Except for skewering a couple of onions and tomatoes with cubes of meat for kabobs, the delicious possibilities of grilling a wide variety of vegetables often go unexplored. But our Health-e-Recipe for Grilled Vegetables helps you turn out plenty of terrific tasting vegetables for your summer barbecues.

Start by buying the freshest possible white and red onions, peppers, summer squash like zucchini or yellow crookneck, portobello mushrooms and asparagus you can find. (You can try eggplant and cherry tomatoes, too.) Have a mix of herbs, juice or balsamic vinegar and canola or olive oil on hand plus a basting brush ready. Get your grill heated to medium. Skewer bite-size pieces or just place halved veggies on the grate and baste, grilling for about 2 minutes on each side.

Vegetables don’t contain the saturated fats that meats do. When saturated fat drips onto a heat source during grilling, it can cause flareups of smoke and flames that contain carcinogens. So grilling vegetables using a vegetable-based oil like olive or canola is totally safe. (Ditto for firm-fleshed fruits.)

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