Sodium amounts appear in each DL recipe as part of the nutritional analysis, and it’s one of those numbers I tend to watch carefully. American palates tend to favor heavily salted foods (and heavily sugared, for that matter), so it can be a challenge for us to provide recipes that don’t have a high sodium count — especially if it contains something healthy and flavorful but inherently salty, like olives. We tend to advise “salt to taste,” which allows for an awful lot of leeway! The USDA recommends an upper limit of 2,300mg daily, the amount in 1 teaspoon salt, but most people get a LOT more than that. Keep in mind something we’ve said before: You CAN retrain your taste buds to favor less sodium. (This is true: I’ve done it myself. It generally takes only a few weeks of really cutting back … and then you’ll find you taste salt more acutely and “need” it less.) Use herbs and spices to flavor foods (especially veggies); flavor with salt at the end of cooking (and try some coarse and unique varieties; you’ll use less); and keep in eye on sodium numbers when you buy packaged food. If something contains more than 20 percent daily value of sodium per serving (460mg), that’s high; if it has 5 percent (115mg) or less, that’s good and low.

And in honor of National Popcorn Month (October), try this Salt-Free Seasoning on popcorn!

Starting school can be tricky for kids with peanut allergies. Writer and allergy-free mom extraordinaire Kelly Corbett — who wrote a food feature on allergy-free cooking that appeared in our March 2007 issue — puts out a great e-newsletter, and this week’s installment featured helpful tips for peanut-allergy kids at school.

And thanks to those of you who sent me ideas for my son’s new gluten- and dairy-free diet. He is already feeling much better! Still not completely healed, but we’re very hopeful. Now he’s at college, so it’s a little more challenging (he says even the breakfast eggs have dairy in them!) … so he’s learning how to speak up for what he needs.

Over the past month or two I’ve devoured loads of zucchini from my backyard. (More experienced gardeners warned me this might happen!) Last night, inspired by food blog 101 Cookbooks, I threw this Zucchini Ricotta Cheesecake together and served with roasted organic purple potatoes on the side. It was a big hit with my husband. And thanks to all of the readers who responded to my zucchini recipe request, I’ve had no shortage of creative ways to use this year’s crop. Check out Zucchini Bread with Pineapple and other reader recipes in our Recipe Swap forum.

Just in time for back to school, a neat new cookbook has appeared on my desk: Vegan Lunch Box: 130 Amazing, Animal-Free Lunches Kids and Grown-Ups Will Love! The latest edition from Jennifer McCann, the author of the popular blog VeganLunchBox, it’s a user-friendly cookbook with ideas I think will actually WORK with kids. I’m going to try the Layered Bean Dip, Roasted Tomato Basil Soup (make some now while tomatoes are glorious, then freeze it), and Hazelnut Banana Sandwich Bites on my still-picky-eater teens. Lots of the recipes look good for easy dinners, too.

Our website has lots of good ideas for building a better lunch for your children — or for yourself. With schools finally paying attention to the nutritional value of the foods they serve (goodbye Coke machines!), the time is ripe to make changes and put better foods into our kids’ lunch boxes.

Oh, and check out the supercute, eco-friendly, bento-style lunch boxes available at Laptop Lunches. I want one!

NYTimes wellness blogger Tara Parker-Pope recently interviewed health expert Jonny Bowden (who we talked with about “Food sensitivities” for our brand-new weekly podcast series featuring updates from wellness experts, healthy chefs, and green living gurus — check it out!). Parker-Pope got the lowdown from Bowden about “The 11 Best Foods You Aren’t Eating”. Or are you? more

Last Friday I got to visit the campus of Sunset magazine and wandered around its absolutely lovely test garden, where vegetables, herbs, flowers, and more grow in beautiful profusion. Talking with their food editor, Margo True, I learned that the August issue would feature this garden as part of an 18-month-long project: the One-Block Feast. During those months, the staff grew or produced all the food on site that they wanted for a summertime celebration, including grapes (they pressed their own wine!), honey from beehives, salt, olive oil, and eggs from some adorable red chickens housed in the garden. It’s an inspiring story, with lots of good ideas for getting closer to your food. Maybe I’ll try growing edamame, which they say has a high yield, because I love this recipe for Edamame, Cranberry, and Feta Salad.

Here’s a compelling graphic , put out by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), that shows America’s weight gain, state by state, from 1985 to 2007. Wow; clearly we have issues with food (and lack of exercise).

What are some simple ways to stem this trend? Common-sense, intuitive-eating wisdom still holds true; my favorite approach, reflected in DL’s tagline, is to eat REAL FOOD instead of fake stuff — it tastes better, has usable calories, and is better for you. That’s why I love our recipes; they prove that real food, eaten in moderation, is not only healthy but DELICIOUS.

What’s the difference between sweet potatoes and yams? I often get asked this question and I almost always get the answer backwards, so I thought I’d write it down. Sweet potatoes are the tubers you can buy here in the U.S. Pale yellow sweet potatoes, which aren’t really sweet (even after cooking), act more like a regular russet potato. Where it gets confusing is with the dark-skinned, orange-fleshed ones — it’s these that are often erroneously called (and labeled, even in cans) “yams” — including in some DL recipes, such as this really good one more

As an editor here, I get to test almost every recipe that goes into the magazine. On the whole they really are delicious, yet not all of them make it into my personal recipe file. The Mixed Berry and Mint Granita was one of those outstanding recipes that made it home, and even into my “guest worthy” folder. In fact, I served it to some friends recently after a New Mexican-themed dinner (think lots of green chile); the cool mint and berries melting in our mouths made the perfect end-note!

I’m doing a fair bit of traveling this summer (vacation and business, which for me is fun), so I’m on the prowl for things I can take along that provide nutrients and won’t get confiscated by airport security. (Like the little carton of yogurt that my mom tried to take onboard a couple weeks ago. Who knew that yogurt was considered a gel??) Lately, I got some cookies and brownies from The Protein Bakery, an East-Coast outfit that makes high-protein, high-fiber, wheat free, trans-fat-free, low-sodium goodies that are easy to tuck into my bag. I’m especially impressed by their new Oatmeal White Chocolate Blueberry Cranberry Cookie (also called the Red, White, and Blue Cookie): YUMMY, 4g protein per cookie, and studded with dried berries to boot. I’d eat these for dessert, let alone a nutrient-rich snack.

And I’d be remiss as DL’s food editor not to remind you of our Oat-Date Bars, a delicious take-along treat that’s easy to make.