If you’ve been putting off your weekly exercise routine, maybe a free Gyrotonic class will inspire you to get back in track.

Try this unique exercising technique, plus get free healthy food samples and enjoy live music at at the “When Health and the Body Unite” open house July 25th at South Beach.

Gyrotonic is a type of exercise program that combines movements found in swimming, yoga, gymnastics and tai chi to improve flexibility, balance and strength. It’s a little similar to pilates, but has a little more emphasis in breathing patterns.

The South Beach Gyrotonic has partnered with other local health-conscious local businesses for an afternoon of health-wonderness.

Stop by at 5:30 for a free class, live music and free food sampling by the SoBe health foods restaurant and juice bar Juice & Java, and the vegan cupcake company BunnieCakes.

Movement Thru Rehab will be doing a presentation on physical therapy at 7p.m.

If you go:
What: When Health and the Body Unite
When: 5:30-9 p.m. . Sunday, July 25
Where: Miami Beach Gyrotonic, 1370 Washington Ave, Suite 307.
Why: Free health event. Gyrotonic class at 5:30p.m., Movement Throu Rehab presentation at 7 p.m. Juice & Java and Bunnie Cakes sampling all evening.
More info: Call 305-397-8070 for more information.

Last week I blogged about BunnieCakes, the yummy vegan and organic cupcakes created by Miami vegetarian Mariana Cortez, who substitutes butter, eggs and refined sugar for natural, dairy-free ingredients. Did I mention they come in endless flavors including key lime and dark chocolate?

Now BunnieCakes is giving away a dozen cupcakes to a lucky Ecozine reader! All you have to do is comment on this post by May 24 at midnight. June 4 at midnight. The winner will receive 12 cupcakes in the two flavors of his/her choice delivered at his/her doorstep. continue

I’ve known about BunnieCakes for a while, but I finally made it to Juice & Java on the Beach last weekend and got to try these delicious vegan and organic cupcakes (see a video of my interview on the side video).

There I met Mariana, the baker behind BunnieCakes, who explained that she began looking into vegan baking after not being able to find sugar and gluten-free food for her children. After some experimentation in the kitchen and some tweaking of her grandma’s cupcake recipe, she developed her own recipe, which substitutes butter, wheat flour, sugar and eggs for things like apple sauce, agave and sugar cane.

Her vegan cupcakes come in mini and regular sizes ($1.50-$2.75) and in 15 flavors including red velvet, vanilla ginger, passion fruit, key lime and espresso. They are currently available at the natural food and juice emporium Juice & Java in South Beach and in Aventura, at Garden of Eat’in, and very soon at the Saturday Doral Farmers Market. You can also place orders online and delight your friends at your next get-together, or send your mom a yummy animal-cruelty-free treat for Mother’s Day.

For more information visit www.BunnieCakes.com continue

April is gone and with it all the cool Earth-Day related events that April brought us. However, there’s still a lot of fun and environmentally friendly things to do this week.

Wedneday, April 28
>Active lifestyle networking: Join Miami Active’s monthly meeting. The group encourages the free exchange of information and ideas to promote active lifestyles and business networks. Free. 8:30 a.m., Wednesday, April 28 at Whole Foods Coral Gables, 6701 Red Road. Meets in the Lifestyle Center,

>Hear environmentalist Bill McKibben discuss his new book, “Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet.” Believed to be one of the first to warn against climate change in his book “The End of Nature” 20 years ago, McKibben now insists that we need to acknowledge that we’ve waited too long, and that massive change is not only unavoidable but already under way. He’ll be at Books & Books in Coral Gables, 265 Aragon Ave. 8 p.m., Wednesday, April 28. Free.

>Stroll the gardens of Vizcaya under the moonlight: Don’t miss this romantic moonlight tour of the Vizcaya gardens. Enjoy live music, wine and delicious refreshments. 6:60 to 9 p.m., Wednesday, April 28. Tours leave at different intervals throughout the night. Vizcaya is located at 3251 South Miami Avenue Miami. Tickets: $15 for general admission, $10 for students, seniors and members.

Thursday, April 29
>Chilean food & wine tasting: Wanting to help Chile recover but can’t get on a plane? Support the country by supporting its cheese and wine at this free tasting. 5 to 7 p.m., Thursday, April 29. Whole Foods South Beach, 1020 Alton Rd.

