Nutritious foods can be expensive, but dietitians say there are ways to go healthy without going broke:

Plan ahead. Write out a weekly menu after looking at coupons and grocery ads. Use leftovers for additional meals; extra vegetables and meats can go into bagged lunches, soups, stews, casseroles and salads.

Skip unhealthy extras. You can save a lot by avoiding chips, soda and prepackaged baked goods.

Try cheaper proteins. Beans, lentils and eggs are nutritious alternatives to meat. If you can't bear to go without meat, eat it in smaller portions.

Know your top 10. Make a list of the nutritious foods you buy the most and comparison shop. Stock up on those staples at the lowest prices.

Buy produce in season. It's much cheaper. Farmers' markets often have great deals.

Go beyond fresh. Canned, frozen and dried foods are healthy but often less pricey than fresh foods, especially if you buy generic versions. Just watch sugar and salt content.

Think in bulk. Buy big packages of meat and divide them into meal-sized portions for freezing, and store whole-grain rice and cereal in airtight containers.

Plant a garden. Grow your own fruits and vegetables.

Take the long view. A bag of apples might be more expensive than a bag of cookies, but you're not likely to eat more than one apple in a sitting.

DAILY PRESS (NEWPORT NEWS, VA.)

Jane Delgado, head of the National Alliance for Hispanic Health, offers health advice for Hispanic women of all ages in "The Latina Guide to Health" (Newmarket, $16) -- delivered "as if we were talking over a chocolate caliente" (hot chocolate). First, the good news: Latinas, Delgado says, have lower rates of heart disease and stroke and live longer than non-Hispanic white women. Now the bad: Latinas are more likely to be overweight and are more likely to suffer from depression. Delgado goes through health issues alphabetically -- from alcohol use to STDs -- then includes handy health charts and lists of questions to ask your doctor at the end of the book.

WASHINGTON POST

Neuroscientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently began experimenting with a kind of light therapy to shut down abnormally active brain cells. Using implanted devices along with genes specially primed to react to light, the researchers deliver a jolt of light deep into the brain; doing so might allow them to control the defective cells. The idea is to manage the neural circuits thought to be responsible for epilepsy, Parkinson's disease and chronic pain. "In this way the brain can be programmed with different colors of light, to study and possibly correct the corrupted neural computations that lead to disease," said Brian Chow, one of the researchers.

WASHINGTON POST