Now, a year later, we have our winners! Check out the videos below to meet our honorable mention winners, who will each receive a $100 gift card to Earth Fare.

Ian’s journey AWAY from High Fructose Corn Syrup and TOWARD health!

“Talkin’ Food with Oscar and Sam” from Elizabeth and her family.

Ivory’s Healthy Home!

What do you think of the honorable mentions?

The holidays are here again, and for most of us, that means fun, family, and FOOD. Many of us spend all year looking forward to cookies, candy, sweet potato casserole, veggies, rolls, and a turkey for Thanksgiving. Food can be a delicious holiday tradition.

Give. Thanks was established to bring that tradition to families who normally don’t have the luxury of a big holiday meal. Through the Give. Thanks program, you can donate $1, $5, $10, or a whole turkey (valued at $40) to a local family who otherwise wouldn’t have a holiday dinner.

This month, our Earth Fare community has donated over 1,000 turkeys to families in need.

Each of our stores has entered into partnership with community organizations to find local families in need of a holiday dinner. Turkeys are being donated to elementary school resource centers, Meals on Wheels, food banks, and other community partners. We are all working together to help deliver healthy food to hungry families this year, and we couldn’t have made any of this happen without you.

Donating 1,000 turkeys is a huge achievement, but we still have time to put food on the table for even MORE families in need. Are you up for the challenge? Can you help us to donate 1,200 turkeys by Thanksgiving Day? Stop by your local Earth Fare to make your donation to a family in your community. Together we can make this Thanksgiving much happier for local families in need.

 Be sure to tag your tweet with the #healthyis hashtag (that’s how we’ll track all the entries). You don’t have to send your tweets directly to @EarthFare, but you DO need to be following the @EarthFare account in order to win.

 Questions? Send them via tweet to @EarthFare.

 We’ll be reviewing entries from today until Friday at 5:00 pm. The winner will be announced on Monday, July 26, and we’ll be sending a $100 gift card to our favorite definition.

 That’s it! To review:

1. What does healthy mean?
2. 140 characters or less
3. Photos are allowed
4. Tag your entry with #healthyis
5. Follow @EarthFare
6. Entries must be submitted by 5:00pm on Friday, July 26
7. Winner gets $100 Gift Card!

Now get to tweeting!

 The Take our Tomato contest is a photography contest – with a twist. We’re looking for the best photos of Earth Fare TOMATOES that we can find. Get creative! Send your tomato on an adventure, and send us the proof. Email your submissions as a .jpeg to information@earthfare.com, or upload them to your own blog or flickr and send us the link. We’ll notify our winners by August 10, 2010. Check below for more details, and then go take your best shot!

*No purchase necessary to enter Earth Fare’s Take our Tomato Contest. Contest candidate must be over the age of 18. In submitting a picture and/or acceptance of prize constitutes permission to use winner’s name and/or likeness and picture submitted for purposes of advertising and trade, worldwide in perpetuity, without future compensation. Prize winners will be required to verify address prior to awarding the prize. There will only be one winner for first place. Contest winners will be selected at the sole discretion of Earth Fare’s staff.

By Maria DiLalla, Community Relations Coordinator, Raleigh

In Part 1 of The Fast Food Budget Challenge, I showed that it IS possible to enjoy fresh, healthy meals on a budget!   How did I do it?  Below are some tips I follow for stretching a dollar at Earth Fare:

• Buy pantry staples in bulk
  • Flour, sugar, sea salt, whole grains, herbs & spices are cheap when you buy them in bulk, and you don’t have buy 25 pounds worth of product to get the price break!
• Re-use foods – get creative! 
  • Stale bread?  Use it for breading eggplant & chicken!
  • Leftover chicken or vegetables?  Throw it into pasta! 
• Use the same ingredients in multiple recipes for variety:
  • The main ingredients are the same in: Pasta & eggplant parmesan, frittata, and roasted vegetable quinoa
• Buy whole-wheat products: it keeps you full longer
• Coupons, coupons, coupons!
  • Sign up for Earth Fare’s Newsletter at the bottom of our homepage here, and receive coupons via email!
  • Download our Monthly Flyer for deals
  • Check the Healthy Savings section on Earth Fare’s website for deals. 
  • Become an Earth Fare fan on Facebook to receive notifications on our deals!
  • Follow us on Twitter to get our Tweebies!  

Earth Fare gives out awesome deals and it’s easy to build entire meals with them!  Remember the free Rotisserie Chicken with $10 purchase coupon? Buy sweet potatoes & broccoli, and then dessert for $10.00, and then you get your entrée for free! 

So, if someone says it’s not possible to eat healthy on a budget, show them these tips!  How do you stretch your dollar?

