Like It's Not Hard Enough to Try to Eat Healthy...

Being a busy professional or executive woman has its perks. There are also plenty of challenges - including eating healthy. Even if you know that it makes you feel better, has more long-term health benefits and is a great way to be a role model, it can be a challenge.

So, it's nice when the food companies try to give you a hand.

And darn right frustrating when you think they are helping only to find out that they really aren't. That the claims on nutrition and health are more marketing mush than not. Like the recent settlement involving Dannon and its Activia and DanActive brands.

I want to believe Jamie Lee Curtis - and I want to believe that this stuff has extra goodies to do what it says. Ok, I have never actually eaten it, but that has more to do with personal preference than whether I believed the claims. (For the record, I prefer plain Greek yogurt from Fage just so you know I really do eat yogurt - just not Dannon.)

The point is that all of this really plays to women, busy women in particular who need good food that does them well. Geez. Like it is not challenging enough to eat healthy, trying to do the best things for your body, your energy and your family. Between this and the general issues with nutrition labels in general (like how precise the calorie counts actually need to be to meet the government standards), it can be a battle just to stay even.

No wonder so many of us give up or give in.

There is hope, of course. As mundane as it may sound: eat real food, not the processed stuff claiming to have the answers. Mix it up. Don't eat too much. Thoughts that sound much like Food Rules: An Eater's Manual- something that is worth reading more than the food labels. Even better, it's really short and the "chapters" are about one page each. A particular bonus for busy women of any kind.