Food for Thought Giveaway: Gluten-Free Goodies!

Enjoying your gluten-free food but wanting to try new flavors and foods? Check out our Gluten-Free Sampler goodie bag! It features Bob's Red Mill gluten-free whole grain steel cut oats and whole grain oat flour, Boulder Canyon's rice and adzuki bean chips, Mary's Gone Crackers chocolate chip cookies, and Dowd & Rogers artisan dark vanilla cake mix (it's delicious and easy to make!!!).

Interested? Enter your name and email address in the comment section of the blog! Winner will be drawn Saturday, May 1st! Good luck!

This Week's Sweepstakes Winner!

Congratulations to Ginny!!!

She won the Keto Slim Shake Giveaway!!! Make sure the enter this week's sweepstakes for your chance to win!

New from Derma-E!

Derma-E has introduced a new line, and we are already hooked on it! Tropical Solutions boasts an impressive 7 products (we carry all of them, don't worry!), featuring tamanu, pomegranate, green tea, papaya and acai! If those hydrating, antioxidant ingredients weren't enough, all of the products smell absolutely amazing and are sure to put you in a feel-good mood.

In addition to pomegranate and green tea (both are rich in antioxidants that help reduce the signs of aging), Vitamins A, C, and E are all prominent ingredients. The Anti-Aging Eye Creme and the Anti-Aging Day Creme are both already receiving rave reviews! And, while it is being touted as an "Anti-Aging" line, I think it's great for all ages. The ingredients aren't too heavy for younger skin and who wouldn't want to try the facial scrub (it's pineapple-papaya scented!!!) or cleansing gel?

The product in this line that I am the most excited about (I gave a little scream in delight when I saw it, and scared a fellow co-worker) is the Facial Moisturizer with SPF 15!!! This is a great moisturizer for those of you who, like me, cannot get enough of the sunshine during the summer. It still features all of those great anti-oxidant, renewing ingredients, but is light enough to wear under makeup and then you don't have to slather sunscreen all over your face.

And, like the rest of their products, Tropical Solutions is paraben, phthalate, sodium lauryl sulfate, petrolatum, mineral oil and artificial colour-free. It is pH balanced, 100% vegetarian, cruelty-free and eco-friendly!

Come in and check it out!

Happy Earth Day!

Join us today in our Earth Day Celebration from 11a.m.-4p.m.  

Overwhelmed by all the green talk?  Check out the following easy ways to improve our planet!

10 steps to make the Earth a little better!

1 ) Take the time to recycle- and get your whole family involved! Check out this link to discover where you can take your recyables in Wichita!

2 ) Use one napkin when you get your morning coffee and bagel or get take out! If ordering in, request that the restaurant delivering to you not include napkins, plastic utensils or chopsticks. At home and in our lunch boxes we use cloth napkins.  They are way more effective and my children love the fun designs.  Americans use 2,200 paper napkins per year. If we all gave up one napkin a day, we could save a billion pounds of paper waste!

3 ) Change the light bulbs in your house to compact fluorescent light bulbs, which are 75% more energy-efficient than regular ones. If we all switched just one regular light bulb for a fluorescent one, we could prevent more than 30 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions and conserve enough energy to light up more than 15 million homes in an entire year. Although they do cost more, you end up saving more money on your electric bill.

4 ) Unplug electronics from wall. Get a surge protector for your computer, printer, phone chargers, tv and all other electronics and turn it off when you leave the house or go to bed at night!

5 ) Bring your own reusable bag when you go shopping. 385 billion plastic bags are used and discarded every year in the United States and can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade in landfills.

6 ) Don’t use products that contain harsh chemicals and bleach. These products are very bad for the health of your and your family, and also very bad for the environment!

7 ) Sign-up for Precycle, an organization that will cut down 70-90 % of your junk mail, which requires an estimated 100 million trees and 20 billion gallons of water every year. They also plant a tree a month for every member.   Or for free, the Direct Marketing Association estimates that listing with their mail preference service will stop 75% of all national mailings. They process 50,000 requests a month and requests are kept active for five years.

8) Stop buying and drinking from plastic disposable water bottles and buy a reusable stainless steel or BPA-free plastic water bottle and keep refilling it throughout the day.

9) Recycle your old computers and electronics (One place locally is Starkey, Inc. Electronics account for up to five percent of landfill volume and contributes up to 70 percent of the toxins found in landfills. 

10) Recycle your old, unwanted stuff on Freecycle. Freecycle is a site similar to eBay, except all of the items are free. It reduces waste, saves precious resources & eases the burden on our landfills, while enabling members to benefit.

Vegan Wednesday!

