Wednesday’s “Savor the Flavor” live cooking show will set out to prove healthy cooking doesn’t mean food has to be boring and tasteless.

The live show will feature recipes from a new 30-recipe healthy lifestyles cookbook created by The Meadville Tribune and the Mind-Body Wellness Center of Meadville.

The recipes, taken from winning recipes in the Tribune’s annual cookbook contest, all have been “healthed up” by the three nutritionists from the Mind-Body Wellness Center.

“We want Crawford County to believe nutritious food can be fun and full of flavor,” said Tribune publisher Jeanne Moore-Yount.

Moore-Yount said the idea for a new cookbook featuring “best of the best” recipes began to come together early last fall as the Tribune was to mark its 30th annual cookbook contest in October.

The result is a 72-page full-color, glossy cookbook with a photo of each dish as well as nutritional information for each. Most recipes are from the first seven years of the Tribune’s annual contest and other editions are expected to follow, Moore-Yount said.

Attendees at Wednesday’s shows at 4:30 and 6:30 p.m. at The Movies in Meadville each will receive a copy of the cookbook and a gift bag from sponsors.

Moore-Yount noted “There’ll be some fun surprises during the shows.”

Also, there will be giveaways during each hour-long show and a $600 gas grill from Home Depot will be given away at the end of the night to one of the attendees. The winner need not be present, Moore-Yount said.

Wednesday’s three featured recipes are baby beef Wellington, cool couscous salad and apricot squares. Those and the 27 others in the book have been changed to make them more nutritious, said Jane Livingston, who is the center’s director of nutrition.

Livingston, Deborah Schultz and Paula Bartges will prepare the dishes with assistance from culinary students from the Crawford County Area Vocational Technical School.

Livingston, Schultz and Bartges are registered dietitians and licensed dietitian/nutritionists with the Mind-Body Wellness Center — an outpatient department of Meadville Medical Center.

“We want to show patients healthy cooking is something that’s doable in their quest for a healthy lifestyle,” said Dr. Barry Bittman, chief executive officer and head of the Mind-Body Wellness Center.

“These are recipes not normally associated with healthy eating,” Bittman said. “We wanted to find award-winning recipes and make them healthier.”

About 50 to 60 recipes were initially selected and then pared down to 30, Bittman said. Work on revising the recipes started in November with photography of the dishes selected done by both Bittman and Ben Cares of Photographic Arts in January. Final layout of the book was done in February, he said.