At last, tomatoes improve their reputation despite recent reports of them causing cases of salmonella. Just last week, Springer's journal "Biotechnology Letter" had a study on how transgenic plants, like tomatoes, are used to produce a vaccine against Alzheimer's disease.

Would we simply need to eat more tomatoes to ward off symptoms of Alzheimer's disease? According to the report, researchers believe that tomatoes may help create an edible cure for the disease. To prevent Alzheimer's disease, scientists are looking to stimulate the immune system to reduce beta-amyloid which is a toxic protein in the brain that destroys neurons. Apparently, the tomatoes had strong immune responses on mice which lead scientists to wonder the possibilities of a tomato-based cure for the disease.

So, just when you thought you should avoid tomatoes, it turns out they might be incredibly beneficial to your health. Finally, you could enjoy your cool refreshing mildly spicy gazpacho soup without wondering about the tomatoes causing salmonella.

If you're trying to lose weight this summer to fit into that very special bathing suit, you should consider keeping a food diary. A recent study from the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research shows that maintaining a daily food diary doubles a person's weight loss. This recent discovery comes from one of the largest and longest running weight loss maintenance trials ever conducted.

Since more than two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, the results from this study seem crucial in helping Americans lose weight more easily. It's also worth noting that since African Americans have a higher risk of conditions aggravated by being overweight, including diabetes and heart disease, the research recruited 44 percent of its study participants from the African American community.

While it seems obvious that writing a daily account of our food intake will help us lose weight, we seem to forget it. Now, it's proven to work. I have to admit that on the rare occasions when I've kept a food diary, I was often shocked to see the laundry list of junk food I eat. Have you ever kept a food diary? If so, what were some of the foods you were surprised to see reoccurring in your daily diet?

I don't have any children, but I like to think that I'd be a good mom if I did. I'd read to them, try to get them interested in many different areas, and most of all teach them about food. Of course I'd want to try and raise sophisticated eaters, but I'd also teach them about eating healthily.

There are lots of ways to go about doing that, but I think that healthy eating websites would be a good tool to have in the bag. As I don't have any kids, I have no idea what's out there, but this website was brought to my attention recently. Playnormous is an online community for parents and kids to learn about healthy eating. There are games and animations, as well as a blog in which the posts talk about basic web lingo.

I looked around Playnormous and played the Food Fury game. I have to say, the site is really cute, and, even though it's for kids, I had fun playing the game. If you have kids, check it out. It may be a fun way to help teach your kids to eat well.

I don't eat as healthy as I should (the entire bag of Dove milk chocolate I ate last night is proof of that), but I'm always looking at ways to make my diet a lot better.

Cooking Light has picked five healthy food trends that you might want to follow. I've heard of most of them, though Flexitarianism is a new term to me, even though I would say many American's follow this without even know it. It's when a person eats a diet that's mostly grains, vegetables, and fruit, with a little meat, fish, poultry, and dairy mixed in too. Functional Foods are foods that are enriched with more nutrients, such as orange juice with calcium. We know what Organic Food, Locally Grown Foods, and Vegetarianism represent, but are you familiar with Slow Food? I first heard this term a few years ago (and there have been books written about it and it's a growing movement). It's choosing locally grown food, cooking it in traditional ways and then eating it with family, something that a lot of families don't do nowadays. Whenever I hear the term I think "food that's not cooked in a microwave," though I doubt that's the real definition.

There are lists of good foods. There are list of bad foods. Some of the foods show up in both places. It's hard to keep track of what we should be eating when health and nutrition "news" comes at us from every direction, but nutrition professor and writer Chris Rosenbloom has culled that information, translated it, categorized it, and created a list of 50 ways to help us eat healthier. None of his tips are earth-shattering, but it's nice to have them all in one place. For the details, see his list, but here are the major categories of types of things to do with a few examples of his tips:

• Reduce risk of disease, e.g. olive oil, yogurt, and nuts
  
• Increase fiber, e.g. eat fruit instead of drinking its juice
  
• Manage weight, e.g. monitor liquid calories
  
• Snacking smart, e.g. microwave popcorn with no butter
  
• Eating out, e.g. choose fish to be grilled or blackened instead of fried
  
• Sneaking in more produce, e.g. add dried fruit to breakfast cereal and top chicken breasts with salsa
  
• Finding resources, e.g. www.mypyramid.gov and www.eatright.org

Tonight TLC will begin airing a new series entitled, Honey, We're Killing the Kids!. The show will focus on 13 families from across the nation who's children's eating habits have become seriously unhealthy. A constant intake consisting of over sized portions of sugary, fat laden, low fiber foods has left these children inactive and at high risks for diabetes and heart disease.

Dr. Lisa Hark, who hosts the series, focuses on the cause of this epidemic in our country. She helps educate the families about how to make healthier food and activity choices that will benefit their lives for the longterm. She also uses a computer imaging program that takes a current picture of their child and fast forwards it into young adulthood to give the parents a frightening look at how obesity will shape their children.

Now, if you'll just have this healthy beer for breakfast and for lunch, and a sensible dinner...

Beer. It could be the next product to use heart health benefits as one of its key marketing attributes, if the diet-blog's interpretation of new FDA rules catches on. According to a recent FDA announcement, "whole grain barley and barley-containing products are allowed to claim that they reduce the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD)." As we all know, beer contains barley! Next thing you know, your favorite brew will contain a label that says, "drinking this beer contributes to a healthy heart and may attract bikini-clad women!*"

Naturally, there's a catch. Evidently the beer is a bit too low on fiber to qualify. Oh well, maybe 2006 will bring more and looser FDA rules. We can but hope.

*That last part hasn't been vetted by the FDA. Yet.

[Thanks for the tip, Jim, and to Ernest von Rosen for the photo]