Ah, avocado! Not so long ago, people living outside the Sun Belt knew little about avocados. They might have been available in the grocery stores, but the quality left much to be desired. Many shoppers looked at them and thought, “Ee-ewww!” But that has changed today. Rapid transport and commercial growers have found quicker ways to get them to market and fans have reacted positively to the opportunity to make their own guacamole at home.

Guacamole is almost certainly the most common way to consume this creamy, delicious super-food. About half a cup of avocado chunks, one small fruit or perhaps what you might eat in a feast of chips and guacamole, has a surprising 5 grams of fiber, about 20% of your daily needs. Most creamy foods don’t have nearly that much fiber.

Avocados make the super food list not only because of their rich fiber content, but also because of their treasure trove of monounsaturated fat—the good kind. Avocados are rich in beta-sitosterol, a natural substance shown to significantly lower blood cholesterol levels. This nutrient has the ability to reduce the levels of LDL cholesterol (bad fat) and triglycerides, both associated with heart disease, and increase the levels of HDL cholesterol (good fat), which tends to lower the risk of heart disease. The fat doesn’t come cheap, of course. That half-cup of chunks has 120 calories, so don’t go overboard eating them.

Avocados are also a good source of your daily needs of Vitamin C (almost 15%), Vitamin K (20%), and folate (15%), as well as 10% of your potassium needs. Although avocados have just a smidge of protein, it is complete protein, meaning it contains the complete array of all amino acids needed to supply your body. This luscious, buttery fruit has other uses beside guacamole. Try slicing it and adding it to a sandwich instead of mayonnaise or butter—yum! You can even mash it and mix it half-and-half with less healthy salad dressing to top green salads or to add to pasta salads. Just keep in mind that you will have to eat the salad right away to avoid the browning avocado is prone to show.

I guess I could just say “legumes” instead of beans and lentils, because black-eyed peas fall into the superfood category, as well. However you refer to them, beans qualify as a superfood based on their high protein, high fiber, and easy fit in the family budget. Beans are probably best known for their fiber—and its side effects. Beans are loaded with insoluble fiber, which helps manage blood sugar and lower cholesterol, as well as soluble fiber, which fills you up and helps rid your body of waste. A serving of 100 grams, or just a smidge over a half cup, provides 9 grams of fiber, about a third of your daily requirement.

Black beans and kidney beans are among the most nutritious of beans because of their dark colors. Other varieties have a tad more or less fiber, iron, or other nutrients, but they are all within a close range. Beans have an enviable 9 grams of protein in that half-cup serving and they make an excellent substitute for meat. With physicians and dieticians increasingly warning us of the health risks of eating too much red meat, beans and lentils are ideal substitutes. When mixed with rice or other grains, beans form a complete protein with all the amino acids your body needs.

Beans have virtually no fat or cholesterol and they are a good source of iron, phosphorus, thiamine, and manganese, as well as an excellent source of folate, supplying a third or more of your daily needs. Lentils have those same benefits, plus even more folate, phosphorus, potassium, copper, and iron than black or kidney beans. Lentils also have the benefit of less cooking time than dried beans and they don’t require soaking.

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Spinach used to get a bad rap with children, but back then, moms often cooked it to death and then served it with bitter vinegar. Today, spinach appears in homes more often as fresh, tender leaves served raw in salads or briefly sautéed with other veggies in stir-fries. A salad of about three cups of young spinach is a treasure of nutrition, with six times your required vitamin K for the day, to help build strong bones and healthy blood. Spinach additionally has twice your vitamin A and almost half of your vitamin C and folate, a powerful B vitamin that helps prevent birth defects, heart disease, colon cancer, and dementia.

Lutein is a compound that fights cataracts and macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness as people age, and that spinach salad is packed with over 12,000 micrograms of it, as well as a bit of protein and 3 grams of fiber. In fact, the attributes of spinach sound like a laundry list of nutrients: spinach is a very good source of dietary fiber, protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin K, thiamin, riboflavin, vitamin B6, folate, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, copper, and manganese. Popeye knew what he was talking about!

