Summer is the season of fruit, since it seems that more things are in season than at any other time of year. Not only is fruit good for you in terms of nutritional value, but fruits can even help you lose weight. The easiest way to incorporate fruits into your diet is to cut up a large bowl of them and keep them in the fridge. A fruit salad will last longer than fruits stored at room temperature and, because they are already cut up, they are available for snacks and other meals.

There is no recipe for fruit salad, so you can include any kind of fruit you like. Melons and stone fruits, such as peaches and nectarines, are good choices and berries, grapes and pineapple work well, too. For breakfast, serve the fruit salad with yogurt and honey, adding a topping of nuts or granola for some crunch. This combination works well for a light lunch, too. Fruit salad can't really be the focus of dinner, but it can still be served as a side and provides a particularly nice contrast to smoky, tangy barbecue.

And for dessert? Berries and sweetened whipped cream still counts as a fruit salad, right?

Both white and yellow peaches have their fans, but what is the difference between the two types of fruits? While they may look the same at first glance, the white-fleshed peaches are often lighter in color than the yellow ones. Their skin will tend more towards pink and less towards orange. White peaches are less acidic than yellow peaches, so their flavor is much softer and more delicate. They're excellent for eating out-of-hand, while yellow peaches tend to be better for baking, since their flavor can stand up to the flavors of buttery pie crusts, sugary cobblers and lots of vanilla ice cream. All ripe peaches are delicious, so there is no way to make a "wrong" choice when you're deciding between the two.

There are also white apricots and white nectarines and, by and large, the same general rules apply for other stone fruits as for peaches. And whether you choose to go for white or yellow stone fruits, the criteria for picking good ones are the same: they should have a strong, sweet scent and give slightly to the pressure of a finger.