Latest articles

classic pumpkin bread recipe and holiday pantry gift
Featured

Traditional Pumpkin Bread Recipe

How to make classic pumpkin bread, and an adjusted recipe that you can give as a pantry gift. I’ve noticed a trend in bakery pumpkin bread. It seems to be getting sweeter, with more fat added, resembling a ginger cake more than a traditional pumpkin quick bread. Here is a recipe for classic pumpkin bread…
Alchemy Raw Vegan Restaurant Ubud Bali
Featured

Shanti Allen of Alchemy Bali Raw Vegan Restaurant

Meet Shanti Allen, Executive Chef and founder of Alchemy, Ubud’s first completely raw vegan restaurant. Shanti meets me for our interview in a sundress and sandals, her long blonde hair loosely braided to one side.  I follow her through the kitchen, where a bank of food dehydrators are concentrating flavors, and creating the textures raw…
Smart Chicken Tecumseh Farms
Featured

Smart Chicken: Tecumseh Farms Interview on Sustainable Humane Chicken

A lot of people are wondering what brands of chicken are healthy and humane. The answers may surprise you. In this interview we take a fresh look at Smart Chicken. What do we discover? A new take on “food miles” — killing chickens gently and humanely is possible — thoughts about antibiotics and animal byproducts…
Ben Ripple Big Tree Farm Bali
Featured

Sustainable Farming in Bali | Ben Ripple of Big Tree Farms

On the forefront of developing sustainable, community enhancing food systems in Bali, Indonesia Expats Ben and Blair Ripple left their organic farming jobs in Washington and moved to Bali, Indonesia, in the late 90s. Since then, they’ve been become somewhat famous in their efforts to bring artisinal Indonesian products to a larger market and to establish and…
Reusable Lunch Box Kits
Featured

Waste-Free Lifestyle: Reusable Lunchbox Kit

Who knew that bringing that brown bagged lunch to school or work every day added up, not just in cost but in environmental degradation? Investing in one of these reusable lunchbox sets will save you money over time, and lighten the load on our landfills.
make your own coconut yogurt from whole coconuts
Featured

How to Make Yogurt From Fresh Whole Raw Coconuts

Thick, creamy homemade coconut yogurt made from coconut flesh—without the fillers and thickeners found in store bought coconut yogurt. If you do this entirely from scratch, it takes time and labor. In my opinion, the result is unquestionably worth it. There are also some shortcuts that will let you make this yogurt quickly. Many people…
small scale organic farming
Featured

Small Local Farms Producing Humanely Raised Quail Eggs

Quail eggs are a common street snack in Peru, and often used in Thailand and China. In the US, however, quail eggs are just hitting the food scene. You’ll find them served raw in sushi restaurants, atop a bed of tobiko and wrapped in nori; pickled and served as cocktail snacks; poached and served on…
Recipe High Quality Chicken Stock
Featured

How to Make High Quality Chicken Stock

A chicken stock recipe for serious eaters and serious cooks. Rich in flavor and high in nutrition, this stock will make everything you cook unmistakably better. This is the indispensable ingredient in so much good cooking. You’ll be amazed at how a truly well made stock will elevate all it touches, from rissotto to soup, braises…
how to avoid salmonella
Featured

Avoid Salmonella Contamination in the Kitchen

Some people mistakenly believe that buying organic or sustainably raised chicken or poultry means they don’t have to worry about Salmonella. Following proper kitchen protocol when handling poultry can help you reduce the risk of food poisoning. Every year, a million people in the US are sickened by Salmonella. Nineteen thousand of them end up…
braised escarole with mustard and bacon recipe
Featured

Braised Escarole With Bacon and Mustard Recipe

This warm, easy and satisfying dish is perfect as lunch or a light dinner, or as a side dish. Braised escarole with bacon and mustard There are so many leafy greens to eat, and so little time! Don’t get stuck eating the same rounds of spinach, chard and kale. Perhaps you’ve never eaten escarole, or…
is organic baby food worth the cost
Featured

Is Organic Baby Food Worth The Cost?

A closer look at what’s in the jar The Alternative Health Journal studied over 100 baby foods and found that many contain ingredients that are not necessary to a baby’s diet, let alone health. Results concluded that many commercial baby foods contain high quantities of sugar. Even organic brands are not exempt from this, as…
Featured

Breaking The Link Between Dairy And Veal

Many exclude veal from their diet on principle.  And vegetarians avoid meat altogether. Yet anyone consuming dairy products may still inadvertently be supporting the production of veal. Aside from a very few farmers who eschew it, veal production is, after all, a by-product of the dairy industry.  Dairy cows must give birth once a year…
Featured

Daily Bread: Doing Business and Doing Good

JP and Michelle MacFadyen are dedicated to sustainable practices in their restaurant and to sharing the bounty of their bakery with others through local food donations to feed the hungry. By now we’re all familiar with the locavore ideal: buy food from local producers, family farms and businesses. In the pursuit of this ideal, sometimes…
sustainable restaurants
Featured

How Green is Your Favorite Restaurant?