Like most other vegetables, spinach has virtually no fat or cholesterol, and the price you pay for enjoying this superfood is just 23 calories. With a nod to those who prefer cooked spinach, while raw spinach has more vitamin C and folate, cooked spinach has more calcium and zinc. Some new ways to increase the spinach in your diet is to coarsely chop it to toss into omelets or frittatas, fold it into enchiladas or quesadillas, or add it to pasta. Cook the pasta normally, and during the last minute or two, add a couple generous handfuls of baby spinach to the pot. It cooks in nothing flat, retaining its rich green color. Drain the pasta and spinach together, then return them to the pot and stir in a couple spoons of pesto, some sundried tomatoes, and a dollop of feta or goat cheese. Yum!

This unassuming fuzzy fruit, named for the kiwi bird of New Zealand, is a surprise as the most nutrient-dense fruit. Just one large kiwi, peeled, has as much potassium, which may help control blood pressure, as a small banana (about 10% of your daily needs) and as much vitamin C, important for a healthy immune system, as an orange, about 1½ times your daily needs. A kiwifruit has about three grams of fiber, 10% of your fiber for a day, and triple that if you eat the skin, which is completely edible. Many people are put off by the stickery fuzz, but you can use a soft brush to scrub that off if you find it objectionable.

Kiwis contain no cholesterol or saturated fat and have about half your recommended vitamin K, all for 56 calories, about 2/3 of the calories of an equal size banana. The surprising nutrient in kiwifruit is the powerful antioxidant vitamin E, and kiwi is just about the only nonfat source of that vitamin. A large kiwi has 7% of your vitamin E for a day, a real nutrition bonus. Kiwi are also a good source of copper and they’re rich in lutein, a carotenoid essential for vision health that can also help reduce the risk of heart disease.

Kiwifruit are inexpensive and are available year-round. Choose kiwis that are soft to the touch, like a ripe peach, or let them ripen on the counter for a day or two. After that, kiwis keep best in the refrigerator for up to a week. Kiwis are easy to eat, once you know the tricks. You can cut it in half and scoop it out with a spoon, or cut off each end and run a table knife around the fruit inside the skin.

You can add kiwis to any fruit salad and toss them into smoothies. Make chilled fruit kabobs with kiwi, peaches, and grapes or slice them onto a dessert pizza. Dice them onto breakfast cereal for a bright change from berries. Or try something new by spreading whole wheat tortillas with lowfat cream cheese, tucking in kiwi and mango slices, and grilling them for a healthy twist on dessert. Drizzle on a couple teaspoons of caramel ice cream topping and you have a treat everyone will love.

January is the time for New Year’s resolutions, and on top of almost everyone’s list is to lose weight. To lose weight and keep it off, you need a plan, and yogurt should be a part of that plan. The yogurt we’re talking about here is plain, lowfat yogurt. Yogurt comes in a huge number of varieties, including sweetened with lots of fruit, artificially sweetened with some fruit, thick and creamy Greek style, nonfat, full fat, and endless numbers of flavors. But for simplicity, we’re going to stick with the basics.

An 8-oz. serving of yogurt has 154 calories, so it’s not calorie-free, but that serving is packed with nutrition. It provides you with 13 grams of protein, over a quarter of your needs for a day, which makes it a very filling food that stays with you. You also get nearly half your recommended calcium—great for women—and about a third each of your recommended riboflavin and phosphorous. Each cup provides over 20% of your vitamin B12 and about 15% each of potassium and zinc.

You might find plain yogurt a bit bland, but that’s part of what makes it so versatile. You can mix it with any fruit for a tasty snack or whirr it in a blender with bananas and other fruits (think berries) for great smoothies. Yogurt is great layered into a glass with dry cereal and fruit. You can use it in dips that are far more nutritious than those with a sour cream base and substitute it for mayo in salad dressings or in chicken or tuna salads.

A unique benefit of yogurt is that it is made and even supplemented with beneficial probiotic bacteria during the manufacturing process. These bacteria enrich and support similar bacteria found naturally in our digestive systems, and eating yogurt regularly can help calm digestion and ease diarrhea, bloating, and other digestive upsets. Yogurt is particularly helpful for people taking antibiotics, which often reduce or kill the natural bacteria in the digestive system, creating digestive havoc.

While lactose intolerance might be a concern for some, many lactose-intolerant people can eat yogurt without problems. Yogurt contains lower amounts of lactose than milk does because the lactose in the milk is converted to lactic acid by the bacterial cultures during processing.

