Ten Nutrition Web Sites: Describing nutrition Web sites, Determining cholesterol and fat counts for common foods, Developing heart smartsand Losing weight to lower cholesterol.

Ten Nutrition Web Sites

In This Chapter

� Describing nutrition Web sites

� Determining cholesterol and fat counts for common foods

� Developing heart smarts

� Losing weight to lower cholesterol

As with every other list of Web sites I’ve compiled for my For Dummies

books (Nutrition For Dummies and Weight Loss Kit For Dummies, Wiley Publishing, Inc.), if my editors had made this section the Part of 100s, I could have easily met the goal.

When you’re looking for reliable nutrition guidelines and information, the ten Web sites listed in this chapter are the cream of the crop, or better yet, the highest-grade skim milk. Each of the sites is an old friend I’ve come to lean on. Each has something special to offer. If I’ve missed your particular favorite, or you find a site that you think is especially useful, don’t hesitate to let me know, perhaps for inclusion in the next edition of this book. Just e-mail the info to www.dummies.com/register.

In the meantime, eat well and, as the song says, be happy.

Watch out for curves on the information superhighway. For reasons known only to their webmasters, even successful Web sites are susceptible to change without notice. What was there last week can disappear into some parallel Internet universe, never to be found again. If the appearance of a site listed in this book changes, just snoop around the site a bit for the info you need. If the site disappears altogether, try looking up key words, such as USDA or cholesterol, via a universal search engine like www.google.com.

The American Cancer Society

www.cancer.org

Yes, the American Cancer Society (ACS) Web site is dedicated primarily to infor- mation about cancer: definitions, treatments, research, and support services. Yes, most of the nutrition news you find here is available elsewhere. But this site’s defined focus provides easy access to other cancer-related topics.

Even, yes, again, cholesterol. Try it: Type cholesterol into the search bar on the ACS homepage, and bingo! You’ve opened a grab bag of ACS information about cholesterol’s effect on your body and your risk of various kinds of cancer.

Until now, the ACS was barely a blip on the screen of nutrition sources. Today, with a growing number of well-designed studies to demonstrate that some foods and diet regimens — not to mention some drugs, such as those used to lower cholesterol — may affect your risk of certain types of cancer, the ACS Web site offers solid reporting on this area of nutritional research.

American Council on Science and Health, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest

www.acsh.org www.cspinet.org

This two-for-one special gives you nonprofit, consumer-friendly organizations whose Web sites provide news releases, position papers, and highly reliable information about nutrition issues and your health.

Your bonus is that the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) and the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) are usually on opposite sides of any nutritional issue. For example, the CSPI spearheaded the drive against the fat substitute Olestra, while the ACSH contended that the substitute was useful in some foods for some people. This kind of disagreement ensures that typing in the same search word or phrase, such as low cholesterol, on both sites provides you with the pros and cons associated with that topic.

Neither site is overly fancy. But both provide straight talk on specific issues, such as which fast foods have the most artery-clogging trans fatty acids (boo) and the least saturated fats (yea) or why tobacco is bad for you (maybe the only subject on which these guys agree).

The sites also feature online membership enrollment and order forms for publications, like the list-filled Nutrition Action Healthletter from the CSPI or the well- sourced and footnoted reports from the ACSH. The ACSH site takes on a cool and calm personality, while the CSPI resembles a hot-button advocate. In practice, both are solid and respectable as all get out.

The American Dietetic Association

www.eatright.org

The American Dietetic Association (ADA), which shares initials with the American Diabetes Association, is the world’s largest membership association of nutrition professionals. Its Web site is jam-packed with food and diet tips, guidelines, research, policies, and stats.

The ADA homepage displays seven bright green boxes, each labeled with a subject. Food & Nutrition Information has diet tips. Shop Online is a guide to ADA publications. Media is fun if you’re addicted to press releases. Careers & Students, Conferences & Events, Advocacy & the Profession, and Professional Development are clearly for association members.

The most useful choice for folks trying to figure out exactly how to create a cholesterol-busting meal plan may be the button up and to the right that says Find a Nutrition Professional. Click that link, and you get a page asking you to accept the Association’s conditions. Say yes, and you move on to a page where more clicks get you info explaining how to find a dietitian in your area.

If you can bend your brain around the much-too-adorable Net address (Eatright? Give me a break!), this site is a true treasure. And golly gee, who wouldn’t love having a personal dietitian to lead the way through the maze of conflicting fat and cholesterol directives?

The American Heart Association

www.americanheart.org

The American Heart Association (AHA) site is a must-see on any cholesterol tour of the Web. True, most of the info here is geared to reducing the obesity- related risks of heart disease. However, the AHA also dishes up solid advice for anyone looking for basic nutritional information and the lowdown on cholesterol. But boy oh boy, do they make you work to get to it! The multiple clicks will give your clicking finger a charley horse — but your brain (and you heart, of course) will appreciate the exercise.

