21-Day Mantra Meditation Journey with Deva Premal & Miten” on YouTube
Posted: April 22, 2013 Filed under: Event, Lifestyle | Tags: frequency, Mantra, spirit, vibration Leave a comment »I have shared with many of my friends the peace, power and joy I receive from mantra.
Sanskrit is vibrational language. Just like the frequency of essential oils can change you physically, emotionally and spiritually – the same is true with mantra.
Join this experience and see for yourself.
Please share about your experience.
Happy Earth day.
Enjoy the journey,
Renee
Community Supported Agriculture
Posted: March 7, 2013 Filed under: Event, Weston A. Price | Tags: community supported agriculture, CSA Expo, KYF Chicago, linked in Local Leave a comment »Did you know …
you can receive weekly deliveries of fresh produce throughout the growing season?
Pastured meats can be ordered regularly and even delivered to your door ?
a drop site may be in your neighborhood or even on your block?
Know Your Food,
Know Your Farmer
presents the
3rd Annual CSA Expo
Friday March 15th 6:30 – 9:00 pm
Arlington Heights Memorial Library
Sponsored by the NW Cook County Chapter of the Weston A. Price Foundation
Come out and meet local farmers and buying clubs who offer and deliver products in the suburbs of Chicago.
Not sure what to do with the products you receive and that it is worth your while?
- choosing the right CSA for your family and
- making the most of your investment in healthy eating
How to Make the Most of your CSA
Bid on Silent Auction items
Attendance is limited, so please register for the event
Want to hear more? Listen here to ”Community with Marie Lazzara.” On this show, Marie interviews Renee Renz, a representative of the Cook County/Northwestern Suburbs Weston A. Price Foundation chapter.
Own the HealThy Mouth Summit!
Posted: January 20, 2013 Filed under: Event, Lifestyle Leave a comment »
Did you catch all the speakers you wished to hear last week during the HealThy Mouth Summit?
Day 1 (Mark Breiner, Ramiel Nagel, Blanche Grube)
Day 2 (David Kennedy, Sarah Pope, Bruce Fife)
Day 3 (Robert Gammal, Sherrill Sellman, Victor Zeines)
Day 4 (David Ken nedy, Katie the WM, David Getoff)
Day 5 (Akira Sato, Pam Killeen, Ray Behm)
Day 6 (Cate Shanahan, Paul Rubin, Mike Godfrey)
Day 7 (Hal Huggins, Gray Graham, Julian Holmes)
If not, the special reduced price on the Summit upgrade package is good through Monday!
So, if you want to take home all the Summit sessions AND a boat load of valuable bonus materials, act now!
Here’s a link to the Summit upgrade package
Below you’ll find a checklist of gems gleamed from the expert presenters highlighted at the Summit. Look through and gathered the information you may gain from this event.
If after reviewing this checklist you find that you missed some of the materials, remember that you can upgrade for less than the cost of one dental visit. Knowledge is power!
On fluoride:
- Steps you can take to reduce your exposure to fluoride
- How to water a garden to make sure the plants don’t uptake fluoride from the municipal fluoridated water.
- Which bottled waters don’t contain fluoride
- Why eating processed foods may contain significant fluoride in them
- What popular drink is LOADED with fluoride (most people consider it healthy!)
- What you can do to lower the damage that fluoride does in the body ~ What to use in place of toothpaste!
On mercury:
- What options you have if you are pregnant or nursing and have mercury fillings
- What products and foods help to detox mercury from the body
- How to determine if a dental office is really mercury safe!
- The top 10 ways to detox mercury from the body
On diet to heal tooth decay:
- The 2 main foods to eat to reduce our risk of decay by 40%
- The powerful feedback tool to determine if a food we eat is irritating our immune system or is compatible with our body.
- The two foods that increase our risk of tooth decay and ill-health
- The formula for how to raise cavity free kids ~ How to analyze a daily diet to determine what we’re missing
- What foods to make sure we’re eating if we are told we have a cavity
On oral hygiene:
- What to put on a child’s teeth if they have baby tooth decay to substantially lower the risk of decay (ps, it’s not fluoride!)
