Parkway Grille plans open house and wellness tasting

Parkway Grille in Floyd will host an open house and wellness tasting on Saturday, January 6 from 11 to 2. Attendees will be invited to vote on healthy options for the Grille’s menu. The event will also launch the offering of healthy options and Wellness Wednesdays at the Grille.

Special guests will be Floyd resident Judith Toscano, ND of Lotus Wellness Cottage. Toscano has written two cookbooks. She describes her most recent cookbook on healthy eating – Cooking Up Health, Wellness and Joy - as a health guide/recipe book meant to help people understand how healthy food can make them more energetic and how they can have a more enriched life. Topics in the cookbook cover the relationship with food, the power and pleasure of preparation, flexibility as a sign of health, and more. Recipes for snacks, soups, salads, dressings and toppings, wilted vegetables, and sweets are included.

Toscano advocates vegetarian raw foods because of their anti-inflammatory benefits. There are other rewards to that type of diet, she added. “I heard recently that vegans may live 25 years longer than the average person.”

A typical meal for Toscano would include a rainbow salad - roasted vegetables with two types of greens, something crunchy (raw zucchini or cucumbers), organic grape tomatoes or red pepper – with a salad dressing of olive oil, garlic and lemon.

Toscano said people tend to overeat with less healthy food. “Good food follows less is more. If you eat good food, you’re satisfied more.”

Cooking healthy does require time management and planning, but Toscano noted, “if you know how to make a meal that’s healthy, the second time it takes less time.” You also make a connection with the food by preparing it, rather than opening up a box meal and adding water, or putting a frozen meal in the oven.

To get more people eating healthy, Toscano began talking to area restaurants about adding healthy options on their menu. Parkway Grille owners responded to the idea.

At the open house, the restaurant will prepare recipes from Toscano’s cookbook. “You can taste a raw soup, a sweet treat and a soon-to-be world famous salad dressing,” she commented.

Toscano invites everyone “to come out and try something healthy” and then integrate healthy choices in their daily meals.

Parkway Grille is located above the Harvest Moon Food Store on North Locust Street. For more information contact the Parkway Grille at 745-4770.

(Lotus Wellness Cottage has offices in Floyd (179 Ida Rose Lane) – a seasonal office, not open in the winter, and in Stuart (104 Via Avenue). Judith Toscano has two degrees in natural remedies and five certifications in Therapeutic Modalities. Her husband Robin Murphy of Lotus Wellness Clinic in Blacksburg runs the Lotus Health Institute, the educational arm of the group. He is an internationally known naturopath and author. Lotus Wellness offers variety of wellness products, tinctures and tonics, and classes.)

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