For example, the homepage has 18 subjects you can investigate, ranging from Heart Attack/Stroke Warning Signs at the top to Local Info at the bottom. Click on Healthy Lifestyle (in the middle of the column), and you get several more choices. Pick Diet & Nutrition, and you receive the following six options:

� Dietary Recommendations

� No-Fad Diet

� Nutrition Facts

� Smart Shopping

� Delicious Decisions

� Face the Fats

I’m not saying this isn’t all good stuff. I’m just saying, I’m exhausted. The best bet is simply to noodle around the site.

The Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network

www.foodallergy.org

The Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN) is a nonprofit, membership organization (individuals can join for $30 per year) whose participants include families, doctors, dietitians, nurses, support groups, and food manufacturers in the United States, Canada, and Europe. The group provides education about food allergies, as well as support and coping strategies for people who are allergic to specific foods. The site’s best feature, an e-mail allergy-alert system, is free.

Open the FAAN homepage, and you can easily log on to updates, daily tips, newsletter excerpts, and all the usual service-oriented goodies. To start receiving allergy alerts, click on the Special Allergy Alerts link, fill out the electronic form, and zap it off. Performing this quick task connects you to an early-warning system of allergy-linked news and information about product recalls, such as a July 2007 recall of dark chocolate bars whose label didn’t list milk, a potential allergen. This no-nonsense, highly accessible site can help you avoid such incidents.

The Food and Drug Administration

www.fda.gov

Entering the FDA Web site is like opening the door to the world’s biggest toy store. The virtual shelves contain so much stuff that you hardly know what to grab first. Luckily, all the toys are free in this store. You can linger here happily for days (weeks, years, or maybe forever) following the maze of cross-references and sources.

As you can see by its name, the first concern of the Food and Drug Administration is what you eat. Yes, the homepage offers information

about medicines for people and pets, poisons and their side effects, medical devices (think pacemaker), and FDA field operations (rules and regulations enforcement). They even have a place to report an adverse event (“I took that antibiotic and got hives!”). But for foodies, food is the main event.

To access the food part of the site:

1. Go to the homepage.

2. Click Food in the column on the left side of the page.

Say, “Wow!” What you get is access to a page for the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. Say, “Wow!” again because this covers everything. And I mean everything.

3. Now, browse to your heart’s content.

Food and Nutrition Information Center

www.nal.usda.gov/fnic

The Food and Nutrition Information Center (FNIC) houses one of several nutrition-related data collections in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Library. Like the basic Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Web site (see the preceding section), the FNIC site is chock-full of facts. You can dive in and swim around for hours without coming up for air.

But getting to exactly the info nugget you need can take a couple of clicks. Be patient, it’s worth it. After you get to the homepage, find the link to the resources list. Click on it to bring up a long list of possibilities.

Browse as you please, but click the nutrition and cardiovascular diseases link when you’re ready to fight cholesterol. Up pops a list of, well, resources: books, cookbooks, magazines, and newsletters, all dedicated to teaching you how to plan a diet that lowers your cholesterol and reduces your risk of heart disease. Click on the items that look interesting. Now wasn’t that worth the clicks?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Nutrient Database

www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/cgi-bin/nut_search.pl

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Nutrient Database is the ultimate nutrition chart. Cholesterol, calories, vitamins — you name it, and this site measures it.

The simple fact is that you just can’t plan a low-cholesterol, controlled-fat diet (or any other diet for that matter) without this chart, which serves up nutrition data on more than 5,000 foods and breaks the information down according to different sizes, portions, and different methods of preparation (boiled, broiled, fried, dried, and so on).

Each entry on the list is a snapshot of a specific food serving (“raw apple with skin,” for example) that shows how much the serving weighs and how much of these it contains:

� Calcium

� Carbohydrates

� Cholesterol

� Dietary fiber

� Fat

� Folate

� Food energy (calories)

� Iron

� Magnesium

� Niacin

� Phosphorus

� Potassium

� Protein

� Riboflavin (vitamin B2)

� Saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fat

� Sodium

� Thiamin (vitamin B1)

� Vitamin A

� Vitamin B6

� Vitamin B12

� Vitamin C

� Water (as a percentage of the serving’s weight) Here’s how to find the food you’re looking for:

1. Type its name into the empty search box and then press Enter.

For example, apple.

2. Ignore the fancy stuff. Scroll down and click something basic.

Up comes a list of possibilities such as “Baby food, juice, apple and grape” or “Baby food, apples and turkey, strained.” In this case, clicking “Apples, raw, with skin” brings up a new screen listing various forms of raw apples such as “100 grams edible portion” or “1 cup, quartered

or chopped” or “1 large (31⁄4" diameter) (approx 2 per pound).”

3. Click the box in front of the serving you prefer and click the Submit button.

There you are — calories and nutrients for one large apple, including cholesterol, dietary fiber, and the different kinds of fats.

