But, for this, on this day, I am also thankful. If it were not for the annual blood and lipid test results that my company provides, it would be a little harder and more expensive to track what's going on inside this body of mine. 

Now, let's back up to May 2012...

Eight months ago I made some alterations to the Shafer household diet. I am nothing if not experimental, so I enthusiastically dove into what would be our fourth go at what is informally called a "detox" and what in reality is more like a hybrid of several known diets with my own spin. 

ALLOWED: We would eat any form (other than sweetened) and type of fruits, vegetables, and legumes - lots of them! We would eat rice products and products made from rice flour. We would eat all kinds of nuts and nut butters. We would use olive oil and salt, and season with any type of fresh or dried herbs and spices. We would drink a lot of water. We would eat lean protein 1-2x per week (emphasis on seafood and chicken, with no red meat). We would drink alcohol only on Friday or Saturday, and limited to 2 drinks per day. 

NOT ALLOWED: We would not consume added sugars. We would not eat or drink dairy. We would not eat red meat. We would not eat wheat or wheat products. We would not consume alcohol Sunday through Thursday. 

EXCEPTIONS: When invited to other households or events, on date night, or when on vacation, we would not abide by these rules. Also, due to my occupation, these rules would not apply when I attend taste panels at work. Therefore, we broke from the plan about 25% of the time, and abided by the plan about 75% of the time. 

We followed this way of life for the true majority of six months, with the exception of adding low-fat dairy back into the mix (because I needed it). You certainly could tell a difference in our energy levels, healthy skin, and well fitting clothes. Our protein splurge every week was Pho Ga, a Vietnamese chicken rice noodle soup that we've grown to love and crave. I dropped 8-10 pounds and Chris dropped nearly 20 in this time. But it's not even the pounds that mattered. I'd say we hit our peak of health in early October. Admittedly, since then, small amounts of wheat products and sweet treats worked their way back into our lives (such is the holidays).

Speed it back up to present time...

What I'm truly excited about - and why I'm thankful to my big brother corporation - is the fact that I have proof that those changes in our diet truly impacted our INSIDES over this last year. Because of the blood lipid test taken at Meredith, I could compare my 2011 results to my 2012 results. And because our level of fitness remained steady prior to and during this time, I honestly attribute most of the changes to our food choices.

This is what nutrition is all about people! This is why food is our best medicine. THIS is it. And the best part: we lived life during this time and had fun doing it. No feelings of restriction because we always allowed ourselves those exceptions (which I believe are so important) and because we could feel the positive change.

Jessie's Blood Test Results (2 years compared)

"8 out of 10 US adults describe themselves as 'extremely' or 'very' healthy," despite the fact that two thirds of Americans are overweight or obese and just 20% eat a very healthy diet. - Data according to a new report by NPD Group. 

This had me wondering how I would describe myself, if someone were to ask. So I'm asking you...

And if you like data as much as I do, check out the results of some of my past reader polls:

• Do you exercise so you can eat more, or eat so you can exercise better?  
• When it comes to food, what is your #1 health concern?  
• How do you feel about calories? 
• What is your main objective when picking a new recipe to try.

I think I understand that power—the power of physical movement and mind centering to free myself from sadness and shock. I've literally felt sadness drip and drain off my body when taking a morning run or pedaling my bike on a silent trail.

I thought Caren's post on How to Recover From Life's Most Dangerous Emotion was profoundly moving and honest.  

Here is a video I produced about the story. I shot the footage on a handheld Kodak digital flip camcorder, I edited the video using iMovie on my Mac at home, and the music was a free download. Total video cost: $0. Pretty cool, eh? 

And you can click here to check out a web slideshow about this story I produced for our website.

Because of the varying response to these two covers (and a bunch of other ones), we try to draw some conclusions: History would tell us that the Diabetic Living audience likes desserts on the cover, but it needs to be a certain kind of dessert. Fruit desserts or individual desserts seem to perform better than full desserts, or chocolate desserts, or over-the-top desserts.

We've also had a lot of discussion about the mix of sweet vs. savory items on our covers. We've gotten plenty of feedback from readers (most with type 2 diabetes) who tell us they know they're supposed to avoid added sugars, so they try to avoid desserts completely. But we also have a history of sell-through numbers that tell us that desserts sell a little better than non-desserts on our covers. We tried to perform a test that would help us draw some conclusions about how our current audience responds to sweet vs. savory covers. So, we did a split test on our Summer 2011 issue. We designed two different covers and they were distributed separately around the nation. In the end, after the sell-through was tallied, the peach cobbler performed just slightly better than the salad (only by about 1-2 points, which isn't hugely significant). 

So, the discussion continues. And our covers keep coming.

Sweet or savory foods on the cover of Diabetic Living magazine. Do you have an preference?

