When your kids get the after school munchies, serve them these healthy alternatives to pre-packaged snacks:

-       Ants on a log

Spread cream-cheese on a celery stick then add raisins to make ants. A quick and easy kid’s favourite.

-       Tortillas

Healthy eating shouldn't be about sacrificing the pleasure that you get from food. If you create healthy meals that taste great, then it is going to be a lot easier to embrace changes to your diet.

We all know that we should eat more fruits and vegetables, but managing the 8 servings per day (for women) or even 10 (for men) can seem like an impossible task. Here are some easy ways to up your intake:

1) Grab and go

If you are looking for inspiration in the kitchen, then you need look no further than the blogosphere - there are hundreds of awesome blogs out there full of recipes, techniques and encouragement for wannabe cooks. We've rounded up a few great ones worth checking out...

Whole grains are a vital component of a healthy diet, and are especially important when you are trying to drop pounds. There are lots of great “new” grains available in supermarkets these days, and learning how to use them could give your diet a welcome break from all that brown rice and whole wheat pasta!

X-Weighted National Challenge participant Ben Metcalfe (fuenke) has lost 65 pounds since the Challenge started!

How you feeling now that you've lost all that weight?

As the weather heats up, there are plenty of occasions to celebrate and it can be hard to turn down calorie-laden alcoholic beverages. Here's the skinny (excuse the pun) on some of the most popular summer drinks, so you can go forewarned into the season…

Mojitos

Being able to cook isn't a skill that we are born with, and some of us really are clueless in the kitchen. This makes cooking healthy meals a chore, and it is easy to get stuck in a boring food rut when you don't know what to cook.

Although we all know that we should eat more vegetables, sometimes it is hard to get enough into our diets. For many of us, the idea of hitting the recommended daily amounts as set out in the Canada Food Guide can seem impossible.

1) Be careful with salad toppings, especially when you eat out. You might think that salad is a healthy choice, but if it is sprinkled with blue cheese, croutons, bacon bits, dried fruit etc, it could be a catastrophic choice for your waistline! Ask your server to half the amount of toppings, and dressing, on your salad to lower the calorie count substantially.