consistent -- body of evidence that suggests that a substance in the spice turns on insulin receptors to help your body use glucose. That’s a good thing, because too much glucose in your bloodstream is tough on your organs and is a marker of diabetes.

If you currently measure your blood sugar, you can test how cinnamon works for you by checking your blood sugar levels at a time (but not right after eating) when they are near stable. Then, try some nonsugary thing with the cinnamon; wait 1 to 2 hours, and then measure your blood sugar again. Do this for 3 days, then follow it with 3 days when you do and eat the exact same things, but leave the cinnamon out.

More research is needed before doctors recommend it as a common diabetes treatment, but there’s no reason you shouldn’t start making it a mainstay of your breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In fact, we recommend that you get half a teaspoon of cinnamon a day. Try it these ways:

• Sprinkle on fresh apple slices and poached pears.
• Add to Crock-Pot dishes for an Indian-inspired flavor twist.
• Use a cinnamon stick to stir your tea, hot chocolate, or warm soymilk.
• Sprinkle into muffin batters and on whole-wheat toast.
• Add to your breakfast cereal or to a smoothie.
• Keep a cinnamon shaker next to the salt and pepper on the table -- and experiment.

[jezzie]

6 Minutes to a Better Memory

For a quick and easy boost to your brainpower this weekend, pull down the shades, close your eyes, and catch some daytime ZZZs.

People who take daytime naps outperform non-nappers on memory exercises. And, surprisingly, a mere 6 minutes of shut-eye is enough to refresh the mind.

The Shut-Eyes Have It

How does a quick catnap power up your thinker? Seems the mere act of falling asleep triggers a brain-boosting neurobiological process that remains effective regardless of how long you snooze.

3 More Ways to Fight the Fog

Go ahead. Make like a battery and recharge. And while you’re at it, here are a few more ways to sharpen your wit:

* Flex it. You’ve got to use your brain to make it stronger.
* Feed it.
* Socialize it.

RealAge Benefit: Becoming a lifelong learner can make your RealAge as much as 2.5 years younger.

[jezzie]

Brain-Friendly Folate

Protect your brain by kicking up your folate intake.

Adequate folate intake appears to protect against hemorrhagic stroke, a condition that causes bleeding in the brain. Hemorrhagic stroke is a less common type of stroke than ischemic stroke, which is caused by a blood clot-blocked artery. Protect your brain by packing your side dishes with folate-rich asparagus, Brussels sprouts, and artichokes.

Hemorrhagic strokes, which account for 17 percent of all stroke cases, are less common than ischemic strokes. A recent study reveals a link between high blood levels of folate and decreased risk of hemorrhagic stroke.

Folate also helps protect blood vessels by lowering homocysteine levels. Homocysteine is an amino acid that increases the risk of atherosclerosis and stroke when found in high levels in the blood. Researchers speculate that folate's favorable effects on blood vessels may extend beyond lowering homocysteine, but more research is needed to explore other potential benefits.

In addition to asparagus, Brussels sprouts, and artichokes, other good sources of folate include orange juice, fortified whole-grain breads and cereals, and black-eyed peas. Folic acid is the synthetic form of folate found in fortified foods and supplements.

Controlling high blood pressure, getting at least 30 minutes of physical activity per day, and reducing your weight and cholesterol, if you need to, also may help reduce stroke risk.

RealAge Benefit: Getting a total of 700 micrograms of folate per day in food and supplements can make your RealAge as much as 1.2 years younger.

[jezzie]

•Where Fat Lives

Fat is like real estate: It's all about location, location, location. And when it comes to body fat, the belly is the least desirable location.

We all have fat in three places: in our bloodstream (called triglycerides), just below the skin's surface (called subcutaneous fat), and in a layer of tissue located inside the belly that hangs underneath the muscles of your stomach (called omentum fat).

