Our friend Maggie sent me an email copy of "HEALTHbeat" (I'm putting titles into quotes today as my computer seems to have developed an aversion to italics), a Harvard Medical School publication. It's free on the Web and I signed up to get it regularly. This edition happened start with "Advice to women about supplements-use selectively." and my wife read that with great interest. I ordered two of their print publications, one for women over 50 and one on losing weight and keeping it off. I also sent them an email about what I think was a typo about the recommended vitamin D dosage.

Anyway they talked about nutrient-dense foods as being the best way to get many things we need in a synergistic fashion, which might turn out to be the more effective way as well. I looked through their list which included lots of foods we already eat in our high-fruit-and-vegetable, low-red-meat diet. Among the choices were avocados, bell peppers sweet potatoes, low-fat yogurt, peas, various nuts, salmon and chicken.

So far it sounded like a typical meal at our house. Then Lynnette, to whom I was reading the list, said, "We don't eat kale very often."

That intrigued me, so I went to an older book we frequently consult, "Food" by Waverly Root. The subtitle of this 1980 tome is "An authoritative visual history and dictionary of the foods of the world" and Mr. Root wasn't kidding. Sometimes he'll spend four pages on the histroy of a particular food item. If you ever run across a copy, I'd suggest buying it; we love this book. We also recently found "The New Food Lover's Companion" (the 2007 4th edition) by Sharon Tyler Herbst and Ron Herbst which had a paragraph on kale.

It's a member of the cabbage family, low in calories, high in vitamin C and calcium, and eaten more in Europe than in America, where it's been made into so-called pot greens. My copy of Barbara Kafka's great book, "Microwave Gourmet" gave me a way to cook kale and we'll try some soon.

But back to the Harvard Medical School advice. They appear to think women in America are taking too many multivitamins and that those haven't given all the benefits they've been touted to offer. Their publication for seniors does suggest taking one, but only one such pill a day. They do want you to try some of the foods I mentioned instead (there are more on their list) and to get some extra vitamin D.

We both take one senior vitamin pill a day (which has 125% of the daily recommended vitamin D dose), some calcium, B12, and vitamin C. They'd have us cutting back on some of that, but I'll read more before I do; nothing we're taking seems to offer a risk, as some preliminary studies show may be there for excess vitamin A and E, folic acid and beta carotene. Those studies, Harvard notes, "warrant further studies."

The Wall Street Journal published two interesting articles last week that may, in one case, apply to the world of health and diet and, in the other case directly applies. The first said the FDA's Office of Criminal Investigations should be more active. But, it also mentioned that an appellate judge had reversed a case ruling from a lower court where the FDA had charged a food wholesaler with misbranding the labels on their food product.

Hmm, on the one hand the FDA announce s(they did so in a letter to a senator) they will increase their prosecution of food industry executives, but one of their officials said they will do so with considerable thoughtfulness. The article itself shows why they have to, since their 2007 case got reversed.

The other article said the agency has warned a number of food and beverage makers that they must stick to government labeling requirements. They're particularly concerned about unproven health-benefit claims that don't help us as consumers decide which foods are healthy and which aren't.

Good so far, but I want to see this in action. While walking down the aisles of our favorite supermarket, I've see cereals I wouldn't dream of eating be labeled "a healthy choice" and that's just the beginning. Another example is "no trans fat" in products that still have lots (I define this as >4) grams of saturated fat per helping. One ice cream "snack" mentioned has 20 grams of saturated fat per serving.

The proof is in the pudding; I'll be happy if the FDA does crack down on labeling, but in the meantime I'll continue to read labels carefully and to do most of my supermarket shopping in the outer ring where the fruits and vegetables (and dairy products) are.