By Amie Valpone, Gluten-Free Recipe Contributor, Culinary Marketing Consultant and food writer at the gluten-free blog, The Healthy Apple.
Looking for a healthy spin on a classic winter comfort food? Here is a ‘lighter’ recipe for stuffed mushrooms that is gluten-free, dairy-free and vegan. They are filled with lots of fiber and natural sweetness in each bite. Whether you’re preparing these for a football game on Sunday or a dinner party on Saturday night, they’re sure to be a crowd pleaser.
ORANGE MARJORAN STUFFED MUSHROOMS
Gluten-Free and Vegan

2 lb. baby bella mushrooms
1 1/2 cups gluten-free crackers, very finely crushed
3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive [...]

By Amie Valpone, Culinary Marketing Consultant & CEO of the gluten-free blog, The Healthy Apple.

When it comes to making healthy holiday choices, things can get complicated. Restaurants and food stores are stocked with processed foods and the items on sale are often the worst for us. This time of year, our schedules can get a bit hectic and crazy; we’re running around wrapping gifts, shopping for last minute presents, traveling and baking hundreds of Christmas cookies. If your head’s not spinning already it surely will be in a few weeks. It’s important to sit back, take a deep breath and [...]

By Audrey van Petegem, Senior Editor
We have given GoPicnic ready-to-eat meals a mention in our Concert in the Park story but felt that this great product deserved to be featured on its own. Created by Julia Stamberger, in 2006, while working as the Business Development Manager at United Airlines. She saw a need for an alternative to the costly but poor quality in-flight meals (you know the kind. Ewww.). The GoPicnic solution? Healthy, ready-to-eat boxed meals – that are no bigger than a hard cover book – that also reduced waste and required zero prep time, thus increasing flight attendant efficiency [...]

We don’t mean to be stepping on our soapbox every time we praise the merits of eating healthy (Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution or Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation and Food Inc among others), but we really can’t help but be very passionate about the issues relating to food quality and consumption in this nation where one third of our population is now overweight… and that’s not just the adults. As we well know, this has translated to explosive, record rates of diabetes, heart disease, cancer and strokes and other degenerative diseases.
The Forks over Knives film [...]

The meal prep/assembly shop concept has been around for a while. But I had personally never experienced it before. Why would I, I thought? Our family understands the value of family dinners and we do all sit down to dine together at least 4 times a week. And I know how to cook and – most of the time – enjoy it. Why would I ever need a meal prep service?
Well, what a wonderful discovery this was… Exploring the meal assembly service all happened by accident when my husband and I, on a beautiful fall day, decided to explore the [...]

By Natalie Greggain, Contributing Editor
Every holiday season I get extremely excited about all the parties and fun I’m about to have with loved ones, but I simultaneously become terrified that January will come along and suddenly a month’s worth of wine and holiday goodies has turned into a brand new tire sitting around my waist. Yikes! As you may know, it’s not a nice feeling at all. And getting rid of that spare tire is always a heck of a lot harder than accumulating it!
There are two things you can do to avoid gaining weight. They’re pretty simple [...]

Whenever I can, I choose to shop independent businesses. They are just more inspiring, creative, fun and local. I wrote about the benefits of shopping locally in an article this past July. And now, even though farmers’ market season comes to a close in the next month or so (at least for us in the North), there is still time to advocate for the Eat Local cause. That goes for restaurants, of course, but here I’m mainly speaking about food shopping. Locally grown stuff.
I’m sure you’ve noticed. There is a whole Locavore (or Localvore) movement going on.  A locavore is [...]

I bought the à la card chicago deck of cards at OneofaKind Chicago show this past December. It’s been the best $30 I’ve spent all year and I only regret not having mentioned it here earlier. The à la card chicago is a 52 card deck, each card a $10 coupon valid at the 52 chef-driven, owner-operated restaurants in Chicago. The à la card peeps explain it best:
We’ve basically created a consortium of 52 Chicago restaurants–and not just any restaurants, but the best in the city. The restaurants span 25 different neighborhoods, various cuisines and price points, but they have [...]

I have a new crush. His name is Jamie Oliver. Not only is he cute and British, but he’s also on a mission. That’s pretty sexy. Actually, more like a mission to create a revolution. A Food Revolution.
“I believe that every child in America has the right to fresh, nutritious school meals, and that every family deserves real, honest, wholesome food. Too many people are being affected by what they eat. It’s time for a national revolution. America needs to stand up for better food!”

Jamie is – justifiably – outraged at the current quality of our food in general and [...]

We are so much more “aware” consumers nowadays and we want to know what – exactly what – we are putting in our mouths, on our skin, in our homes. Is it healthy? Is it safe? Is it sustainable? Thanks to the GoodGuide, we can now verify this information on over 70,000 food, toy, personal care and household items.
While still in beta mode, the GoodGuide already “provides the world’s largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of the products in your home.” It analyzes and rates food, personal care products, household cleaners and [...]