Meet Chef Rachel
Rachel Albert graduated from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1985 with a bachelor's degree in sociology and communications. She earned a certificate in Macrobiotic studies from the Kushi Institute of Great Britain later the same year. From 1988 to 1989 she ran Rachel's Natural Foods Cafe in Seattle.
Rachel has been a natural foods chef, cooking instructor, freelance food and health writer, cooking coach, and speaker for the past 25 years. She has led more than 1,100 cooking presentations in eight states, and had more than 300 articles published in national magazines and regional papers, including Natural Home, Living Without, The Herb Companion, Herbs for Health, Yoga Journal, Let’s Live, Oxygen Women’s Fitness, Muscle & Fitness, Muscle & Fitness Hers, Conscious Choice, Well Being Journal, Vegetarian Times, Vegetarian Journal, and Macrobiotics Today. Her articles also appeared in Fit, New Body, Veggie Life, and Vegetarian Gourmet, which are no longer in print.
She is the author of The Ice Dream Cookbook: Dairy-Free Ice Cream ALternatives with Gluten Free Cookies, Compotes & Sauces (Planetary Press, 2008) and co-author of The Garden of Eating: A Produce-Dominated Diet and Cookbook (Planetary Press, 2004), which won the USA Book News Best Cookbook 2004, and a Glyph Award for Best Cookbook in May, 2005. She stars in a two volume cooking DVD set, Cooking with Whole Foods. She also developed 130 recipes for two books by best-selling author Barry Sears, including 90 recipes for Zone Meals in Seconds (Harper-Collins 2004).
Rachel lives in Phoenix, Arizona, and is a faculty member of the nutrition department of the Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA) in Tempe. She leads group and private cooking classes, cooking parties, dinner parties, and healthy shopping tours,coaches clients in their kitchens, and speaks to groups about healthy shopping, cooking, and eating and healthy lifestyle practices.
Known for her passion and expertise, Rachel is dedicated to inspiring healthy choices and demonstrating that great taste and good nutrition can go hand in hand. Her mission is to awaken your inner chef and inner healer and to enhance your appreciation for the nourishing power of natural foods and your body body’s innate wisdom. If you don’t like healthy food, you haven’t tried Rachel’s recipes.
Rachel's books and cooking DVDs are available at Healing Pages Books and Changing Hands Books in Tempe, AZ, at Desert Sage Herbs in Chandler, AZ, at Chakra 4 Herb & Tea House in Phoenix, AZ, and from Rachel's web site. She also keeps books in her car, so if run into her at a farmers' market, you can always buy a book directly from her.
Chef Rachel's areas of expertise
Rachel has exceptional skills in helping people follow special diets, including wheat-free, gluten-free, dairy-and/or casein-free, corn-free, grain-free, peanut-free, egg-free, low-sugar, no-sugar, and preservative-free diets. She not only knows how to make healthy food taste great, she also knows how to teach others how to make it taste great!
Do you have a child on the autism spectrum, with ADD or ADHD, or frequent respiratory infections? Do you have Celiac Disease, food allergies or intolerances, constipation, Chron's disease, colitis, IBS, cancer, MS, rhematoid arthritis, an autoimmune disorder, migraines, PMS, acid reflux, acne, excess weight, high blood pressure, eleveated blood sugar levels, or other health challenges you would like to deal with holistically? Do you want to support your body's innate healing forces through better nutrition? Are you exploring special diets, such as the GF/CF diet, paleo or primal diuet, Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD), traditional foods diets, and other approaches to health? Chef Rachel can help.
