That's according to Mehmet Oz, the doctor who always appears on Oprah in his scrubs, talking about colons, and Joel Harper, in this quick Q and A at Esquire.com.

Oz and Harper (a personal trainer) answer several questions about food, health, and exercise. Besides declaring blueberries the healthiest fruit, they also say that the only good thing about pizza is the sauce, that colon cleansing isn't really worth it, and that a little alcohol isn't bad for us at all. They also answer the question on whether it's ok to eat something that has fallen on the floor as long as we pick it up within five seconds.

As for the pizza advice, I think there's another good thing that they're forgetting: pizza is totally awesome!

It's becoming very clear that we can't eat anything anymore. Just lock yourself in your home and make everything from scratch.

Banquet is recalling all of its frozen chicken and turkey pot pies after a salmonella outbreak made 100 people sick. The company that owns Banquet, ConAgra, even went so far as to completely stop making the pies yesterday while the cases are investigated.

Here's a little twist to this particular recall story: they're also telling consumers not to eat "similar generic brands." Yikes. Here's all the info on the recall, including what code numbers to look for and what to do if you want a refund.

Oddly enough, I'm posting a recipe for a chicken pot pie today.

According to a study that our friends over at Green Daily unearthed, it is now officially cool to eat organic. That poll showed that the number of people buying organic is going up and that 79% of people believe that buying organic food is better for the environment. Ninety-eight percent of frequent organic food buyers believe that it also tastes better than conventional foods.

The study also broke down which groups of people are doing the organic buying and discovered that they are either mostly liberal, mostly college graduates and are frequently both. These results make me blush a little, as I fall smack dab into this demographic and I do my best to buy organic foods whenever possible. Who knew I was so predictable?

We've had so many food recalls this year, and they are usually over fairly quickly and the companies move on. But that's not happening in this case.

Topps Meat Company has announced that they are going out of business because of the beef recall it had to do last week. The recall was one of the largest in history, amounting to over 21 million pounds, and hurt the company so much that they can no longer stay in business. The company faces two lawsuits about the beef (so far) and the USDA has also been criticized for not acting sooner. Most of the beef was eaten by consumers who bought it, and 30 cases of E.Coli-based illness have occurred.

The closing of the Newark, NJ company means that 87 people will be out of work.

When science journalist Gary Taubes wrote an article for The New York Times magazine in 2002 arguing that (and I'm summarizing a lot here) that it's the excessive consumption of calories from refined carbs and starches that causes weight problems and not the excessive consumption of calories consumed from fat, he was attacked by everyone. Now Taubes has a new book out that expands on the topic, Good Calories, Bad Calories. And he's still being attacked.

I haven't picked up the book yet, but it seems like an interesting read. Unlike other diet and health books that talk about their diets in rather basic terms, this is a thick tome that really goes in-depth about the body, weight, and health, quoting various studies that have been conducted over the years. I think one of his theories even questions how much exercise a human needs.

Has anyone read it yet?

By now we've learned the drill: organic is best. However, not everyone has the budget required to switch totally to organic foods. Thankfully Dr. Andrew Weill has put together a list of 11 fruits and vegetables that are OK to buy in their conventionally grown form. In alphabetical order, the list is as follows: Asparagus, Avocados, Bananas, Broccoli, Cabbage, Corn, Kiwi, Mangos, Onions, Pineapples and Peas.

I'm guessing that most of these items are on the list because they have fairly burly skins or peels that protect them from absorbing too much in the way of pesticides. I'm a little stunned that broccoli is on the list as I would have thought that its many little flowers would happily soak up problematic chemicals.

But, on the flip side, you might be wondering exactly what produce is best to buy organic? The Environmental Working Group has created a guide that can be printed out in handy wallet guide form. Check out our gallery of these 12 foods that really are the best organic investment.

So there it is. Consider yourself slightly better informed about buying organic than you were five minutes ago.

Yesterday I wrote about the controversy over whether pregnant and nursing women should eat fish and if so, how much they should eat. If you've decided that eating fish is the way to go for you and want to make sure that your choices are grounded in good information, there's a new service that can help you out via text message.

The Blue Ocean Institute is offering a service called FishPhone. Simply send a text message to 30644 with the word FISH and the type of fish you want to know about and it will get back to momentarily with information about that particular type of fish. You can also search on their website if you are planning dinner and want to check out the safety of the fish called for in your recipe. Unfortunately, the website doesn't give much info on mercury levels and seems pretty static, so it wouldn't be helpful in the case of current safety alert.

