About a month ago, I went to the Natural Health Magazine’s Urban Wellness Retreat in New York City. I first found about about this event through Kris Carr’s website, but unfortunately Kris couldn’t make it. The inspirational event was, however, filled with so many other amazing speakers (such as Gabby Bernstein) and healthy tips that it was impossible not to fall in love with everything about that day! I left there giddy with so much new information that I just cannot help but share with all of you.

Oh and the goodie bags filled to the brim with snacks and beauty products that we all received at the end were pretty good too!

**5 Health Tips from Urban Wellness Retreat**

1. Read labels. Denise Mari from Organic Avenue taught me to read all of the grocery labels, even fresh produce labels. It is not enough to just read the back of a box of food for the number of calories or the grams of sugar; you have to look at the ingredient list. Ingredients are listed in order according to their weight, so try to stay away from things with sugar in the first three ingredients. I also learned about the fresh produce labels where the 4-degit number starting with a 4 means conventional, while 5-digit number starting with 9 means organic.

2. Use natural products. Shel Pink from Spa Ritual, a vegan nail polish brand, said to soak hands and feet in lemon juice to reduce yellowing of nails from nail polish!

3. Eat rainbow colored foods: Jeffery Morrison M.D. of preventative medicine suggested to eat fruits and vegetables with colors, such as blueberries, spinach, tomatoes, corn and avoid food that cause inflammation, such as processed food, fast food, and sugar. But if you really can’t cut out sugar, try to use all natural sweetener, such as honey and maple syrup. His rule of thumb: go for the berries and brussels sprouts.

4. Vegetarian food can be amazing too: The “scrumptious” vegetarian lunch that I had there was delicious! This lunch has opened my eyes to so many different food options. I usually cook vegetarian food anyway, like my rainbow fried rice, but the conference lunch had introduced me to a whole new world of vegetarian food. Um hello, quinoa!

5. Be supermarket savvy: Danny Seo, the Eco-Stylist, taught us how to navigate Wholefoods. Did you know that they have coupons there? And did you also know that they have weekly markdowns every Wednesday? What about that its cheaper to buy from their bulk bins? Apparently, Danny bought a box of cereal with only two coupons! Wow!

Julie Sophonpanich is a senior at Brown University concentrating in History of Art and Architecture. She enjoys cooking, hosting dinner parties, strolling through grocery stores, and traveling to sample delicious foreign foods.