Smart Choices

Tom's favorite breakfast would probably be three eggs, fried in the bacon fat leftover from cooking a half pound of bacon  ... so, bacon ... three pieces of white bread slathered in butter and a glass of V-8. Yummy? Maybe, but not good when you look at the whole picture some changes are needed.

Being the weekend, I had time to fix him breakfast and he wanted a fried egg sandwich. OK, easy enough. I asked him what kind of bread he wanted and, being true to his nature, opted for white bread. Not an awful choice considering most soft breads touting 'whole grain' are just plain incorrect because true whole grain breads are hearty, flavorful, and offer a variety of seeds, nuts, and other obvious whole grains - like oats, wheat bran, etc. on top. Nonetheless, he's not quite there yet so white wheat it is. Now, how many eggs? Hmmm, I know he wanted to say two, which is better than three, but not as good as one ... I waited for his response. "One will be fine,"  I hear him mumble from the other room. That brought a smile to my face. So, OK, he can have his white wheat with a scraping of butter on it. I upped the nutritional value a bit by giving him a cut apple. He smiled.

Moving onto lunch ... spaghetti with whole grain (not to be confused with whole wheat) pasta, my favorite organic Bertolli olive oil/basil/garlic spaghetti sauce, and whole grain garlic bread  - OK, Tom will have the good ol' plain white flour bread and a small side salad. Knowing my dear husband as I do, I'll throw a couple meatballs in his ... he'll like that.

Dinner will be our typical salad, stolen from a local fast food restaurant and fine-tuned to our liking. Romaine lettuce/spinach, diced red and green apple with skin, dried cranberries, roasted chopped pecans, fresh orange, bleu cheese, a half grilled breast of chicken, and a pomegranate dressing.

That'll hold us until popcorn time ... it's Saturday night! Need a quick, small serving way to make buttered popcorn without any fuss or oil?

Place 3 tablespoons yellow popcorn kernels in a brown lunch bag. Yes, three tablespoons is actually the serving size! Fold top over twice and put in the microwave until popped. Add 1/2 pat melted butter and salt - 148 calories ... 5 grams cholesterol ... 5 grams fiber. Even Tom, who L*O*V*E*S butter soaked, over-salted popcorn says, "It's edible."