Health Lesson #9 Where you should eat

Hello Everybody!!! I Have A New FAVORITE Restaurant!!!

Mind Body & Spirits (yep, that's the name)

I was just going to make the blog about how great this place is, but I think I am also calling it a health lesson because if you are serious about your health and the environment, you will seek out places like this to eat at. So, this is Health Lesson #9 on Where You Should Eat. 

How lucky am I? This restaurant just opened up about 2 miles from my house in Downtown Rochester on main street (Rochester Rd) and 2nd Street. Why am I so stoked?? This place is 100% organic. That’s right 100%. I can’t even shop 100% organic at Whole Foods because the don't always carry everything organic. But that’s not all. It is also almost completely local food. The water is reverse osmosis filtered. The soda is homemade with Agave Nectar. There are gluten free pastas on the menu that are to die for.

You think I am done? Well guess again. It is also a green restaurant. Right now it had Green lights as part of the Downtown Rochester light display, but I’m talking environmentally green. The floors are sustainable bamboo, cork, and recycled tires. The tables are made of compressed sunflower seeds or compressed saw dust. Of course they used paint with no VOCs. The cement floors are made with crushed up bottles that were left over from the Owner’s other bars. It looks really pretty too. There is a greenhouse in the back where some veggies and fresh herbs are grown. They compost all the leftover food, so nothing goes to waste and then they get this awesome completely natural fertilizer from that. They recycle everything. They catch rain water to water the plants in the green house. The list goes on and on.

This is the cozy lounge upstairs. Kevin and I ate up here sitting at a couch and we looked at books from the collection they have on their bookshelves. It was so nice and relaxing.

So far I have tried the veggie burger and I was just taken away. I am so used to a “veggie” burger being smashed black beans and this was a delightful surprise. The burger was veggies, but I am telling you it was the best burger I have ever had. Non-veggie people would love it. Kevin loved it. My uncle had the fish sandwich and he loved it as well. My mom and cousin had a pasta dish with chicken and I was doing a juice fast that day so I had to sit there and torture myself and smell it. It looked so good and smelled so good, I was close to breaking the fast. I had the red pepper hummus as the dip of the day and I wish it were the dip of the day every day. The potato pancakes are so incredibly good. I also heard that the half chicken was wonderful. Everything I seem to try there is incredible. They put a lot of effort and care into making these foods. 

The owner of this place is Mike Plez and he is a class act. He also owns the Rochester Beer Mill and he sold the Royal Oak Brewery to open Mind Body Spirits. He is an incredible individual and did not miss a beat when designing this place. Honestly, you will not find one area that he didn’t put thought into. He has always wanted to make a restaurant like this and this was a life long passion. When my Uncle David and my sister Stacie went there to eat, he gave my uncle and me about an hour long tour of the place telling us every little detail he used in making this restaurant. It was incredible. The ambiance is extraordinary too. They have free WiFi upstairs in a lounge with couches and coffee tables. You can eat dinner up there too. They have book shelves with products for sale and they have a ton of books that you can pick up and read or even borrow and bring back later. It is decorated beautifully with bamboo plants throughout the place and flat panel TVs displaying some of the prettiest pictures of Michigan. 

They also use geo thermal heating and cooling (using the earth’s core temperature), solar panels, solar hot water, energy recovery ventilators (using the old air temperature to either heat or cool the new air coming in). You get the point, this place is incredible. 

The website is http://www.mindbodyspirits.com/ 

Go to the site and click on "In The News" and click on the "Fox 2 News Clip". They had the news there when I went there to eat with my uncle and my sister. Of course they only wanted to interview my uncle, but if you pay attention to the background, you will see me talking to my sister and laughing at my nephew who decided to spill water and hit some other things over when the camera started rolling. 

MICHIGAN PEOPLE, you have to go there and check it out. You could go downtown Rochester, go see the lights and then get dinner there afterwards. The fire and ice festival is this weekend. Ice sculptures and fireworks. Feel good about the food you eat and go there and have dinner. This is the start of some major change and I am so happy. I cannot wait to see how much things have changed in another 5 years. People are waking up. People understand that it DOES matter what we do and what we put into our bodies. Although the FDA and even some doctors do not look out for our overall health, we can be sure that we are all smart individuals who care about our earth and care about our bodies. Sooner or later “big money” like Coke and Pepsi did with Stevia, will have to come around and make healthy food for everyone because that is what we as consumers will show them that we want. Remember we vote with every purchase we make.

The big day is today. Obama is our president. He is an inspiration to me and he shows me that a person can achieve what others call "imossible".

Happy Birthday to my sister Stacie. Her birthday is the 20th so this year she gets a very special event on her birthday as well.

Okay, just wanted to ell everyone about this incredible place to eat.

Peace, Love, CHANGE and organic food

Shannon : )