I’m here to tell you there are a few tips and tricks to keeping that grocery bill down while still keeping ethics and the environment in mind. It takes a little more planning, some flexibility and creativity, but you can shave big bucks off your bill if you keep them in mind.

1. Quit eating meat. Buying meat, particularly non-industrial meat, can really break the bank. Animal agriculture is also one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions that exists. By replacing meat with plant-based protein sources, such as beans and lentils (cheap!) you can save money and lighten your footprint. Even cutting back to decrease the amount of meat-meals you eat in a week, and increasing your meat-free meals, will help.

2. If you do eat meat, look at cheaper cuts. Take a hint from Joel Salatin at Polyface Farms. His ethically-raised pork was a big hit with consumers–particularly the better cuts. The tougher cuts were harder to sell, so he’s selling them to Chipotle, who uses them in burritos, because shoulders and legs hold up well to the braising process Chipotle has in place. You can do the same. Braising, stewing, or slow-cooking cuts like shoulders, flank steaks, or  round roasts and steaks can add tasty

3. Plan ahead. Watching the sales, reading the circular, and planning menus ahead of time saves money by using more sale items into your diet.

4. Buy and cook in bulk–if you’ll eat it. A money and time saving practice that I rely on is making enough dinner to have leftovers for lunch. This works particularly well with soups and pastas, where it’s easy to stretch a meal out by adding more broth or noodles. This way, brown-bagging your lunch is a snap. You’ll save money by not eating out and by stretching ingredients, and time by cooking once and eating twice. However, this practice doesn’t work if you don’t eat the leftovers. The same goes for buying in bulk. You can often save a pretty penny by buying larger quantities of food items that you use frequently. For example, I buy olive oil in bulk because I use it all the time. The same goes for flour, pasta, beans, or lentils.  Do not invest in items that you won’t eat before they go bad, just because you’re getting a deal.  That gallon of mustard won’t seem so cheap when you have to throw half of it out. At the same time…

5. Don’t let your eyes be bigger than your stomach. Consumers lose a lot of money by buying food that goes bad before they use it. I know I’m guilty of this. By planning your meals carefully and eating according to what is fresh in the fridge, you can eliminate wasteful spending on food that never nourishes anyone, except maybe your compost pile.  Be thoughtful and deliberate in your meal planning to use everything in your fridge.

6. Coupons, coupons, coupons. It used to be that coupons for organic brands were few and far between in your Sunday newspaper. With the increase in organic brands on your conventional grocery shelves, more coupons for those products are ending up in circulars. However, there’s many other ways to find coupons that you can use for organic products. Mambo Sprouts puts out a coupon book that you can pick up at stores or have sent to your home if you live in certain areas. But the best way I’ve found to get coupons you’ll actually use is to contact companies whose products I enjoy. Most websites have a “Contact Us” link, and brands such as Quorn, Organic Valley, and NakedJuice sent me substantial coupons after I politely asked for them. That also puts me on their mailing list for free samples and coupons in the future. The Grocery Coupon Guide has a great list of brands with links to their websites.  An hour or two on the internet could save you many, many dollars.

7. Eat seasonally. Eat locally. It’s practically a mantra around here, but it’s true for your wallet as well as our planet. There’s a reason strawberries cost five dollars a pint in December. As fuel costs rise, so will the cost of your produce imported from other countries. I’ve found making friends at your local farmers market can save you cash, too. Not only are you eating much fresher, more flavorful fruits and veggies, but you can establish a relationship with the farmers. One of my absolutely favorite organic farmers on our farmers market circuit knows me by name, and since I faithfully give him business, he almost always knocks a buck or two off my total.

8. Grow your own. Seeds and plants, even organic, can cost next-to-nothing, and gardening is a therapeutic and rewarding hobby. Even apartment-dwellers can grow plenty of produce in containers. I’ve found that  those with the blackest of thumbs can successfully grow all the fresh herbs they need, and if you buy fresh herbs at the store, you know they can be expensive.  Think about expanding to tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, squash, or radishes.

9. Join a CSA.   CSAs, or Community Supported Agriculture, are programs where you buy shares of a harvest from a farmer. In return for your investment, you get regularly-scheduled boxes of produce, which may include other items such as dairy, meat, flowers, or grains. Although CSAs can be expensive, many are reasonably prices, particularly in comparison to buying items individually, and many CSAs offer half-shares at reduced cost. They’re worth looking into by asking at your local farmers market.

What are some money-saving tips you’ve found in your quest to eat better?

Kristen Groos Richmond, Co-founder/CEO of Revolution Foods, who has a wonderful if improbable company, which I wrote about before, can speak first-hand about the ways entrepreneurs can attract professional investors while pursuing goals such as connecting local farmers and consumers.

