While Memorial Day is meant to remember those who served our country in wars, I also use it as a time to remember those who have passed away. My grandfather died in WWII when his plane was shot down over North Africa, while we just recently lost his wife, my grandmother. I’ve lost my other set of grandparents, as well.

I like to take Memorial Day to do active things that my grandparents would have enjoyed. All of them were quite active, one grandfather played basketball on Stanford’s NCAA championship team, while the other was a ski champion. My grandmother played basketball and always had fond memories of hiking in Colorado with my grandfather.

So, this weekend, I thought of my grandparents and others we’ve lost in the wars, while hiking in Berkeley and eating fresh, healthy meals. I hope that these efforts will help keep me fit to see my own grandchildren -to-be grow up one day. Won’t you do the same in rememberance of your loved ones and in preparation for a long, healthy life for yourself?

Salads are considered one of the healthier choices one can make especially when dining out. However, similar to other seemingly healthy choices, sometimes a salad can actually be an unhealthy choice. Health.com recently discussed this issue and “remade” three popular salads into truly feel good dishes.

What is really interesting with these remade salads is that though each have a significantly lower amount of calories, the percentage of fat is greater than most nutritionists would recommend. For example in the Cobb Salad with Blue Cheese the remade version has only 462 total calories yet when calculated it has a fat percentage of 56%. This is over the ideal 30% nutritionists recommend.

Overall this is a great article and shows that a salad alone may not always be enough. Such a high-fat dish would need to be paired with another low fat item like a multi-grain roll or juice- something I think that would make the meal even tastier!

I admit it, I didn’t bike to work last Thursday, Bike to Work Day. My excuse is that I haven’t yet bought myself a commuting bike. But, I did ride the hand-me-down Razor that my brother gave me for Christmas. And, I’m making the public commitment here to buy a bike within the next month.

There were a few striking things to me about the Bay Area’s Bike to Work Day - one was how many people actually got out on the road on their bikes. The second was the impact that the Bike to Work Day (which coincidentally coincided with Spare the Air Day) had on the air quality in the Bay Area.

On Friday, the following day, I did one of my usual hikes in the Berkeley Hills and the view was incredible! Earlier that week, the view was blurry and hazy from all the smog. On Friday, the Bay was crystal clear - it made me realize that this is truly one of the most beautiful places in the world. I could see all the way from Berkeley down to Hoover Tower at Stanford. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera that morning, but I did bring it Saturday morning and, while a bit hazy again, it was still clearer and more beautiful than earlier in the week.

I hope more people will choose to Bike to Work this summer and hopefully more companies will encourage them to do this.

According to Wellsphere, an online community that promotes healthier living, “food services giant Aramark found that 83% of diners want restaurants to make nutritional information available to them to inform their choices.” Wellsphere provides an answer to this need by launching its new service called Wellternatives. This new servicecontains calorie and nutritional information about food from thousands of restaurant chains and gives recommendations on healthier alternatives to any dish. This is a great way to be knowledgeable about the food you’re eating and also have information about the healthier alternative at that same moment. Although the service does not tell you about the ingredients of the food (for example where the food comes from or if the product contains hormones or anti-biotics), Wellternatives provides a good start in screening food’s nutritional value.

Try Wellternatives yourself and let me know what you think about this service.

Ever wonder how fast food restaurants fare when dealing with food allergies?

According to this article, most quick service restaurant chains do relatively well in addressing food allergies due to their standardized menus and “compartmentalized” preparation and assembly lines. McDonald’s is considered a good example because so much information regarding allergens is available on its nutritionals site. Another issue can be cross-contact. In this case, In n Out Burger is considered a safe choice as it only uses its oil for its fries and does not have other fried items like shellfish that could possibly come into contact with the oil.

I encourage you to share your experiences dealing with food allergies in fast food restaurants and let us know how well they fared.