Every single month of the year has a "National _______ Month" designation. Heck, I think every day has celebrates something. June has a few celebrations, and National Fruit and Vegetable Month is one of them.

Of course, you should eat a lot of fruit and vegetables all year round, but if one month can get you going, then it's a good thing. June is usually the month when I start to eat more salads and apples and oranges anyway, as I'm sure it is with a lot of people, so it's good timing.

Here's more info and tips about the month, along with links to other sites about healthy eating. And if you insist on eating a whole pizza tonight, at least put some mushrooms and onions on it.

So here it is, the day after, and if you're like me, you ate way too much food yesterday.

I got to my sister's house around 11am or so, and started the day with a couple of cups of tea. Then we moved onto the meal, where I had turkey, mashed potatoes, bread stuffing, carrots, cranberry sauce, and rolls. I also made a Cornbread with Apple and Sausage stuffing that seemed to go over well, though I think it was a little dry (if you make that recipe I would either cut the number of stuffing bags to 1 1/2 or up the liquid quite a bit). I had a couple of can of Diet Coke during the meal, so I think that made me feel better about the day.

Of course, I wasn't through yet. Later in the afternoon came all the desserts. I had a piece of my sister's Pumpkin and Cheese Cake Pie, then a slice of Boston Creme Pie. When I left for home around 7:30, I took a place with me that had two slices of banana bread, another slice of the Pumpkin and Cheese Cake Pie, another slice of Boston Creme Pie, and two brownies. All of which I ate when I got home, along with a turkey and stuffing sandwich from the stuff my roommate made earlier in the day. Wow. What did you have to eat yesterday?

(Oh, and I also started feeling rundown last night, and woke up this morning with a head cold, scratchy throat, tired feeling, etc. Am I being punished by the diet Gods?)

In addition to the recalls on California-grown spinach and lettuce on recent weeks, there have also been three cases of botulism liked to carrot juice produced in California, two in Canada and one in the US. It may seem as though the golden state is a hotbed of disreputable produce, but in fact so much is grown in the state that these incidents should hardly be enough to provoke widespread panic.

As much as 80% of Canadian produce, and a huge amount of US produce, comes from California and, though these few cases are certainly discouraging, the vast majority of it is fine. Companies are working to eliminate the possibility of E.coli contamination in their processing centers. Botulism is from a naturally occurring organism found in soil and, with most produce, processing should eliminate any and all traces of it from food. Raw vegetables, particularly "sugary, root vegetables " like carrots, still carry a risk factor, which is how it got in to the carrot juice in the first place.

Red, yellow, green and purple - are rainbow carrots the way of the future? Perhaps, but they could more accurately be called the carrots of the past because they have a long history. Purple and yellow carrots were grown as many as 1,000 years ago in Asia and Western Europe, although selective breeding programs to produce such colors for commercial purposes are fairly recent. Carrots are now regularly bred in purple, red, yellow and white, in addition to orange, and scientists say that there is added nutritional benefit to choosing a colorful vegetable over a more conventional one.

Red carrots have extra lycopene, which is also found in tomatoes and is believed to lower blood pressure and help to reduce the risk of some cancers. Yellow carrots promote eye health with beta-carotene-like pigments, and purple carrots have powerful antioxidants.

Even with health benefits to recommend them, the carrots are not an easy sell. This is in part because neither consumers nor producers are really sure what to look for as a sign of a good purple carrot, whereas most people look for a good color and relatively smooth skin for an orange one. The bigger issue is that consumers don't know what they're going to taste like and are reluctant to branch out. But the carrots taste pretty much the same, regardless of their color, and some taste even sweeter than a standard carrot.

Some Trader Joe's locations started carrying the rainbow carrots this week, and they're worth a try if you see them there or at your local grocery store.

A recent study done by researchers at the University of Wisconsin in Madison found that yellow pigments found in vegetables like corn and squash may help protect women macular degeneration, an age-related disease of vision loss. Their findings were published in the August issue of the Archives of Opthalmology.

Macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness among older Americans. There is no cure for the disease, and current treatments can only slow down the progression. Previous studies have suggested that carotenoids may reduce risk of AMD, and the current findings further support it. Carotenoids are compounds that are found in corn, squash, egg yolks, broccoli, peas and leafy green vegetables.

Sticking to more traditional dog foods, avoiding the fattening gourmet products, is probably the best way to keep your dog trim and happy, but getting Fido out for a few extra walks isn't going to hurt anything, either. We don't want our pets to be denied some of the simple pleasures in life, so keeping a treat or two on hand as a reward is a great idea. The Paw-resian Bistro carries a wide variety of edible and inedible treats for your pooch, from cookies to clothes. The most intriguing offering is a play on the classic French madeline, redesigned to be a healthy snack for man's best friend. The Sunny Carrot Madeline dog treat is shaped just like a real madeline, but lacks the butter and sugar they usually have. Instead, it is full of flour, oats, wheat germ and carrots. Perhaps it isn't gourmet by our standards, but I'm guessing that Fido will love it all the same.