Sometimes sustainability is equated with upscale restaurants that specifically market their local and sustainable credentials. But what about your favorite pizza joint, or the place where you pick up a quick salad on the way home from work, or the bakery that supplies your daily bread? To really make a difference, sustainability has to take…
Featured

Everything You Need to Know to Buy Healthy, Humanely Raised Chicken

You want birds that were raised humanely and you want birds that ate healthful, natural foods to ensure the best quality meat. But don’t be fooled by nice-sounding labels, even ones like “organic.” When it comes to buying poultry, a little homework will ensure your good intentions and extra expenditure don’t go to waste.
Featured

Humane Pasture Raised Heritage Breed Pork

With so many labels vying for your sustainable food dollar, it is becoming increasingly difficult to decide which is best. The labels should make it easier, but how many of us really know what the certified Organic or the various steps of the GAP animal welfare labels really entail? When it comes to pork, there…
Featured

Death By Ratatouille: Are You Allergic To Nightshades?

Nightshade vegetables may be secretly making you sick Okay, Death may be a bit extreme here, but you would be surprised how many people have a sensitivity to common nightshade vegetables. You’ve heard of the Deadly Nightshade. Hikers and foragers learn to avoid the tasty looking, yet poisonous, berries on this wild growing plant. But…
chemicals sprayed on produce
Featured

What you need to know about chemicals sprayed on produce after harvest

Are chemicals added to fresh fruits and vegetables after harvest? We know that processed foods often contain a host of unhealthy additives, from fake flavors and colors to chemical preservatives. What you don’t know is that sometimes chemicals are added to fresh produce after it’s picked and before it gets to the grocery store. When…
Featured

A1 vs A2 Milk: What’s the Difference?

Beyond the serious issues with animal and environmental welfare in the dairy industry, I have another problem: eating dairy makes me feel sick. I can have some, but not too much and not too often. I’ve been tested for allergy to dairy casein as well as lactose intolerance, and both tests came back negative. I…
Drought And Our Staple Crops
Featured

Drought And Our Staple Crops

As you’ve probably noticed, the drought that hit the US starting last summer has not caused society to collapse, nor are we experiencing a drought-induced famine like the one that took place three years ago in the Horn of Africa in which almost 1 billion people went hungry. So why should you care if the nation’s staple crops of wheat, corn and soybean suffered sizeable declines? To answer this question, let’s first take a look at how dependent we are on these crops—they are, after all, called staples for a reason.
Featured

Natural vs Organic Meat

When it comes to meat labeling, nothing is as confusing as understanding the difference between Natural and Organic meat. Here’s what you need to know about the Natural label.
Variety of produce.
Featured

How To Create A Hyper-Local Foodshed

Can you and your neighbors produce a complete diet for the community from your own home gardens?  Own Dell believes so, and gives his tips for defining, organizing and creating your own hyper-local foodshed. Situated on some of the most fertile land, many suburbs have a legacy of once being extensive orchards or acres of…
green restaurant certifications
Featured

Certifying Sustainability

Defining sustainability in the restaurant industry, let alone measuring it, has proven to be an incredibly difficult task. A range of new businesses have emerged to help analyze a restaurant’s sustainability as well as provide certification for businesses to stand as a visual indicator to their customers of a restaurant’s ethical values—helping diners make smart choices.
Slaughter Your Own Thanksgiving Turkey

Slaughtering Your Own Thanksgiving Turkey

With the holidays approaching, some are preparing to don aprons while others are preparing themselves to take the life of the animal that will grace their table. Small, local farmers are increasingly giving customers the opportunity to not only choose their own heritage breed bird, but to learn to kill and dress it as well.
sustainable holiday meal planing eco conscious

Waste-Free Kitchen Holiday Tips

With the appropriate planning, you can save money this holiday season without throwing your food ethics out the window.  Forget canned green beans, factory farmed turkey and pre-packaged stuffing.  This year, serve your family a healthy, delicious holiday feast and avoid food waste. The winter holidays are all about abundance—being surrounded by friends and family,…
how to use thanksgiving leftovers

Holiday Leftovers: Vegan Cranberry Quickbread

Like many of us, Jenn Sebestyen, author of the Veggie Inspired Blog, found herself with plenty of holiday leftovers.  So what do you do with your gorgeous home made cranberry sauce?  How about transforming it into a treat you can enjoy for breakfast, with tea or as dessert.  Jenn shares this whole food, vegan recipe…