Late fall is the time stores fill bins to overflowing with piles of mixed nuts: walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts (filberts), almonds, and brazil nuts. It’s the right time to stock up on these crunchy treats for holiday snacking. A handful of nuts, about a quarter cup, satisfies the desire for a munchy snack and provides a nutrition bonus you won’t find in any bag of salty chips. Their high protein content (about 10% of your daily needs in that quarter cup) fills you up more quickly than a handful of most any other snack, and by cracking your own shells, you eat fewer and avoid the landmine of salt in chips or jarred nuts. If you don’t want to shell your own nuts, purchase them in the baking aisle of your store, not the snack aisle, to avoid the salt and other additives. We’ll give you a quick rundown on the nutrition in the varieties.

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Flaxseed, specifically, ground flaxseed, is a healthy addition to anyone’s diet. It’s a superfood because it’s a non-animal source of valuable Omega 3s, which help lower LDL cholesterol. A single tablespoon contains over 1500 mg. of Omega 3s! You can sprinkle ground flaxseed (whole flaxseed passes through the body virtually untouched, without releasing nutrients) on breakfast cereal or add it to muffins, cakes, or breads you bake yourself.

Ground flaxseed is an excellent source of dietary fiber, with 2 grams of fiber in just a tablespoon. It’s a very good source of thiamine and manganese, as well as a good source of magnesium, phosphorus, and copper.

You could probably sprinkle ground flaxseed on most anything, from fresh fruit to yogurt to even vegetables, and you can add it to smoothies. The downside of flaxseed is the calorie count. Because it is such a rich source of Omega 3 oils, it has 150 calories in a quarter cup, about what you might add to a baked goods recipe. That’s 37 calories per tablespoon of ground flaxseed. If you sprinkle a tablespoon on your cereal every morning, that’s an extra 1000 calories a month. That was nearly enough to scare me off.

But we still had most of a bag of ground flaxseed left, and I certainly wasn’t going to throw it away. I spent some time thinking about what I could add it to where it wouldn’t make the calorie count skyrocket. I finally hit upon the answer: add it to our soft margarine! I know that sounds strange, but for us, it’s the answer. I use about two or three tablespoons of flaxseed in a small, 8-oz. tub of soft margarine, although you could add more or less to suit your taste.

Margarine is already a fat, so the calories are the same (or less). And you add the benefit of extra fiber to the food. Most of our margarine is used for toast. We can barely see the flaxseed when we butter our toast, and on the rare occasion that we butter vegetables, such as a baked sweet potato, the flaxseed is not objectionable. It adds a little color and texture to the veggies. If you’re looking for a way to add the superfood flaxseed to your diet painlessly, consider adding it to your margarine.

Salmon is the richest source of omega-3 fatty acids. Any salmon is good for you, but wild salmon is 15% richer in omega-3s, the nutrients you eat salmon for, and it doesn’t carry the dangers that can be spread by careless or unscrupulous salmon farming. Studies have shown that omega-3 fatty acids help protect heart health, which is why the American Heart Association recommends eating fatty fish like salmon twice each week. Omega-3s help reduce blood clotting, improve cholesterol counts, help prevent heart attacks, improve insulin sensitivity, and help build muscle due to their anti-inflammatory properties.

Wild salmon has 5% to 15% higher nutritional content overall than farmed salmon. Although salmon is high in cholesterol, a serving of 100 grams (about 3½ ounces) has half your daily recommended protein, is a good source of selenium, riboflavin, pantothenic acid, and phosphorus, and is very low in saturated fat. Some people want to avoid salmon because of its fat content, but the body needs fat to function, and salmon contains the best kind, polyunsaturated fat. The 3½ ounce serving has a healthy 182 calories packed with nutrition.

Contemporary chefs have created delicious recipes to keep salmon meals interesting. Salmon can be baked or broiled, as well as lightly sautéed. You can adorn it with any number of intriguing sauces and chutneys, such as mango jalapeno chutney, orange-macadamia sauce, green grape and chive salsa, diced tomatoes and cilantro, or classic lemon-dill butter. Salmon salad now doesn’t often mean chopped into a mayo and boiled egg paste, but rather means a warm or chilled fillet topping an array of mixed greens and ripe fruits. Menu favorites include salmon salads with strawberries, blueberries, mandarin oranges, dried cranberries, or black grapes.

Salmon comes in several varieties: Coho, Chinook, Atlantic, chum, and sockeye, as well as fresh, frozen, or canned. Fresh, wild-caught is best, but varieties are seasonal and you should buy what’s freshest. Frozen is fine, and canned is useful for making salmon patties. You can buy premade frozen salmon patties from wild salmon to use as a delicious substitute for beef hamburgers. They are excellent served on a thin bun with lettuce and crunchy pickles.

