By Margaret Plouff – Natural Wellness Contributor

Essential Fatty Acids are essential because your body absolutely needs these healthy nutrients, omega 3-6-9’s. We’ll all turned off by the word “Fat” but let’s take a closer look. The brain is made up of healthy fats, and we need to feed it essential fatty acids for clarity, focus, and improved mood. The cells are surrounded by essential fatty acids and if there is a lack of the good fats, the bad fats take over that job.
The joints function smoothly and pain-free when they are lubricated properly. The skin shows a healthy glow when [...]

Sure, we try hard to be as health conscious as possible, but when Audrey and I get together, cocktails abound (thankfully, Audrey is 2000 miles away, so our martini abuse is not so frequent). And, Audrey will be here next week. Martini glasses are sure to be put in use. Unfortunately for us, now that we are both trying to fit our not-so-young bodies into little bathing suits, caloric intake counts. It’s painful to admit, but a regular mojito will cost us about 200 calories, a margarita about 325 calories and an appletini about 175 calories. With zero nutritional value, [...]

Always on the lookout for interesting “indie” brands in all categories, we thought it would be fun to pay tribute to another type of art, that is, the art of fine booze-making. Micro-distilleries, like micro-breweries have become more and more popular in the last decade. With reason. Many of these micro-distilleries make award-winning vodkas, far superior in taste and quality to the commercial brands. But, since award-winning in the vodka world pretty much means colorless, odorless and –we mean this as a compliment – tasteless, we want instead to turn our attention to the new and exotic flavor-ways of vodkas. [...]

By Mrs/Dr. T, Snarky PhD Scientist and Guest Contributor
The media has done a pretty good job making sure EVERYONE knows that chocolate might be good for you. It’s hard to find a women’s magazine that hasn’t promoted this message, particularly this time of year when Valentine’s Day sends chocolate sales through the roof. Of course, we all want chocolate to be good for us, right? But is it really believable that chocolate, a member of the candy and other-naughty-foods category, is a health food?
Cocoa wasn’t really on the “good-for-you” radar until scientists stumbled upon an island off the coast of [...]

Now that the holidays (and food-related excesses) are behind us, it’s time to focus on our health. More than a few of us have an “Eating Clean” resolution on our agenda this year. Which is why it’s completely apropos to introduce you to Einkorn wheat, an ancient species of hulled wheat. Einkorn, which ISN’T corn (translates precisely to “single grain” from German) is man’s first form of cultivated wheat, grown by farmers over 10,000 years ago. Historically, we know that Einkorn has been forgotten and has been passed over for higher yielding and more glutinous (for bread-making) wheat crops.
But today, [...]

By Audrey van Petegem, Senior Editor
My daughter’s 7th birthday was last Monday and we, of course, made cupcakes for the special occasion. My daughter wanted the Funfetti cake mix by Pillsbury (what not homemade?!) with store bought icing (it was her request). So, this was going to be a piece of cake (pun intended)! And to top them all off were beautiful Only Sweet Papers Butterflies by Rogue Confections.
Only Sweet Papers are edible parchments that allow you to decorate your own cakes or cupcakes with beautiful images. You can even personalize the parchments by uploading your own photo, artwork, or [...]

I’m an admitted spice junkie. I look for unusual spices whenever I travel – and have a love affair with many of them (like the sumac mentioned here) until I discover new, succulent flavors and am infatuated all over again. Black Garlic has been the latest of my paramours.
After reading about Black Garlic, which has been lauded as the new savory ingredient-of-the-moment of chefs in five star restaurants, I had to, bien sûr, find out more about it.
I found Black Garlic at my favorite spice merchant, the Spice House (lucky you, they sell online). Roxanne, the lovely spice assistant told [...]

Think of summer, think of fun & colorful “adult” drinks in novel drinking glasses and fruit garnish. Well, that’s what some of us think of first…  And, for us, there’s the “Spike Your Juice” kits, a new way to transform all those kiddie, summery juice flavors into sparkling boozy beverages. All you need is…

Your favorite juice, a 64 oz bottle
One Spike package, poured into the bottle
Seal the bottle
Wait 48 hours
Enjoy…

The fizziness is part of the natural fermentation process. Most juices will create an alcoholic beverage with about 14% alcohol.
Though I don’t think that this will satisfy the chichi palates, I’m [...]

By Audrey van Petegem, Contributing Editor
This summer, my mother-in-law, Betty, came to visit us and brought a package of  Salba® with her for me to try. She knows that I put wheat germ and ground flax seeds in everything – from muffins to meatballs – and thought Salba has even more health benefits than those two combined. Hmmmmm… could that be possible?
Not that I don’t trust my mother-in-law’s judgment, but I had to check this out myself. So this is what I found out. According to the website, Salba is the richest whole food source of Omega 3 fatty [...]

I discovered the now-my-favorite-spice when visiting Turkey last year. We were served some variation of “tomato and cucumber salad” with sumac at every meal. I loved it. I knew I had tasted the spice before in Lebanese cooking but had never bothered to find out what it was. That is, until I got addicted on day 4 of the trip and then just had to know. Sumac is an essential spice in Arabic cooking, greatly enjoyed for its tangy, sour and astringent taste. The Sumac berries are dried and crushed into a coarse dark purple-ish-red powder. Evidently, I bought a [...]