If the National Restaurant Association’s “What’s Hot in 2011” survey of more than 1,500 professional chefs is any indication, 2011 will be a very good year for people who eat against the grain. Local food, sustainable meat and seafood, healthier children’s meals, and gluten-free cuisine will be among the hottest trends on restaurant menus in 2011.

Photo Credit: National Restaurant Association

The top ten menu trends this year are predicted to be:

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The more you go against the grain during the holiday season, the healthier you’ll tend to be. If you know that in theory but need a little practical help enacting that in your life, let me remind you of my new book published earlier this year, Gluten Free Throughout the Year. With its month-to-month format, this companion guide to Going Against the Grain can help you through all times of year, and offers gluten-free recipes such as Pink Rice with Roasted Asparagus and Mushrooms and grain-free recipes including Chestnut Stuffing, Savory Stuffing, Butternut Squash with Fresh Sage, Pecan-Pear Autumn Sundaes, and No-Bake Dried Fruit-Cocoa Balls, all of which are very appropriate for the holidays.

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by Melissa Diane Smith

Awareness of celiac disease and gluten sensitivity has grown so much in recent years that more and more people are avoiding gluten and “gluten-free” is one of the hottest and most in-demand labels placed on foods today. Yet, despite the popularity in “gluten-free,” many people have sketchy information about gluten, gluten-related illness and gluten-free foods.

There is no better time than now, National Celiac Awareness Month, to clear up common misconceptions and raise awareness, So, take my quiz, test your knowledge, and find out how gluten-savvy you really are.

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The latest stop on my virtual book tour for Gluten Free Throughout the Year was an interview at GlutenFreeFitness.com, which was posted as a podcast on Sept. 8th. Host Erin Elberson who has similar nutrition philosophies as I do interviewed me and we had an engaging chat that covered a lot of territory. We discussed helpful-for-health information for people who have celiac disease or gluten sensitivity and even for people who don’t. If you’d like to hear the real scoop on gluten-free and grain-free diets and how you can personalize the info to design the best diet for you for improved health, listen to the podcast right now.

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by Melissa Diane Smith

It has been close to two-and-a-half years since I began Nutrition News & Notes. Many of you come to this site looking for gluten-related information, but sometimes miss earlier posts I have written about gluten sensitivity, celiac disease or the gluten-free diet. I find it pays to do a little review of the information every so often. So, here is a roundup of the gluten-related stories you might have missed. Click on the links below to read the full stories.

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My virtual book tour for my new book Gluten Free Throughout the Year continues. This month I did an author interview at About.com and had a nice conversation with Teri Gruss, the writer of the Gluten-Free Cooking section of that site. She asked very insightful questions I’m not often asked and we covered information that people who eat gluten free rarely hear about. You can check out the interview at these links:

About.com interview – Part 1

About.com Interview – Part 2

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My new book Gluten Free Throughout the Year received high marks in two new book reviews by correspondents who regularly write about gluten-free living and gluten-free books. One appeared on About.com, a part of The New York Times Company, and the other appeared on Examiner.com.

Here are excerpts from the About.com review by Teri Gruss:

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To coincide with the release of my new book Gluten Free Throughout the Year, I am hitting the book tour trail, spreading the word in a number of different ways.

It all starts Wednesday, May 12th, at www.Celiac.com with my first author interview about the book. I am very pleased to have a leading site in the gluten-free movement and industry, www.Celiac.com as the first “stop” on my Virtual Book Tour. (In case you were wondering, a Virtual Book Tour is a tour in which an author visits websites and blogs instead of traveling across the country to bookstores.) Be sure to “travel” along with me by going to this link, so you can read the interview and learn a lot more about the book, why I wrote it, and how the format of the book came to be.

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I am very pleased to announce the release of my new book, Gluten Free Throughout the Year: A Two-Year, Month-to-Month Guide for Healthy Eating. I wrote the book as a companion guide to Going Against the Grain for the many people who asked for it. The primary focus is to help people on a gluten-free diet, but it’s also useful for people who want to lose weight or who follow a reduced-carbohydrate diet. Below is a summary of the information in the book followed by quick answers to several questions I am asked most often about the book by my clients and readers.

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Eating gluten free at picnics, while traveling, when you’re sick, and during holidays. All this and more is covered in the first ever gluten-free book of its kind, Gluten Free Throughout the Year. The book has:

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by Melissa Diane Smith

If you think eating gluten free is only therapeutic for people who have health problems and experience uncomfortable symptoms, get ready for a surprise: It just might be a little-used nutritional strategy for giving athletes a winning edge. The cover story in the March issue of Men’s Journal, “Winning Without Wheat,” described how members of a pro cycling team switched to a diet free of gluten (found in wheat, rye and barley) and were pleasantly surprised with the results. They experienced better digestion, improved sleep, speedier recovery, and substantially improved athletic performance.

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