Guide to Ethical Food on a Budget
Our best tips to help you eat nutritious, local, ethical and organic food for less
Sustainable, Local, Humane Food
We use cookies to improve your experience and assume you are fine with that if you continue to use the site, and we may earn a small commission through purchases you make through affiliate links on the site. Enjoy!
Latest articles
Plastic Free Kitchen: Non Plastic Zip Bag Alternatives for Food Storage
Are silicone food storage bags a good plastic free alternative to zip lock style plastic bags? Read the pros and cons of switching to silicone.
Foraged & Wild Foods
You don’t need to live in the deep woods to find foraged foods. From herbs to berries to mushrooms, you can find an abundance of food if you know how to look. Why forage? To take part in an industrial agricultural system means to be dependent on a system of food cultivation over which one…
Soy Anise Braised Oxtail With Preserved Plum
Here’s an easy and delicious recipe for braised oxtail, an often overlooked cut in the US. This recipe can also be made with bone in short ribs, but I hope you’ll take this opportunity to experience how tender and flavorful oxtail can be. Ingredients Oxtails (pasture raised and 100% grassfed beef); here I’m using almost…
Los Angeles Saturday Farmers Markets: Marina del Rey
When you think of Los Angeles beaches, the first things that come to mind are probably Instagram sunsets and surfers. But LA is also home to some fantastic local food and food makers. From small urban farmers growing organic microgreens to raw local honey to CBD treats for dogs — there’s a lot to discover at the Marina del Rey farmers market on Saturdays.
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…
Eco Friendly Restaurants That Grow Their Own Food
Restaurants with roots Restaurants across the country are now boasting farm to table fare on their menus, sourced from local farms or, increasingly, a farm of their own. But not all can present their patrons with the farm just outside the restaurant doors. Restaurants with integrated onsite farms invite diners beyond the table to the…
Humane Sustainable Meat | Smart Chicken: Nebraska Poultry Farm Goes Beyond Organic
A new take on “food miles” — killing chickens gently — thoughts about antibiotics and animal byproducts in feed — why air chilling matters. Many companies are born out of a desire to do things bigger, better and faster than any other before. However, for Tecumseh Farms, a Nebraska-based certified organic chicken producer, bigger and faster weren’t nearly…
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…
How to Buy Humanely Raised Eggs: Which Labels Are Best?
Labels are a start, but don’t tell the whole story. That’s why, no matter what the label says, you need to ask your egg producer these questions and decide for yourself if his practices meet your standards.
Interview With Mark Shepard of New Forest Farm
Working with and within nature using perennial food crops and restoration agriculture. Mark Shepard has created something of an environmental oasis at his Wisconsin homestead, New Forest Farm. Shepard, a farmer and author, is a longtime proponent of restoration agriculture, the practice of recreating healthy, naturally occurring, economically viable perennial farms. Packed with biodiversity, these…
Chain Reaction Urban Farm
Using borrowed suburban backyards, this urban farm CSA is bringing dormant gardens back to life and fresh organic food to the city.
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…
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?
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…
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…
How to Buy Fresh, Organic, Sustainably Grown Local Produce
The best fruit and veg is local, seasonal and organically grown…but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be sporting an organic label.
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.
Meat: How To Buy Healthy, Humanely Raised Beef, Pork, Lamb and Goat
There are many reasons to avoid eating meat unless you know how it was produced. Learn what the issues are, how to navigate the confusing world of meat labels and use our checklist to find the best beef, lamb, goat and pork.
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…
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…
Hyper Local Foodshed: Neighborhood Food Sharing In Altadena
Free. Fresh. Local. What’s not to love about neighborhood food sharing? Seven years ago, a bounty of blackberries and a few generous neighbors inspired Gail Murphy to become one of the driving forces in Altadena’s local food renaissance.
Seasonal Cooking: How to Use Fresh Chickpeas
Fresh chickpeas with Brussels sprouts and pasta recipe Spring is the time to find all kinds of foods we normal eat dried in their fresh state. Fresh garbanzo beans, or chickpeas, are at the markets now, so don’t pass by these velvety green pods without giving them a try this season. Wondering how to use…
SPIN Method Offers Path To Profit For Urban Farming
The Small Plot Intensive Method of urban farming gives novice farmers a path to creating a small profitable business growing fresh food.
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.
Project Green Fork | Green Restaurants in Memphis
Margot McNeeley, founder of Project Green Fork in Memphis, Tennessee, talks to EthicalFoods.com about the challenges of helping restaurants move toward sustainable practices.
Sustainable Eco Friendly Gift Ideas
These eco friendly ideas make great gifts on their own, or thoughtfully curated into sustainable gift boxes for friends, colleagues and neighbors. Eco Friendly Tech Tech products are notoriously difficult to recycle. Here are some eco friendly options. Nimble For Good. Eight day fast portable charger, made from plant bioplastics and recycled aluminum. They don’t…
A Gourmet Vegetarian Holiday with Deborah Madison
Whatever you may have thought about vegetarian holiday fare, today, top chefs are creating delicious, festive and satisfying vegetarian holiday menus that may leave you wondering if turkey has been long overrated.
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…