In a recent issue of Diabetic Living magazine (Spring 2012), I worked with an RD freelancer and friend, Marsha McCulloch, to produce an article called 7 Ways to Downsize which detailed 7 tips and tricks to tackle common portion pitfalls and satisfy a grumbling stomach. 

I think my favorite tip, and one that I share in the magazine and with friends often, is to keep serving dishes off the table. Dish up your plate from the kitchen counter and then wrap up the leftovers and put them away before you eat. You will automatically eat less if the serving bowl isn't right in front of you tempting you to take more. 

Another one of my favorites, and one that my sister-in-law uses, is to downsize dinner plates. Brian Wansink, Ph.D., a Cornell University researcher and author of Mindless Eating, says his research shows that if you use a 10-inch dinner plate instead of a 12-inch plate, you'll serve yourself 22 percent less food - and people eat, on average, 92 percent of what they serve themselves. Also, if you use a smaller serving spoon (a standard tablespoon instead of a larger serving spoon) you'll serve yourself about 14 percent less food. 

A third portion trick that I especially love is to pour drinks in tall glasses. Research out of Cornell University shows that drinking liquids out of taller, thinner glasses makes us think we are drinking more than we actually are. It's an optical illusion; people tend to focus on the height versus the width of the liquid in the glass.

We created an online slideshow that shows even more of Marsha's great tricks and tips to cut down on portions. You can check it out here. 

Here's some help for sorting out diabetes truths and myths. 

True or false? Eating white foods is bad for diabetes control. 

12 Diabetes Food Tips to Avoid, from Diabetic LivingFalse! Many people with diabetes think they should avoid white foods like dinner rolls, white rice, mashed potatoes, or pasta. But when these foods are served in right-size portions, they are fine food choices. The common misunderstanding is that the type of food affects blood glucose more than the portion of food eaten. This "white food" rule has caused some people to also fear eating very healthy foods, such as cauliflower, radishes, onions, cottage cheese, and fat-free milk.
Expert Tip: Choose unprocessed foods such as quinoa, minimally processed foods such as whole wheat bread, or whole grain options more often than highly processed foods such as white rice, white bread, or sugary cereals.

True or False? Cinnamon lowers blood sugar. 

Top 13 Diabetes Food Myths, from Diabetic LivingMaybe! It's a possibility that cinnamon lowers blood sugar. Regular ground cinnamon and cinnamon sticks were used in studies to test whether cinnamon lowers blood sugar. In the studies, the suggested intake amount to experience a decrease in blood sugar was 1/2 teaspoon per day. However, the research on cinnamon is not conclusive, and the use of cinnamon has not become part of common clinical practice. More research is needed before conclusions can be made about cinnamon's role in treating diabetes.

For more diabetes truths versus myths, check out these articles on the Diabetic Living website (DiabeticLivingOnline.com) 

• Meal-Planning Myths
• Weight Loss Myths
• True or False? Diabetes Food Myths
• Diabetes Food Tips to Avoid

In 1993, five members of the DCE (Diabetes Care and Education) practice group of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, adapted the Swedish Plate Model into the Idaho Plate Method. It was revised for Americans and incorporated the nutrition recommendations of the American Diabetes Association for people with diabetes.

What is The Plate Method?

In short, The Plate Method is a way for Americans to select appropriate portions of healthy foods without having to use measuring tools. When it was tailored for diabetes, the recommendations are as follows:

• Use a 9-inch plate
• Fill half the plate with nonstarchy vegetables
• Fill a quarter of the plate with lean protein
• Fill a quarter of the plate with a grain or starchy food
• Add either a side of 1/2 cup of fruit or low-fat milk (skim, 1% or 2%) as your carb intake allows
• Pile the foods in each section no more than 1/2 to 1 inch high

At Diabetic Living magazine, we use this teaching tool all the time (see here), and we've created many articles based on The Plate Method. For example, since all foods don't divide perfectly into the three sections on your plate all the time (think casseroles, pizza, salads, etc.), I recently worked on an article that will describe to readers how to estimate their plate portions when eating (what we call) "combination foods". Also, because people want and need to have an enjoyable meal when eating healthfully, I recently worked on another article that gives some excellent flavor pairings that fit into The Plate Method. Look for them in upcoming issues!