However, audience members asked questions that were not easily answered, such as how do small organic farmers, who want to wait until their fruit is ripe to pick it, interface with the industrialized major grocery chains who need to receive wholesale goods on a highly scheduled basis?

The panelists, which also included Paul Dolan (former President of Fetzer Vineyards) and Fred Kirshenmann (of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture) spoke of both the initial success stories as well as the major challenges. In a corollary to the saying, “the jury is still out,” the panelists could not really answer whether capital is going to flow to organic startups on such a massive scale.

Okay, I’m on a sweet potato binge these days . . .

This has become a staple of at least one weekend breakfast or brunch meal every week.

Serves 4 (but, I usually double it for our Sunday family crowd)

Ingredients

3 medium sweet potatoes – cubed in ½” pieces
½ medium red onion – cut into smaller pieces
1 red pepper – cut into smaller pieces
3 scallions – chopped
1 clove garlic – mashed
2 – 4 Tbs. Olive oil
1 tsp. Cumin
Crushed red pepper to taste
Salt & Pepper to taste
2 Tbs. Cilantro

8 Eggs – Over easy (2 per serving)

Directions
Saute garlic and onions in oil in medium to large skillet (preferably with lid) for about 2 minutes - sealing onions. Add red peppers and continue to sauté for another 2 minutes or so. Then, add sweet potatoes. Mix well, put on medium-high heat, and put lid on and leave for a few minutes. Check, stir, and continue till sweet potatoes start getting soft. Add, scallions, cumin, salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper and mix it up well. Replace lid and wait for a couple of minutes. Sweet potatoes should begin to brown (but, if you double this recipe – which we always do – sometimes it is hard to get them to brown, but they still cook and taste great). Cook eggs. Place scoop of sweet potato hash on plate and spread out. Lay eggs on top of hash and sprinkle with cilantro, and voila, you have a healthy, colorful, and delicious breakfast!

Urban greens is a food cooperative on Providence’s West Side with a mission to provide simple, direct access to affordable, local, natural products and to offer a community-based alternative to corporate supermarkets. The cooperative is guided by its values of equal access, local agriculture, local economy, co-operative principles, community partnerships and social entrepreneurship.

An even higher level of awesomeness dawns when you find out that it’s all held together by a volunteer-run buying club that currently provides a full range of groceries through biweekly orders. Currently, they process orders and display their wares online at www.urbangreens.com. Rumor has it that in the interest of making the cooperative buying model more accessible to the entire community they are working on opening a cooperative market to replace the online buying club and to give a storefront face to this community of online organic food geeks.

But, how you are seen by companies who market organic foods depends on how much you buy.

Are you a:

1) DEVOTED (16% of shoppers) - the most committed to organic and its ideals … most likely to have changed your lifestyle to integrate organic. The more a category is used, the more it has to be organic.

2) TEMPERATE ( 22% of shoppers) – have a modern organic attitude and fit organic into your lifestyle; the more you use a category, the more an organic version becomes a treat.

3) DABBLER (44% of shoppers) - non-committal about organic – you can take it or leave it. For you, buying organic is more about hipness than the health benefits.

4) RELUCTANTS (18% of shoppers) - the least trustful of organic and believe that conventional products are just as good (if not better) than organics and that organics are not worth the extra cost.

Come on now, do share!

And they are not alone. Most of the top 25 food producers own one or more organic brands and are rapidly developing their own.

Here’s a short list of some of the most popular organic brands and their corporate parents :

Odwalla (Coca Cola)

Morningstar ( Kellogg)

Horizon (Dean Foods)

Boca Foods ( Kraft)

Earth’s Best (Heinz)

Cascadian Farms (General Mills)

Naked Juice (Pepsi)

We shouldn’t be surprised, after all, once these products appeared in our local grocery store, we should have known. But, it is worth raising the question: how big is still green?

Dr. Phil Howard, Assistant Professor at Michigan State University, concludes recent trends in organic food have both positive and negative effects:

On the positive side more and more of our foods are healthier for us, as more and more become certified organic. The USDA standards for organic prohibit genetically engineered and irradiated ingredients and synthetic pesticides. The volume purchasing power of these large corporations has also helped bring down the average cost of organic foods and increased their availability.

On the flip side, rather than rotating crops, major food manufacturers tend to plant a single item, then farm in on an industrial scale using trucked in organic fertilizer. Then harvested product is processed, packaged and shipped all over the world increasing fossil fuel consumption and packaging waste.

So, is it a wash? Should we be concerned about the industrialization of organic foods or should we applaud the fact that our food supply is becoming healthier? Dr. Howard thinks both.

As the industry evolves, we must address concentration in the industry, where food comes from, how far it travels and by what means, packaging and waste, a living wage for farm workers, preserving farmland and keeping farmers on the land, and continuing to be the front line for sustainability.

