Tricks and Treats for Healthy Holidays and an Easy Chocolate Candy Recipe

• Personal Note:  
  Tips and Treats to Keep the Holidays Healthy 
• Featured Article:  
  Healthy Halloween: When The Treats Become the Tricks (with Safer Options)
• Practitioner Corner: 
  Teaching Your Clients the Art of Healthy Food Preparation
• Recipe Corner: Chocolate Candy 

Once a month, you can join us LIVE in Austin, Texas for a local potluck where you can:

• Meet like-minded people and make new friends.
• Learn new and exciting recipes.
• Gather valuable health and nutrition information.
• Feel supported on your health quest.

Upcoming Dates 2013
(the last Saturday of every month unless noted otherwise):

November 23rd, 6:30 p.m. CDT

December – TBA  

Click HERE to learn more about Dr. Ritamarie's Living Foods Meetup!

Find out all the details on what to bring and what to expect.

Raw Food Delivery

Get a yummy weekly delivery made by the amazing Chef Karen Osborne. This week's order has to be in by October 31st. Wait until you see her mouth-watering menu!

Are you looking forward to the ghosts and goblins who will be knocking on your door this Thursday?  It’s Halloween here in the US. 

Or are you dreading all the candy, the temptations at work and the kids' tantrums?

Check out this week’s video and our feature article for tips, tricks and treats to make Halloween fun — and keep it healthy.

You can instantly download my e-book: Healthy Halloween Treats for lots of recipes, rituals and fun.

It’s on special until the end of the month – Halloween night. (Your price reduction will show when you click ‘Add to Cart'.)

Much to most everyone’s disappointment, processed sugar is NOT your friend!

Unfortunately, our society glorifies it and we have a whole holiday devoted to buying it, collecting it and eating it!

It’s known, that in the time following Halloween, there is a dramatic increase in doctor visits and lost time from school.

Protect yourself and your family. Learn to make delicious alternatives to the traditional Halloween treats.

Halloween is the start of the fall/winter holiday season – and an obsession with food and drink. Avoid getting caught in the web! 

You can start by joining the VITAL Community, where we have a library of audios and videos, several of which are devoted to healthy holiday traditions.

About 250 of us in my B4 Be Gone Program  are going to start what I call a 30 day metabolic reset, where we are going to bring our hormones and energy into balance by getting our blood sugars regulated.  Woo hoo!  I am so looking forward to seeing some amazing results.

Have a healthy and happy Halloween!

Read my feature article and be ready to turn the tricks into treats.

And be sure to check out the GMO Summit, the Gluten Summit and  my friend Nomi Shannon's brand new online program for aspiring raw food instructors.

Whenever the ghosts and goblins walk the streets On October 31st, carrying their special Halloween treat bags, what they carry in those bags is far scarier than they realize, for it has the potential to rob them of their most precious gift–their health.

Americans spend close to two billion dollars every year on Halloween candy!

Let me repeat: That's two BILLION dollars!

Just let that sink in for a moment.

That’s how much it would cost to send 20,000 students to a decent college for 4 years, or to feed 303,030 kids in Ghana, Africa for a year.

How many hurricane or earthquake victims can be assisted with $2 billion?

The frightening and Hidden Costs of Halloween

Sickness from sweets. The dentist bills, doctor bills, lost productivity and distress that ensues as a result of gorging on candy every October 31st add up to millions.

Obesity in children. The cost of Halloween on our health and the health of our kids is staggering. Since 1980, obesity rates in children have tripled.

One of the best ways to get results with your clients is to teach them how to stock their kitchen and make healthy foods.  There are a number of ways you can do this.  I’ve done them all, and they all work.  Start with whatever resonates best with you then add another.

1. Share Recipes. You can offer them recipes on a blog, in a newsletter or by creating e-books. I’m sure you have some favorites. It’s so helpful as our patients and clients begin to make healthy food changes to have recipes that someone they trust has created and made. It takes the guess work out of which book to buy and whether they can trust the author. 

It’s super easy to start a blog if you don’t have one, and send your clients there for your recipes.  Go to www.wordpress.com and set one up. You can also create a little packet of recipes that you include with your coaching sessions, and when you have enough recipes (just a couple of dozen is plenty) you can create an e-book and sell it.  My very first e-book was a Thanksgiving Recipe Book, and is still being sold. It contains about a dozen recipes and a complete Thanksgiving meal plan.

2. Create videos. Have someone film you in the kitchen making your favorite recipes. You can post them on your blog or youtube.  It’s easy to create your own youtube channel. Just go to YouTube for complete instructions. This is even better than just printed recipes because they can see you, as well as see how to make the food and become comfortable with you as a teacher and coach.

3.  Teach  classes.  I remember how nervous I was the first time I taught a class. I invited a bunch of my closest friends and asked them to invite others.  About 8 people showed up.  I didn’t charge, just asked for donations to cover the cost of food.  I demonstrated recipes, talked about the nutritional value of what I made, gave out samples and gave them the printed copies of the recipes.  It was a big hit. 

With confidence, I then scheduled 4 classes on topics they told me they wanted to hear, and I sent an email to everyone I knew – patients, friends, parents of my kids' friends. This time 12 people showed up and they paid $25 each. Success!

From there it grew and grew.  People said how much they appreciated actually seeing the foods created that I’d been telling them about for years.  Most of the classes I taught featured raw foods.  I did try a gluten free baking class once, but I didn’t enjoy the waiting and all that cooking required.  You can choose to teach whatever you feel will most benefit your clients and attract new ones. 

My dear friend Nomi Shannon is teaching an online class that I wish was available before I started teaching classes.  It would have saved me from many mistakes and lots of time figuring it out the hard way.  It starts Nov 5.  You can   signup for Nomi's Raw Food Teacher Certification Program HERE.

Nomi has been teaching raw food classes for over 2 decades so she knows a thing or two. She's also the author of a book called The Raw Gourmet that's sold well over 150,000 copies so far.  In addition, Nomi is funny, insightful, big hearted and lots of fun to be around.  If you are interested in teaching your own food preparation classes, please check out Nomi's program.  

Raw Food Teacher Certification Program