Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS (DIFFA), one of the largest funders of HIV/AIDS service and education organizations in the U.S., launched Dining By Design (DBD), which pairs great design and food, earlier this year in New York before heading to Kansas City.

This year marked the debut of a new component of DIFFA’s DBD: the Student Design Initiative presented by Benjamin Moore. With the participation of top New York City design schools including FIT, NYU, Parsons, Pratt and SVA ,and mentors including Dalzell Productions, David Rockwell, Jamie Drake, Arpad Baksa and Miles Redd, the Initiative paired participating schools with mentors who guided the student design teams through the process of creating a design installation from inception to execution.

Working within a strict budget and the technical and logistical guidelines of DBD, each student design team had the singular opportunity to work with internationally renowned and cutting edge designers. These unique student designed installations are on view throughout all of the 2008 DBD events.

This event was dubbed the “Cannes of Tabletop” by filmmaker John Waters and is an opportunity for various corporations and designers to showcase their creativity and talents by creating unique dining installations to ultimately accommodate their dinner guests.

This year’s event stops also include Los Angeles, September 13 - 15; Dallas, September 26 - 27; Atlanta, October 12 - 13; Chicago, November 6 - 8; San Francisco, November 19 - 20; and Boston, December 5 - 6.

Click here to purchase tickets.

In my ongoing obsession with trying to get gluten-free, I recently came across alternative flour sources via Natural Health Magazine, and I thought I would pass along some alternatives the magazine suggested.

Almond Flour: high in vitamin E and magnesium

Coconut Flour: high in protein and fiber

Chickpea Flour: rich in protein and iron

Hazelnut Flour: high in fiber and iron

Corn Flour: high in fiber, especially stone ground corn flour

Rice Flour: brown is higher in fiber, protein, vitamins and minerals than white rice flour

While gluten helps give breads and pizza crusts their doughy texture, and because it’s hard to get by without it, try substituting an alternative flour for part of the wheat flour your recipe calls for (one part alternative to three parts whole wheat) for best results.

A while ago, in an effort to eat locally, my husband and I joined Farm Fresh To You, and we have since looked forward to each delivery with excited anticipation. Not only does it cut down on what we have to buy at the Co-Op, but also it supports local farmers and environmentally-friendly farming practices, both of which I am happy to help.

Eating local is a trend that is slowly sweeping the nation, and it’s a good one to jump in and join, if you haven’t already. Things like the recent tomato/jalapeno contamination could have been avoided (or at least contained more quickly) by eating locally.

Whether local to you means within your state, within 100 miles, or within your city, by reducing the distance between where produce grows and your plate, you’ll be helping support sustainable food systems.

If you don’t shop at a Co-Op, try it. We joined our local Co-Op after I was diagnosed with cancer so we could find pesticide-free produce. Sure, sometimes it’s a bummer not to find apples in the aisles year round, but there are plenty of in-season goodies I’ve discovered, too. Plus, there are stickers on bin stating where the produce “grew up”, so I know which farms I’m supporting and where my foods got their start.

Even if you only shop for produce at your local Co-Op every once in a while, every little bit helps. Plus, the produce is tasty and vibrant, which makes it all the better to eat!

Eggs have been known to get a bad rap, as the cholesterol found in the yolks has been blamed for raising cholesterol levels in the body. Not so, says the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, which recently found no link in healthy people between eggs and either heart disease or stroke.

In fact, eggs may even reduce your risk of cancer, as they are one of the best sources of the nutrient choline (found mostly in the yolk), and a recent study indicates that women with a high intake of choline are 24 percent less likely to get breast cancer.

Golden yolks are also high in lutein and zeaxanthin, both antioxidants that have been shown to ward off macular degeneration.

Eggs also also more satisfying than carbs, and have been shown to help lower weight in obese people. They also contain a sequence of amino acids that makes egg protein easy for the body to absorb, so they help build and repair muscles.

Egg Options
Organic: laid by chickens that aren’t fed slaughterhouse byproducts, antibiotics or additives.
Pasteurized: they were placed in warm water to kill bacteria (look for this if you’re using raw eggs).
Omega-3 Enhanced: An easy way to up your intake of heart-healthy fatty acids.
Any other labels, such as Cage Free, Free Range, Pasture Raised, etc., don’t mean the chickens were treated well, and probably cost more than they’re worth.

It’s Friday, and it’s happy hour somewhere, so why not enjoy a glass of “green” wine?

According to a recent study presented at a meeting of the American Association of Wine Economists, bag-in-box (BIB) wine is better for the environment than bottled wine. It also keeps better, as the BIB packaging locks oxygen out, making the shelf life six weeks. In addition, the lighter packaging means more fits inside a standards shipping container, which decreases carbon emissions per liter.