However,

The success of organic, is a striking reminder that we have the power to influence the way food is grown, processed and distributed. Those who continue to fight for the ideals of the original organic movement should feel optimistic about achieving these goals in the future.

Read more about this topic at: PCC Sound Consumer.

See organic brands owned by the top 25 Food Producers here.

Related Posts: Natural Means “Nothing”; Clorox Benefits From FDA’s Decision On Natural; Is Windex Greener With Green List?Natural Means Nothing - What Does Everything Else Mean?

Despite the fact that we run Inn Serendipity B&B and “breakfast” is part of our business, we find the average American breakfast is, well, boring. With the same old, same old about everywhere you go, we wanted to give breakfast a makeover with a dash of serendipity: spinach and egg stuffed burritos; fried green tomatoes; a side of beets and root crops roasted with thyme. The delighted look on B&B guests’ faces when served a plate of the unexpected inspires us to keep experimenting creatively with the most important meal of the day using a smorgasbord of seasonal produce.

Breaking the rules a bit and leaving room for the unexpected proves to be Inn Serendipity’s appeal. Most of our guests are experienced foodies, flavor and health-conscious sleuths who appreciate the difference between heirloom tomatoes and those found on supermarket shelves wrapped in plastic. We’re eager to savor cuisine prepared in unique ways, or combinations. Foodie travelers don’t want a cookie-cutter motel room, cable TV and continental-style doughnuts for breakfast. They seek out places like our B&B, where a homemade cordial and chocolate greets them for a bedtime nightcap and our young son leads enthusiastic s’more making sessions around the campfire. They smile when roasted turnips and rutabagas appear at the breakfast table from the fall harvest. Authenticity drives culinary travelers off the Interstate and a few of them through our doors. Our tastebuds and our souls crave the real thing.

Wisconsin leads the nation in recognizing this growing market of travelers seeking authentic experiences that don’t ruin the planet in their process of enjoying them. Spearheaded by the Wisconsin Department of Tourism, Travel Green Wisconsin (travelgreenwisconsin.com) invites tourism-related businesses to undergo a certification process based on a range of environmental and social criteria, from sourcing food locally to adopting energy conservation measures. Restaurants showcase local cheeses and lodging establishments like ours are powered by renewable energy. Travel Green Wisconsin leads travelers to places that offer unique experiences that may help sustain, restore or enhance the very features that attract visitors, be it natural or cultural.

The movement is also afoot in Minnesota, spearheaded by the non-profit organization Renewing the Countryside under the moniker Green Routes (greenroutes.org). Their website provides an easy-to-use tool to help you find one-of-a-kind places to eat, play, shop, sleep and learn in Minnesota (and soon, to a place near you).

This green travel movement, echoing that of the organic foods movement, revitalizes small family farms and fuels interest in real food and flavors. Local farms are the ones saving seeds and sowing the Cherokee Purple Tomato and Royal Burgundy Bush Green Beans. Taste some, and you will be a believer in God’s true intentions. The real thing doesn’t come in the form of a dark-colored soft drink.

By stripping away packaging, processing and predictability, authenticity shines through. Jump-start your day with a dose of something different and smile when a turnip turns up on your breakfast plate. This flavorful, unusual recipe from our cookbook, Edible Earth: Savoring the Good Life with Vegetarian Recipes from Inn Serendipity, prompts folks to rethink their assumptions about rutabagas. Be sure to boil turnips and rutabagas first till they are tender yet firm since they don’t cook as fast as the other root vegetables.

Roasted Root Vegetables (Vegan)
Ingredients:
8 c. beets, turnips, rutabagas and potatoes, cleaned, peeled and chopped into bite-size pieces
2 ¼ t. garlic salt
2 ¼ t. dried oregano
1 ½ t. sugar
1 ½ t. dried thyme

Directions:
* Mix spices and oil in a glass jar and let set for about an hour or more.
* Place veggies in a 9-in. x 13-in. baking pan. Drizzle spice and oil mixture over veggies and toss to coat.
* Bake at 425 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally.

Serves 8.

As environmental stewards, we're used to taking the path less traveled to make a difference: pulling out the canvas bag in the check-out aisle, installing solar thermal panels on our roof, driving a hybrid before they became hip in Hollywood. Same theory works for food: by embracing new seasonal flavors, harking back to a more agrarian, land-based diet that evolves with the seasons, we eat nutritionally-dense foods that readily grow locally.

Fall ushers in the perfect time of year to explore some of these unusual vegetables as they tend to be hardy crops that grow well past the first frost, and will still appear at farmers' markets. Root crops such as rutabagas and turnips formed winter diet staples for centuries. In fact, rutabagas were among the first vegetables planted by colonists in America when they began farming, as the large and strong rutabaga roots helped break up poor soil. Some tips on experimenting with some unusual produce offerings:

Creating Healthy Environments for Children features Private Practice's Amy Brenneman as host with Ben Harper providing music. Pediatricians Dr. Philip Landrigan and Dr. Alan Greene provide their expertise, as well. Their five major tips include:

• Avoid using pesticides
• Clean safely
• Help children breathe easier
• Provide healthy food
• Use plastic products wisely.

