Eco Food Friday: Clif Kid OrganicTwisted Fruit Ropes
I am always looking for healthy, easy snacks to pack in my children's lunches or take in the car. Clif Kid Organic Twisted Fruit Ropes are the perfect treat! Made from real organic fruit puree and juices; you can forget about sugar and/or artificial coloring in these fruit treats. Some flavors are quite tangy, and my husband thinks they taste like candy. These fruit snacks disappear quickly in my house, so I suggest you stock up!
Eco Food Friday: Cook Like a Gourmet Vegan with Recipes From the Millennium Cookbook
My favorite restaurant in San Francisco, regardless of the fact that is serves only vegan food, is the Millennium. A few years back, I bought the
Millennium Cookbook and was amazed by the recipes. Many of these recipes are very involved, but the results are sure to impress vegans and omnivores alike. The desserts are the best, such as sorbet made from coconut milk!
I'm pretty finicky when it comes to salad dressing, and I have tried almost every kind available at the health food store. Recently I discovered Bragg Healthy Organic Vinaigrette. This is the best salad dressing made from cold-pressed olive oil.
Ingredients: Bragg Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Bragg Organic Apple Cider Vinegar, Bragg Liquid Aminos, raw honey, garlic, onion and red bell pepper flakes.
The Braggs have been bringing health food to America since 1912, and the family claims to have originated health food stores. Although I don't really buy this claim, as all stores were once upon a time health food stores before preservatives and petrochemicals entered agriculture, I do love Bragg products!
One of the things I love about the expansion of organic foods is the availability of mainstream products in organic, healthier alternatives. Of course, I am not talking about pseudo natural foods, like organic Batter Blaster pancakes in a can, but Nature's Path Organic Toaster Pastries fit the bill of organic and reminiscent of my childhood. These organic Pop Tartesque treats are a favorite of my three-year-old son, and I have to admit to liking them too. My favorite flavor is the frosted cherry pomegranate.
Eco Food Friday: American Flatbread Pizza With Integrity!
I first discovered American Flatbread when I was tired of soggy, bland frozen organic pizzas and needed a quick meal for the kids. Baked on primitive wood-fired earthen ovens from organic ingredients, this flatbread not taste like your typical American pizza.
Here from the union of fire, rock, and the finest all natural ingredients, comes a carefully crafted handmade food that is truly nutritious, light, crisp, flavorful, and wonderfully convenient. Food remembers the acts of the hands and heart. This is a pizza that is both good and good for you. This is pizza with integrity.
Baked in Vermont and California in order to be sustainable about production, American Flatbread is an experiment in post-modern bread baking. For other great recipes that cherish the ancient art of bread making, consult the The Tassajara Bread Book.
I discovered the flavor of capers late in life, and I enjoy organic capers on bagels with cream cheese. My neighbor puts them on deviled eggs.
Capers are the flower buds of a bush that grows wild throughout the Mediterranean, but the very best capers come from the tiny volcanic islands off the coast of Sicily, where the distinct cultivars nocellae and nocellara grow. The islanders insist that salt-curing is the only way to preserve the intense floral flavors and firm texture of the delicate buds, which may then be totally destroyed by the vinegar or brine-packing favored by other countries. After salt-curing, these organic capers are packed in organic extra virgin olive oil.
Eco Food Friday: Eden Foods Canned Beans are BPA-Free
Did you know that canned foods contain Bisphenol-A (BPA)? BPA is a hormone disrupter that has been shown to have developmental toxicity, carcinogenic effects, possible neurotoxicity, and linked to obesity by triggering fat-cell activity. But have no fear, there is a one choice out there for organic, BPA-free food: Eden Foods. According to Eden Foods:
Eden Organic Beans are packed in lead free tin covered steel cans coated with a baked on oleoresinous c-enamel lining that does not contain bisphenol A (BPA). (Oleoresin is a natural mixture of an oil and a resin extracted from various plants, such as pine or balsam fir). These cans cost 13.77 percent more than the industry standard cans that do contain BPA. This costs Eden $300,000 more a year. To our knowledge Eden is the only U.S. company that uses this custom made BPA-free can.