BIB wine options include J.P. Chenet 3L Premium Cask, the
world’s best-selling French wine brand, in Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay. Other brands are Boho Vineyards, Killer Juice, Angel Juice, Fish Eye, Pinot Evil, Corbett Canyon, Casarsa Vineyards and Pacific Peak.

For more information, click here.

Late summer is the perfect time to enjoy the bevvy of blueberries in stores.

Wild blueberries are typically found back east from Maine to North Carolina and into Florida, and the blueberry cousin, huckleberries, are taking center stage on the West Coast.

Whether you bake with them, cook them down into jams, or simply pop them in your mouth straight from the bush, blueberries are a delicious, nutritious treat a la Mother Nature. (I like mine straight from the bush, sprinkled over this.)

Chipotle Mexican Grill is set to open four LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified restaurants by year end. All four will have recycled drywall and nontoxic paint, as well as energy-saving windows, water heaters and lighting systems.

Already, every Chipotle uses naturally-raised pork and chicken, hormone-free dairy products, bowls made from recycled paper, unbleached basket liners and napkins, and bio-plastic gift cards.

In May, Chipotle became the first national restaurant company to serve exclusively naturally raised chicken.

Chipotle began serving naturally raised chicken at its restaurants in Washington, DC, in 2002 and has since been working with its suppliers and identifying other like-minded farms to constantly add to its supply until completing the goal of serving 100 percent naturally raised chicken.

All of Chipotle’s naturally raised chicken, pork and beef comes from animals that are humanely raised, never given antibiotics or added growth hormones (or drugs that act like hormones), and fed a pure vegetarian diet with no animal by-products.

Chipotle already serves more naturally raised meat than any other restaurant company in the world. In all, Chipotle will serve more than 52 million pounds of naturally raised meat this year. In addition to the chicken, all of the pork Chipotle serves is naturally raised, and nearly 60 percent of its restaurants serve naturally raised beef. Those 52 million pounds amount to more than 200 million meals made with naturally raised meat.

In December 2007, Chipotle became the first national restaurant company to serve only dairy products (cheese and sour cream) made with milk from cows that are not treated with the synthetic hormone rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone). And this year, 30 percent of all of the beans it serves will come from organic farms.

Chipotle opened its first restaurant in 1993 and currently operates more than 730 restaurants. For more information, visit www.chipotle.com.

It’s that time of year again where I live. Time for the California State Fair. And as if the heat and the crowds aren’t enough to turn a stomach, there’s also the ability to get pretty much anything deep fried. Including frog legs.

At Chicken Charlie’s food stands, fair-goers have their choice of deep-fried items for sale, including White Castle hamburgers, Twinkies, Oreos, Pop Tarts, Spam, frog legs, cheese ravioli, avocado, onion strings, zucchini, artichokes and mushrooms.

Just what the world needs–more fried food.

If you want to be a winner, you’ve got to eat like Mike–Michael Phelps, that is.

US swimmer Michael Phelps has 11 Olympic gold medals to his name, in part the result of his six-days-a-week, five-hours-a-day training regime. As for how to maintain that schedule, he consumes 12,000 calories per day (six times the intake of a normal adult male).

This is a typical day of food for Phelps:

Breakfast
He starts with three fried-egg sandwiches with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and, of course, mayonnaise.

Add two cups of coffee and a five-egg omelette with a bowl of grits on the side.

Then it’s on to three slices of French toast with powdered sugar on top, and three chocolate chip pancakes.

Lunch

One pound of enriched pasta and two large ham and cheese sandwiches on white bread with extra mayo, plus about 1,000 calories of energy drink.

Dinner

Another pound of pasta, plus an entire pizza and another 1,000 calories of energy drinks.

Unless your name is Michael Phelps, I do not recommend this diet!

On August 8, Nebraska Beef issued a USDA Class 1 recall of 1.2 million pounds of beef because of possible E. coli 0157:H7 contamination, of which about 4 percent was destined for select Whole Foods Market stores in 23 states and D.C.

As a precautionary measure, Whole Foods had already voluntarily recalled fresh ground beef in select stores that use Coleman Natural as a supplier after learning that two state health departments linked illnesses to nine Whole Foods Market shoppers.

This Whole Foods Market voluntary recall was never nationwide, and any meat now sold at Whole Foods is not associated with this recall.

States in the voluntary Company recall include: Alabama, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington D. C. and Wisconsin.

States that are not part of the recall are: Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, Kansas, Indiana, Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska and Canada. Whole Foods Markets stores in these states did not receive any shipments of the meat that are being targeted for recall.

The recalls come as a result of investigations into confirmed cases of E. coli 0157:H7 contamination in Virginia, Ohio, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

Founded in 1980 in Austin, Texas, Whole Foods Market is the world’s leading natural and organic foods supermarket and America’s first national certified organic grocer.