High Hopes!! Even Ant Colonies Start Somewhere

Did You Know?

As a collective, an ant colony can achieve remarkable things, complete tasks, and solve problems that would be unimaginable for a single ant. Colonies are responsible for building complicated nests, waging battles, and creating highway systems to food sources. The collective intelligence of an ant colony can serve as inspiration to help us solve complex human problems.

Businesses are finding new ways to apply these lessons from nature, from routing trucks to making Internet search more accurate. The theory of swarm intelligence (or collective intelligence) relates to how the simple actions of individuals can come together to produce the behavior of the collective. Deborah Gordon, a biologist at Stanford University summed up the concept this way: "Ants aren't smart. Ant colonies are."

So, while R.O.C.K. in the Charlotte Area is growing, we have introduced your website. We will post meetings, events, have a monthly game to play, a monthly gluten free recipe posted and offer all kinds of FUN! Remember that we couldn't do it without each and every one of you.

*You are our R.O.C.K. Stars*

We help guide one another to make the path to a healthy life easier. And just like ants, we are stronger together than alone.

Celiac Awareness Month Halloween Celebration Hosted By R.O.C.K.

That's right! We are throwing a Halloween Celebration in honor of Celiac Awareness Month. We are going to be making "Good Yet Gross Out Halloween Treats" - gluten free of course. Costumes are not required but we hope you will wear one and be as creative as you can. There will be a gluten free prize available for best costume and we will share all our ghoulish recipes so the R.O.C.K. Stars (children) may add onto their cookbooks at home.

 Where: Healthy Home (Economist) Market

     2707 South Blvd.

   Charlotte, N.C.

 When:  October 25th, 2009

  Time:   3:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.

Please R.S.V.P. by October 20th to Nikki at haircolorexpertise@hotmail.com

We'll be seeing you there!!!

September's School Lunch Cooking Class

This September's R.O.C.K. meeting was held at the Earthfare market in Ballantyne. Out of requests from parents, we planned a School Lunch Menu theme. We had plenty of recipes to share and the R.O.C.K. stars (our children) got to make their own recipe books to take home with them. After that, they tasted lots of yummy treats and then made a Gluten Free Halloween Spider to eat.

The menu we served included Teff/Millet Wraps with peanut butter & honey, Yogurt Waldorf Salad, Banana Pecan & Raisin Bread, and of course the Spider Cupcakes which were made with the new Betty Crocker Gluten Free Chocolate Cake Mix, Jelly Belly jelly beans for eyes, and Jelly Belly candy corn for teeth. Black pipe cleaners for their legs and they were adorable!

And everyone was happy and healthy after an afternoon of fun!

NO GRAIN, NO PAIN!