- Why flossing may be causing more harm than good and what to do about it
- How brushing the teeth helps but is secondary to other more important ways to stop tooth decay!
On holistic oral health:
- Whether oil pulling will help with oral health issues.
- What 3 pieces must be in place to live a life free of tooth decay (food is only one!)
- What minerals may be too high and be causing problems in your mouth ~ How to know if you are detoxing too fast
- What the color of the tongue says about internal health
- Why what’s going on in the mouth directly impacts whole body health
- The simple yet powerful technique to determine if a product will help or harm us
On existing dental procedures:
- What are ALL your options if you have a root canal
- What to do if you are told you need a root canal
- What options exist if you have crowns with metal in them
- What questions to ask a dentist to make sure they are actually able to help
On nontoxic, whole being dentistry:
- New dental protocols that can help remineralize teeth
- How to find a dentist that goes for the drill as a last resort!
- The various methods how we can determine whether a dental filling material is compatible with our unique body chemistry.
- The role of dental metals in cancer and other diseases (and what to do about it!)
- Why the sequence we have fillings changed in can have drastic health consequences
If you find that you missed some of these answers, consider upgrading.
Happy Oral Health!
Healing Food Series
Posted: January 14, 2013 Filed under: Cooking, Event, GAPS, Lifestyle 2 Comments »
The New Year often is a time to turn a new leaf and learn some new habit to support your greater health. Diet is often a habit adapted (or at least thought about) this time of year.
If you would like to learn about some healthy habits to incorporate in your kitchen come and join Renee Renz and Edie Brennan on the 3rd Saturday of the month for:
Healing Foods: Cooking Basics for Abundant Health
All topics and recipes fit or adapt to the GAPS™ Healing Protocol
Come learn the how’s and why’s of making your own delicious healing foods – hands on. Each month we will explore and create a variety of simple, nourishing, and family friendly foods. These basic cooking skills will save you time, save you money, and could save your family’s health! Learn more about why these traditional foods are so essential to our health, and how to get your families to enjoy them.
Held on 3rd Saturday of the month 1:30 – 3:30 pm
Himalayan Yoga & Meditation Center (HYMC)
January 19 – Soup-er Stocks and Stews
February 16 – Fast Ferments
March 16 – Dairy: Culturing, making whey and more!
April 20 – Cultured Beverages
May 18 – Against the Grain
June 15 – Leafy Green Preparation
Cost: $25; $120 for 6 class series)
Advanced Registration and Payment Required please contact 847.221.5250 Himalayan Yoga & Meditation Center
Renee Renz is a Holistic Nutrition Consultant, board certified with the National Association of Nutrition Professionals, and a Certified GAPS™ Practitioner. Renee firmly believes in the phrase “You are what you eat,” adding “and also what you eat eats”. She is a staunch advocate for local farmers and natural food co-ops, an active Weston A. Price Foundation Chapter leader. Renee is co-founder of GAPS™ Connections support and education group, and provides individualized consultations to anyone seeking to restore their health and vitality through natural, nutritional healing.
Edie Brennan is a Master Certified Healing Foods Specialist and Certified GAPS Practitioner and co-founder of GAPSTM Connections. She is passionate about helping individuals and families achieve abundant health and wellness. Edie is also available for individual consultations, workshops, and cooking classes to anyone interested in improved health through food and lifestyle changes. As a busy mom of three little lacto-fermented pickle-eating cuties, she has learned to take a no frills, practical approach to making delicious and nourishing foods that families will love.
Does What’s in Your Mouth Affect Your Health?
Posted: January 8, 2013 Filed under: Event, Lifestyle | Tags: cavity free, crowns, dental health, fillings, Free, healthy mouth, oral care, root canals, summit Leave a comment »Come learn at the HealThy Mouth World Summit!
Here are just a few of the questions that the Summit answers:
- How to raise cavity free kids
- What foods to eat (and which ones NOT to eat) to create greater oral health
- What to do if you have silver fillings, root canals, or crowns.