The Weight Control Information Network

www.niddk.nih.gov/health/nutrit/win.htm

Weight control is an important path to controlling cholesterol, so the Weight Control Information Network (WIN) site belongs on your must-see list. The homepage for this site, which is maintained by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), gives you access to a database with articles, books, and audiovisual material related to weight loss, plus a wealth of statistics on weight and weight maintenance, and NIH research studies.

In fact, the list of information is so complete you could lose weight just lifting it.

Read More

Ten Clicks to Reliable Cholesterol Information: Reading through the government’s cholesterol guidelines, Volunteering for a drug test trial, Checking out cholesterol-lowering products, Navigating a cholesterol information quiz and Finding facts about general drugs.

Ten Clicks to Reliable Cholesterol Information

In This Chapter

� Reading through the government’s cholesterol guidelines

� Volunteering for a drug test trial

� Checking out cholesterol-lowering products

� Navigating a cholesterol information quiz

� Finding facts about general drugs

Rules are made to be broken, so this Part of Tens is actually a Part of Seventeens (which is to say, 11 entries with 17 different links to cholesterol info). The plain fact is that the Internet has too many ultra-good, cholesterol-centered Web sites for me to whittle them all down to a measly list of ten. Enjoy the bonus sites listed here, as well as the other cholesterol info sites scattered throughout the chapters in this book.

Keep two things in mind when surfing the medical Web:

1. Be cautious. Absolutely anyone can dream up a Web page, so you’re not always guaranteed accurate information. When choosing among sources, exercise good judgment. Look for a reputable name and reasonable advice, not pie-in-the-sky (even if it’s a low-fat and cholesterol-free pie) recommendations. The sites listed in this chapter meet those guidelines. So click to your heart’s content. Or rather, to its health.

2. Things change on the Web, more quickly and more often than you may expect. If you can’t find a site listed here or if when you do find it, the contents don’t match the listing, just go with the flow. After all, the new stuff may be even better than the last round.

The American Heart Association

You can also reach the American Heart Association’s Cholesterol Low Down by calling up the basic AHA site (www.amheart.org), clicking on the site map, and scrolling to Cholesterol Low Down under Healthy Life Style. Or, as with other big sites that have smaller sections on cholesterol, you can get where you’re going by clicking on the address above.

The Cholesterol Low Down is the American Heart Association’s national cholesterol education program whose primary aims are to urge us all to see the doctor, determine our cholesterol numbers, and set out on a five-step plan for long-term heart health. Accordingly, this page has five buttons to click: Getting Started, Adjust Your Diet, Get Active, Check Your Progress, and Keep it Up (and Down).

Each button leads to a well-designed page with concise directions. For example, click Adjust Your Diet and you get a page pointing you toward sub- sections such as Eating to Lower Your Cholesterol, How to Shop, Fat Facts, and (goody!) Recipe of the Month. All in all, this information is pretty much the kind of solid info you’ve come to expect from people who spend their professional lives worrying about your heart.

Brand Name Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs

www.caduet.com

www.crestor.com

www.lipitor.com

www.pravachol.com

www.vytorin.com

www.zocor.com

You’ve got questions. These sites have answers about the medical drugs most frequently prescribed for lowering cholesterol. The general format includes information similar to that found on other sites. The hot stuff on these is the occasional offer of a free course of the med via a coupon you take to your doctor who writes a prescription that you hand to the pharmacist. What? You thought they were going to send it through the mail?

Of course, you can also access online information about these drugs by typing their generic names into the search box of any search engine. Table 15-1 lists brand-name drugs and their generic equivalents.

Center for Drug Evaluation and Research

www.fda.gov/cder/drug/default.htm

As its Web address indicates, the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) is a division of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The CDER Web site offers valuable information and evaluations of drug products, including those used to lower cholesterol levels.

For another path to cholesterol-specific medications, you can go to the main FDA homepage at www.fda.gov and type cholesterol-lowering drugs in the search box. You get millions of documents and pages of articles on every- thing even faintly linked to these medicines. The site is pure heaven for hypochondriacs. No, no, I didn’t mean you!

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

www.cdc.gov/cholesterol

You can go to the homepage for the CDC (www.cdc.gov) and try to maneuver your way through to the page devoted to cholesterol, a workout in itself.

Or you can simply go right to the cholesterol page with the address above. Me? I chose the second path. But then, I get my workout on a balance board every day, so who needs all that extra clicking? Either way, the CDC cholesterol page gives you what this agency is famous for — facts, statistics, and prevention strategies. And, of course, the latest news and press releases. Neat.

The Mayo Clinic

www.mayohealth.org

When it comes to consumer-health communications, the Mayo Clinic is true blue, just as cozy and user-friendly as all get out. I typed cholesterol into the search box and up popped more than 200 essays on cholesterol. Most relevant? The first 50, from High Blood Cholesterol to Heart Attack.

