Ah, the question that never fails to come up during any given lecture I do, "What do you pack your kids for lunch?"  The question of the decade.  How do we, as parents and caregivers feel when we pack a lunch for our kids filled with brightly colored, cartoon decorated and nutritionally dead food?  Lousy, I suspect.  With summer camp in full swing by now, school not so far off, let today be the day to start fresh.  There is an art to feeding our kids healthy and still get a hug!  How do I know this?  I have five of my own. 5 sets of tastebuds, 5 opinions, 5 mouthes to fuel.  Today, however, I am handing over the virtual mic to another voice on the topic.  Meet Heather, author and founder of the blog, The Gluten Free Cat.

Gluten-Free “Clean Food”

Created by: Amie Valpone, HHC, AADP and author of The Healthy Apple is a Manhattan based Culinary Nutritionist, Personal Chef, Professional Recipe Developer and Food Writer specializing in simple Gluten-Free ‘Clean’ recipes for the home cook.

What is ‘Clean’ Food? It’s about eating to complement all five tastes through a colorful rainbow of fresh produce, healthy fats and lean proteins.  It’s about training your taste buds to rid themselves of processed food flavors and sugar we face every day. It's about eating minimally processed foods with maximum nutrient value.

Here are a few helpful tips for how to create flavor within my ‘Clean’ Food parameters:

May is traditionally Detox month.  We clean out our houses in the Spring, we clean our closets out in the Spring, we plant our gardens, we prepare for a renewal of life in the Spring.  So, it's makes sense that our bodies need the same.  Cleansing our bodies helps our liver and kidney to clean out and be restored to a healthy balance.  We've been breathing in toxic air, especially if you work in a large city, drinking water and sports drinks from plastic water bottles that release toxins over time and eating food that is not 100% organic and clean.  Our bodies need that cleanse.  With big names such as Dr. Oz and Dr. Weil supporting an annual cleanse, many companies have created their own version. 

Zema’s is entering into its 3rd guest blogger week in celebration of National Nutrition Month. Meet Karen Malkin, a certified Nutrition Counselor who graduated from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in NYC. She has her own practice for Health Counseling in Northfield and Chicago, IL. Karen has decades of holistic and health nutrition training and research and her strengths lie in helping you attain your health goals through easy, everyday practices that keep you motivated and energetic. She helps some of her clients learn how to eat a healthy gluten free diet while also helping them to understand what gluten is and what it is doing inside your body so you understand the full scope of your new daily diet. Karen is also sharing some her easy to make recipes just for Zema’s fans. Enjoy!

“Going Gluten Free”
by Karen Malkin,
Holistic Health and Nutrition Counselor

Zema’s is entering into the 2nd week of our guest blogger celebration of National Nutrition Month. A common fear of people deciding to go gluten free by choice, such as athletes, health fanatics and those who suspect they may have a gluten sensitivity, is that they won’t have enough to eat. The initial weeks of eating gluten free can be trying due to the unknown. What will I eat if I can’t have my favorite cookies, donuts, pasta dish and sub sandwich. Will this take a lot of my time? How do I shop? Hailing from Sydney, Australia, (where I once lived) is a wonderful blogger named Lee and her cyberhome, Superchaged Foods. I discovered her months ago and although we are miles away from each other, I am drawn to her spirit of eating clean. In this age of blogger-mania, I know it can be crazy finding who to follow and where you want to spend your hours of cybersearching for high quality clean living. Lee has written an easy to digest gluten free lifestyle article for beginners. She also is sharing a loaf bread recipe with us that features stevia for those of you looking to try a new sweetener. Thanks Lee!

Healthy Gluten Free Eating 101
By Lee of Supercharged

Nowadays people are becoming increasingly aware of how the foods we eat affect our bodies. If you’re having problems digesting food and absorbing nutrients due to mal absorption issues or auto immune conditions then adopting a gluten free diet is highly recommended by many industry professionals.