I will only buy canned food from Eden Foods; however, due to the acidity of tomatoes, there are no BPA-free canned tomatoes on the US market. I prefer fresh tomatoes anyways.
I love my organic coffee, but I can't drink too much of it. A great, tasty alternative for a little caffeine fix is Oregon Chai. I like to use the packets of chai powder mis, as they are convenient and easy to take to work. Just add hot water, and you have a delicious cup of chai!
Ingredients
Sugar, Dried Whole Milk, Dried Nonfat Milk, Dried Honey, Tapioca Maltodextrin, Natural Flavors, Dried Black Tea and Salt.
For a more organic experience, try Oregon Chai Oregon Tea Latte, Original, Concentrate. With less packaging, the chai concentrate is a more eco-friendly option, but I still like the packets for convenience. Oregon Chai makes the best chai!
The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook is the quintessential cookbook for vegans and vegetarians, similar to Betty Crocker for those just learning to cook. This cookbook is loaded with basic recipes from sloppy joes to cinnamon rolls. You can learn to make your own seitan and soymilk in this cookbook filled with basic recipes, from the quick to the more complicated. My copy of The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook is so torn and tattered that is held together with a rubber band now. The Farm is an intentional community in Tennessee, famous for their midwives.
Did you know that oatmeal originated in ancient Scotland? Oats are better suited for the short, wet growing season of Scotland than wheat, and the original oatmeal was a coarse meal produced by slowly grinding the kernel between two large millstones. Bob's Red Mill Organic Scottish Oatmeal is made the traditional way, and its flavor is nothing like the oatmeal you are used to. The whole grain goodness provides a satisfying start to your day, and it has quickly become my favorite warm breakfast cereal.
Who ever heard of someone collecting grain milling machinery built 100 to 200 years ago, refurbishing it, setting it up in a modern sanitary environment, and then seriously going into the business of supplying natural foods to the world? Well, I did! And it's been great fun by far the most challenging and fulfilling thing I've ever accomplished, and it all started with my knack for tinkering!
I think that we have a lot we can learn from Bob when looking to live our lives more naturally. Often, all we have to do is look towards the past to see what really natural living was like and emulate those methods. Once upon a time, organic gardening/farming was the only way to grow food. Thank you Bob!
Green and Black's motto is "As Chocolate as Humanly Possible", which means of course, they use fair trade ingredients. In fact, the company was the first to earn the UK's Fairtrade mark.
The mission of this not-for-profit organization is to support integrative medicine by funding the training of physicians and other practitioners, public education, research, innovations in patient care, and policy reform.
Just like other companies we recommend on Really Natural, Shady Maple Farms is committed to bringing consumers quality, natural products.
Our love and respect for the maple tree have led us to become one of the largest international suppliers of pure maple syrup products - and the world's largest supplier of certified organic maple products.
Eco Food Friday: Fruit to the People From Fruitabu
When I wrote about Crispy Green's freeze dried fruit snacks, I criticized them for not being organic. Stretch Island's Fruitabu is organic and delicious! Made from organic fruit puree and concentrated juice, Fruitabu offers the perfect snack for children and adults. It comes in smooshed fruit flats and twirls. Stretch Island products are kosher, vegan, and offer diabetic diet exchange information on the label (1/2 fruit for Fruitabu flats). Fruitabu is even safe for gluten intolerant Celiacs.
The Stretch Island Fruit Company, makers of Fruitabu , "was founded in a humble laundry room on Stretch Island, Washington" in 1976. The company's values are:
We are optimistic: We believe in the goodness of people, real fruit and community. We envision a world of tasty fruit experiences that inspire people to celebrate nature's goodness. We are socially conscious: We believe that the business of real fruit can help make positive change in our world. That's why we run our business and lead our lives in ways that best benefit the health of people, communities and our planet. We are simple: We believe in the power of nature to help nourish and sustain us, and that sometimes, less truly is more. We are healthy: We believe in the vitality of whole foods. So we make only all-natural and certified organic fruit foods that help people lead their best lives.
That's the thing I love about eating naturally: natural food companies have values!
Eco Food Friday: Clif Kid OrganicTwisted Fruit Ropes
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