Via Treehugger

It seems like every I turn around these days, there's another food recall being issued. Tonight it's coming from Campbell's Soup Company. They are voluntarily recalling more than 72,000 cans of their Chunky Baked Potato with Cheddar & Bacon Bits Soup because they may contain small pieces of plastic that run a choking and health risk. Three people have reported small injuries around the mouth from consuming this soup.

Consumers who purchased the Chunky Baked Potato with Cheddar & Bacon Bits soup with the can code JUL 08 2009 07097 are advised to return the product to the store where it was purchased for an exchange or refund.

A food recall involving chocolate? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Yup, Kraft food is recalling 24,000 cases of their Baker's Premium White Chocolate Baking Squares (6 oz.) because they might contain salmonella. The use by dates are March 31, April 1, April 2, and April 3 (all 2008), followed by the letters XCZ. The UPC code 0043000252200.

Kraft is advising that customers throw out the white chocolate. If you need more information about the recall, Kraft's phone number is 800-310-3704.

I've never heard of the chain of restaurants named Max, probably because I live here in the U.S. The Swedish chain is one of the vital ingredients in the mission taken on by a guy named Johan, who has lost a lot of weight eating food from the chain (and exercising!) and is trying to lose even more (there's a few days left in his 90 day experiment to lose 20 kg - I have no idea how much 20 kg is. Readers?).

The blog's name is MinimizeMe, a takeoff on Morgan Spurlock's SuperSize Me movie, where he ate nothing but McDonald's food for a month and ruined his health (though I have serious problems with the way he did it). Max Restaurants are actually known for trying to get people to eat healthier.

[via The Grinder]

I don't eat as healthy as I should (the entire bag of Dove milk chocolate I ate last night is proof of that), but I'm always looking at ways to make my diet a lot better.

Cooking Light has picked five healthy food trends that you might want to follow. I've heard of most of them, though Flexitarianism is a new term to me, even though I would say many American's follow this without even know it. It's when a person eats a diet that's mostly grains, vegetables, and fruit, with a little meat, fish, poultry, and dairy mixed in too. Functional Foods are foods that are enriched with more nutrients, such as orange juice with calcium. We know what Organic Food, Locally Grown Foods, and Vegetarianism represent, but are you familiar with Slow Food? I first heard this term a few years ago (and there have been books written about it and it's a growing movement). It's choosing locally grown food, cooking it in traditional ways and then eating it with family, something that a lot of families don't do nowadays. Whenever I hear the term I think "food that's not cooked in a microwave," though I doubt that's the real definition.

We told you last week that the Topps Meat Company had announced a recall of over 331,000 pounds of ground beef and patties that may contain E. coli. Did that seem like a lot to you? Topps has now expanded that recall to 21.7 million pounds. There's a possibility that total could increase later today.

I didn't think that there were that many pounds of meat in the U.S.

This is the fifth largest food recall in U.S. history. Several people have become sick from eating the beef. Topps even says that based on research, they think that most of the beef has already been consumed by customers.

We're conditioned to believe that salads are typically the healthiest menu options. However, our friends over a AOL Body have put together a slide show that features ten of the most unhealthy salads around. Clocking in as some of the worst offenders are Dairy Queen's Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad (48 grams of fat), Chili's Southwest Cobb Salad (970 calories) and Cosi's Signature Salad (52 grams of fat). That last one really makes me sad, as that Cosi salad has always been one of my favorites. Thankfully, the folks at AOL Body also offer ways of making all the salads a bit more heart and diet friendly.

You didn't think this week was going to go by without a food recall notice, did you?

Topps Meat Company is recalling over 331,000 pounds of frozen hamburger because of E. coli concerns. Six people have gotten sick from the contamination, and three of them had to be hospitalized.

The patties were distributed under several different names and several different box sizes and dates. Here's a complete list of the recalled items from the USDA.

This week's food recall announcment: Dole salad mix.

No one has gotten sick yet, but a store in Canada sold a bag of Dole Hearts Delight that tested positive for E. Coli. The recall is for nine states and includes all packages of Dole Hearts Delight. The states involved are Maine, Mississippi, New York, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Illinois, and Indiana. The recall also includes Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime Provinces in Canada.

Here's a rundown on the lot numbers and the dates on the packages.