- Questions to ask your dentist to see if they are really the one to be helping you navigate to greater oral health.
And on and on…
Check out this short intro video talking about the HealThy Mouth World Summit.
It’s only 2 minutes long…
Sign up here for the summit. View the schedule of speakers here
Each day for a week, you will be able to watch and listen to 3 expert presentations all focused toward solutions how to navigate to greater oral health. Not only do you get to learn from 21 expert presentations from around the world, but you’re also invited to attend live Q&A sessions with the experts… for FREE!
In the following 3 minute video we look at the huge impact that oral health plays in creating or undermining our whole being wellness.
“97% of all cancer has a causal relationship in the teeth, jaw and tonsils.” ~Dr Josef Issels
You can sign up here for the HealThy Mouth World Summit
Watch this video to see how the speakers have been grouped into 7 different categories to help you catch which presentations are most important for you. (almost 7 minutes)
Sign up now as the Summit starts January 13th!
As a bonus for registering, you will gain access to a movie titled Smoking Teeth that will blow you away!!!
Come join me at the summit and then we can discuss many of the oral health issues in the future and what most impacted you.
Food Labels – What do they really tell you?
Posted: April 30, 2012 Filed under: Event | Tags: cheers, educaton, label reading Leave a comment »New C.H.E.E.R.S. Class!
Tuesday May 8, 9:30-11:30am
Label Reading 
Are you confused about what a healthy food is? Not sure what to buy at the grocery store? Wondering what some of those ingredients on your pantry staples really are? Want to learn more about current issues affecting our food supply? Join us for an engaging morning discussing REAL FOOD, decoding labels, and taste testing!
Bring an item from your fridge or pantry and we will have fun analyzing the labels together.
Location: Private Home Glendale Heights IL 60139
Childcare will be available but please RSVP with the number and ages of children attending so we can be prepared for them!
Investment: $25 per person; advance registration required.
Please contact us with questions or to register today! www.GAPSConnections.com
Whether you are just starting on your health journey and are confused about what real food is, or whether you are undertaking a natural healing protocol such as GAPS, the most difficult part is often taking what you learn and applying it in your own home and kitchen! Our new C.H.E.E.R.S. classes will be held in a home kitchen where we will learn about a wide variety of topics, practice cooking techniques, demonstrate and sample recipes, and share in the joy that can be had when friends gather in the kitchen!
Cooking
Healing
Enjoying
Eating
Real
Simple
Please contact us for more information or to sign up for a class!
Edie Brennan, Certified Healing Foods Specialist and Renee Renz, MS Nutrition
Certified GAPS Practitioners
C.H.E.E.R.S. to all!
Posted: April 7, 2012 Filed under: Cooking, Event, GAPS | Tags: classes, food, homemade, label reading, local food, Real food, soups, stews Leave a comment » 
Whether you are just starting on your health journey and are confused about what real food is, or whether you are undertaking a natural healing protocol such as GAPS, the most difficult part is often taking what you learn and applying it in your own home and kitchen! Our new C.H.E.E.R.S. classes will be held in a home kitchen where we will learn about a wide variety of topics, practice cooking techniques, demonstrate and sample recipes, and share in the joy that can be had when friends gather in the kitchen! Bring a small jar or food storage container to take home a serving of your handiwork!
Cooking
Healing
Enjoying
Eating
Real
Simple
Location: Private Home, Glendale Heights IL 60139 RSVP for address
Date/Time: 2nd Tuesday of the month, 9:30-11:30am
Childcare will be available but please RSVP with the number and ages of children attending so we can be prepared for them!
Investment: $25 per person
C.H.E.E.R.S classes:
April 10 – Soup-er Stocks and Stews 
Come learn the how’s and why’s of making your own delicious, healing broths and stocks and use them to create a variety of simple, nourishing, and family friendly soups and stews. This is one basic cooking skill that will save you time, save you money, and could save your family’s health!
May 8 - Label Reading 101
Are you confused about what a healthy food is? Not sure what to buy at the grocery store? Wondering what some of those ingredients on your pantry staples really are? Join us for an engaging morning discussing REAL FOOD, decoding labels, and taste testing!