For people fuzzy about cholesterol facts, the Mayo Clinic’s absolute claim to fame, on exhibit here, is its intelligent, balanced, and easily accessible pre- sentation of serious technical stuff. Not to mention its sly (maybe uninten- tional) sense of medical humor. For example, did I mention that in its list of cholesterol-related essays the Mayo Clinic lists “Heart attack” right after “Erectile Dysfunction: A sign of heart disease?” Hmmmmm.

MedicineNet.com

www.medicinenet.com

MedicineNet.com — don’t you just love the spiffy capital N right there in the middle? — is a doctor-owned, doctor-maintained Web site with a newsy point of view. Medical info junkies may browse through all the topics or choose the cholesterol-specific info, which dishes up a tasty smorgasbord of cholesterol bits and bytes.

When I typed cholesterol into the search bar, I got back a list of more than 1,000 cholesterol-related articles on

� Diseases and conditions

� Health and living

� Ask the experts

� Medications

� Procedures and tests

� Health news

I also received general tips for living well while controlling my cholesterol. Frankly, I figure if you read them all, you can wave good-bye to your doctor and hang up your own shingle to treat your own cholesterol conditions. Just kidding.

MedlinePlus.com

www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/cholesterol.html

MedlinePlus is a service of the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health. Right there on the homepage is an alphabet that gives you access to absolutely tons of information about practically any medical subject that crosses your mind. You can access cholesterol information directly with the address above, or you can go to the homepage at — what else? — http://medlineplus.gov, click C, and then pick your way through to Cholesterol.

Either way, you get to look at Basics, Research, Overviews, Latest News, Diagnosis/Symptoms, Treatment, Prevention/Screening, Alternative Therapy, Nutrition, Disease Management, and Specific Management. But, as Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, one-time Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives used to say, “All politics is local.” The same goes for cholesterol: If yours is worrisome, you want help right in your hometown. So my favorite click on this site is the one labeled Go Local. Click here, choose one of the 19 states listed either from a drop-down list or an interactive map, and you can wander through resources as far as the eye can see — or the typing finger takes you. The only complaint: How come they don’t list all 50 states? For now, the simple answer is, what you see is what you get. But check back later: And, no, I have no answer right now.

National Cholesterol Education Program

www.nhlbi.nih.gov/about/ncep/index.htm www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/cholesterol/index.htm

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) launched the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) in November 1985 with a goal of reducing illness and death from coronary heart disease (CHD) in the United States by reducing the percent of Americans with high blood cholesterol.

Through educational efforts directed at health professionals and the public, the NCEP aims to raise awareness and understanding about high blood cho- lesterol as a risk factor for CHD and the benefits of lowering cholesterol levels as a means of preventing CHD.

The first Web site listed above takes you directly to NCEP. The second provides access directly to the latest cholesterol guidelines:

� The executive summary of the 2001 Third Report of the Expert Panel on Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Cholesterol in Adults, also known as Adult Treatment Panel III (or ATP III for short)

� The full ATP III

� The ATP III Update 2004: Implications of Recent Clinical Trials for the ATP III Guidelines

These reports are widely considered the official word on cholesterol evaluation and treatment for most high-powered health groups, such as the American Heart Association — and for your doctor, too. (For a dissenting view to the ATP III Update, check out Chapter 12.)

Other goodies on this second site include information about cholesterol- lowering drugs and conditions that may increase the risk of elevated cholesterol levels. The “fun part” is an interactive calculator that enables you to predict your ten-year risk of heart attack based on your cholesterol level and other personal risk factors.

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

www.nhlbi.nih.gov

You got a taste of NHLBI from the first list of Web sites in this chapter that sent you to ATP III. Now, open up the door to a ton of statistics and snippets of health information about (what else?) your heart, your lungs, and your blood.

Before you leave this site, take note of something special: a link to studies seeking patients. Before a new medicine or treatment method is approved by the Food and Drug Administration, there must be proof that it’s “safe and efficacious.” (Translation: It won’t kill you, and it does work.)

Much of the required proof comes from government-sponsored trials. To find out more about trials currently in progress, run your mouse over to the left side of the page to the headline Clinical Trials, then go down one line, and click NHLBI Studies Conducted at NIH in Bethesda, MD, to pull up various ongoing studies. Check this out to see if you want to join a trial to assess the potential of a new treatment program.

Stedman’s Online Medical Dictionary

www.stedmans.com/section.cfm/45

Listen, making your way through medical terms, including the various forms of cholesterol, can be a daunting task. Stedman’s is the ne plus ultra (Latin for, “nothing better than this”) medical look-up book. On this version, you can type in a whole word, search by the first two letters of the word, or search backwards, meaning you can type in a keyword or definition and get the exact word you’re looking for. So do it!

WebMD

www.webmd.com

This site is just terrific. Go to the homepage, type cholesterol into the search box, click Enter, and there’s no end to the things you can discover.

