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3-Day Raw Food Detox

For the ultimate boost in your nutrition, join us this week

Wednesday 20th, Thursday 21st, Friday 22nd January

Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner + daily juice and coconut water

Supercharge your body for the New Year!

Eating raw gives you the nutrients your body’s been craving: the enzymes, the vitamins and the minerals. They’re not destroyed by cooking so your body gets a super-boost.

You’ll have more energy and you’ll feel great!

Add a 1-day juice fast on Saturday 23rd for an even greater boost!
for just $25 extra, receive 5 freshly pressed juices and 2 fresh coconut waters

We want to thank all of our fabulous customers for your amazing support

Please join us at the restaurant to celebrate at our

BIRTHDAY PARTY

Wednesday 21st Oct, between 6:30pm and 8:30pm

We’re serving up FREE music, snacks and sangria (organic of course!)

We’ll also be announcing the WINNER of the “30 Days to Help Yourself” challenge

See you there!

We’re looking for Superstar Smoothie Makers and Fabulously Passionate Cooks.

Are you passionate about real food?
Excited by serving customers?
Amazing at multi-tasking?
Experienced in Food Service?

Stop by the restaurant with your resume, or call and ask for Charlie.

The Help Yourself Team

We send our kids to school to learn. Sometimes we forget that education is more than just about passing tests.

We love that so many schools around the country are trying to start their own gardens for teaching, as well as for eating. It’s amazing what can be learnt from growing a garden. There’s the science around growing: weather, plants, nutrition; there’s the sociology and history of how we used to live and how others live; there’s geography, the environment and sustainability; and there are also wonderful life skills around planning, organization and problem solving.

In our rushed lives it is often taken for granted that if we want something, we should get it immediately. How often are we frustrated when we don’t get what we want, NOW? Growing food is an amazing opportunity for the kids to learn patience, and find that the reward for their efforts is all the sweeter when they experience the thrill of eating something delicious that they have personally taken the time to create.

At Help Yourself, we also find ourselves super-excited about the opportunity of re-education in real food. We are very excited about the next generation reconnecting with where their food comes from and learning the importance of real food.

Getting the kids excited about their food is a joy to see. And even better that natural, organic, freshly prepared food, tastes delicious!

On Sept 7th, Labor Day Monday, Help Yourself, Cole’s Peace, and Mana Project will present an “Eat-In” as a part of Slow Food USA’s National “Time for Lunch” Campaign to bring real food into schools, instead of over-processed junk food.

The registered “Eat-In” will be held in Nancy Forrester’s Secret Garden, located on 1 Free School Lane, in the heart of old town Key West.

Nancy Forrester supports the Slow Food Movement’s “National Day of Action” with a Free Admission Open House. The “Eat-In” Garden hours are 10 AM to 5 PM, with midday 11-2:00 being the most communal “Time for Lunch.”

Bring your own picnic or to buy one from our restaurant.

The festivities include: Food demos, a farm stand, speakers, parrots, movies, musicians, performing artists, children’s “garden patch” (drawing and painting), raffles, a goodie bag, and more …

Slow Food is a non-profit, eco-gastronomic member-supported organization that was founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life, and the disappearance of local food traditions. Today, Slow Food has over 100,000 members in 132 countries.

As of 2008, Slow Food USA has a membership of roughly 16,000. Notable members include, Alice Waters, Eric Schlosser, and Michael Pollan. In 2008 Slow Food USA hosted its largest gathering to date when 50,000 people attended the inaugural Slow Food Nation in San Francisco. Founded by Alice Waters, it was the largest celebration of American food in history.

In June, Slow Food USA launched the “Time for Lunch” campaign to tell our legislators it’s time to update the National School Lunch Program. The goal is to get real food into schools, instead of over-processed junk food, and members are supporting this effort by signing a “Time for Lunch petition,” contacting their legislators and organizing Eat-Ins (or potlucks) for a National Day of Action on Labor Day, Sept 7, 2009. After only one month into the campaign, there are already more than 180 Eat-Ins organized in 43 states across the country and we are one of them!

http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/campaign/time_for_lunch/about/

Manufacturers focus on creating food as cheaply as possible – many do this by adding or removing, substances to make the food last longer on the shelf, look brighter or more ‘perfect’, and be ready to be eaten in minutes. In addition they have added just the right amount of fat, sugar and salt to hook the consumer in and bring them back for more.

These priorities are not the same ones as those that have our interests at heart and help our children to thrive. They may provide the calories, but not nearly enough of the nutrients that our children need. The price might appear attractive at the register, but the longer term price of filling our kids with calories void of nutrients is very unattractive. It is this manufactured food and the lack of nutrition it contains that is the root of the obesity problem and other childhood illnesses.

Nourishing our kids means variety and balance with the best food that they can get: real food. Food that is natural and unprocessed.

The vegetables are fresh and organically grown and contain an abundance of vitamins and minerals that you won’t find in the chemically grown equivalents. The meat is sourced from animals that are raised on foods that are natural to their own dietary needs, and without hormone injections or antibiotics. The vegetables are central to our meals, whole grains become a staple, and meat plays only a small portion of our diet.

It is with this basic notion, that we are nourishing our children and giving them the best start in life.

Real food can be simple, it can be adventurous. It can be colorful and quick to prepare. It can definitely be delicious and it can also be fun! Come and see us for inspiration.

The Carrot, our dear and constant companion in Key West, since Help Yourself first opened, has today been registered missing. Visit our page or www.carrotfun.com for more information

First of all a big thank you to everyone that came along last Friday to watch the movie and enjoy some appetizers from Help Yourself. If you haven’t seen it yet, is still on at the Tropic for a few more days and you should definitely check it out.

The movie shows in pretty rigorous detail what has happened to our food over the last 6 years. I knew all this anyway as the issues discussed in the movie are the same ones that led me to open Help Yourself but that doesn’t make it any less shocking to watch. I think I cried most of the way through. First through seeing what happened to the animals, then through anger at how controlled our food has become and then through passion because the message at the end is the message of Help Yourself and what I believe so passionately about; just eat real food – food as it should be.

In Food, Inc. you see how the animals are no longer really animals but merely a production line. You see how they live, how they are treated and how they die. You see the workers in the processing plants and how they are treated no better than the animals. You learn how the food chain is controlled by just a few large corporations and how most food is no longer food, but food like substances full of chemicals and genetically modified ingredients. Half way through it makes you feel angry and it makes you feel hopeless, like there is nothing we can do to compete with these corporations.

Then it turns to the positive, you meet some of the real farmers who still adopt the traditional methods, and it shows that sales in organic produce are growing rapidly. You see Walmart introducing an organic line due to consumer demand and we are reminded that we can make a difference, in fact every time we eat we can make a difference; the choice of what goes into our mouths is ours. Micheal Pollan says in his book “In Defense of Food’ the silent foods are the best foods. And the silent foods are the fruits and vegetables with no packaging and no health claims, those just sitting quietly on the shelf waiting to be eaten. You are voting with your fork.

It doesn’t mean that you have to change overnight, it doesn’t mean you have to be perfect everyday, and you certainly shouldn’t be hard on yourself, all you need to do is start being aware of what you are eating. Look at the packages and the ingredients, think about where the food has come from and how it was made and make your choice. Being aware is the first step, everything else will follow. And that is our mission with Help Yourself to make ‘real food’ available, to help others be able to make the choice they want and re-inspire the passion for eating food as it should be: delicious, nutritious and natural.