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For too many of us, Thanksgiving signals the beginning of a six-week eating frenzy.

Even those who usually try to eat healthfully can find themselves eating with abandon during this season.

Somehow, the idea gets into our heads that if holiday fare is going to taste good, it has to be rich in fat and calories.

A new yearlong campaign, spearheaded by the California Walnut Board, wants to challenge that notion. It wants to prove that healthy foods can be just as flavorful and simple to create as not-so-healthy fare. And it has taken the bold step of tackling the most food-centric of holidays, Thanksgiving.

The board has brought together celebrated chef and cookbook author Mollie Katzen and Dr. Michael Roizen, co-author of the popular You series, to make over the traditional fare found on the Thanksgiving table. (Katzen's column appears regularly in the Food section. Roizen's column, You Docs, which he co-authors with Dr. Mehmet Oz, appears Tuesdays in the Sun-Times.)

What they've come up with is the Smart Menu program. Going one season at a time, the plan is to improve the nation's top 50 classic recipes.

In its debut, the program has taken gravy, sweet potatoes, stuffing, appetizers and that modern-day Thanksgiving staple, the green bean casserole, and trimmed fat, saturated fat, sodium and sugar, but in ways one's taste buds would hardly notice. According to the program, the recipes have 33 percent fewer fat and calories.

For instance, instead of sweet potatoes drowning in marshmallows and brown sugar, Katzen has sliced the sweet potatoes into small sticks and tossed them with a couple tablespoons of olive oil before baking them. Afterward they are seasoned with salt and pepper. Couldn't be any simpler, could it-

This is a makeover, but with flavor at the forefront at all times. If one thinks back to those early reduced-calorie recipes that relied heavily on artificial ingredients, many times once a person lost the desired amount of weight, those recipes went out the window. With them went any new ways of eating, and before long, the pounds were back.

Katzen kept that in mind. "People have flavor expectations that have to be met," she said during a phone interview. "Compliance won't happen if it is not satisfying."

Besides taking ingredients out, other items, particularly produce, nuts (walnuts, of course, which are so rich in heart-healthy omega-3s), fiber and whole grains, have been added to recipes, another way to make them a healthier option and to ensure flavor.

"The food has to be its own advertisement," Katzen said.

Katzen said she embarked on this mission because of the seriousness of our country's expanding waistlines. Obesity has been linked to a number of chronic and often fatal illnesses, including heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure. And, those problems also have trickled down to the younger generation. Last week, a study showed obese children as young as 10 who have the arteries of 45-year-olds, putting them more at risk for early heart disease.

"We need to know how to get healthy food on the table," Katzen said. "What we've created [with the Smart Menu program] is a new model for what's right [to eat]."

Katzen is aware that some people balk about fresh produce, especially those of us in the Midwest, where winter is near and finding good fresh produce becomes a challenge.

"I tell people to do the best they can," said Katzen, who'd rather have good low-sodium canned tomatoes than the rock-hard hothouse fresh ones available found in winter.

"There's nothing wrong with a good frozen vegetable."

Next up for the campaign: Super Bowl fare.

To check out more of the Smart Menu program recipes, visit www.walnuts.org/smart menus.