An important part of a diet plan is finding food that is healthy and that you like. It won't do a lot of good if it taste's bad.

Here are some of my favorites.

Salsa's (insert your favorite). Yummie, healthy, naturally low in fat.

Baked tortilla chips to go with above. I enjoy guiltless gourmet but whichever you like, go with it. Guitless gourmet are as good as any fried chip so why not use them?

Kettle Crisps from the company that does Kettle Chips. The lightly salted ones are in a word, awesome. So much potato taste they are better then the best fried chips. You gain in taste AND gain in health. The only chips I like better are good salt and vinegar ones, but these are fantastic and 1.5grams of fat per serving (1 oz) and zero sat. fat.

Soy crisps (any brand). I enjoy the ones I have tried. Low in fat and high in soy protein.

Deli meats and spicy mustard. Yum. Most deli meats are 95 to 98 percent fat free. Well at least roast beef, turkey, and chicken are. I assume ham would be less so. Ask your deli counter person if you are not sure. I take a slice of lemon pepper turkey, put some spicy mustard on it, roll it up, eat it nice and slow with some water or diet soda and I have a wonderful, very low fat, low calorie, filling snack. This really started to work for me when I bought some zip lock bags. If your deli doesn't give you a good one (some do) just zip it up and it can last for weeks.

I am not an ice cream gourmet but the soy ice cream I have tried tastes just fine to me. I get soy delicious. The mint marble fudge is extremely tasty and much less fat then regular ice cream.

What do all these foods have in common? First, I love them. They are extremely tasty, then they fit into my diet. Just freaking perfect. Experiment and you will find all types of yummie healthy foods. Please post your favorites I always like to find new ones I have overlooked.

[MrsJim]

Some of your suggestions, like the baked chips, can be detrimental towards your weight-loss efforts.

I just got the premiere issue of Energy Magazine for Women and there was a VERY interesting article called "Seduced in the Supermarket" - Why all those "fat-free" foods lining the shelves of your grocery store may not be as "guilt-free" as you're being led to believe. (subtitle). The great thing about this article is they take three products that have both regular and reduced-fat versions and break down the nutritional info (Triscuit crackers, Orville Redenbacher's Microwave popcorn, and Oreo cookies) on both versions. A very good article - and bodes well for the future of this new magazine (you should be able to find it at your newsstand by now).

Since a lot of the taste quality of the regular products comes from fat, the manufacturers usually replace the fat with added sugar or salt. Another way to make a product 'reduced-fat' is to reduce the portion sizes by a few grams. Interestingly, regular Triscuits and reduced fat Triscuits have the exact same ingredients! What a marketing coup for Nabisco.

You may also want to check your local library for one of my favorite books, "Fat of the Land" by Michael Fumento. An entire chapter is devoted to "The Low-Fat Myth". (BTW, if you can't locate the book at your library and want to read a bit before you buy it from www.half.com, Mr. Fumeto has a great website at www.fumento.com - go to the "Columns & Articles Archive" and click on "Obesity" to check out some of his insightful articles).

Whew! With that, here are some of my favorite healthy foods that taste great - at least to me...

Fresh ripe peaches (a big thumbs-up to the Niagara farm region in Ontario, Canada for the wonderful fruit that abounds there - I loved it!!) - so juicy that you have to have two napkins to eat them. One of my favorite meals is cut-up peaches mixed with cottage cheese and a bit of cinnamon.

Same with melon such as honeydew or cantalope. Mangos are wonderful too... if you're not a big fruit fan, the best thing I can recommend is cutting way down on the added-sugar foods in your diet and drinking lots more water. Once you stop eating candies and cookies, you will start craving more natural foods that your body really can use.

A baked potato, with cottage cheese and salsa. YUM!

I've recently become a fan of Ro-Tel. If you don't know what Ro-Tel is, you're missing out!!! It's seasoned diced tomatoes with green chiles added. I go thru four cans a week now. Here's a great meal - Saute some chopped onions in a little Garlic Pam. Add sliced mushrooms (I'm lazy so I just dump in an entire container of pre-sliced mushrooms from the fresh produce department of my store rather than slice 'em myself) and saute a bit more. Add two boneless, skinless chicken breasts (I toss 'em on the George Foreman grill for about five minutes beforehand to brown them), a can of Ro-Tel and let simmer for about 10 minutes to allow the flavors to blend. Serves two and I usually have brown rice or cous-cous on the side. MMMMmmmm...

A perfectly baked sweet potato with some cinnamon on top. Maybe a squeeze of lime juice if I've got it around.

Watch those deli meats - that 95-98% fat free label doesn't mean they are low in fat and calories. Labeling on meat products is not regulated by the FDA, but the USDA. The 95%-98% fat free on meats is by WEIGHT of the food, rather than a percentage of total calories. Same with milk - 1% milk means 1% fat by weight rather than as a percentage of calories (1 cup of 1% milk has 130 calories - 20 calories from fat - I calculate that as 6.5% fat, not 1% fat).

Here's a comparison of presliced deli ham for example (numbers taken from www.fitday.com):

Serving size: .75 oz.

