A homemade dressing can be healthier

Q. Are homemade salad dressings healthier than bottled dressings?

A. Making your salad dressing at home certainly offers you the opportunity to make a healthier dressing as compared to most commercial products.

For starters, choosing ingredients like canola or olive oil provides heart-healthy unsaturated fat. You can also reduce the amount of sodium drastically by making dressing from scratch. Many of the bottled dressings contain from 260 to 550 milligrams of sodium in a 2-tablespoon serving. That's 11 to 24 percent of the total recommended daily limit in just one condiment.

Instead, rely on herbs, spices, even garlic and you can reduce the sodium to less than 5 mg per serving. Adding even a dash of salt provides only about 160 mg of sodium.

Q. Does 100 percent of Daily Value for calcium meet everyone's calcium needs?

A. The Daily Value (DV) for calcium that is used as a reference on Nutrition Facts Labels is 1,000 milligrams. Although this covers the needs of most adults, current recommendations call for teenagers to get 1,300 mg and adults over age 50 to get 1,200 mg of calcium each day.

If you are in either of these groups, pay special attention to make sure that you are getting 100 percent of the DV through foods that are highest in calcium, namely dairy products and certain foods and drinks fortified with calcium. One serving from these groups provides about 30 percent of the DV, so three servings should cover you.

Small amounts of calcium from other foods (grains, vegetables, fruits, meat, poultry and seafood) will add up to provide the remainder of what you need each day.

If you do not eat dairy products or foods fortified with calcium, a supplement may be warranted. However, don't assume that adding more calcium beyond these amounts is better. Although experts caution that diets low in calcium can affect bone health and may increase risk of colon cancer, diets high in calcium have been shown to promote prostate cancer.

Men should be especially mindful of excess calcium for this reason and limit intake to 1,200 to 1,500 mg a day. It's worth checking to see how your food choices add up.

Q. What's the difference between wheat germ and wheat bran?

A. Both the germ and the bran are nutritious parts of whole-grain wheat that are removed when wheat is refined to make white flour.

Wheat germ is the central core of the grain. It is an excellent source of vitamin E, zinc and the B vitamin folate. Just a ¼ cup supplies more fiber than a slice of most whole-wheat breads. Because of its polyunsaturated fat content, however, wheat germ should be stored in the refrigerator to prevent it from becoming rancid once the container has been opened. Wheat germ that has had its fat removed does not need to be refrigerated; this type of wheat germ is lower in vitamin E.

Wheat bran, on the other hand, is the outer shell of the whole-wheat kernel. Bran provides more than 6 grams of fiber in a ¼ cup and is an excellent source of magnesium and iron.

Note that one is not nutritionally superior to the other. Better still, you benefit from both wheat germ and wheat bran when you choose whole-wheat foods.

Q. Is it true that honey contains more nutrients than white sugar?

A. Just because a food contains vitamins or other nutrients does not mean that it provides enough of them to benefit your health.

Although honey provides small amounts of a variety of vitamins and minerals (for example, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, B vitamins), nutrient analysis reveals that 1 tablespoon offers less than 1 percent of the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for each of them.

Some studies now suggest that honey may contain natural phytochemicals that can increase antioxidant activity in the blood. Yet these studies rely upon nearly a dozen teaspoons of honey daily to see an effect, adding a whopping 230 calories per day to the subjects' diets.

In contrast, fruits and vegetables provide significant antioxidant effects while supplying just 25 to 50 calories per serving. Further research is needed to determine if antioxidant benefits can be obtained from smaller amounts of honey.