Bring an item from your fridge or pantry and we will have fun analyzing the labels together.
Please contact us for more information or to sign up for a class!
Edie Brennan, Certified Healing Foods Specialist and Renee Renz, MS Nutrition
Certified GAPS Practitioners
UNDERSTANDING YOUR OWN BLOOD TEST RESULTS 101
Posted: January 13, 2012 Filed under: Event, Weston A. Price | Tags: blood tests, chemistry panel, Complete blood count, diagnosis, Health, Heart Disease, Holistic health, lab test, nutrition, WAPF, Weston A. Price Leave a comment »Join us for an afternoon workshop that will empower you to have at least a basic understanding of how to decode & interpret ‘standard of care’ blood test results, such as: the Chemistry panel, which some labs call the Comprehensive Metabolic Panel or CMP, the Lipid Panel, and the Complete Blood Count or CBC, with differential. If time allows, attention will also be given to some very valuable blood chemistry factors that are not typically done on ‘standard of care’ blood tests.
Lead by: *Jim Marlowe, Nutrition & Health Counselor*
When: Saturday April 7th, 2012 1:00pm – 5:00 pm
Where: Hendrickson Room (south side) in the Arlington Heights Memorial Library
Cost: only $25
Please RSVP: wapfnwchicagosuburbs@gmail.com or call Renee Renz at 224-244-7369
After you have gone through the process of having a significant amount of your precious blood drawn and then analyzed by a lab, for the purpose of generating test results, have you wound up feeling disappointed and/or frustrated because one of the following happened:
1) You make an appointment with your doctor to find out about your blood test and he spends a minute or less looking at your results and without any explanation of your labs, he hands you a copy of your results and says “you’re fine”.
2) Same as above, except the doctor doesn’t give you or even show you a copy of your lab results.
3) You get a call from your doctor’s office with the message that “everything on your blood test is normal” and they don’t send you a copy of your results.
4) you don’t get a call from your doctor’s office about your test results but you do get a copy of your results and you’re concerned when you see that one or more of your labs are outside of the ‘reference range’.
5) After having your blood drawn for testing, you don’t even hear from your doctor’s office and so you assume “that everything must have been ‘normal’ or they would have called me”.
If you would like to be able to ‘read’ your own blood test results, and in the process, reduce your dependence on your doctor.
Then mark your calendar April 7th 2012 for this workshop on:
UNDERSTANDING YOUR OWN BLOOD TEST RESULTS 101 – with Jim Marlowe.
If you have any recent, or not so recent, blood tests results, be sure to bring them with you because Jim will definitely help you to better understand them!
Jim Marlowe has been studying nutrition and the other fundamentals of health for 34 years. He has been doing nutrition and health counseling, on a professional level, for 26 years. In the early 90’s, he began to learn about the value of certain blood chemistry factors that are typically found on standard blood test. Eleven years ago, while working as the chief nutritionist at 2 different medical clinics, Jim began an in depth study of all the most commonly done blood chemistry & blood cell factors that can be found on blood test. Over the past 11 years, Jim’s experience of carefully evaluating thousands of blood test results, together with his knowledge of nutritional biochemistry, has helped him to develop a unique way of using blood test results as a tool for investigating the workings of a person’s metabolism that goes well beyond the issue of whether or not your lab results are in the ‘reference range’. Jim has helped his own clients, as well as the patients of many doctors, and even the doctors themselves, to better understand what blood test results are really indicating or suggesting. Jim currently has his own nutrition and health counseling practice, but he also works in close association with Dr. Lina Garcia, who is a holistic dentist, and Dr. Joe Grasso, who is a holistic osteopathic physician. Jim has much experience teaching people how to use their ‘food as their medicine’, to strengthen themselves where they are metabolically weak and to balance themselves where they are metabolically out of balance. Jim faithfully practices what he teaches about eating and living healthy and will continue to study blood chemistry, nutrition and the other fundamentals of health for as long as he rides this planet around that star we call the Sun.
