B.Y.O.F. (Bring Your Own Fruit)

What's the one type of food you just don't seem to get enough of when you are away from home or traveling? Fruit! So I decided to try a little experiment with my family on our trip this past week.

The BYOF Hypothesis:
What if you went out of your way to bring your own fruit with you, or buy some when you got there? Would you miraculously eat more fruit?

The Magee Vacation Experiment:
I packed a small bag of fruit this week on our recent mini vacation (by car) and then kept the fruit visible in our hotel room – we are talking apricots, apples, bananas and pears. What happened? With the exception of a couple of the apples, all were eaten by the end of our stay. The fruit came in handy as snacks, day or night.

Some other ways to work some fruit into your day while traveling is to:

• Order fresh fruit with your entrée at restaurants instead of French fries or other fried side dishes.
• Order a fresh fruit plate with breakfast, lunch or dinner and share it with your table.
• Anytime you see whole pieces of fruit that look good (like at a coffee shop or deli), grab a piece and take it with you. It's highly likely you will have nibbled on it by the end of the day.
• Enjoy some 100% fruit juice every day as a beverage.

Taste Test Tuesday: Mayo Made With Olive Oil?

There are two mayonnaise options on the supermarket shelf these days featuring the nutritionally popular olive oil. It was only a matter of time before mayonnaise would be made with olive oil instead of other vegetable oils like soybean oil.

Kraft Mayo with Olive Oil
It's a bit pricey but this 10-ounce plastic squirt bottle of reduced fat mayonnaise caught my eye. The cap is olive green and there's a picture of an appetizing green olive on the label.

But if you think this product was made exclusively with olive oil, you better check out the ingredient label. You'll find: water, olive oil, canola oil, soybean oil, and vinegar, listed as the first 5 ingredients.

How do the nutritional numbers turn out compared to Best Foods Light Mayonnaise?
Using mostly olive oil has bumped up the monounsaturated fat and bumped down the polyunsaturated fat and saturated fat. The calories are a little higher per tablespoon as well.

Per Tablespoon:

Kraft Mayo with Olive Oil:	Best Foods Light Mayonnaise:
45 calories	35 calories
4 g fat	3.5 g fat
0 g saturated fat	.5 g saturated fat
1 g polyunsaturated fat	2 g polyunsaturated fat
2 g monounsaturated fat	1 g monounsaturated fat
<5 mg cholesterol	<5 mg cholesterol
95 mg sodium	130 mg sodium

How does it taste?
Let's just say I made tuna salad with it and my "Best Foods Light" husband didn't notice the difference. The look and taste of this mayonnaise is similar enough that many would be perfectly content using it in all their sandwich and recipe adventures. Be prepared though, a more discerning mayonnaise fan, however, might raise the red flag in revolt.

Another Option
Best Foods (known as Hellmann's east of the Rocky Mountains) makes a Mayo Dressing With Extra Virgin Olive Oil and they also still use soybean oil. This product is a little higher in calories, grams of fat, and polyunsaturated fat compared to the Kraft Mayo option.

Homemade Cookie Dough You Can Eat Raw!

Nestle Toll House refrigerated cookie dough is the latest in a string of food/product recalls to take place over the past couple of years. Until further notice, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned consumers not to eat any varieties of prepackaged Nestle Toll House refrigerated cookie dough due to the risk of contamination with E. coli O157:H7 (a bacterium that causes food borne illness).

I know how popular commercial cookie dough is in America so to tie everyone over until this recent food safety scare is resolved… how about a recipe for chocolate chip cookies (that just happen to be more healthful)? You can even eat the cookie dough raw because this recipe uses egg substitute instead of eggs (which are pasteurized, eliminating the risk of salmonella from raw eggs.)

Photo: Elaine Magee

Chocolate Chip Oat Cookies
Ingredients:
1/4 cup less fat margarine (with 8 grams fat per tablespoon)
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup egg substitute
3/4 cup whole-wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Pinch or two of ground clove
1/2 cup quick-cooking oats
3/4 cup coarsely chopped pecans (optional)
6 ounces high cacao semi sweet or bittersweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350-degrees. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper.


2. In large mixing bowl, combine margarine, sugars, salt, and vanilla together by beating until well blended (about 2 minutes). Add egg substitute to the mixing bowl and beat until well mixed, scraping sides of bowl midway.


3. In medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and spices. With mixer on low speed, beat half of the flour mixture into the margarine mixture. Beat in remaining flour mixture, oats, pecans (if desired) and chocolate chips.


4. Use a cookie scoop to drop balls of dough onto prepared cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes or until barely golden and still moist. Cool cookies on rack.

Yield: Makes 18 cookies

Nutritional Analysis per cookie: 127 calories, 2.2 g protein, 20 g carbohydrate, 5 g fat, 2.2 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 2 g fiber, 127 mg sodium. Calories from fat: 35 percent.