The medical experts who run this site keep adding information on cholesterol guidelines, cholesterol-lowering drugs, and cholesterol-control diets. You name it, and it’s here. Best of all, the material is accessible, reliable, and . . . well, you fill in whatever good word comes to mind.

Read More

Mouth-Watering Morsels for Special Occasions: Creating healthy munchies with satisfying flavor and crunch and Trying some delicious heart-healthy recipes.

Mouth-Watering Morsels for Special Occasions

In This Chapter

� Creating healthy munchies with satisfying flavor and crunch

� Trying some delicious heart-healthy recipes

When your doc gives you the good news that your cholesterol is under control, you have

cause to celebrate. And even when you’re still working toward lowering your cholesterol, special occasions abound. Unfortunately, party foods, by definition, are full of flavor and not short on fat. But missing your son’s wedding, skipping out on your best friend’s birthday party, or opting not to throw your annual holiday bash isn’t an option.

The good news is that many of the foods recommended for heart health are already standard party fare. Nuts to nibble, avocado in guacamole, smoked salmon with capers, and olives of all sorts are green-light foods. Making sure they’re healthy is just a matter of how you prepare them.

Think of cooking as an art rather than a science. The recipes in this chapter are guidelines; don’t stress if you can’t find the exact ingredients or if your measurements are just a bit off. Adding a little more or less of an ingredient won’t ruin anything, and you just might end up creating something you like even better. The prep time estimates I give you include the time it takes to wash fruits and veggies under cold running water and to cut, assemble, and measure all ingredients. The temperature for all recipes is in Fahrenheit. Also note that the little tomato you see on the “tabs” in front of the recipe names indicate that the recipe is vegetarian.

In this chapter, you discover heart-healthy foods with crunch that haven’t been deep-fried, and satisfying nibbles high in the right sort of fats. I give an assortment of quick and easy recipes for basic party offerings, including a vegetarian pâté and marinated olives. Presentation of food is also part of the drill. Read on to find all sorts of suggestions for creating scrumptious party offerings that meet your dietary needs.

If you love this chapter, check out Low-Cholesterol Cookbook For Dummies by Molly Siple, MS, RD (Wiley) for more great culinary tips and tempting recipes to help get your cholesterol under control.

Little Bites a Cardiologist Would Love

The hors d’oeuvres and little nibbles that meet the nutritional requirements of a cholesterol-lowering, heart-healthy diet are so numerous they would fill a buffet table. These morsels feature raw vegetables, fresh herbs, healthy fats, chicken, and fish. In addition, these foods are eaten in very small amounts, but many are so tasty that you’ll be tempted to make a meal out of them.

Adding crunch to party fare

Healthy foods, perhaps because they’re never deep-fried, often lack crunch, leaving you longing for the sound of crispy food and a satisfying chew. Party favorites like potato chips and tacos are full of crunch, while healthier foods, such as grains, nut butters, and vegetables, are quiet foods. The following gives you ways to combine the best of both worlds: the cholesterol-conscious and the crispy.

Crostini

Toast is crunchy, so how about starting with that and making some crostini, which means “little toasts” in Italian. Here’s how to prepare crostini:

1. Adjust the rack of a broiler so that it’s at least 4 inches from the heat source and preheat the broiler.

2. Cut a slim baguette of French bread (about 2 inches in diameter and sold in specialty bakeries and upscale supermarkets) into thin slices and place on a large baking sheet.

Cut slices of bread on the diagonal for a stylish presentation.

3. Brush the slices on one or both sides with a little olive oil and rub one or both sides with a halved clove of garlic.

4. Broil the bread so that one side is lightly toasted.

5. Turn the bread over and broil for a minute or two, making sure that the bread doesn’t toast all the way through.

Use crostini as a platform for other foods. Here are some suggested toppings:

� A smear of tapenade, an olive paste seasoned with capers, anchovies, garlic, and lemon juice and sold in jars

� Goat cheese mixed with fresh herbs, such as basil and parsley, and topped with a sliver of sun-dried tomato

� A spoonful of garlicky, mashed cannellini beans scented with oregano

Homemade baked tortilla chips

Instead of noshing on corn chips fried in who-knows-what kind of oil and loads of salt, enjoy the crunch of home-baked tortilla chips. Start with corn tortillas or whole-wheat tortillas, both made with whole grains, far healthier than white flour tortillas. Here’s the procedure:

1. Using a pastry brush, brush each side of a corn tortilla with unrefined safflower oil or lightly spray each side, using an oil sprayer filled with unrefined oil.

To give the chips a southwest flavor, sprinkle the oiled tortillas with ground cumin or chili powder.

2. Stack the tortillas and cut them into 8 wedges, as you would a pie.

3. Place the wedges in a single layer on an ungreased baking sheet and bake in a preheated 400-degree oven, until they just begin to become golden, 10 to 12 minutes.

