Nutrition can be a political fight, but there is one area where everyone agrees -- vegan, Mediterranean, even Paleo -- is on the importance of the kitchen. Your relationship with your kitchen is as important as any other, and like all relationships it takes a little work.

The relationship between stress and weight gain is a complex one. Part of this relationship involves the interruption of your usual healthy eating patterns when you throw your routines aside in response to a crisis situation -- like tax season.

If your New Year's resolution involves making a change in your diet with weight loss as a goal, you are facing a dizzying array of information out there. There is a great deal of evidence about what practices help weight loss, much of it contradictory.

Banana bread is a traditional favorite, and I love to bake it during the holidays. By substituting agave nectar for sugar and applesauce for oil, you can enjoy this sweet treat with less sugar, less fat -- and no guilt.

Think nice, crispy chips can't be part of a healthy diet? Think again! The crispness of fall is in the air, and it should be in your food, too, in the form of delicious chips made from seasonal, locally-grown foods.

I understand that some people truly deal with emotional eating, but lately with the hype about low- or no-carb diets, I am encountering more and more people coming to see me with complaints of experiencing fatigue along with intense carb cravings.

The benefits of breakfast are almost too numerous to list. I find that more and more people now know that they should eat breakfast -- but they still ask me what to eat. My advice is to eat traditional foods.

March is Nutrition Month, and you might think that means I'm going to talk about what you should eat. But instead of talking about what we eat, I want to talk about how we eat it.

So many people in recent years have been completely eliminating gluten, which is found in wheat and grains, from their diet. And while for some people this is important to good health, most of us can be more moderate. My advice: Instead of wheating yourself out, vary your carbohydrates.

I have said for years that willpower doesn't work, and that people who rely on it to manage their nutrition will end up actually overeating when their will collapses. Nothing demonstrates this more than the holidays, with all that food, expectation and anxiety packed into a few days.

It's most upsetting to see so much fear and confusion around what should be our most trusted, wholesome source of nutrients. America, for all its wealth and research, remains confused about how and what to eat.