If you think sweet potatoes belong on the table only at Thanksgiving, and then covered with brown sugar and mini marshmallows, wake up! That scene belongs to your grandmother. Today, sweet potatoes are available all year round, and the best way to enjoy them is baked in the skin. A medium-to-small sweet potato will be about one cup. If that’s too much for you, cut it in half after baking and you can enjoy the other half as a nutritious snack the next day.

Sweet potatoes simply overflow with Vitamin A: a cup of sweet potato has over 700% of the Vitamin A you need in a day! That’s definitely super in my book! It also contains two thirds of your Vitamin C, nearly a third of your Vitamin B6, half your manganese, and a quarter of your potassium. A cup contains 180 calories, so it’s not a low-calorie food, but the nearly 7 grams of fiber in it help offset the calories.

Sweet potatoes have no cholesterol or saturated fat and are low in sodium. As a bonus, they contain substantial amounts of protein, calcium, iron, copper, magnesium, thiamine, riboflavin, and niacin, as well as pantothenic acid. The goodness just keeps on coming with this delicious, easy-to-fix tuber.

Another great way to enjoy sweet potatoes is mashed, like white potatoes, except far more nutritious. Add a dash of nutmeg for a surprising flavor lift. They are delicious roasted with other vegetables. Cut into chunks, toss into a baking dish with chunked apples, onions, and carrots, drizzle with olive oil, and bake at 400 for 45 minutes—yum! Sweet potato pie has begun to hit the mainstream in top restaurants, and although that adds considerable heft to the calorie count, the nutrition remains in the base ingredient.

Other deep orange foods with similar nutrients include pumpkin, butternut squash, and carrots. Sweet potatoes you choose should be firm and heavy. Lighter weights indicate they may have been stored for a long time in low humidity. This will likely produce less flavor and may reduce nutrients, as well.

If you’re lucky, you pick tomatoes out of your garden in August. Tomatoes are just about the hottest and most popular vegetable out there, surpassed in consumption each year only by potatoes. Tomatoes are high in dietary fiber and low in sodium, with no saturated fat or cholesterol. A medium whole tomato, or about 2/3 cup diced, is only 22 calories and provides 25% of your recommended vitamin C and 20% of your recommended vitamin A. They are also a good source of vitamin K, vitamin E, vitamin B6, thiamin, niacin, folate, magnesium, phosphorus, copper, potassium, and manganese. Tomatoes are one of the best nutritional packages around and are commonly available to nearly everyone.

Think of all the different ways you eat tomatoes today. Start with sliced on your plate at a picnic on a hot summer day. Move to piled on a sandwich, then to wedges nestled around a salad, and then to hollowed out and stuffed full of tuna or crab salad. Tomatoes cubed into spicy chili. Tomatoes diced up tiny into tacos.

Think about tomato products. Tomato sauce poured over meatloaf. Tomatoes chopped up with onions and cilantro into salsa for a burrito. Tomatoes simmered with oregano, basil, and garlic into rich goodness to top spaghetti. Ketchup, of course. Tomatoes drowning with molasses and chili peppers in your favorite barbeque sauce. Tomato juice, tomato paste, sun-dried tomatoes, canned crushed tomatoes, Italian-style, Mexican-style, stewed. Is your mouth watering yet?

Heirloom tomatoes have names like Brandywine, Marvel Stripe, and Green Zebra. Heirlooms have become increasingly popular in the last few years and they turn up in organic bistros as well as pricey fine-dining establishments. Individuals cannot supply the growing demand for these tasty reminders of days past, and organic farms, much smaller than the giant commercial operations and often family-operated, are beginning to offer a more reliable supply to restaurateurs and grocers.

The escalating demand for heirlooms is based mostly on flavor, although increasing awareness of pesticides, pollution, and Big Farming have swayed some converts. Consumers have grown tired of the “green baseballs” found on produce shelves these days and long for the flavor of real tomatoes, the kind their parents picked out of the family garden a generation ago. Heirloom varieties offer both flavor and a “greener” footprint.

Whether out of a can or from an organic garden, tomatoes hold a place–indeed, many places–in today’s menus and lifestyles. Lest we forget, the tomato is the basis of that lovely invention, the Bloody Mary.