Update: S.3307 was signed into law on Monday, December 13, 2010 by President Obama. This is a step in the right direction. The bill will allocate $4.5 billion over the next 10 years to improving the food programs offered to children. The focus will be on fighting childhood obesity and eliminating hunger. Please write your representatives and tell them that the funding should not be taken from the SNAP program.

There is still time for you to contact your congressional representatives to request that they pass a bill that will deliver significant funding, improvements and provisions to the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act in order to help America's children overcome childhood obesity and eliminate hunger.

This is an extremely important piece of legislation that includes the National School Lunch Program, School Nutrition Program, Summer Food Service Program, Child and Adult Care Food Program, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) and other miscellaneous related programs. Your calls and letters to your representatives can help encourage the passing of a bill that will deliver enough funding and legislative change to significantly make a difference in the health of children.

Both the House of Representatives and the Senate have each been working on developing revised versions of the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act as the current version expired on September 30, 2010.

The House of Representatives Committee of Education and Labor finalized their version of bill H.R. 5504 in July 2010 but Representative George Miller, who is the Chairman for the Committee of Education and Labor has not yet announced how he will move forward with the bill. H.R. 5504 is titled "Improving Nutrition for America's Children Act," and would provide $8 billion dollars in funding for child nutrition programs.

Highlights of (Read Full Article and Take Action Now!)

Tyler, Texas emerges as a city that is leading the East Texas area in environmentalism.

In order to help the Tyler community live more sustainably, the City of Tyler along with Keep Tyler Beautiful and the Texas Conservation Alliance hosts an annual Living Green: A Sustainability Symposium each year. The first symposium was held in 2009.

On Saturday, September 11, 2010, the 2nd Annual Living Green: A Sustainability Symposium was held at the Harvey Convention Center. The Mayor of Tyler Barbara Bass provided opening remarks and also announced that Tyler is now a designated member of Tree City USA. In 2007, the City of Tyler adopted the Tyler 21 Plan which included the goal of becoming a Tree City USA member. As a member of The Arbor Foundation's Tree City USA program, Tyler joins other cities such as Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and New Braunfels, and is recognized as being a greener community.

In honor of the new Tree City USA designation, free trees were given to each visitor of the symposium. The Wright Tree Farm of Edom, Texas donated beautiful varieties of trees such as Bur Oak, Live Oak, Shumard Red Oak and Elm.

Throughout the day, (Read Full Article to also view event photos)

To all my readers and friends, it has been a very busy spring and summer. So busy that I have had to take the past several months off from blogging and my newsletter. I can't believe that it is already September. I will do my best to catch you up!

2010 can be considered my year of the farmers market! In February 2010, I joined with a group of people in my hometown of Longview, Texas to form the Historic Longview Farmers Market. The first three months were spent developing the board, the board bylaws, the market application and rules and regulations as well as the logo and the website.

Because bringing fresh, local, sustainable food to my hometown community is so very important to me, I took the lead on researching area farmers, contacting them and acquiring them for the market. In just two months we grew from five vendors to 20 vendors that rotate in and out of the market. This is remarkable since these farmers are not wholesalers but are all high quality small independent farmers who truly love to farm and are conscious of how they are growing their crops and making their products.

On Saturday, May 15, 2010, the market opened with a sell out success! Joycelyne Fadojutimi of the East Texas Review and Bob Hallmark of KLTV Channel 7 News both attended to report on the market opening. I would like to thank both of these reporters for doing such a great job of covering the story. To read the East Texas Review article "Eating, Living Well," online click here or download the newspaper pdfs page 1 and page 2. Watch the video of Bob Hallmark's story below. (read full article and view photos and video)

Saturday, May 15, 2010 marks the opening of the Historic Longview Farmers Market and the beginning of a movement to bring fresh local and sustainable food to the city of Longview, a city that is in need of better quality food.