Taste Test Tuesday: Starbucks Gluten-free Valencia Orange Cake

On top of the pedestal in the bakery case at my local Starbucks was this little orange round cake. You might pass it up thinking it's loaded with sugar and white flour...or you might pass it up because you just noticed the name tag on the product boasts "Gluten-Free", a term that may have come to mean "taste-free" in your house based on sampling other gluten-free products.

But...I didn't pass it up and I shared it with a friend and we were both pleasantly surprised with the taste and the texture. This little cake was so good there is no way I'm sharing my next one!

The first five ingredients are:

Whole eggs
Valencia orange pulp
Almonds
Sugar
Orange peel

If you are slightly alarmed by whole eggs being the first ingredient, know that each cake contains 125 mg cholesterol, which is the equivalent of slightly more than half of an egg. The second ingredient, the orange pulp, is contributing a good portion of the impressive 4 grams of fiber that comes with each cake. Yes, it's pretty high in fat, 16 grams, but there are only 2 grams of saturated fat and zero grams of trans fat per cake serving. Where is the 16 grams coming from anyway? If there is a little over half an egg in each cake then that accounts for 3 grams of fat. And with a little detective work I found out that most of the remaining fat grams come from almonds. The Valencia Orange Cake is composed of 24% almonds in the form of sliced almonds sprinkled on top of the cake and almond flour used in the cake batter. That's good news because almonds are a great source of smart fats and phytochemicals.

The cake definitely doesn't taste too sweet and there is actually less sugar added than there are almonds sprinkled on top as garnish, according to the list of ingredients. Here's what each cake contains:

290 calories
16 g fat
2 g saturated fat
0 g trans fat
125 mg cholesterol
32 g carbohydrate
4 g fiber
40 mg sodium

Related Topics:

• Healthy Fruit Dessert Recipes
• Healthy Cooking with Elaine Magee, RD
• Healthy Cooking Newsletter - recipes, kitchen and shopping advice in your inbox

Toll House Cookie Alternative : Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies

Editor's Note: In light of Nestle USA's voluntary recall of its Toll House refrigerated cookie dough due FDA's investigation of suspected E.coli contamination, Elaine would like you take a second look at this lightened and healthy homemade alternative chocolate chip cookie recipe. Enjoy!


The original recipe for these cookies is a top rated recipe on the Food Network website and it was contributed by Wendy Gaynor, the owner of the Ruby et Violette cookie bakery in New York City. The original recipe calls for a stick of butter; I switched to a less fat margarine with a low amount of saturated fat and no trans fat. I decreased the sugar by 1/3 and used a majority of whole-wheat flour to make the dough, which adds nutrients and fiber. The original cookie recipe calls for 3 types of chips (peanut butter chips, toffee chips and semisweet chocolate chips). I kept the two types of chocolate and took out the toffee chips.

WHAT YOU SAVE
Making these changes cut from each cookie:

• 63 calories
• 5 grams total fat
• 4 grams saturated fat
• 17 mg cholesterol

And fiber increases by about 1 gram per serving!

Lightened NYC Bakery Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Photo: Elaine Magee

Ingredients:

1/2 cup less fat margarine (8 grams fat per tablespoon and no trans fat)
1/2 cup dark brown sugar packed
1 large egg, higher omega-3 if available
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons whole wheat flour
1/2 cup unbleached white flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup peanut butter or butterscotch chips
1/2 cup miniature marshmallows
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips or chunks (60% cocoa if possible)

Preparation:

1. In large mixing bowl, combine margarine with dark brown sugar until thoroughly blended, scarping sides and bottom of bowl frequently. Add in the egg and vanilla extract and beat on low speed, scraping sides and bottom of bowl, until blended.
2. In separate bowl, combine flours, salt and baking soda. Add flour mixture to margarine/sugar mixture while beating on low speed until combined. Stir in both types of chocolate chips and marshmallows with a scraper or spoon. Cover bowl and refrigerate until cold (at least two hours).
3. Preheat oven to 350-degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper and use a cookie scoop to drop balls of dough (about 2 tablespoons each), 2 inches apart, on prepared baking sheet. Bake for about 10 minutes (bake longer if you like your cookies crisp and not chewy). Let them rest on the cookie sheet for a few minutes then remove cookies to a wire rack and let them cool.

Yield: Makes 18 bakery size cookies

Nutrition Information
Per serving: 168 calories, 2 g protein, 23 g carbohydrate, 7.5 g fat, 4 g saturated fat, 11 mg cholesterol, 1.2 g fiber, 112 mg sodium. Calories from fat: 40 percent.

Journal as: 1 portion medium dessert

The Series:

• Comfort Food Makeovers
• The Mashed Potato Makeover
• Macaroni and Cheese, Please!
• The Fried Chicken Makeover
• Top-Rated Gourmet Meatloaf
• Ooey Gooey Chocolate Chip Cookies

Related Topics:

• 100-Calorie Chocolate Treats
• Healthy Cooking with Elaine Magee, RD
• Healthy Cooking Newsletter - recipes, kitchen and shopping advice in your inbox