My Decade – My Health – My Journey

The decade has just begun and it’s time for a new journey – a journey to health.  How will you make that journey?

Just think about it.  You will make over 73,000 food choices this year.  You will make over 730,000 food choices this decade.  How will you choose?

A single serving can’t change much…a single bite can’t change much…a single choice can’t change much…

But, with 730,000 food choices this decade, Earth Fare wants to know how you will choose!  Tell us how you will journey to health. 

Take a short, funny, hilarious or serious video of your food choices, your fitness regimen or just that one first stride towards cutting out that fast food value meal for lunch for life. 

It’s time for YOU.  It’s time for…

My Decade – My Health – My Journey

Rules:

1. Take video of how you plan on journeying to a healthier you.
2. The video should be between 1-5 minutes in length. 
3. BE BOLD – BE CREATIVE – BE HONEST
4. Upload the video to our YouTube Contest Group Page (http://www.youtube.com/channel/myjourneycontest) **Note: If you are unable to upload your video to the group page, please just upload it to YouTube and email the link to misty.faucheux@earthfare.com **
5. Email video link to information@earthfare.com  (include first name, last name, phone & email)
6. Contest deadline December 31, 2010
7. Winners will be notified Jan 15, 2010

Prizes:
Grand Prize: $1,500 Gift Card to Earth Fare
Second Price: $1,000 Gift Card to Earth Fare
Third Prize: $500 Gift Card to Earth Fare
3 Honorable Mentions: $100 Gift Card to Earth Fare

 
So, it’s time to start.  It’s time to change.  It’s time to tell us – show us – entertain us – on how will you journey to health!

DISCLAIMER: No purchase necessary to enter Earth Fare’s My Decade – My Health – My Journey contest.  Contest candidate must be over the age of 18.  In submitting video and/or acceptance of prize constitutes permission to use winner’s name and/or likeness and video submitted for purposes of advertising and trade, worldwide in perpetuity, without future compensation.  Prize winners will be required to verify address and phone number prior to awarding the prize. There will only be one winner for grand prize, second and third places.  Contest winners will be selected at the sole discretion of Earth Fare’s staff.  

How much weight do you think you gain during the holiday season?  Many believe they put on an average of five to seven pounds from Thanksgiving through New Year’s.  But studies, including one from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), show that Americans only gain an average of one pound.

Good news, right?  One pound is far less than seven (phew), and how hard could it be to lose one pound?!  Wait…don’t check the good news box so fast…

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development study also found that most adults do not ever lose the one pound they gain!  This weight gain accumulates over time contributing to obesity later on in life.  Obesity is a major risk factor for diabetes, heart disease, sleep apnea and even some cancers.

On average, adults gain about 12 pounds per decade (or about one pound per year).  So this means that the added poundage could come from holiday indulgences!

This is not all good news for those who started out the holiday season obese or overweight.  Why?  Because already obese participants in the study tended to gain more than 5 pounds during the holiday season. 

But, do not despair.  You do not have to be another statistic.   You can have your CAKE and eat it too…Just join the rest of the Earth Fare community on the health journey and enjoy a healthy, happy holiday season (you can even have that homemade slice of pie you have been craving).  Try to squeeze in bursts of physical activity when you can during the busy season; enjoy the healthy, natural and organic foods we offer in our stores; and let us know about your successes!  C’mon Earth Fare community, let’s be a force to change the statistics so that one day, we will read all good news – that we not only curbed adulthood obesity, but that festive holidays did not cause weight gain.  Will you join us?

“Hungry” to know more?  Sites Earth Fare visited for this post are:
(1) http://tinyurl.com/yg8nez
(2) http://tinyurl.com/ya8omxh
(3) http://tinyurl.com/ycey56b

TV is not the enemy.  In fact, TV can be good.  Without TV this world doesn’t have 60 Minutes, Saturday Night Live and Top Chef.  But too much of a good thing can easily become a bad thing for your health.  So how much is too much?

Did you know that according to Nielsen Media Research, Americans are watching around 58 hours and 27 minutes of television a week (up 40 minutes from last year).   Do a little math and… that’s more than 8 hours a day!  That’s a full workday!  So if you work 8 hours, watch the tube for 8 hours and then sleep for 8 hours then… well, there’s probably not any time set aside to take care of your health – to take a walk, to cook a healthy meal or to play a little ball.   Shocking yes, but also true.  

It is also true that Americans are paying a high health toll for all the tube we are watching.

So what do we do?  WE DARE YOU!  The dare comes in the form of a challenge… 

The CHALLENGE:  Go a full week without turning on the TV (unplug it, put a sheet over it- whatever it takes)!

Then SHARE YOUR STORY - tell us how going “TV-less” changed your life – if we feature your story on EarthFare.com, you will get a $50.00 gift card!