Calories - 34.02 (regular) vs. 36.68 (extra lean)

Fat grams/calories - 1.76 grams or 15.86 calories for regular vs. 1.39 grams or 12.5 calories for extra lean

Sodium - 268.38 mg for regular vs. (check this out!!!) 400 mg in extra lean!!!

So that 'extra lean' deli meat may not be as healthy as you think....just FYI...

The potato crisps are tada....1g sugar per serving. And 110 calories per 1 ounce, which is reasonable. My deli meats usually average 40 to 60 calories per ounce or less. So these are truly good suggestions. Its good to be cautious but also to know when good things are really good things :-). None of my suggestions are the silly low fat things like the cookies. They are good tasting food that happen to be low fat because they are that way naturally. If you bake a potato chip..its low fat. If you make salsa its low fat. If you get good deli meat..its low fat. These are not suggestions where the foods have to be tweaked to be low fat. I appreciate your caution but lets not throw out the delicious, and healthy low fat baby with the bathwater.

[Rhonwyn]

My calorie allotment for the moment is so low (I'm on a protein-sparing modified fast using whole foods and protein supplements)that I can't eat anything that doesn't provide nutrition, so I choose goodies that come right from nature (I mean not overly processed) with lots of phytochemicals. It sounds so boring to most people, but a 1/2 cup serving of raw organic raspberries straight off the vine is HEAVEN to me. As for those baked tortilla chips - gak - sorry. Salsa is healthy though, especially for men's prostates. I put salsa or hot pepper sauce (a safe, natural thermogenic) on my egg substitute omelettes so they aren't so bland.

I think if people just stopped relying on processed foods so much and got back to basics (whole grains, fruits, vegetables without butter or salt and cheese, some nuts and seeds, LEAN protein like fish or soy for vegans) we would have a lot less medical problems in America.

The coolest thing I did this weekend was gather smooth sumac (Rhus Glabra) berries and steep them for tea like the Native Americans did - lemony taste and medicinal too. I added Stevia because it's sour like lemon juice. It supposedly can help Type 2 diabetes. And zero calories! Just don't make tea out of white poison sumac berries! That's bad! We alo gathered chestnuts and boiled them and ate right out of the shell.

Now the soy ice cream - that's so yummy it causes a binge session for me so I avoid it! The Japanese use tofu chunks in miso soup and that could be one reason their lung cancer rates are so low (they smoke like chimneys). OR if you don't like miso paste, boil a chunk of tofu, drain, and serve cold with grated raw ginger and chopped scallions or grated daikon radish. Drizzle on some light or diluted soy sauce. This is a common Japanese side dish that could be a good protein snack. I think Morinu has the tastiest tofu in the US.

It's funny but I find that I never buy food things in the center aisles of the grocery store anymore... (except canola or olive oil and my Fiber One cereal). Helped me lose a lot of weight!

To me food choice is so important, right up there with exercise. But I think people will be more likely to make good food choices if the food also tastes good. Mrs Jim was completly correct that we all need to be very good food label readers. Low fat milk is the perfect example. And Rhonwyn is also right on saying that we very much as a culture over-process our foods and need to get back to 'whole' foods. I grew up in Los Angeles, so I am not a big coffee or tea drinker (it was never cold), but for those of you who are I hear yurba mate is a very tasty and nuitrious 'native' South American drink.

BTW I looked at the label for some deli meats I just bought. For the turkey it was 50 calories for 2 ounces not one which is excellent. It was high in salt and cholestral but still below most 'lean' frozen food entries. But, for me, the bottomline is deli meats work. But I also try to always read the label not the labeling. Mrs Jim is correct it is so important to read the label which has to be truthful (I hope) not the labeling (ie the claims printed on the food boxes) which is pure adversitment.

[kimmy36]

Can you help me with the deli meats? I need at least 3 oz on a sandwich to fill me up, but I don't want to spend 3 points. Are all deli meats 1 pt per ounce? Do you know any that have the lowest point value?

[aphil]

kimmy-WW points values vary from brand to brand. You will probably have to check the labels and figure the points value for each kind. They can all vary in calories/fat per serving-and the serving sizes on the package vary as well. Same with about all processed foods. One package of waffles may be 190 calories per serving-another may be 250. You gotta check the labels.

[Idealperson]

Kimmy, try the deli select brand of sandwich meats, they have a large variety and are very lean and low in points.

[K8-EEE]

Mrs Jim, baked potato, cottage cheese & salsa is one of my favorite lunches!! It's really good and CHEAP too....I thought I was the only one that ate that! My vegetarian daughter takes that to school a lot too. I put it in the convection oven when I wake up in the morning and double wrap it in foil and then, it goes in one of those throw away tupperware thingees? It really does stay hot that way...and if you pack the cottage cheese, salsa & fruit the night before it's a fast lunch to make.

As for the guilt free gourmet, they are as guilt free as anything else I guess, if you are careful about portions & "count" them. But if you have a convection oven, you might want to try taking some stale corn tortillas (I ALWAYS seem to have some since they don't stay fresh for long!) and cutting them up, spraying them with a Pam-type stuff and cooking them in the convection oven until crisp. They turn out really good and you know exactly the calories, corn tortillas are actually pretty healthful. These are also good with salsa and cottage cheese btw! Or in taco salad with grilled chicken and avocado, and salsa. YUM!