In order to use the plate method effectively, one would need to know what qualifies as a nonstarchy vegetable, what represents a starch or grain, and what are some good choices for lean protein. So we often provide lists of the top choices in these categories. Here they are:

Nonstarchy Vegetables

• Amaranth or Chinese spinach
• Artichoke
• Artichoke hearts
• Asparagus
• Baby corn
• Bamboo shoots
• Beans (green, wax, Italian)
• Bean sprouts
• Beets
• Broccoli
• Brussels sprouts
• Cabbage (green, bok choy, Chinese)
• Carrots
• Cauliflower
• Celery
• Chayote
• Coleslaw (little or no dressing)
• Cucumber
• Daikon
• Eggplant
• Greens (collard, kale, mustard, turnip)
• Hearts of palm
• Jicama
• Kohlrabi
• Leeks
• Mushrooms
• Okra
• Onions
• Pea pods
• Peppers
• Radishes
• Rutabaga
• Salad greens (chicory, endive, escarole, lettuce, romaine, spinach, arugula, radicchio, watercress)
• Sprouts
• Squash (cushaw, summer, crookneck, zucchini)
• Sugar snap peas
• Swiss chard
• Tomato
• Turnips
• Water chestnuts
• Yard-long beans

Lean Protein

• Turkey breast or chicken breast, skin removed
• Fish fillet (flounder, sole, cod, salmon, swordfish, herring, etc.)
• Canned tuna in water
• Shellfish (clams, lobster, scallps, shrimp)
• Nonfat or low-fat cottage cheese
• Egg whites or egg substitute
• Fat-free cheese
• Cooked beans
• Lean beef (flank steak, tenderloin, London Broil, roast beef*)
• Veal roast or lean chop*
• Lamb roast or lean chop*
• Pork tenderloin or fresh ham*
• Low-fat luncheon meats
  * = limit these choices to 1-2 times per week

Starch or Grain

• Bread (white, pumpernickel, whole wheat, rye)
• Bagel
• English muffin
• Hamburger or hotdog bun
• Cold cereal
• Rice (white or brown)
• Barley or couscous
• Cooked pasta
• Corn
• Sweet potato or potato
• Green peas
• Pretzels
• Popcorn

I like The Plate Method because it really does work! If you devote HALF your plate to being filled with nonstarchy vegetables, and you eat them, then you will be well on your way to crafting some of the healthiest meals you'll ever make. Other pluses are that people can customize their plates to incorporate almost any food, and the magic is in the ease of it all - no measuring!

The ChooseMyPlate adaption made popular just last year by the USDA is also a good recommendation for all Americans. It is just slightly different from The Plate Method, mostly in that it doesn't distinguish between nonstarchy vegetables and vegetables in general, and that it incorporates a fruit serving on the plate.

Time to fill your plate! What will you choose?

This photo was taken in the beautiful Better Homes & Gardens Showcase Kitchen. It was taken for an editor's photo for a book I worked on, but I took the opportunity to get a family portrait taken with Chris.

Of course, the objective of the Test Kitchen is to make sure that every recipe produced for Better Homes & Gardens, as well as the subsidiary brands of Better Homes & Gardens, such as Diabetic Living, is delicious and will work for the home cook. However, for brands like Diabetic Living, there is the additional requirement that every recipe be healthy and fit the brands' nutritional guidelines. This isn't always easy to do, and that's the reason we need a Test Kitchen. 

People ask me all the time, "How do you develop a recipe? Does it just come to you?" 

My first answer is always that creating a healthy and delicious recipe takes teamwork.

Here is the 12-Step Process: How a Recipe Comes to Life: 

