Eating clean, a starting point
Following our article on sustainable food, which seems to have hit the spot with so many people, we thought of putting together a short list of tools and sources to get started on sustainable food choices.
We strongly believe that it’s not important to go 100% sustainable: it would be in fact impossible for the vast majority of us, unless we owned an organic farm! What is important is to make a few changes, step by step.
EXPLORE: No-Salt Cooking Tips
A vast amount of information on the subject is available on the net so this is just a starting point:
– If you want to know more about how the multinationals have created a global food monopoly, check out the book “Stuffed and Starved”. The Author, Raj Patel, conducts a global investigation to find out how come half of the world is risking starvation and the other half is witnessing an obesity pandemic, and tries to find positive solutions to this situation.
– If you don’t know where to start, check out the website Meatless Monday. MM is a global movement that started in 2003 and has since spread from the US to 29 countries. Their website has a great selection of tasty veggie recipes on top of articles on the subject.
– Another goldmine to check out is the website Sustainable Table. Created under the broader umbrella of the Grace Communication Foundation (which is devoted to increase public awareness about environmental issues), Sustainable Table contains great recipes, and an “eat well Guide” – a directory of farms, stores, restaurants sources of sustainable food (US only unfortunately) and a blog with updated issues, news and many, many practical tips.
– Sustainweb.org is a similar website, but based in UK (it also operates internationally). Sustain is a charity that operates with the goal of advocating better food and farming policies to enhance the welfare of people and animals and better working and living environments.
– Ewg.org is the official guide for the “Dirty Dozen” and the “Clean fifteen” the lists of fruit and vegetables that are respectively more and less polluted with pesticides. It is possible to download a pdf and/or an app for the phone.
– Pickyourown.org provides local listings of pick your own farms in many countries. There are also crop calendars and step by step instructions with photos on how to preserve food: from how to freeze, dry, preserve, even can vegetable when in season, to how to make 150 food-preserving recipes.
– Finally, farmers markets are normally a good source for sustainable food. A quick Google search with the words “farmers markets + your local area” comes up with dozens of pages: luckily today they are quite available nearly everywhere.
We really hope this small list will spark your curiosity and get you started on a journey to a tastier, healthier life.
