-By Mike Shields

NBC Universal’s iVillage, which is undergoing a site-wide transformation—unveiled it’s latest revamped channel on Thursday (Nov. 12)-- iVillage Food.

The new service-oriented section is geared for women seeking easy meal options and ways to eat healthier. Along with the typical recipes and food preparation videos, iVillage Food offers multiple tools designed for users to manage personalized shopping lists, diet plans and the like.

“We know women are the primary shoppers and cooks in the home, and have designed the new site with a real-life approach to how they consume, shop and integrate food into their lives,” said Jodi Kahn, executive vp of the iVillage Network.

iVillage Food also leverages parent company NBCU’s popular food-related programming. For example, the site serves as hub for fan of Bravo’s Top Chef, offering episode reviews and fan blogs and showcasing talent from the long-running competition series.

The site has also gone outside the NBCU family to bolster the new channel’s content. iVillage has partnered with Time Inc. to deliver recipes from the titles Real Simple, Cooking Light and Southern Living.

The launch of iVillage Food follows a similar roll out of iVillage’s entertainment channel last September—all part of an overall push to make the longstanding women’s property more content-rich and community oriented. Thus, the food channel offers numerous outlet for user to participate, including a Twitter-esque “Chime In” box on the home page which encourages visitors to respond to questions—such as “What holiday dish do you wish you could eat year-round?”--in 140 characters or less.

McCormick has signed on as iVillage Food’s launch sponsor.