Eating Well Vs. Cooking Light: A Healthy Living Magazine Comparison

From quick-weight-loss drugs to fad diets, consumers have more than a multitude of paths to choose to reach their fitness goals. As eating well and exercise are staples of healthy living, the magazine market has numerous options for readers hungry for useful tips. Two such periodicals, Cooking Light and Eating Well, offer sensible lifestyle advice and delicious recipes for the health-conscious. At about $5 an issue, each can be beneficial. For a tight subscription budget, however, consider the following contrasts and comparisons:

Cooking Light is a twenty-year-old product of Southern Living, Inc., with editorial offices based in Birmingham, Alabama. A monthly magazine with nearly 300 pages and 100 recipes an issue, Cooking Light costs $4.50 on the newsstand and about $25 for subscriptions. Themes coincide with seasonal tastes, like Christmas cookie ideas in December and grilling tips in May. A holistic approach to healthy living, Cooking Light offers step-by-step exercise routines, travel writing consumer advice, cooking strategies, and stories of successful readers who have changed their own lives through eating well and exercise.

The first half of each magazine consists of articles about health, such as how to choose the right Pilate's ball or how to navigate a farmer's market. The second half is full of recipes that include nutritional information and warnings about cooking time. The end of the magazine usually features recipes submitted by readers and articles about wine. The final pages also include a color-coded food and recipe index, which denotes which recipes are "quick and easy," which are "make ahead," and which are "freezable." The index is divided into appetizers, beverages, breads, cookies, desserts, grains, main dishes, pork, poultry, vegetarian, pasta, salads, sandwiches, sauces, sides, soups, stews and miscellaneous, just to demonstrate the wide range of recipes in each issue.

Cooking Light ideas can be adventurous, such as "Chortle Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Strawberry-Avocado Salsa" or "African Ground Nut Stew with Sour Cream-Chive Topping" (both May 2007). For long-term subscribers, however, the recipes and exercise advice can become repetitive. The aforementioned nut stew, for example, is not that different from a recipe published in a 2005 edition of the magazine. If a consumer is mostly interested in recipes and not the articles that orbit those recipes, the Cooking Light annual cookbook may be more worth the investment.

For readers who are overwhelmed by the number of recipes Cooking Light offers in a month, Eating Well may be a helpful alternative. Published by Charlotte, N.C.-- based Eating Well, Inc. this thinner healthy living magazine is published in January, March, May, July, September and November for a $4.99 newsstand price. Under the banner of "where good taste meets good health," this periodical features ingredients rather than whole meals on its cover. The June 2007 issue, for example, advertises a moist cucumber slice seated next to a sprig of rosemary.

Each issue of Eating Well is about 100 pages, including exercise tips, recipes and focus pieces on ingredients, like hemp foods and strawberry wine. The recipe index is at the beginning of each issue and, though it is half the size of Cooking Light's voluminous index, it is more user-friendly. Complete with nutritional information next to each recipe, the Eating Well guide makes it easier to plan meals according to calorie, carbohydrate and fat needs.

Meals are eclectic, from simple "Amazing Pea Soup" to "Gnocchi with Tomatoes, Pancetta and Wilted Watercress Kusa Mihshi," and can be generally prepared within 45 minutes. As the cover indicates, Eating Well focuses on seasonal ingredients, adding international flair to each dish. Some recipes may be too adventurous for at home-chefs or younger children, but they can be delicious.

When choosing between Eating Well and Cooking Light, its important to decide how often a new issue is desired, how many recipes are needed per month, and how adventurous the potential-eaters palates may be. If its possible to afford both, they are great compliments for one another. Both also make great gifts.