Serve tortilla chips with a bean dip for a dose of soluble fiber. Or use guacamole, which is a great source of folate, or classic tomato salsa, which is full of healthy ingredients.

Doing the crudité dip

Eating raw vegetables at parties became chic when the veggies took on the name crudité, which is French for “raw.” They are indeed refreshing, crispy, and full of all the vitamins and minerals nature gave them. But what do you do with all the bits of vegetable after you cut them? Choose one of the following ideas to bring order to the chaos:

� Start with sticks of carrot, celery, and seeded cucumber, and maybe some blanched asparagus or blanched string beans, and give each vegetable a separate container, such as glass tumblers, colorful ceramic mugs, or small flower vases. Cluster the containers on the serving table, creating a vegetable forest.

� Arrange vegetables on a long, rectangular platter or basket lined with kale, and give each vegetable its own row.

� Tuck raw vegetables between the leaves of a full head of Boston lettuce, following the instructions in the recipe, Crudité with Mango Salsa and Creamy Avocado Dip.

Figure on 1 cup of dip for every 20 guests. If you’re serving chunky dips, you may need a bit more.

The fat of the matter: Acceptable appetizers

One of the great pleasures of party food is that it’s full of hard-to-resist assertive flavors, in part because the food is also full of fat, a flavor carrier. Taking a holiday from diet restrictions, the most careful of eaters will graciously accept the hot cheese puffs and chocolate truffles being offered. But there’s no reason you can’t enjoy the feel of fat, even if you’re watching your cholesterol. You have options.

Nuts and olives

Nuts and olives are two classic cocktail nibbles that are perfectly acceptable heart-healthy foods. In numerous studies, both nuts and olives, the basis of the famed Mediterranean diet, have been linked to a lower risk of heart dis- ease. In addition, the monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats in these foods help control cholesterol.

So which nuts have the most of these healthy fats and are low in the cholesterol-raising saturated kind? Here are a few that fit the bill:

� Almonds

� Filberts

� Pecans

� Pistachios

� Walnuts

One way to include nuts in a party menu is to add walnuts to hummus, puree- ing them along with the other ingredients. The rich, mellow flavor of walnuts blends well with the flavors of the other ingredients, and walnuts add omega-3 fatty acids, making hummus even more nutritious. Here’s how to make it: In a food processor, combine 2 cups chickpeas (one 15-ounce can), 1⁄2 cup walnuts, 1⁄2 cup tahini sesame paste, 1⁄4 cup fresh lemon juice, and 1 clove garlic, plus water or oil to reach the desired consistency. Season with cumin and salt.

Cheeses

You can save on fat by eating lowfat and nonfat cheeses or having a soy cheese look-alike, but I can’t promise you great flavor or texture in all cases. For instance, I’d rather have a shaving of world-class Parmigiano-Reggiano as a garnish for slices of pear topped with a paper-thin slice of prosciutto, than a large wedge of rubbery, nonfat mozzarella any day. But do sample some lowfat cheese and see what you think. For instance, lowfat ricotta can be very satisfying. If you want to cut back on fat intake and still eat cheese, modified products let you keep these creamy-tasting foods in your diet.

When shopping for cheese, be sure to read the label for content of total fat and saturated fat as well as cholesterol. The amounts present vary among producers. Cheeses such as Camembert, Brie, Roquefort, cheddar, and American processed cheese can contain more than 25 percent of your daily quota of saturated fat and about 10 percent of a day’s worth of cholesterol. And these amounts are in just 1 ounce, which isn’t very much, especially for a devoted cheese eater. Best to stay away from these unless you can stop after one nibble. Feta and mozzarella, the full-fat kind, are lower in fat and cholesterol and are better choices.

For the feel of fat on the tongue, use lowfat yogurt and lowfat sour cream, both very palatable, in your hors d’oeuvres.

Caviar

If any food says “special occasion,” it’s caviar. Caviar is salted fish eggs, so, just like chicken eggs, it’s a whole food and a balanced source of nutrition. In addition, although fat contributes 61 percent of the calories, caviar, like fish, contains mostly the healthy monounsaturated and polyunsaturated kinds. Admittedly, caviar is high in sodium (containing 240 mg per tablespoon) and in cholesterol (containing 31.3 mg per teaspoon), but you’re not likely to be eating a bowlful of caviar anyway.

I give you two ways of serving caviar that give you a smidgeon of this glamorous stuff. On a budget, use black lumpfish caviar, golden whitefish caviar, or salmon red caviar, all sold in little jars in supermarkets. Otherwise, invest in some American farm-raised caviar or the even pricier imported sevruga, osetra, or beluga caviar.

1. Boil round, red potatoes, the smallest you can find, until they’re cooked through and tender.

2. Peel the potatoes, slice in half crosswise, and cut some potato off the base of each half, so the potato is steady when placed on a plate.

