Do you wish your family would eat more fruits and vegetables? Sometimes the facts about these healthful foods simply aren't enough, and in order to get your family to eat more fruits and vegetables, you have to get creative. That's why we've compiled some of our favorite tips and tricks in today's blog post!

MyPlate's birthday is here! It was exactly one year ago today that the USDA released its new food icon. How are you going to celebrate MyPlate's birthday?

This delicious barbecue dinner incorporates a chicken fajita theme with the addition of peppers, onions and spicy seasonings for the kabobs. The veggies roast right along with the skewers so you have a great tasting dinner without the heat and mess in your kitchen. And this is a MyPlate meal so you have all the nutrients you need in the calories allotted!

MyPlate is celebrating its first birthday on June 2, 2012. Join the celebration with this fantastic fruit cheesecake that features MyPlate's great design.

Today we want to celebrate the strawberry. Did you know that the strawberry is the most popular berry in the United States? According to the California Strawberry Commission, California produces enough strawberries to go around the world side by side 15 times!

To improve the health of your bones, include more foods that are good for them in your daily diet. You want to foster bone strength and make sure that your body gets all the nutrients that it needs. Not sure where to start? Try the healthful options we outline in this post...

Salsa isn't the only thing on the agenda this month, because May is also Osteoporosis Awareness month. This week we will be discussing the ins and outs of bone health, especially as it relates to nutrition.

Have you seen our new Healthy Kitchen poster? Check out the picture above or visit it in our store. We're so excited about it, that we have decided to share all of our top kitchen makeover tips in one handy-dandy blog post. After all, it's officially Spring, which makes it the perfect time for SPRING CLEANING. Try these handy tips to clean up your kitchen and make it more efficient than ever.

According to Packaged Facts, gluten-free sales reached more than $2.6 billion by the end of 2010 and are now expected to exceed more than $5 billion by 2015. Why? Well, in this article, we explore some of the leading reasons to go gluten-free...

This post explores the basics of fiber. Learn about the differences between soluble and insoluble fiber, fiber's health benefits, where to find high-fiber foods, and more!

Potassium is great for your heart, but many people aren’t getting nearly enough of it. On the flip side, most Americans are consuming way too much sodium, and we mean waaaaaaaaaaaaay too much sodium. Take a look at our strategies for balancing sodium and potassium intake!

Here are many ways to use a plate for portion control. After all, size matters. What you put on the plate matters. Using a plate to visualize how much you are eating is a great idea. We like to think of a plate as a reverse piggy bank. The smaller it is, the more you save!!

Our latest MyPlate creation is great for the heart! Barley, salmon, walnuts, vegetables, olive oil and more are made into a quick 30-minute meal that you will want to serve over and over again. Enjoy!

2011 was a banner year for nutrition education. Here's our summary of the highlights, as reported in our Communicating Food for Health newsletter. Basically, the Dietary Guidelines were updated, MyPlate replaced MyPyramid as the USDA's new food guide, supplement news kept piling high, sodium news supported earlier assessments, and much more.

Our trip through the food hall at the annual Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo was full of learning opportunities. In this post, we review the top 33 things that we picked up on our visit. We even found a general rule of thumb for most displays and marketing efforts. These elements were neat, engaging, and beautiful, and the focus was on the flavor of food, with a few nutrient benefits sprinkled in for marketing. Marketing efforts extolled offers of more nutrients for fewer calories in many of the featured products.

Food and Health Communications is proud to be a National Strategic Partner for MyPlate. For Labor Day, we are bringing innovative yet easy ways to serve fruits and veggies so that they will make up half of everyone's plates! We have recipes for a Veggie Face Salad, Ice Bucket Fruits, and our best Fresh Fruit Cobbler, among other ideas.

Here are 12 things we learned about MyPlate after working with it all week. We read through the pages of the USDA choosemyplate.gov site, performed makeovers on over 8 meals, and created a comprehensive MyPlate PowerPoint presentation that has over 70 slides. We like the new plate quite a lot and were amazed that it even works with fast food.

We love to play with MyPlate. This post reviews a few ways that we tested MyPlate's applications in the real world. We moved a McDonald's value meal out of the bag and onto a plate, which offers a better sense of portions and proportions. When we brought it into alignment with MyPlate's messages, the meal went from over 900 calories to just over 300 calories. Voila!