Because omentum fat is so close to your vital organs, it's property you want to unload. It greedily intrudes on all the other structures around it, squishing the diaphragm and lungs, which makes breathing difficult, and squashing the kidneys and their blood supply.

More: Because the omentum can store fat that is quickly accessible to the liver, it can cause lousy (LDL) cholesterol and triglyceride levels to rise. It also sucks insulin out of circulation, which makes your blood sugar level climb.

But the good news is that as soon as you reduce waist-expanding omentum fat, your body starts seeing the effects.

In other words, once your body senses it's losing that fat, your body's blood-related numbers -- cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar -- start traveling in a healthy direction.

Reference: YOU: On a Diet. Roizen, M. F., Oz, M. C., New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006.

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[jezzie]

3 Simple Tips for Losing Weight

Go to sleep.
Getting enough sleep every night keeps you slim. Why? When your body doesn't get the 7 to 8 hours it needs every night, it doesn't get a full resupply of serotonin and dopamine, two feel-good brain chemicals it craves.

So it looks for ways to replenish them, and guess what immediately releases both in the body: sugary foods. That's why when you're tired you start craving sweets! So tuck yourself in early and stay slim.

Keep your hands full.
You'd think that sitting around playing video games, solitaire, or surfing Yahoo! would be a recipe for putting on pounds. Nope. When your fingers are flying, they're not knuckle-deep in a bowl of chips.

Now, that's not to say that endless hours on your duff are good for your waistline, but when you keep your hands and brain occupied, you're not automatically reaching for something to eat. In fact, you're probably not even thinking about food. So the next time you start to open the fridge door, turn on the computer or pick up your knitting instead.

Pick and stick.
Yeah, sure, variety may be the spice of life. But it can also be the death of dieting. When you have a lot of choices for a meal, it's a lot easier to slip out of good eating habits and into buffet binges.

One way to avoid trouble is to eliminate choices for at least one meal a day.

Pick the meal you rush through most, and then automate it. For most people, that's lunch. Find a healthy lunch -- maybe salad with grilled chicken or a turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread -- and have it for lunch every day. Every day. Yes, every day.

The less you think about food, the easier it is to control your appetite. And decreasing choices decreases temptations.

All three tips are from two weight-loss experts: RealAge superdocs Michael Roizen, MD, and Mehmet Oz, MD, authors of the huge best-seller, YOU: On a Diet.


the "pick and stick" concept.

[jezzie]

The 3 Things You Need to Know About Soy

The claims are amazing -- soy does everything from lowering cholesterol and fighting cancer to thwarting brittle bones -- but scientists are still arguing.

Let 'em. Because if you're looking for a high-protein food that's low in saturated fat (this, of course, is where cheeseburgers and steaks flame out) soy's awesome.

And hey, if it turns out that all those other claims are true, jackpot! Plus, training your taste buds to love foods that thwart aging can make your "RealAge at least 3 years younger.

So here's all you need to know:

1. Drink up. Even die-hard carnivores -- not to mention the lactose intolerant and people who just don't care for dairy -- like soymilk. (The vanilla Silk brand gets them hooked.) Just make sure it's calcium fortified. A cup of fortified has 200–400 milligrams of calcium, or 20%-40% of your recommended dietary allowance.

2. Keep it simple. Heavy-duty processing isn't any better for soy than it is for whole grains. Choose basic Asian soy foods, such as tofu, tempeh, and miso, rather than highly processed soy sausages, frozen desserts, and energy bars. Otherwise, you're likely to find the label full of cholesterol, saturated fat, sugar, and sodium.

3. Think whole beans. Soybeans -- widely known as edamame (ed-a-mommy) -- give you the purest punch of the plant's phytochemicals, especially its isoflavones. Many supermarkets now stock frozen soybeans (in and out of the pod), and some even have fresh ones.

Keeping frozen shelled beans on hand makes it easy to toss them into soups, salads, pasta, tortillas -- or this hummus recipe, made with soybeans instead of chickpeas.