1. A food editor creates a concept for a story that will include recipes. The editor needs to consider several things: who is the audience, time of year, available ingredients, price of ingredients, popular flavors, ingredients with nutritional qualities you want to emphasize, how the story and photos will look on the pages of a magazine or book (appealing? colorful?), how many recipes are needed, timing and difficulty of the recipes, technique or special equipment needed, and how the story fits in the magazine as a whole. I do this process for 10 to 12 articles per issue, including all food stories, as well as the nutrition feature stories (how to count carbohydrate, understanding the glycemic index, etc.) and some of the front-of-book content (reader tips, newsworthy news and products). 
2. The food editor then develops recipes themselves (I did this when I worked as the health editor at Cuisine at Home magazine) or hires a recipe developer. Together, the editor and recipe developer create recipe concepts, keeping in mind all the things listed in #1. When the concepts are finalized, the editor gives the recipe developer a deadline for when the recipes need to be submitted. I require that my recipe editors test recipes at home to ensure they are of good quality when they enter the Test Kitchen, but not all editors do this. 
3. The recipe developer submits the final recipes, often including notes and photos. I also require that the recipe developers I work with use a nutritional database so they can estimate the number of calories, carbohydrate, etc. in the recipes they are working on. The editor then enter the recipes (along with a lot of extra information) into the recipe database. The recipe database holds thousands of recipes and is the management tool for sending recipes through the Test Kitchen, tracking progress, accessing recipe notes, finding and gathering recipes for future publications, etc. It is hugely important. 
4. The editor works with their Test Kitchen liaison (in my case, it is one of the dietitians in the TK) to get the recipes scheduled for a taste panel. Every Test Kitchen associate tests between four and six recipes per day, on average. The Test Kitchen associate orders groceries and takes meticulous notes about timing, ingredients, amounts, etc. while testing. 
5. When a recipe is ready for taste panel (there is a schedule sent out every day for this), the editor, art director, dietitian, and Test Kitchen associate sit down at a table in one of the two Taste Panel rooms to taste and analyze the recipe. We ask many questions and discuss many things to make sure we have achieved the best solution for all of the objectives decided listed in #1. If the recipe needs additional testing (or if there are alternate ingredients to test), then the recipe is scheduled for a second, third, fourth, etc. test - as many as are needed to ensure it is ready for publishing. When the recipe is ready, we give it a "pub", a designation that means the recipe is ready for photography. Since many readers of Diabetic Living use sugar substitutes, we have the additional requirement of testing with those. If a recipe includes sugar, we always test with regular sugar first, then we test with several sugar substitutes. Sometimes the sugar substitutes work (and we print that information, including the types and amounts that work with the recipe) and sometimes the sugar substitutes don't work (in that case, we include a line with the recipe that says "We do not recommend using a sugar substitute with this recipe.")
6. Next, the editor and art director work together to write a photo order. A photo order includes all the information the photography team will need. The photo team includes a photographer, a food stylist, a prop stylist, an art director, and the editor--and sometimes also includes assistants and interns. As the food editor, I make note of all the food and portion sizes needed for the photo shoot, including any extras for garnishes or beverages to use in the background of shots, as well as how notes about how I would like the food to be presented (single serving, whole dish, etc.). The art director will make notes about the angle to take the shot (overhead, high 3/4 angle), the lighting (soft shaddow, bright blow out), and the color palette. The art director also makes a sketch showing an estimate of how the story will be laid out on the page. The photo order is then sent out to the team one week before the photo shoot will take place. Meanwhile, the food stylist will order all ingredients needed and make sure they are prepped ahead of time. The prop stylist will arrange to have all items needed on set, such as the plates, napkins, glassware, tabletop surfaces, etc. The photographer will arrange to have all necessary cameras and lighting on set. 
7. The day of the photo shoot we photograph anywhere from four to eight finished food shots. Sometimes we also take how-to photos, ingredient photos, or multiple versions of the same photo (one for the magazine, one for the website). We work together to make beautiful images that meet the goals of #1. Usually, photo days are fun days, as long as everything goes according to plan :) 
8. After the photos are taken, the food stylist writes photo notes (may say something like "red onion was used instead of yellow onion for more color" or "Chips browned after 7 minutes - did not need 10 minutes as recipe indicated". These notes go back to the Test Kitchen so the TK liaison for each brand can update the recipe database or schedule more testing, if needed. When the recipe is updated, the food editor sends the recipes to a copy editor so they can format the recipe to use standard language (for example, so that all brands refer to sweet red peppers in the same way, or that all recipe directions use similar structure and language). 
9. The dietitian does a final analysis of the nutritional information (calories, sodium, etc.) and updates that information in the recipe database. For our brand, the dietitian also figures dietary exchanges and carb choices. 
10. The photographer uploads the final photos to a separate database called the Creative Library. The art director pulls the various pieces (finalized, edited recipes from the database and final photos from the Creative Library) into an InDesign document and creates the story layout. 
11. The art director and editor go back and forth in the same document, moving/resizing photos or quotes, writing the title and story copy, tweaking recipes, making things fit, and again, ensuring we meet the goals of #1.
12. Next, the story goes through a series of analyses. The finished story layout is sent to the copy editing department, where they make sure everything is spelled correctly and makes sense. We have "pin-ups" where all of the pages of the magazine are pinned to a wall and then presented to the higher-ups. From there, we make any necessary tweaks. 

When people tell me I have a great job, I agree with them that I do, but I also tell them it ain't all eatin' and drinkin'...

This entire process, from concept to final story layout, usually takes six to ten months, sometimes longer. Since dozens of these stories are being sent through the process at the same time and are at different stages, it takes a lot of organization to keep things moving for all the various projects we have going through the pipeline.

I estimate that when I taste foods at taste panel, I take in anywhere from 200 to 600 calories depending on the types of foods tasted, how much I eat, and the number of recipes we see. It can be hard to manage my meals and calorie intake around these eating sessions. 

These stories go through incredible scrutiny, from all the players in the process as well as the readers at home. If you haven't met the goals of the story (and often, even if you have met and exceeded the goals), it is likely that you will get some negative feedback from somebody somewhere via a nasty email or comment from a co-worker or letter from a disgruntled reader. To be a food editor (or anyone in publishing, for that matter), it takes thick skin, conviction knowing you've done the best you can do, and a resolution that you can't please everyone all the time.