3. Using a melon baller, cut into the flat surface of each potato half and scoop out a little bowl in the middle.

4. Fill the hollow of each potato with lowfat sour cream and sprinkle the sour cream with caviar.

For this elegant hors d’oeuvre, caviar is displayed on pale chartreuse Belgium endive.

1. Wash a head of Belgium endive and cut it at the base to separate leaves.

2. Using a teaspoon, place a small dollop of lowfat sour cream at the wider end of each leaf and then sprinkle caviar on the sour cream.

3. Garnish the caviar and sour cream with a tiny sprig of dill.

4. On a round serving platter, arrange these like spokes, with the narrow end of the leaf pointing out.

Getting some help: Ready-made appetizers

I often serve canned stuffed grape leaves and no one is the wiser. My guests sometimes even ask for the recipe. You can find heart-healthy, ready-made appetizers in supermarkets or natural foods stores. Offer some of the following on their own or add them to a few of your own appetizers:

� Roasted sweet red peppers

� Marinated artichoke hearts

� Smoked salmon

� Sliced veggies from the salad bar, to serve as crudités with a dip

� Stuffed tortellini (serve it on skewers)

� Freeze-dried vegetable crunchies, such as corn, peas, red bell peppers, carrots, and tomatoes, produced with no added fat and sold in natural food stores

� Canned stuffed grape leaves

Tasty Recipes to Impress Your Guests

The recipes in this section are attractive to the eye, and you and your guests will likely count them among your favorites for regular snacking. The Citrus- Scented Marinated Olives, in particular, are known to be highly addictive!

Some of the following recipes are hearty and healthy enough to be served as a main course as well as party munchies. You can even turn the Mushroom Pâté into a pasta sauce, as I explain in the recipe introduction. Use this section as inspiration — take a look at your favorite heart-healthy meals to see whether you can serve any of them as hors d’oeuvres at your next gathering.

Almonds have more of the monounsaturated fats, the cornerstone of the heart-healthy Mediterranean diet, than any other nut. Scent them with spices, add some raisins, and you’ve created a healthy treat. The small amount of butter in this recipe imparts its inimitable flavor without adding much saturated fat. When nuts are toasted in this way, they don’t absorb much of the cooking oils because they already contain a large amount of fat. Serve this snack with cocktails or after-dinner coffee.

1 In a skillet over medium heat, melt the butter and combine with the oil.

2 Add the almonds and toss to coat with the oil. Sprinkle the almonds with the cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg and toss to combine ingredients. Toast, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes.

3 Add the raisins and continue to cook the almond mixture until the nuts begin to brown, an additional 2 to 3 minutes. Season to taste with salt. Make sure to cool the nuts completely before storing.

Put one of these olives in your mouth, close your eyes, and you can taste summer in Provence! Let the Mediterranean flavors transport you. This recipe uses brine-cured olives, but if you want to cut back on salt, ordinary canned olives work fine as well. Use pitted ones so that more of the marinade can find its way into the olives. You can also marinate these olives in olive oil, but I use water here to cut back on calories and create a lighter taste.

1 tablespoon grated orange peel 1 tablespoon grated lemon peel 2 bay leaves

2 anchovies, minced, or 2 tablespoons anchovy paste

1⁄2 teaspoon dried thyme

1 Combine the olives, garlic, orange juice, lemon juice, orange peel, lemon peel, bay leaves, anchovies, and thyme in a glass jar with a tight-fitting lid.

2 Add enough water to the citrus marinade to cover the olives.

3 Seal the jar with the lid and shake the jar several times to distribute and combine the ingredients.

4 Refrigerate the olives for 3 days, shaking the jar once each day to keep the marinade well mixed.

Go-With: Serve the olives with goat cheese and a baguette of French bread.

Skewered Scallop Seviche with Avocado

Seviche, popular in Latin America, is raw fish that has been marinated in citrus juice, usually lime. The acid in the fruit “cooks” the fish. Any white-fleshed fish or scallops can be prepared this way. Shellfish has a reputation for being high in cholesterol, but a serving of 4 skewers of these scallops contains only 16 mg of cholesterol.

1 In a shallow 8-inch square baking dish, combine the juice, cilantro, onion, and garlic.

2 Rinse the scallops. If necessary, remove the tough, stark white hinge that attaches the scallop to the shell. Place the scallops in the lime juice marinade. Cover and refrigerate a minimum of 4 hours, or overnight. The scallops are “cooked” when they’re opaque.

3 Cut each tomato in half crosswise. Peel and remove the seed of the avocados and cut them into 3⁄4-inch cubes. The cubes need to be substantial enough so that they don’t fall off the skewer. Drain the seviche and season to taste with salt and pepper.

4 Assemble the skewers by threading the components in this order: 1 scallop, 1 cube avocado, 1 scallop, and 1 cherry tomato half. Run the skewer through the center of the face of the tomato where it was cut and then out the top through the skin, so the tomato becomes a cap on the other foods.