Grocery shopping in Longview leaves the most health conscious person longing for quality food and culinary artists in a state of great depression. More often than not, the food found in the grocery stores is from many miles away and is not organic. By the time the food reaches the store, it is not fresh or vibrant, which is disappointing considering Texas leads the nation with 247,500 farms and ranches that cover 130.4 million acres (Texas Department of Agriculture). Instead, Texas ranks fourth overall in agricultural exports and is a leading exporter of cotton, feeds, peanuts, live animals, meat, poultry, animal fats, hides and skins, milk, grains and nuts.

The Historic Longview Farmers Market will provide the many wonderful growers and producers from all over East Texas a central location to showcase local and sustainable food along with other non-food products, and enable them to sell their products directly to the community. According to the Texas Department of Agriculture, 98.5% of Texas farms and ranches are family farms, partnerships or family-held corporations. The farmers market will not only help build the local economy, but it will give people the opportunity to buy food directly from family farms and find comfort in knowing where their food came from and the conditions which it was raised.

The home of the new farmers market is the historic Kelly Plow Works parking lot in downtown Longview located on (read full article)

On Wednesday, April 28, 2010, Danielle Heard, MS, HHC, of Artemis in the City was featured in the food section of the Longview News-Journal. The article titled "The joys of garlic and soy," highlights garlic and soy during national garlic and soybean month. The article was written by feature writer, Glenn Evans.

Danielle was interviewed by Glenn as a health and nutrition expert on garlic and soy. The Longview News-Journal also published two of Danielle's Artemis in the City healthy recipes which include garlic.

If you would like to read the article on the Longview News-Journal's website please click here. To view the article as a pdf please click on the following links article page 1 and article page 2.

"The joys of garlic and soy," also ran on the front cover of East Texas Neighbors published by the Longview News-Journal on Tuesday, May 4, 2010. Please click here to view the pdf of the article.

Thank you very much Glenn and the Longview News-Journal for including Danielle and Artemis in the City in the great article! (read full article to view photo)

Robert and Antoniette Rozean of Wellness Productions, Co. produced another great East Texas Natural Wellness Expo. The event was a great opportunity for people of East Texas to learn more about natural health alternatives and to sample some delicious organic quality foods and other products.

The expo was held at the Harvey Convention Center in Tyler, TX on April 17-18, 2010 and included approximately 100 natural health and wellness vendors. The event hosted a wide variety of professionals with expertise in areas such as holistic health, fitness, nutrition, chiropractic, colon therapy, water and air filtration systems, therapeutic health products, thermography, skin care, body massage, essential oils, environmental wellness, personal growth, health food, natural supplements, natural health for children and pets, organic farming products, energy healing and more!

Each year the expo hosts many national speakers who are experts in their field. This year the guest speakers included Doug Kaufman, host of the television show "Know the Cause," Sally Fallon Morell, President of the Weston A. Price Foundation and author of "Nourishing Traditions," Jordan Rubin, NMD, PhD and author of "The Maker's Diet" who healed himself of Crohn's Disease, and Robert Scott Bell of the "RS Bell Radio Show." During the two day event, there were many other guest speakers and demonstrators who presented educational information designed to help people take control of their health naturally.

I really enjoyed meeting and talking with the people that attended the expo. Some people traveled from many miles away to attend this special event in East Texas, especially those dealing with a serious health issue. I also enjoyed meeting many of the vendors, sampling their products and overdosing on the delicious food.

One of my favorite products at the expo was (read full article to also view photos)

I would like to bring to your attention a very serious subject - the quality of food in America that is causing people to develop many chronic diseases is also given to the people we love who are ill, sabotaging their ability to heal, regain their health or have a better quality of life.

A few weeks ago, on my way home from seeing Dr. Maya Angelou perform, I stopped to visit my very dear friend who is extremely ill. At the time she was staying at a hospice center but she has since returned home. The photo in this article is a picture that she let me take of her holding her toxic food. Every time I see her she is drinking sodas and eating candy or some other processed and sugary food. She is living on junk food and is slowly wasting away.