>’80’s themed free yoga: SoBe Pilates is having an ’80s-themed grand opening party with MC Miss Elaine Lancaster. Stop by for free fitness demos, refreshments and raffles. 7-9 p.m., Thursday April 29. Located on 950 Arthur Godfrey Rd., Miami Beach. 305-763-8878. continue

Can you remember what you were up to when you were 16? Local high schooler Becca Medvin probably will: She started a vegan cupcake company and now distributes her delicate treats around town.

Vegan since she was 14, the only thing she missed from the omnivore life were the desserts, so voila!… after a few trials in her kitchen, Becca developed the perfect vegan cupcake recipe. Her chocolate and vanilla cupcakes are now available at the Bookstore in the Grove for $2.65 -yes, I know, but vegan desserts are famous for two things: they veer towards the pricey side and they are extremely delicious.
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Don’t miss this rare opportunity to watch some of the best and latest food-related documentaries, which will be screened locally as part of the Earth Month film series Let’s Re-take our Plates, organized by Whole Foods.

I’m particularly excited about No Impact Man, the documentary based on the Brooklyn family that decided to reduce their waste to the minimum for a whole year (I couldn’t drop the book). Other films include Fast Food Nation, Food. Inc, What’s on Your Plate? and The Garden, all very politically-charged films making strong arguments against the state of the food industry.

Here is the schedule:

Fast Food Nation
4:45 p.m, April 17
Cinema Paradiso
503 SE 6th Street, Ft. Lauderdale
$7

King Corn/ Big River
2:30 p.m. April 17
Cinema Paradiso
503 SE 6th Street, Ft. Lauderdale
$7

Food Inc.
2 p.m., April 18
Cinema Paradiso
503 SE 6th Street, Ft. Lauderdale
$7

The Garden
12 p.m., April 18
Cinema Paradiso
503 SE 6th Street, Ft. Lauderdale
$7

Food Inc.
5 p.m., April 19
Cobb Theater
11701 Lake Victoria Gardens Avenue, Palm Beach Gardens
$5

No Impact Man
7 p.m., April 19
Coral Gables Congregational Church
3010 De Soto Blvd., Coral Gables
$5

What’s on Your Plate?
5 p.m. April 20
Cobb Theater
11701 Lake Victoria Gardens Avenue, Palm Beach Gardens
$5

Fast Food Nation
5 p.m., April 21
Cobb Theater
11701 Lake Victoria Gardens Avenue, Palm Beach Gardens
$5

The Garden
8 p.m., April 21
Miami Beach Cinematheque
512 Espanola Way, Miami Beach
$10

End of the Line
5 p.m. April 22,
Cobb Theater
11701 Lake Victoria Gardens Avenue, Palm Beach Gardens
$5

Food Inc.
7:30 p.m., April 23
Temple Bet Shira
7500 SW 120th Street, Miami
$5

Visit the Let’s Re-take our Plates site for more information

After hearing much talk about Lifefood Gourmet in Coral Gables, Ecozine made a lunch stop to try the restaurant’s raw vegan cuisine at its new location on Coral Way.

Followed for its cellular enrichment and rejuvenation attributes, the raw food diet is based on the idea that if you cook foods at more than 116 degrees, the enzimes and other nutrients will begin to degrade, losing its nutritional value. Raw foodists use instead dehydration, sprouting and other techniques to cook their meals (living foodists use the same concept, but use more sprouting to bring nutrients from a dormant to an active state).

Lifefood Gourmet owner and raw food chef John Schott, who studied with raw food guru Dr. David Jubb in New York, has a passion for living food and its qualities, which shows in the restaurant’s extensive menu: lasagna, burgers, burritos, nori rolls, four types of pizzas, wraps, pesto Alfredo, tomato and Mexican soups, and a variety of salads.

I ordered one of the most popular dishes, the All Veggie Pizza ($14), and loved every bite of it.

The pizza comes on a dehydrated sprouted quinoa and flaxseed bread topped with spinach, creamy homemade vegan cheese, tomatoes, raw tomato herb sauce, onions, nutmeg sauce and oregano (you can see the delicate layering in the picture).

The pie is preheated in a dehydrator before served to make it a little warm while conserving the freshness of its ingredients, a key to the raw diet.

To drink, I had a spicy and sweet ginger juice.

I was too full after the pizza but couldn’t leave without trying a dessert. I originally went for the cupcakes but there weren’t any left, so I ended up getting a blissful chocolate fudge crepe with fresh strawberries and redberries to go ($9). The wafer was made of apricot flax, and had a crispy yet soft texture, which surprised me considering it was dehydrated. I have to say the chocolate fudge was the best I had in a long time. I later found out they make if from pure cacao beans, which gives the fudge a rich grainy texture and a spicy and bitter flavor.