5 On a round platter, arrange the skewers of seviche like spokes of a wheel, with the tomato caps at the center. Or use a horizontal tray and place the skewers in a row with the food colors forming stripes.

Crudités with Mango Salsa and Creamy Avocado Dip

The inspiration for this recipe is a delicious combo dip I buy ready-made, a container with a layer of fresh guacamole topped with a layer of mango salsa. The combination of smooth and spicy is just right. The Creamy Avocado Dip included here is full of healthy monounsaturated fats and is high in folic acid, while the Mango Salsa gives you an effortless way to increase your fruit intake. For the crudités, try using only green and white vegetables, like I suggest here, for a designy, high-style look.

1 Taking the base of a head of Boston lettuce in one hand, gently open the leaves of the lettuce with the other hand, wiggling your fingers down between the leaves. (If the lettuce is sandy, submerge the opened head in a sink filled with water and briefly swish to loosen dirt. Drain upside down in an empty dish rack before proceeding.)

2 Meanwhile, peel the turnip and cut in 1⁄4-inch rounds. Picture the turnip slice as the earth and cut a small V-shaped wedge at the North Pole and South Pole. Also make two V-shaped wedges at each end of the “equator.”

3 Bring about an inch of water to boil in a skillet and add the asparagus. Cook until the asparagus is bright green and al dente, about 2 minutes. Remove with tongs, and sub- merge the asparagus spears in a bowl of cold water until they reach room temperature.

4 Tuck the turnip slices, asparagus, endive leaves, and cucumber between the lettuce leaves. Serve with the Mango Salsa and Creamy Avocado Dip.

Vary It! If you decide your crudité composition is begging for more color, add carrot sticks.

Tip: If the Boston lettuce on display has had the outside leaves removed, ask the produce manager where you shop to bring you a full and untrimmed head from the cartons of pro- duce stored in the back.

Per serving: Calories 8 (From Fat 1); Fat 0g (Saturated 0g); Cholesterol 0mg; Sodium 8mg; Carbohydrate 2g (Dietary Fiber 1g); Protein 1g.

Mango Salsa

This recipes lives and dies on whether the mango is sweet with a smooth texture, so chose your mango with care. When ripe, a mango yields to gentle pressure like a ripe avocado, and the stem end has a gentle aroma. Choose plump mangos, avoiding those with bruised or shriveled skin. This nonfat mix of healing fruits and vegetables also goes great with chicken and fish.

1 Put the mango, sweet red pepper, onion, chile, cilantro, and lime juice in a mixing bowl. Toss gently to combine the ingredients.

2 Season to taste with salt and serve immediately.

Per serving: Calories 16 (From Fat 9); Fat 1g (Saturated 0g); Cholesterol 0mg; Sodium 20mg; Carbohydrate 2g (Dietary Fiber 1g); Protein 0g.

Creamy Avocado Dip

Sour cream dips have just the right tartness to complement the sweetness of fresh, raw vegetables. Cut the saturated fat of the cream by making the dip with lowfat or nonfat sour cream, and as in this recipe, substituting some of the sour cream with avocado to add healthier fats.

1 Put the sour cream in a food processor fitted with a metal blade.

2 Add the cumin to the sour cream in the processor, and then add the avocado, garlic, and cilantro. Process until smooth, scraping down the side of the processor bowl if necessary to incorporate all the ingredients.

3 Season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer the dip to a small serving bowl and garnish with chopped cilantro. Serve immediately. (The dip can also be prepared earlier the same day you plan to serve it. Press plastic wrap onto the surface of the dip so that no air comes in contact with the avocado in the dip to keep it from turning brown. Refrigerate until ready to serve and add the cilantro garnish right before serving.)

With its hearty texture, rich brown hues, and a dash of sherry, this vegetarian mush- room pâté is much more than a passable substitute for the regular pork and liver versions. Instead, cashews are added as a source of oils. This pâté is such a winner that I experimented thinning it with a little white wine and making it into a pestolike pasta sauce, served with penne. It worked!

1 In a large, heavy skillet over medium heat, heat 4 tablespoons of the oil and add the shallots, garlic, and mushrooms. Cook until the mixture begins to brown and all the liquid evaporates, stirring frequently, 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the moisture content of the mushrooms. Remove the skillet from the heat.

2 In a food processor fitted with a metal blade, chop the cashews until they have a fine texture. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon oil and continue to process to make a coarse paste.

3 Add the mushroom mixture, basil, parsley, and sherry. Pulse the processor on and off until the pâté has a coarse texture. Season to taste with the salt and pepper.

4 Transfer the mushroom pâté to a small ceramic loaf pan, or a bowl lined with plastic wrap so you can easily pop out the pâté. Cover and chill 4 hours. Serve in the loaf pan, or turn the pâté out of the bowl and garnish with sprigs of parsley. Enjoy on crostini.

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