Hey little challengers! Can you believe it?! We’re going into the last few weeks of the Outside the Box Challenge!

Thanks to everyone who entered the Note Your Nibbles Test. The winners of the books are Heems and Becomingasuperhero! Congrats — please email Rachel@sheddingit.com with your mailing info!

OK — onto the next challenge!

One of the easiest and cheapest ways to improve your cooking and health is to cook with herbs! Besides having tons of healing properties, they are a cheap and calorie-free way to improve the flavor of your dishes. So this week, we want you to get green; it is Earth Month after all. Bring a new herb into your life — one you haven’t enjoyed in the past three months at least. And let us know how it goes! What did you choose and why? How did you use it? What did you think?

Everyone who enters this week will be eligible to win one of two fabulous prizes! One winner will get a copy of The New Healing Herbs by Michael Castleman.

This book is a virtual herb encyclopedia of 125 different herbs, from alfalfa to yarrow (plus plenty of herbs you’ve used before, like garlic and witch hazel). You can read about how maca is an aphrodisiac and pomegranate is a great antioxidant. The book explains dosages, drug interactions, and is a great resource if you’ve got a malady you don’t want to treat with something from, say, Procter & Gamble. The other winner will get a fabulous prize pack from Amazing Grass! Rachel has written about this before and is a big fan of their Chocolate Superfood powder.

It contains green superfoods, fruits, herbs, maca, cacao, and acai that are a seriously great pick-me-up and don’t taste too earthy in your chocolate banana smoothie. Not only will you get a canister of the Chocolate Superfood — which, seriously, is bomb — but you’ll also get samples of the companies other goodies like nutrition bars and other powders. Amazing Grass is a brand with good food karma, so we’re excited to share their products with you!

Remember, even if you haven’t entered before, you can make this your first week and you’ll be eligible to win one of the prizes. And for those of you who’ve been with us since week one, make sure you get in on this one — we’re so close to the end! You have until Sunday, April 18 at 11:59 pm PST to report in for the challenge. Submit your entries here. Good luck!