The menu and flavors is so extensive that I plan to come back and try more things. I specially regret not getting some of their prepackaged apple fries ($6) or Life Chips ($6) to go.


Following what seems to be the norm in the raw food world, prices are in the medium price range, which I attribute to how time consuming preparing raw foods is. I ended up paying a little over $30 (I then realized my pizza was among the priciest menu items). Appetizers, which includes nachos and zucchini rolls sell, for $9-11, entrees for $10-15, soups for $6, desserts for $8-$9 and natural drinks for $4-$10.

Chef Schott, who began his raw food endeavors at the Coconut Grove Farmers Market, is expanding the restaurant into an education center with kitchen apprentice programs, video teachings and other instructive tools, and he’s putting together a lifefood nutrition manual. His menu actually features a human body showing what body part is nourished by each dish. He’s definitely up to something, so stay tuned!

Have you been there? What did you order?

If you go:
Lifefood Gourmet
Opens Mon-Sat, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
1248 SW 22 Street
Miami, Fl 33145
305-856-6767

Buying local has become a lot easier thanks to a new deal between Publix Super Markets and Redland Farms

Food grown at Miami’s Redland Farms has long been marked as Florida-grown, not really making a distinction between tomatoes picked 400 miles from here and those picked within county lines just few hours before.

Well, not anymore. The supermarket will start marking produce grown in the farms near Homestead under the label “Redland-Raised” in an incentive to promote locally-grown food.

Expect to find Redland-Raised avocados, green beans, yellow squash, zucchini, okra, sweet potato, tomatoes, papayas and sapotes, among other things.

I’ll be posting pictures of the produce after my next trip to the market.

Image by wonderlane

Halloween can be scary, really scary.

Think about all the candy wrappers ending up in landfills and the flashy costumes bought and tossed the next day.

Think about all the calories that you’ll put on before, during and after Halloween -yes, Halloween candy bowls tend to stay around for days after Halloween.

Doing the right thing doesn’t mean you have to miss on the fun.

Here are some tips for a green Halloween:

1-Costume: Instead of buying a $20 synthetic outfit shipped from China, get creative and come out with the same outfit with things you already have at home. The most common outfits are easy to recreate: a pirate, a nurse, a witch. Use old clothes or stop by a nearby Goodwill Store, where you could even find a used costume. Check out this site for inspiration. This site also has good ideas for home-made outfits for children, although some require some preparation.

2-Office candy: You can’t stop co-workers from bringing in candy, but you can try talking to them about having a healthy Halloween this year. There are tons of tasty snacks that won’t disappoint their taste buds. If no one sounds very exited about the idea, still bring some healthy snacks for them to try. It might change their minds, and it will keep you away from their candy bowl. Nuts and dried fruits are my favorite. Reduce your waste by looking for stores that sell the snacks by weight. Fruits and a few dips will also keep co-workers hanging around your desk (think yogurt, chocolate, peanut butter, just to name a few). Read labels and watch out for calorie-filled dips.

3-Pumpkin carving: Forget about this wasteful activity unless you plan to eat the pumpkin filling. Check out www.pumpkinrecipes.us for recipes and ideas. Make sure the pumpkin is later composted.

4-Education: Talk to your child about healthy and unhealthy candy. The site Greenhalloween.org suggests setting up a point system: they get points for every piece of candy they collect (and don’t eat), and then they get to trade their points for a new toy. If you have small children, you can also agree with other parents to only give out healthy candy, then take your kids only to their homes.

5-Treats: Most children are told not to eat unwrapped candy, so they might not eat dried fruits and nuts. Instead, give out small toys such as playing cards, books or crayons. You can buy certain amount of small toys, wrap each in magazine paper and put them in a tray or bowl. Have each trick-or-treating child pick one prize. They’ll love the surprise factor.

6-More candy: If nuts and dried fruit won’t do, you can always shop at health food stores for granola bars, chocolate-covered fruits and nuts, and organic and nutritious snacks. Make sure that all boxes, wraps and bags are recyclable. Buy bags of loose candy as opposed of individually wrapped candy. You can also make your own granola or chocolate dipped snacks.

7-The day after: Take your time to separate recyclables in their respective containers. Candy can be composted, so just toss away all the candy you don’t plan to eat or you’ll end up eating it. If you got a used costume from a Goodwill Store, plan to take it back. You won’t use it again and someone else could.