The Environmental Impact of an Animal Based Diet

Vegansociety.com states:

A report commissioned by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the World Bank concluded that factory farming, "acts directly on land, water, air and biodiversity through the emission of animal waste, use of fossil fuels and substitution of animal genetic resources. In addition, it affects the global land base indirectly through its effect on the arable land needed to satisfy its feed concentrate requirements. Ammonia emissions from manure storage and application lead to localized acid rain and ailing forests.

Animal agriculture depletes valuable natural resources. An overwhelming majority of grain harvest in the United States is used to feed farm animals. Various ecosystems have been disrupted to be turned into crop and grazing land. Meanwhile, the waste produced by these very same farm animals has led to some very unsavory consequences. In states with a lot of animal agriculture have seen their waterways become rife with pfiesteria bacteria. In addition to killing fish, this bacteria causes open sores, nausea, memory loss, fatigue, and breathing problems in humans. It's become such a problem in farming areas, that no one wants to coexist with such pollution. So much for that picture perfect idea of the happy farmer on his tractor, right?

Go Vegan for a Healthy Planet
A 2006 study by Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin, assistant professors of geophysics at the University of Chicago, found that a person switching from the average American diet to a vegan diet would reduce CO2 emissions by 1,485 kg per year.

By choosing a vegetarian or vegan diet, you are dramatically reducing the amount of land, oil, and water resources you consume. Not to mention the pollution your diet causes.

Eating 1 lb. of meat emits the same amount of greenhouse gases as driving an SUV 40 miles. In other words, you help the planet more by changing your diet rather than your car. Can't afford a hybrid? Buy tofu rather than ground beef!

If you're flirting with the idea of going veg, add this to your list of "pros". Here at Food For Thought we are always adding new vegan & vegetarian items to the grocery area. We also have many animal and environmentally friendly options in our health and beauty and supplement sections. Come in and give us a look!

Oh, and HAPPY EARTH DAY!

Tantalizing New Gluten-Free Cookbooks!

In the past week, a dozen or so new gluten-free and vegan cookbooks have come in to grace the shelves of our store. And while they all look delicious, there are three gluten-free cookbooks I think everyone (whether they need to eat a gluten-free diet or not) should check out!

The first, You Won't Believe It's Gluten-Free! (Roben Ryberg), has 500 recipes that range from every day to special event. Each recipe is easy to understand and is prefaced by a description of how the food should turn out and, in the event that the chef may be worried about the taste of the food (for instance, a tablespoon of cayenne being used!), a note regarding the taste has been included. There are very few pictures, unfortunately, but the descriptions and some entertaining facts along the way more than make up for it! Another helpful feature is including the main base of most recipes in italics after the title, for gluten-free chefs that are sensitive to more common substitutes (such as oats). After flipping through this book, there are more than a few recipes I'm sure I'll be trying out!

Annalise Roberts has two GF friendly books under her belt, we carry both, but Gluten-Free Baking Classics for the Bread Machine is the one that has sparked my interest (Gluten-Free Baking Classics is the other). And I'm pretty sure if you just read the title, you know why. Gluten-free baking for the BREAD MACHINE!!!!!! How exciting!!!! Both sandwich and breakfast breads are covered in this cookbook (as well as an informative forward about the flours and baking GF). So, before you put your bread machine on Craig's List or set it aside for family or a garage sale, come in and check this out! The Cinnamon Swirl bread looks amazing... As a side note, Ms. Roberts uses a Zojirushi bread machine, but it seems that the recipes should be easily transferable to other machines. Mmmmm... I can almost smell the warm bread now!

And finally, for those of us that are gluten intolerant and want to stay, or become, vegan, Susan O'Brien has come out with The Gluten-Free Vegan. There are 150 recipes ranging from breakfast bars to soups to meatless meatballs to simple fillings, condiments and pie crusts. There are even recipes for some unique beverages in here (the Peach & Raspberry and Protein Smoothies are making my mouth water). And don't get me started on the desserts!!! Puddings, tortes, cakes, cookies, brownies... I'm getting a cavity reading the recipes!

So come into the store, flip through these books and happy cooking!

Manic Monday Recipe: Mexican Pizza

The weekend is over and it's back to reality! Each Monday we will post an easy recipe, either for the crockpot, quick fix or five ingredient or less recipe. Here's to eating healthy, simply!

Mexican Pizza

Ingredients:

1 Rustic Pizza Crust

Half a can of Spicy, Fat-Free Refried Beans, thinned with a small amount of water

1 cup mild salsa

11/2 cups grated cheddar style cheese

1/2 cup frozen corn kernels, thawed

Directions:

1.  Preheat the oven to 425.

2.  Place the crust on a pan.  Spread it with the refried beans, then the salsa.  Sprinkle with the cheese and corn kernels.
3.  Bake until the cheese is bubbly, 8-10 minutes.  Remove from the oven, let stand 2-3 minutes.  Cut and serve!


Recipe from The Vegetarian 5-Ingredient Gourmet