September, 2011 - The trend to “green” Halloween is growing with the help of YummyEarth Organic Candy. USDA organic certified YummyEarth Organic Gummy Bears and Lollipops meet the growing requests from parents for healthier alternatives while maintaining the fun and flavor of Halloween which kids demand. With YummyEarth, Halloween is a more kid and planet-friendly holiday.

This year YummyEarth is adding a new product, YummyEarth Halloween Personal Bin, to offer a gift item for the Halloween season. Together with YummyEarth Halloween Organic Gummy Bears and YummyEarth Organic Lollipops, the spooky season just got sweeter.

YummyEarth, the #1 candy company in the U.S., is leading the organic candy craze. Halloween sales doubled for YummyEarth from 2009 to 2010. Over 100 million YummyEarth Organic Lollipops were sold in 2010 at over 40,000 retail stores. The mainstream media along with environmental and mom bloggers have been covering the trend and raving about YummyEarth. On ABC News Ashley Koff, Registered Dietician and founder of AshleyApproved.com, recommended YummyEarth organic candy as a better quality treat for Halloween. Phil Lempert, the Today Show’s famed Food Critic, refers to YummyEarth as “the best lollipop I’ve ever tasted.” Rachael Ray loved them so much she featured them as the Snack of the Day on the Rachael Ray Show. MSNBC featured YummyEarth on their eco-friendly Halloween report.

September, 2011 - In December of last year, we reported that 7-Eleven launched a vegan pilot program in select New York stores. It looks like the test was a huge success as the mega-quick mart chain has rolled the program out to 100 stores in the Northeast! The new meals include:

• Vegan Linguine Tikka Massala
• Vegan Pad Thai Noodles
• Vegan Asian Linguine
• Vegan Spinach Noodles with Vegetable

Obviously, all of the meals are dairy-free, egg-free, and free of any animal products, but the best part is, they are also relatively wholesome. Venturing away from their processed food model, 7-Eleven has used clearly legible and relatively healthy ingredients in the new vegan selections. They look to be a fantastic on-the-go selection (versus, say, those hotdog that have been cooking on the rollers for three hours) for just about anyone, vegan or not. I hope that 7-Eleven will make these entrees available nationwide, but for now, you should be able to find them at all of the following locations:

Alisa Fleming ~ For years I’ve heard the stories; mothers whose children magically get better on a milk-free diet, butting heads with pediatricians who say that it has nothing to do with dairy. Sadly, many old-school doctors are still convinced that milk allergies and sensitivities are “very rare.” But fortunately, medical reports continue to emerge that will hopefully continue to penetrate useful knowledge into the mainstream physician community. Last week, another bit of research on this topic was shared at the September 2011 Annual Meeting & OTO EXPO.

Held in San Francisco, this was “the world’s largest gathering of otolaryngologists,” with over 6000 medical experts in attendance. In laymen’s terms, it was an enormous conference of ear, nose, and throat (ENT) specialists, from general practitioners to surgeons. And one of the biggest discoveries at this event was that yes, persistent ear, nose, and throat issues in babies and toddlers can definitely be related to food allergies, particularly cow’s milk protein ... 

Sweet Sundays - Katie ~ I know there are about a bajillion recipes online and in cookbooks for banana muffns. They all have some claim attached, usually ending in an exclamation point) about what makes this recipe SO! MUCH! BETTER! than all the others. You’ll find no such claims here, nor exclamation points. What you will find is a simple, easy, gluten-free and dairy-free banana muffin recipe ... without nuts (blech!) or chocolate chips (not in my banana bread products, please and thank you) or any wacky ingredients that you need to go to seventeen different stores to find.

I wouldn’t do that to you. Not to mention there aren’t even 17 stores within about 100 miles of my house, so that’s not even possible for me.

Now, the thing with gluten-free baking is that it is hard. I am picky with my baked goods and after two years of gluten-free baking, I was still without a good all purpose flour mix. I was just mixing flours willy-nilly.