With warmer weather looming on the horizon in Northern America, many women and men start to simplify and streamline their diets. Gone are the heavy chili dinners and beef stews that fill our bellies in the dead of winter. Enter the salad: cool, fresh, crisp bursts of flavor - but not necessarily a significant caloric savings over a meat and potatoes dinner. The culprit: creamy, oil based dressings. The solution: for most, it's to take their dressing on the side.

Traditional commerically prepared salad dressings are an easy way to turn a healthy salad into a calorie-dense, fat-laden disaster. Bottled dressings can have anywhere from 8 to 20 grams of fat per serving.

Take your dressing on the side? Never! At least, theres never a need when you make your own healthy salad dressings.

Of course, you can buy decent commercial low-fat dressings, or even organic dressings but, more often than not, they are loaded with unhealthy elements like sugar and heavy amounts of heart-unhealthy sodium.

Its hard, however, to beat a homemade dressing!

The key to making delicious healthy dressings at home is to reduce the oils and other fats, and bump up the ingredients that add texture and flavor.

The oil in any salad dressing serves several functions, including providing a cling" or "binding" factor, so your acidic and other flavorings (such as vinegar and herbs) dont end up in a puddle at the bottom of the bowl.

Oil also serves to soften and balance the acids so that they're more pleasing to the pallate.

When thinking of healthier dressings, most people eschew creamy dressings in favor of lighter vinaigrettes. But classic vinaigrettes often use a 3-to-1 or 4-to-1 ratio of fat to acid (for example: olive oil and red wine vinegar). Such a ratio can yield at least 10 grams of fat per tablespoon! And who uses just one tablespoon?

So what constitutes a healthy salad dressing?

Let's look at oil.

When choosing oils for your dressing, think carefully about flavors. Extra-virgin olive oil is almost always an excellent healthful and flavorful choice. But so are nut oils such as almond, macadamia and hazelnut. Each contributes complex yet subtle flavors that can complement a salad. Olive and nut oils also are rich in healthy monounsaturated fats.

You can reduce the amount of oil, however, in any dressing by approximately 40 percent if the other ingredients that balance the dressing are not too acidic.

A common complaint when reducing the oil content of a dressing recipe is that one often misses the thick texture that oil adds to your recipes. Try adding Dijon mustard as an emulsifier to make up for the reduced oil. Like oil, mustard is thick enough to bind the other ingredients and adds a tangy flavor.

In creamy dressings, the emulsifier often is sour cream or mayonnaise (and sometimes oil, too). Providing a healthy option for these ingredients is an easy fix.

Nonfat yogurt, reduced-fat sour cream, and reduced-fat mayonnaise all make good substitutes. They each have good flavor and produce dressings that hold together and coat vegetables quite well.

Or try buttermilk. Buttermilk is always either nonfat or reduced-fat. Its thick texture and mild, tangy flavor makes it a useful ingredient.

With a little bit of ingenuity and creativity, it is possible to make healthy salad dressings without sacrificing good nutrition by cutting calories, fat and chemicals.

Deborah Carraro is an avid nutrition, health & fitness enthusiast with a passion for sharing knowledge and experiences. As VP Operations for a successful online Natural Health business she has worked with the best nutritionists, fitness professionals and health experts.

You can find her online at http://www.yogaforoptimalhealth.com/HealthySaladDressings.html

The turtle is one of the most popular breakdance moves out there. It involves the breakdancer supporting his body on his arms/elbow while spinning around in circles.

To learn this impressive breakdance move, first learn the turtle freeze. You do this by stabbing your elbow on your stomach and keeping your legs tucked in. Your body should be parallel to the ground, and your fingers should be pointing outward, opposite of each other. Keep practicing the turtle freeze until you can hold it for an average of 15-30 seconds.

Next, learn the handglide freeze. This is similar to the turtle freeze, but only one arm should be stabbed, while keeping your other arm on the floor. Be sure that your stabbed arm IS NOT on the center of your stomach, but more between your abs and your sides. Your fingers for the other hand should be pointing outwards. When you can hold the handglide freeze for an average of 15-30 seconds, you are ready for turtles.

Now you have the necessary prerequisites for this breakdancing move. The next step is to choose a direction. It doesn't matter if you choose clockwise or counter-clockwise, just find a direction you're comfortable with.

CLOCKWISE:

Go into turtle freeze. Keep your right arm stabbed as you move your left hand about 90 degrees so that you are now in handglide position. Shift your body onto your left arm so that you are in a position similar to the turtle freeze, but with the fingers of your right arm facing upward. Move your right arm so that you are in turtle freeze again. Repeat this process until you have at least a 360 degree rotation. Congrats! You have just mastered this breakdance move!

COUNTER-CLOCKWISE:

Go into turtle freeze. Keep your left arm stabbed as you move your right hand about 90 degrees so that you are now in handglide position. Shift your body onto your right arm so that you are in a position similar to the turtle freeze, but with the fingers of your left arm facing upward. Move your left arm so that you are in the turtle freeze again. Repeat this process until you have at least a 360 degree rotation. Congrats! You have just mastered this breakdance move!

Dan Svinsky is a webmaster and breakdance instructor. He runs a website that's a helpful resource for beginners that want to learn how to breakdance.