Retreat Meals
Well Being Retreat Center has been serving delicious, nutritious meals for events since 2013 in support of healthier bodies and clearer minds. Retreat Leaders may choose the type of meals (vegetarian or non-vegetarian) to be served on their retreats.
Meals are freshly prepared, mostly gluten-free and mostly organic, with an emphasis on gluten-free whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, legumes, and humanely raised organic eggs, chicken and grass-finished beef for whole body, healthier, low glycemic meals. (A detailed list of ingredients that we do and don’t use is below.).
Fruits and vegetables from Well Being’s organically tended orchard & garden are used in season as well as Well Beings own organic chicken & free range eggs. It is our mission to provide delicious food prepared in a conscientious way in support of mindfulness of the body and our connection with nature."
Availability of Meal Service
Meal Service is available for retreats and workshops. For guests renting the cabins for self-retreats or weekend getaways, please plan to provide your own meals. All cabins, but not Cabinettes, have kitchenettes.
Retreat Meals will be served in in the Main Conference Building from our Commercial Kitchen. Both inside and outside dining (on the deck) are available.
Snacks, assorted teas and coffee are served throughout the day.
Retreat Leaders decide whether to offer vegetarian or non-vegetarian meals for their retreat. For non-vegetarian retreats, a vegetarian option will be served at each meal. Participants indicate meal preferences on retreat registration.
Our kitchens are inspected by the State of Tennessee Health Department twice a year.
Meal Preparation Policies
Meal served at Well Being Retreat Center are tasty, mostly freshly prepared, and healthy.
All food served will be labelled to show ingredients. Since "vegetarian" can mean different things to different people, we find it useful to define Vegetarian as including eggs, dairy, and honey, but not including fish or meat.
Since "vegetarian" can mean different things to different people, we find it useful to define Vegetarian as including eggs and dairy, but not fish or meat.
What Meal Service Means
Meal Service means three meals a day served promptly at the scheduled times plus all day availability of drinks and snacks.
Breakfast
Breakfasts (served at 8:30 AM) usually consists of organic scrambled, eggs organic gluten-free ancient whole-grain cereal with a choice of nut & fruit toppings, yogurt, juice, coffee and teas. Occasionally, we will serve organic chicken or vegan sausages.
Lunch
Lunches (served at 12:30 PM) will vary with season and availability of vegetables from our one-acre, organically-tended garden. Generally, there will be a fresh hearty, mostly organic salad. (We won't bore you with a bowl of wimpy iceberg lettuce and call it a salad.) The salads may be mixed green salads, rustic coleslaw, or a grain salad such as a tangy quinoa or rice salad. And then usually a hearty home-made soup or other hot dish such as chili with home-made corn bread, or (wild-caught Alaskan) salmon salad.
Supper
Suppers (served at 6:00 pm) will have a vegetable (almost never white potatoes and often from the garden in season), a meat dish, a vegetarian grain or bean dish, freshly prepared complex salad, and dessert. Most of our meals are low glycemic, tending towards Paleo in character, but we will often make a sweet dessert for supper as well as offering fresh fruit for snacks and desserts.
All Day Choices for Drinks
Drinks will be available all day:
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Chilled, tested, non-chlorinated well water that is delicious & mineral rich
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Starbucks coffee - regular or decaffeinated, half & half an almond creamer
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Unsweetened black tea with ice (sweeteners available)
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An unsweetened herbal tea (usually lemon balm) with ice available
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A variety of herbal and black teas
Snacks
Snacks will be available all day and will include one or more of the following:
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Fresh Fruit
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Mixed Nuts (does not include peanuts)
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Paleo sweet loaf such as banana-apple-carrot cake, zucchini-almond loaf. These are moist and yummy, low-guilt delights that Patty serves up.
On Time Meal Service & Labels
We endeavor, and almost invariably succeed, in serving meals precisely at the scheduled times.
Each dish being served will be label. Labels will list ingredients and whether it is Gluten-Free (GF), vegetarian (VEG), vegan (VEGAN) and/or dairy free (DF).
Food Waste Recycling
We have a very efficient food waste recycling system. We call it "Having Chickens."
We have the chickens located in the orchard and, in off-season, crop beds. Therefore, food waste is cycled back into the topsoil.