Seeing this kind of care being provided by a health care provider is very difficult for me, knowing what I know about food and the impact it has the body. Sugar especially is a leading cause of disease. It seems that when it comes to caring for the sick, our health care providers prescribe medications but give little consideration to the impact toxic foods have on their patients’ health that their own staff is serving to them.

It is unfortunate but hospitals are contracting with food companies that supply highly processed and packaged foods. I wrote about this on my blog last year when my own mother was in the hospital and was given the wrong food for diabetes and kidney dialysis. Please see the blog: US Hospitals Serve Toxic Food to Patients.

I wish that something could be done to change the quality of food that is being served in hospitals to patients as well as to the people that I love. Imagine all the lives that could be saved if people who were ill received nourishing foods that prevented the growth of cancers and (read full article)

On Sunday, April 11, 2010, I had the privilege of hearing Dr. Maya Angelou speak in person at The Northeast Texas Community College before a sold out audience. Imagine that, Dr. Maya Angelou, who is not well herself, traveling many miles by bus to a remote East Texas area near Pittsburg, Texas. She was amazing and I am so glad that I decided to go and hear her speak.

I have been very busy working and I didn't think I had the time to go. But then I heard very clearly a message that I must go because she would have a message for me. And she did!

During Dr. Angelou’s performance, she spoke about how we each have the ability to impact lives around the world just by how we live our lives and the help and kindness that we offer to people. The people we in some way help or influence then go on to impact the lives of others. Dr. Angelou also said to us that just because you are in a small town now does not mean that you will not end up somewhere like New York City.

When I was growing up in my small East Texas town, I never thought I would ever live in New York City, but I did for 10 years. New York City became my home that I loved and while I was there I had the opportunity to connect with and learn from many leaders in the field of alternative health and nutrition as well as communications. My years spent living, (read full article and view wildflower photos)

On Tuesday, March 23, 2010, the board for the new Historic Longview Farmers' Market was formed. Danielle Heard, Founder of Artemis in the City, LLC was elected Vice President of the board.

The new farmers' market will open on Saturday, May 15, 2010 in downtown Longview, Texas on the historic Kelly Plow Works site which is located at High, Cotton and Center Streets. The market will be open initially on Saturdays and will expand as the growing season develops. The hours of operation will be 8:00 AM - 1:00 PM each day the market is open. Click here to print the flyer.

Lynette Goodson, the President of Preservation Longview, has spearheaded this effort. She has been working on the research, development and city permits for the farmers' market for quite some time along with many others. The farmers' market is a project of Preservation Longview, a nonprofit organization founded by Victoria Wilson.

The board's elected officers include:
Lowell Tanksley - President (Owner, Farm)
Danielle Heard - Vice President (Founder, Artemis in the City, LLC)
Cathy Cace - Secretary (Owner, Johnny Cace's Seafood & Steakhouse)
David Licthy - Treasurer (Owner, The Cook's Nook / Chef)
Cindy Tanksley - Market Manager (Owner, Farm)
Carol Pinckard - Market Manager (Owner, Fair Meadow Goat Dairy)
Jack Roach - Market Manager (Owner, Farm)

There is a great need in East Texas for the community to have access to fresh, locally grown food. The Historic Longview Farmers' Market will work to preserve

On Monday, March 15, 2010, Danielle Heard, MS, HHC, of Artemis in the City was featured in an interview with Bob Hallmark on KLTV Channel 7 News (Tyler/Longview/Jacksonville) along with two clients, Michelle Cook and Margaret Cunzalo, who share their success stories of healing with food.

If you would like the opportunity to read the story transcript while watching the video, please click here to view the story on KLTV's website.

We want to thank Bob Hallmark and KLTV Channel 7 News for telling the story of East Texans healing with food. It is our hope that more people will begin to embrace a holistic health and nutrition approach to healing and realize that their body has the power to heal itself when given the chance.

Please read the complete success stories of Margaret and Michelle.

• Margaret is Free from Food Addictions and Lost 60 Pounds!
• Michelle Regained Her Health and is Living Life Again!

Open the full article to see a larger video with volume control.