Posts Tagged ‘Food’

Yesterday’s CHEW Health and Wellness Tour of Chicago was amazing! I had such a blast and would recommend anyone and everyone to do it!

The tour met at Green City Farmer’s Market in the heart of the Lincoln Park neighborhood. We stopped at Tiny Greens, a farm in Urbana, IL that sprouts greens and sells them to put on salads or sandwiches. They sell everything from sunflower and cilantro to broccoli and onion sprouts! We got to sample all sorts of sprouts, but my favorite were these delicious black onion sprouts!

Our next stop at the farmer’s market was Potter’s Crackers. These homemade crackers come in a variety of flavors including flax seed, rosemary, and garlic. They were quite delicious but rather pricey.

Throughout the tour our guide consistently emphasized the importance of greens in one’s diet and how they are extremely under-rated, which I totally agree with! A lot of people get nervous about buying greens because they feel like they don’t know how to cook them. Our tour guide had a great idea; she buys collard greens and then uses them as wraps for lunch. She makes a sweet wrap with almond butter sprinkled with granola and a chopped apple wrapped up in a collard green leaf or makes a savory wrap using hummus, veggies, and protein such as chicken. I’m going to have to try these!

After the market we met with a yoga instructor in the park for a 20 minute yoga class. It was so great to be doing yoga outdoors, I felt totally connected with nature! Then we walked through Oz Park on our way to get some frozen yogurt.

We all stopped by this fountain for a photo op and to cool off! There were a total of 8 of us on the tour, 4 of them being friends of mine!

Then we arrived at Starfruit, which reminded me a lot of Berry Chill but they use Kefir instead of regular yogurt. Kefir contains 10 probiotic cultures per cup which help strengthen the immune system and aids in digestive health. Kefir is a great source of calcium, protein, and fiber and can even help with lactose intolerance.

We got to sample pomegranate and vanilla frozen kefir as well as the Berry Good 4U smoothie which contains blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, goji berries, pomegranate acai kefir and vanilla kefir. All of it was so delicious I never wanted to leave!

Then off the Lululemon Athletic we went. We got a tour of the store and had a chance to shop around and cool off in the air conditioning! I of course fell in love with a pair of plaid running shorts that I want to go back and buy to wear for my half marathon in August!

After Lululemon we walked over to LUSH. If you have never been to LUSH you have to go! They have so many wonderful beauty and bath products that are all handmade! Check out these colorful bath bombs and bubble bath bars!

They even have face masks that are made fresh on a daily basis! We got to try a ocean salt scrub on our hands as well as some lotions and massage oils; all of which were amazing! I will definitely be returning to LUSH to stock my bathroom with a few of these goodies!

The tour continued on. Just as I thought it couldn’t get any better, we went to Karyn’s Raw! Karyn Calabrese helped pioneer the raw food movement and Karyn’s Raw is a holistic health center and cafe that sells everything from raw/vegan smoothies and snacks to books on detox and holistic supplements to keep you energized and radiant!

We got to sample a Morning Cleanser smoothie made of Karyn’s Green Meal, apple juice, Rejuvalac, banana, flax oil, and Lecithin. We also sampled some dips including a vegan sour cream, a beet puree, hummus, and a vegan cheese dip!

And get this! I got to meet Karyn! She just happened to be in the store during the tour along with her famous mentor! I wasn’t able to get any pictures with them, but it was surely a great surprise!

Here we are at the cafe; Jess and Catherine are enjoying their green Morning Cleanser smoothie shot!

Sadly the tour had to come to an end, but the great thing was that we ended at the new Whole Foods Market on North and Kingsbury! If you live in Chicago and have never been to this particular Whole Foods you must go! This place is HUGE and its absolutely incredible, they have it all! Out on the back patio you can eat lunch and enjoy the view of the Chicago skyline over the Chicago River. It was such a gorgeous day, there were even a group of kayakers going by as we took pictures!

I ended up staying at Whole Foods for a bit to grab lunch and shop around a bit before heading home. This tour was an incredible way to spend my Saturday, not only did I meet some great people who love health and wellness as much as I do, but I got to experience new places around the city and even came home with a vast array of goodies, coupons, and a complementary nutrition consultation with our tour guide and founder of CHEW Chicago, Jessica Marie, who is a Holistic Nutrition Practitioner!

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The day of the CHEW Chicago tour has finally arrived! I have been waiting for this day all week! CHEW Chicago (Complete Health Education and Wellness Inc.) offers Health and Wellness tours in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago. The Health and Wellness tour is a walking tour to experience the best in Chicago fitness, natural health, beauty and wellness!

The tour consists of:

• A walk around the Green City Farmers Market
• 20 minute intro yoga class in the park
• Sampling low far smoothies at Starfruit Cafe
• Touring/shopping at Lululemon Athletica
• Demonstrations and sampling at LUSH beauty products
• Raw smoothie and food samples at Karyn’s Raw
• 20 minutes intro to Pilates class at Balance Health & Wellness
• Tour of new Whole Foods Market on North and Kingsbury

The whole tour takes about 3-4 hours as you walk from place to place (about a 3 mile walk!). I cannot think of a better way to cross train on a Saturday morning! I’ll be sure to bring my camera along for the ride!