8-Share ideas: What do you do to make your Halloween green? Comment below! I’d love to hear what do you.

Image by jeffk

Thinking about starting a vegetable garden?

Then Fairchild’s Edible Garden Festival is your best first stop: get seeds, seedlings and advice from experts. Today is the festival’s last day, so don’t think too much about it.

I stopped by yesterday and got tons of advice on how to fight the insects that are colonizing my pepper plant, and I also picked up four ounces of composting worms that I can’t wait to start feeding.

Here are the five reasons why you should go today:

1-Seedlings: Although I didn’t get any -I’ve learned to quiet my beginner’s enthusiasm and be realistic about the space I actually have-there were dozens of seedlings to pick from: mint, parsley, chives, basil, pepper, tomatoes, eggplant, cucumber, arugula, romaine lettuce, jalapeno, celery, collard, carrots and more.

2-Worms: What I did end up getting was four ounces of worms after hearing Lanette Sobel from the Fertile Earth Foundation give a basic intro to composting with worms.

I’ve been collecting all my kitchen waste in pots and mixing it with soil that I later use for planting, but this takes a lot of space. Worms sounded like a faster and more space efficient idea. I’ll be keeping you up-to-date on my worm composting experience.

3-Lectures: This is the best part of the festival. Learn everything from growing tomatoes to growing edibles South Beach style. You’ll hardly find so many experts on edible plant matters at the same place elsewhere. Check out today’s schedule.

I was particularly interested in yesterday’s “Organic Pest and Disease Management” lecture by Andres Mejides: about a week ago, I found some yellow and white insects on my pepper plant.

With a lot of humor, Mejides went from the gentler pest solutions -like ladybugs- to the stronger ones -like sulpher. What I have apparently are aphids, so following his advice, I’ll use chili pepper and garlic to fight them.

4-Involvement: Learn about local organizations promoting edible green spaces and get involved.

GROW, a non-profit urban farm educating the community on land reclamation and urban farming, was there to talk about its farm by the airport and giving away free herbs grown there.

The Urban Oasis Project, which recently completed its 10/10 by 10/10 campaign (10 families, 10 gardens by October 10) was there getting the word out and selling seeds and sprouting kits. (Ok, here’s my disclaimer: I volunteer for this wonderful organization).

5-Local vendors:I ran across some interesting local vendors producing delicious products:

Delightful Bites was selling all kinds of rich homemade jams, jellies, preserves and chutneys.

Bees N the Keys had a variety of honey flavors and I was told you can actually visit their bee farm in Key Largo, something I plan to do next time I’m in the area.

Crackerman Crackers, based out of Bay Harbor Islands, is also worth checking out. They use unbleached flour and only a handful of ingredients for their crackers and breads- the old-fashioned way bread should be.

They specialize in two products: crackers made of golden and brown organic flaxseed and sesame seed, and German-style whole wheat bread made with organic pumpkin and sunflower seeds.

Vegan Miamians rejoice. The animal-free food movement has been picking up so much in Miami that there will actually be two politically-charged vegan potlucks this weekend at almost the same time.

The topic of each vegan meetup is different, so whether you are in it for the animals of for the health benefits, you’re covered. Traffic is not that bad on Sundays, so wishfully thinking, you might be able to attend both events:

Progressive Vegan Potluck Social at The Wallflower Gallery
Sun., Oct. 18, 4 p.m.
Discussion of local and global animal rights issues. Meet people from various activist groups and learn about community issues, all while checking out an assortment of creative visual art pieces and listening to a selection of local music CDs.
Where: Wallflower Gallery, 10 N.E. 3rd Street, Downtown Miami. 305-579-0069
Cost: Free, bring a dish to share.

Vegan Potluck Dinner at the Save the Earth Eco Center
Sun., Oct. 18, 5:30 p.m.
Topic : Living Healthy in a Toxic World: How arsenic, mercury and plastics become part of our biology. How can we stay younger longer? How can we avoid disease and improve our chances for a healthy life? Dr. David Newman, who has an extensive background in alternative and progressive healthcare, will lecture on environmental issues that affect your health.
Where: Save the Earth Eco Center, 12399 W. Dixie Hwy. 305-228-1116
Cost: Free to members and children under 12; non-members pay $5. You must also bring a vegan dish for at least eight people, and your own utensils and plate.

Are you a vegan Miamian? How easy or difficult is it to find fellow vegans here? Would you like to see more vegan events?

Photo by striatic