Cooking and Beverages Continued
Diet Drinks

Coffee

The theme today is cooking and beverages and specifically, how beverages impact your diet. All too often, we forget. I myself was putting away half a pint of half-and-half in my coffee before I plugged that leak by doing some damage control.

If you, like me, enjoy cream in your coffee there's a couple of workarounds. I have a tiny immersion blender that provided an alternate way to make my coffee taste delicious. I put some low-fat milk or no fat milk into a cup and heat in the microwave then I use the little immersion blender to make it frothy, then I add about an equal amount of coffee mix a second more. The flavor is really excellent, in fact, it couldn't be better if it came from an expensive coffee shop.

Speaking of coffee, we all know that caffeine isn't really good for us. Well at our house we really don't like 100% decaf so we solve that problem by keeping two glass containers, the kind that they used in "ye olde candy stores" that are tilted for scooping. One is labeled decaf and the other, regular. We use 3 scoops of the decaf and 1 of the regular and absolutely cannot notice the difference. There's a healthy recipe for your cooking and beverage needs without a bit of guilt.

Cocoa

If you can't sleep at night a lot of people enjoy a cup of warm cocoa. It's the tryptophan, an amino acid, that does the trick. Here's a way to prevent it from being a disaster to your diet. Warm 2/3 cup of no fat or low fat milk and whip it with the immersion blender, add two or three packages of the diet sugar, the one that I like is Splenda, then add one scant teaspoon of cocoa. Mix this a little more. You do the milk by itself first because it froths better. This frother is available in kitchen gadgets retail stores and coffee shops.

Cold Beverages

When you're looking for a cold beverage I have found just the ticket. There is a new product called Fuse which is little more than flavored water but packed with vitamins and only 20 calories bottle. If you fill up a glass with ice and add three quarters of the fuse and one quarter of the V8's new product, V8 Fusion, it has an excellent flavor, low calories, and packs a high-fiber punch.

The V8 Fusion advertises that it is contains concentrated servings of vegetables and fruits. Lots of healthy fiber and phytochemicals in that recipe! Put it in a cut glass tumbler with an umbrella and it feels like vacation.

Alternatively, try Orangina or another brand of sparkling fruit juice - same cut glass tumbler, same umbrella. Also, don't forget to lay in individual cans of the venerable V8 juice. Getting a serving of vegetables made easy!

Add green tea (hot or cold) once or twice a day for the slenderizing effect and for its antioxidants.

Caveat Emptor - Diet Sabotage Big Time

Did you know, there is 486 calories in a bottle of Chardonnay? If you and your significant other share one at dinner each night, at 3500 calories/pound that mounts up to a pound every two weeks or 26 pounds a year! One moderate glass a night will get you an inexorable 13 pounds a year. Cut down your nutrients to account for those glasses, and you are on a slippery metabolic slope. Yikes!

While we're discussing the theme "cooking and beverages," here's some healthy recipes you might enjoy.