Leading health and environmental experts report that a vegetarian diet can improve your health in numerous ways and decrease your carbon footprint. Raising animals for slaughter and shipping the final meat product to consumers uses an enormous amount of the earth's resources, especially when compared to those needed to grow fruits and vegetables.

According to a 2008 New York Times article, "ReThinking the Meat Guzzler," "To put the energy-using demand of meat production into easy-to-understand terms, Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at the Bard Center, and Pamela A. Martin, an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago, calculated that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan - a Camry, say - to the ultra-efficient Prius," the author writes. So if you simply choose vegetarian meals over meaty meals 2-3 days/week, you are changing the world!

Healthy vegetarian diets support a lifetime of good health and protect against heart disease, cancer, and strokes. The American Dietetic Association states that vegetarians have "lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease... lower blood cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and lower rates of hypertension, Type 2 diabetes and overall cancer rates.” Contrary to popular belief, vegetarian diets can provide a well-balanced diet with adequate intake of all nutrients. (True vegans who don’t eat any animal product need to consider a B12 supplement or B-12 fortified foods.)

And compared to 10 or 20 years ago, eating a vegetarian diet is much easier. The grocery stores are now chock full of tasty vegetarian substitutes, and as you can imagine, the internet provides an endless array of recipes for vegetarian cooking. If you are new to the idea (and many people are unfamiliar to cooking without meat), make a commitment to eating vegetarian-style just one day a week. When eating out, try one a meatless entree. If you are used to ordering a ham or turkey sandwich at the deli, try a hummus and avocado sandwich with crunchy veggies, or keep it simple and order a peanut butter and jelly.

If you'd like to try a shift towards a reduced-meat diet, consider these websites for a few recipes, tips, and inspirations:

Meatless Monday is a national health campaign associated with Johns Hopkins School of Public Health to encourage people to give up meat once a week to cut saturated fat intake and prevent diet-related diseases. This website is jam-packed with fabulous recipes!

The Vegetarian Society provides an “easy” recipe list for new or time-restricted vegetarians.

My favorite vegetarian/vegan meal has been a nice, warm bowl of chocolate chili. Check out the recipe and try it out! I have prepared this vegan delight on the stovetop and crockpot; both methods create an excellent dish.

And here are 22 more reasons to try eating vegetarian.

Are you a vegetarian or vegan? Or halfway there? What inspired you to reduce your meat consumption? What positive and/or negative effects have you noticed?

If you are like many parents in America, Halloween can be a dreaded time of year for one reason: excessive amounts of sugar! We can recognize that your average trick-or-treater is not going to bring home a "moderate" amount of candy. Rather, most kids will bring home an INSANE amount! According to a Kids' Health website survey of about 1200 kids, "Most kids said they get at least 50 pieces of candy, with over 44% saying they get more than 100 pieces." If this number frightens you (not to mention your dentist), consider donating your candy to help support the troops this year.

There is a non-profit charitable organization called Boatsie’s Boxes whose staff gather and ship supplies and packages to soldiers. They have not been able to send chocolate since May because of the extreme heat temperatures, so this is a perfect time of year to gather your Halloween chocolate, spare your teeth a bit and pass along!

My brother, 1LT Christopher Moskoff, is a Colorado National Guard helicopter pilot. He spent a year at Balad Air Base in Iraq in 2007, and reminded me of the value of sending packages to our soldiers. "It was the highlight of the week to get a care package. We have very few luxuries in Iraq and Afghanistan, but getting a care package was the best reminder that your family and friends still miss, love and support you," he said. You can find the mailing address for sending donations to Boatsie's Boxes here.

If you want to avoid the cost of shipping your candy, look for a local dentist who might be taking donations. We have a dentist in Boulder, Colorado who is accepting donations and PAYING $1 per each pound of donated candy! He will then pay the shipping costs to send the candy to U.S. troops.

For younger kids (under 4), they might not even notice the candy contents had diminished. But for older children, it can be a great learning experience about sharing with others, donating to charities and eating sweets in moderation.

And if you are still looking for another way to disperse your Halloween candy, consider starting an unlimited sweets drawer experiment like we did. (And be sure to let us know how it worked.)

And whatever you choose to do this year, we hope you have a very happy, healthy and safe celebration!

I've never met a person who didn’t like popcorn. Have you?

Most of us associate popcorn with uplifting memories of movie theaters, carnivals, zoos, family time, farmers’ markets and many other fun venues. And I encourage you to continue splurging on popcorn. If you can limit the excessive butter and salt content, it is one of the healthiest snacks on the planet!

In just one cup of oil-popped popcorn, there’s only 55 calories, 3 grams saturated fat and 1 gram fiber. Okay, so most of us can’t stop eating popcorn at just one cup, but you do the math on your serving size and it will certainly add up to fewer calories than a couple servings of potato chips or chocolates.

I like to buy popcorn kernels at our farmer’s market and make it on the stovetop at home. Homemade popcorn tastes great and couldn’t be easier to prepare (and you skip the hazards of excessive packaging and funky preservatives associated with microwave popcorn). I have mostly perfected my homemade recipe at home as follows:

1. Heat 2-3 tablespoons canola oil in 2-quart saucepan on med-high heat.


2. Add a few kernels to pan.


3. When kernels begin to initially pop, add 1/4-1/3 cup kernels, put on lid and wait a few minutes for delicious and warm homemade popcorn!

To keep it vegan, you can add melted Earth Balance spread and/or vegan chocolate chips. The varieties are endless and the popcorn trade group's website has a bunch of fun recipes such as “popcorn s’mores” and “coconut-popcorn crunch pie." Yum!

Have you ever tried to grow popcorn in your garden? It is a simple and fun educational project to start with your kids in the spring. Be sure to choose “popcorn seeds," not just corn kernels. Plant the seeds about a half inch into the ground, cover, water and pull weeds as usual, and be prepared to cross-pollinate, especially if you have a small plot. (From the University of Florida's extension service: "Cut an entire tassel, and use it as a wand, shaking pollen grains [dust] onto the silks. Alternatively, strip the tassel and deposit the pollen from the anthers directly onto the silks. Either way, the pollen is transferred. Be thorough when dusting the pollen onto the silks, so chances for a bountiful harvest are increased.") When your plants are dry, kernels seem hard and the silks are brown, they are ready to harvest. Most popcorn-loving gardeners will suggest drying the kernels for several days, testing a few at a time and waiting for the popcorn to be light and crunchy before making a whole batch of it. Two to four months after sowing your seeds, you will have beautiful cobs of edible popcorn!

Do you have a favorite variety of popcorn or a unique recipe? Please continue to enjoy your popcorn and share fun ideas with us!

Note: Due to choking hazards, children should not eat popcorn until 4-5 years of age.