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In my last post I briefly mentioned the new television show on ABC called Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. For those of you who may not be familiar with the show I wanted to let you know what it’s all about. The host of the show, well-known British chef Jamie Oliver is best known for his TV show The Naked Chef and countless best-selling cookbooks.

Jamie is taking a stand against the growing obesity rate in children within the United States. Alarming statistics state that our current generation of children are expected to live shorter lives than their parents. Jamie wants to start a revolution in America to push for better food in the public school system.

Jamie is starting his food initiative in the unhealthiest city in American, Huntington, West Virginia. He is working with school staff, parents, and students in local elementary and high schools to change their unhealthy eating habits and introduce healthier options within the schools. Jamie has successfully overturned school lunch programs throughout the U.K. and is now turning his attention to helping the people of America eat more balanced meals and cook with fresh ingredients starting with the community of Huntington.

If you, like Jamie, believe that every child in America has the right to fresh, nutritious school meals, support his cause by signing the petition at jamieoliver.com. Jamie would like to take his petition to the White House after the TV series airs to show the President and First Lady how many people across the country really care about the issue of childhood obesity and ask for their support in making healthy changes to the school food system in America.

Be sure to check out Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution Fridays 9/8C on ABC.

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I hope everyone is enjoying the weekend! I’ve got some new books to add to my reading list that you might be interested in!

1. The Locavore Way by Amy Cotler

Discover how wonderful it tastes to be a locavore. Fresh fruits and vegetables, picked at the height of their ripeness; flavorful meats from humanely raised and organically fed animals; and pungent, handcrafted cheeses – all these foods and many more are waiting to be found and savored, no matter where you live or what your budget is. Amy Cotler shares all of her secrets for sourcing and using the best that your community has to offer.

A long advocate of local eating, Amy Cotler has worked as a chef, caterer, cooking instructor, recipe developer and cookbook author. She served as the founding director of Berkshire Grown, a regional organization that has received national recognition as a model for local food advocacy. Cotler was a food forum host for The New York Times on the Web and a major contributor to the revised Joy of Cooking.

2. Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal by Tristram Stuart

With shortages, volatile prices, and nearly 1 billion people hungry, the world has a food problem – or thinks it does. Farmers, manufacturers, supermarkets, and consumers in North America and Europe discard up to half of their food – enough to feed all the world’s hungry at least three times over. Forests are destroyed and nearly one-tenth of the West’s greenhouse gas emissions are released growing food that will never be eaten. While affluent nations throw away food through neglect, in the developing world crops rot because farmers lack the means to process, store, and transport them to market.

But there could be surprisingly painless remedies for what has become one of the world’s most pressing environmental and social problems. Waste traces the problem around the globe from the top to the bottom of the food production chain. Tristram Stuart’s journey takes him from the streets of New York to China, Pakistan, and Japan, and back to his home in England. Introducing us to foraging pigs, potato farmers, and food industry CEOs, Stuart encounters grotesque examples of profligacy but also inspiring innovations and ways of making the most of what we have. The journey is a personal one, as Stuart is a dedicated freegan, choosing to live off discarded or self-produced food in order to highlight the global food waste scandal.

Combining frontline investigation with startling new data, Waste shows how the way we live has created a global food crisis – and what we can do to fix it.

3. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

Like many others, Jonathan Safran Foer spent his teenage and college years oscillating between omnivore and vegetarian. But on the brink of fatherhood – facing the prospect of having to make dietary choices on a child’s behalf – his casual questioning took on an urgency. So Foer set out to find answers for himself. This quest ultimately required him to visit factory farms in the middle of the night, dissect the emotional ingredients of meals from his childhood, and probe some of his most primal instincts about right and wrong. This book is what he found.

Brilliantly synthesizing philosophy, literature, science, memoir, and his own detective work, Eating Animals explores the many stories we  use to justify out eating habits – folklore and pop culture, family traditions and national myth, apparent facts and inherent fictions – and how such tales can lull us into a brutal forgetting.

4. Don’t Eat This Book by Morgan Spurlock

Can a man live on fast food alone? Morgan Spurlock tried to do just that. For thirty days, he ate nothing by McDonald’s as part of an investigation into the effect of fast food on American health. The resulting documentary, Super Size Me, earned him and Academy Award nomination and a world-wide release that broke box office records.

But there is much more to this story than Spurlock’s food-humored “McSickness.” In Don’t Eat This Book, Spurlock examines what’s happening across the country – in schools, hospitals, and homes – and in school lunch programs, the marketing of fast food, and the sharp decline in emphasis on health and physical education. He looks at why fast food is so tasty, cheap, and ultimately seductive, and what Americans can do to turn the rising tide of obesity, hypertension, and diabetes that has accompanied its ever-growing popularity. He interviews experts in twenty US cities – from surgeons general and kids to lawmakers and marketing gurus – who share their research, opinions, and “gut feelings” on our ever-expanding girth and suggest what we can all do to offset a health crisis of super-sized proportions.

** Also, has anyone been watching that new show on ABC, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution? If not you should check it out, it’s quite eye-opening!

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Good evening everyone! This week has been hectic and I’m finally going home for Easter tomorrow; got a long drive ahead of me tomorrow morning! Anyways thought you guys would like this website. It has some great health foods that everyone will love!

…APRIL FOOLS!

Although I do love that site. It’s a fun conversation piece for you and your friends! Did you play any fun jokes on anyone today? Or had a prank played on yourself?

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