Blog Posts by The Editors of EatingWell Magazine

By Gretel H. Schueller, Contributing Writer for EatingWell

Winter brings short days and chilly temperatures, and you might find your mood mirroring these bleak winter days. Of course, many of us feel a little more sluggish during winter but for some people the winter blahs can develop into a more serious type of depression.

In some cases, the winter blues develop into Seasonal Affective Disorder (aka SAD), a form of depression that begins in late fall, peaks in January and February and usually fades by early spring. Common symptoms of SAD include extreme tiredness--the kind that makes you just want to curl up under the covers and sleep until spring--an intense craving for carbs (especially sweets), irritability, weight gain and the desire to avoid social situations. About 6 percent of the U.S. population falls into its grips annually, and about 15 percent more suffer from a milder version of the winter blues.

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By Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D., Nutrition Editor, EatingWell Magazine

Recently EatingWell asked our readers what they focused on when it comes to feeding kids breakfast. I quite was surprised by the most common answer. Many parents said they were focused on getting their kids to eat protein at breakfast. (Sound familiar? Find recipes for protein-packed breakfasts here.)

Protein is an important part of a healthy breakfast--protein provides staying power to keep hunger at bay until lunch. A little bit of protein at breakfast in the form of milk, yogurt, an egg or peanut butter, for example, is a good idea, but you don't need to overly focus on it. We tend to make up for any protein we didn't get at breakfast at lunch and dinner, and overall Americans' daily protein intake is just fine.

Don't Miss: What Does a Healthy Breakfast Look Like?

But what you really want to focus on eating at breakfast are foods that most Americans don't get enough of in our diets. And for most

By Hilary Meyer, Associate Food Editor, EatingWell Magazine

I love fried chicken and apparently I'm not alone. (You can buy fried chicken by the bucket at several popular fast-food chains.) The beauty of fried chicken is that it's cheap and delicious. The not so beautiful side is that just two pieces of extra-crispy Kentucky Fried Chicken comes in at around 490 calories. And that doesn't include those irresistible mashed potatoes and gravy either, which will add another 120 calories.

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5 Restaurant Favorites You Can Make Healthier at Home

Can I do a better job of making my own version of a crispy "Bucket o' Chicken" without leaving the house, without using a deep-fryer and without blowing my calorie allotment for half the day on only one meal? Yes! In fact, you can do it for only half the calories and just one-fifth the fat and sodium of the fast-food classic. Here's how EatingWell's healthier

By Wendy Ruopp, Managing Editor of EatingWell

Whether you want a healthy comforting weeknight dinner or a delicious stew to enjoy on the weekend (say while you're watching the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens in the upcoming Super Bowl!) a warming bowl of slow-cooked chicken stew with stout fits the bill with two of America's favorites- chicken and beer.

More Slow-Cooker Recipes: Barbecued Pulled Chicken & Easy Crock Pot Meals
Easy Recipes For The Super Bowl

This recipe for Slow-Cooker Stout & Chicken Stew has a lot of flavor and it's healthy too. It features lean chicken thighs and just a little bit of bacon, browned before going into the crock pot, a pound of baby carrots, half a pound of mushrooms and a savory layer of onion and garlic; near the end of cooking, peas are added for color and the final comfort-food touch. You can make it on a stay-close-to-home day, setting the slow cooker to High for 4 hours, or set your slow cooker to Low and come home

By Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D., Nutrition Editor, EatingWell Magazine

With more than 100 kinds of cereal in many grocery store aisles, choosing a healthy box can be like searching for a needle in a haystack. In order to spare your sanity and to help you make a healthy choice, we've done the work for you. (See What a Healthy Breakfast Looks Like.)

We've highlighted 9 of the healthiest breakfast cereals on store shelves (listed in no particular order) that meet our guidelines for sugar, salt and fiber (see more details below). We've also outlined the key nutrition criteria you should pay attention to when choosing cereal so you can make a healthy choice.

9 of the Healthiest Breakfast Cereals
• Barbara's Puffins (Original or Cinnamon)
• Uncle Sam Strawberry Cereal (or other varieties)
• Kashi Heart to Heart Warm Cinnamon Oat
• Post Bran Flakes
• Cheerios
• All-Bran
• Kix
• Familia Swiss Müesli (No Added Sugar)
• Bear Naked Granola

What Does a

Retrain Your Cravings: 5 Ways to Learn to Love Healthier FoodsBy Lisa Gosselin, Editorial Director, EatingWell Magazine

Trying to clean up your diet and eat healthier this year but having a hard time loving the new healthy foods you should be eating? I'm the same way: there are so many bad foods I love and so many good ones I feel like I'm forcing myself to eat.

9 "Bad" Foods You Can Feel Good About Eating

The good news: in EatingWell Magazine, Holly Pevzner reports on new research that shows and curb your taste for those foods you may regret getting chummy with.

Ditch These 4 Foods to Clean Up Your Diet

The secret to learning to love healthier foods lies in using all five senses. "A food's texture, how it sounds, how appetizing it looks, and how it smells all play a role in flavor perception," says Barb Stuckey, author of the recently released Taste What You're Missing: The Passionate Eater's Guide to Why Good Food Tastes Good. Here are 5 ways you can use all your senses to learn to love healthier foods.

1. Fool Your

By Wendy Ruopp, Managing Editor of EatingWell

So here we are in January--it's cold outside and yet we're trying not to crank the thermostat too high inside because the holiday bills are coming due and suddenly we're not feeling all that flush. (Guess we'll have to keep wearing those Christmas sweaters to stay warm.)

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Inside-Out Lasagna and More Quick Winter Dinner Recipes

I'm also feeling the effects of overindulgence in December (OK, to be honest, overindulgence that started the day after Halloween when everyone brought their leftover candy to work). I wouldn't go so far as to call it a resolution, but I definitely want to get back to eating more mindfully this month.

Check This Out: How to Lose 8 Pounds This Month

You might think the combination of needing to save money, eat healthfully and get warmed up would be hard to satisfy with just one recipe, but this Quick Pasta Bolognese developed by the

By Gretel H. Schueller, Contributing Writer for EatingWell

If you go to the grocery store you'll probably notice that gluten-free products are more widespread than ever--everything from bread and pasta to chips and dessert have gluten-free versions. (Gluten is a protein primarily found in foods containing wheat, barley or rye.)

And that's for a good reason: roughly 18 million Americans have some degree of gluten sensitivity, according to Alessio Fasano, director of the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research, and as many as 3 million Americans (about 1 percent of the population) have celiac disease.

For people with celiac disease, the battle in their gut between their immune system and the gluten winds up damaging tiny, fingerlike projections called villi that line the small intestine and absorb nutrients. The damage prevents nutrients from being absorbed properly, causing a variety of health problems.

Doctors are still not sure what actually causes celiac