Healthier Fixin’ & Mixin’

Southern cooking has earned a bad reputation among many health advocates. And there is some reason for concern. High blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, and strokes are more common in the South, particularly among African Americans, than elsewhere in the United States.

One reason may be that our cooking traditions come from a time when folks worked hard all day under a hot, Southern sun. These days, most of us just don’t burn off fat and calories the way many Southerners used to.

Still, we like our fatback, fried chicken, and peach cobbler. All of us just can’t all eat these things. What’s a Southern cook to do?