March 2010 Support Group Meeting - gfe-gluten free easily

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Note: February meeting has been cancelled/rescheduled to March meeting. Details are shown below.

When: Tuesday, March 2, 6:00 pm

Where: Shirley’s Home in King George, VA
(Note: Please email Shirley for directions if you are local and plan to attend.)

What: We’ll begin our meeting with our usual group meal, which is always completely gluten free. Many dishes and food items are also dairy free, refined sugar free, etc. The focus is on real food and dishes made from them. Our presentation will be two parts. First, I’ll do a presentation on my participation in the 2009 POM Wonderful Blogger Harvest Festival, that was hosted by POM Wonderful and held in Fresno and Visalia, CA, in October. I’ll share photos and what I learned from meeting with the POM folks, touring their orchards (on ground and with a flyover!) and their processing operations. The second part will be a presentation by Janel Ovrut, MS, RD, LDN. Janel was also part of the group of 15 bloggers selected to participate in the POM Wonderful Blogger Harvest Tour. She is a registered dietitian with a Master’s degree from the Nutrition Communication program at Tufts University in Boston, and a Bachelor’s degree in Dietetics from Syracuse University. Janel gave a very informative talk on antioxidants, free radicals, and healthy eating at the POM festival. She’ll be presenting similar information to us via Skype. Please note that while Janel does not eat gluten free, she is passionate about eating well and has much of value to share with us. You can check out her main website, Eat Well with Janel, here and her blog, here.

While Valentine’s Day will be long behind us at meeting time, February focused on another “red” theme—healthy hearts for American Heart Month. Since this is our rescheduled February meeting, we’ll still commemorate that event. Of course, POM Wonderful products are delightfully, ruby red and have even been shown to offer cardiovascular benefits. So, let’s go for red, pink, and heart-healthy foods for our meal! I’ll have some POM-spiced cider (courtesy of the POM Wonderful folks), two flavors of POM-based ice cream (POMerdoodle and Chocolate POMerdoodle; the latter is dairy free), and several other dishes that fit our theme. We might even have some other products from the POM folks for us to try.