2nd Annual Northwest Suburban CSA Expo
Posted: December 28, 2011 Filed under: Event, Weston A. Price | Tags: biodynamic, community supported agriculture, CSA, farms, local food, organic Leave a comment »Are you interested in purchasing local foods but not sure what your options are for the Northwest Suburbs?
Interested in receiving regular seasonal deliveries of organic produce? Local drop-offs sites for pastured meats?
Come out and learn more at the
2nd Annual CSA* Expo *Community Sponsored Agriculture
presented by The NW Suburban Chapter of the Holistic Moms Network and the NW Cook County Chapter of theWeston A. Price Foundation
Friday March 23rd, 6:30-9pm
Arlington Heights Library
500 N. Dunton Avenue, 60004
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a popular way for consumers to buy local, seasonal food directly from a farmer. Interested consumers purchase a share (aka a “membership” or a “subscription”) and in return receive a box (bag, basket) of seasonal produce each week throughout the farming season.
Meet local farmers, taste samples, and find out about CSA options in the Northwest Suburbs!
also featuring a screening of the documentary King Corn 
Two recent college grads discover where America’s food comes from when they plant a single acre of corn and follow it from the seed to the dinner plate. With the help of government subsidies, genetically modified seeds and powerful herbicides, America’s most subsidized crop becomes the staple of its cheapest—and most troubling—foods.
Contact Mary Green at marysgreenathotmail.com or for more information
CSAexpo2012.pdf Share this flyer with local businesses, neighbors and friends!
GAPS Connections Group Lesson 4
Posted: December 15, 2011 Filed under: Event, GAPS | Tags: ADHD, autism, auto immune disease, Crohn's, Diet, Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, food allergies, GAPS, GAPS Practitioner, Gut and Physiology Syndrome, GUt and Psychology Syndrome, Heart Disease, intestinal health, leaky gut, organic, WAPF, wellness nutrition, Weston A. Price Leave a comment »
GAPS Practitioner Purposes
Lesson 4 will cover the GAPS Nutritional Protocol
GAPS Connections is a group of individuals who meet in person and online to learn about Gut and Psychology Syndrome, how it develops and how to treat it effectively with a sound nutritional protocol.
Please Join Renee Renz and Edie Brennan, Certified GAPS Practitioners, and other GAPS community members for our bi-weekly educational, inspiring, and supportive meetings.
Each GAPS Connections session will include a lesson/presentation, community based support, an opportunity to sample and learn new recipes, and time to have questions answered by GAPS Practitioners as a group and individually.
All GAPS clients, and anybody who is interested in learning about GAPS, may attend. Let’s work together to “fill in the GAPS”!
Date/Time: Thursday 7:00 -9:00 pm January 12th
(Meetings will be held every other week)
Location: Himalayan Yoga and Meditation Center
109 W. Slade St. #200, Palatine IL 60067
Investment: $15 per person/Additional family members only $10 per person
RSVP: GAPSConnections@gmail.com or 224-244-7369
As a way to have interaction between group members, we ask that you please join our Yahoo Group
ClickheretojoinGAPSConnections
Looking ahead, below are the dates for upcoming meetings.
GAPS Connections dates and topics
January 26 – The Full GAPS Diet
February 9 – Stages of the GAPS Diet
February 23 – Nutritional Supplements for GAPS
March 8 – GAPS Detoxification
March 22 – GAPS Practical issues
April 5 – GAPS Pregnancy
GAP Syndrome or GAPS™ is a condition which establishes a connection between the functions of the digestive system and the brain. This term was created by Dr Natasha Campbell–McBride, MD, MMedSci (neurology), MMedSci (human nutrition) in 2004 after working with hundreds of children and adults with neurological and psychiatric conditions, such as autistic spectrum disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia, dyslexia, dyspraxia, depression, obsessive –compulsive disorder, bi-polar disorder and other neuropsychological and psychiatric problems.
“GAPS™ and Gut and Psychology Syndrome™ are the trademark and copyright of Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride. The right of Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Patent and Designs Act 1988.”