Pop the DVD in your computers, and you'll find three tool kits, one each for home, child care centers, and schools, that provide resources for making each environment safer for children. The tool kits also give advice for community outreach and activism on safer environments for children.

For those of us trying to eat both healthy and earth-friendly, stereotypical "processed" food can be a double-edged sword: we may not want the additives, the packaging, the lack of nutrition, but we're still lured by the fact that we crave easy-to-serve-up comfort food like mac and cheese or pizza. Instead of trying to rationalize your guilty purchases with "it was on sale," or "this is the only stuff my kids will eat," think out of the expected blue box and take an un-processed approach to processed food. Some tips to get started:

• Focus on your favorite. What's the processed food you eat the most? Focus on creating healthy alternatives to that one dish. For us, mac and cheese motivated our out-of-the-Kraft box thinking as Liam kept requesting it on a daily basis. That is what led to our recipe below, now in our cookbook, Edible Earth: Savoring the Good Life with Vegetarian Recipes from Inn Serendipity. Surprisingly, healthy unprocessed alternatives to processed foods are simple to make and don't have nearly the long ingredient list as you'll find on the back of the blue box — and you can identify all of them.

Interested in diversifying your seasonal diet? Give leeks a try for the following reasons:

• Mild, sweet flavor. Classified as alliums, leeks prove to be the milder, sweeter version of their more popular poignant counterparts, garlic and onions. A delicate, graceful vegetable with broad, flat green leaves around a contrasting white base, leeks produce a pleasing aroma and sweeten as they cook. Trying using leeks wherever you typically use onions and notice the subtle flavor changes. Experiment with adding cooked leeks to mashed potatoes or lightly sauté chopped leeks alone or with another sautéed vegetable

It would appear that I am not alone in my passion for the heavenly food. Hundreds of people attended the Chocolate Show here in Paris this weekend. They went to watch the experts prepare chocolate delicacies, to hear lectures on the latest in chocolate-making machinery, or to see the latest chocolate-inspired fashion. But most of all they went to sample an astounding variety of the fine food. Although they did not steal the show, organic and Fair Trade chocolate featured prominently throughout the weekend.

I spoke to Emilie Guerin, a member of Ethiquable, a French Fair Trade company that has a partnership with a cooperative of cocoa producers in the Dominican Republic. Ethiquable, a combination of the words "éthique" and "équitable," French for ethical and fair, was founded in 2003. "Four years ago we started with 8 products," Emilie said. "Now we have 120." They began with coffee and now work with a range of products from orange juice to rice, and, of course, chocolate. But their goals remain the same from one foodstuff to the next: Ethiquable is dedicated to ensuring Fair Trade with farmers in the developing world and respect for the environment.

For most parts of the country living in four-season climates, these last weeks of October mark the final farmers' markets of the year. For the local, seasonal food groupies, this marks a bittersweet time, reminiscent of the last days of summer camp: while we promise to see each other next year, we desperately hug each other for a long goodbye, trying to hang to the fleeting magic of summer.

So rather than mourn over the loss of fresh abundance, celebrate the Fall abundance and stock up on autumn produce. If carefully stored, these goodies can tide you over into the new year — when Spring asparagus and spinach greens will be abundant once again.

Some tips on celebrating the last farmers' market:

Potluck gatherings

Here are some tips on what to do when the host says "bring a dish to pass":

• Non-cooks think fresh. Don’t panic if you're not a cook. Instead, think of yourself as the fresh and seasonal produce provider. A simple bowl of fresh, plain produce – from apples to baby carrots – adds a nice touch to any buffet. This strategy also works well if you're riding a bike or taking public transportation to a potluck: fresh and raw food are easier to transport.
• Educate on ingredients. Add a note card by your dish explaining where your ingredients came from. This not only helps guests with food allergies, but it educates on sources of local food sources. "Easy Oat Apple Pie" takes on deeper flavor and meaning when folks know the apples came from Turkey Ridge Organic Apple Orchard in Gays Mills, Wisconsin (which just happens to be cooperatively run), and the butter from Organic Valley Family of Farms, another cooperatively run, farmer-owned business based in Wisconsin.

While potlucks are inherently a simple concept, in our ten years of hosting such gatherings on our Wisconsin farm, we've realized that a dash of thoughtful planning can green the event and make it educational fun through food for everyone. Here are some thought-starters:

• Create a seasonal food theme. Give guests a general menu theme like "savoring the local flavors of the season." With food on average racking 1,500 frequent flyer miles from growing field to our plate, eating local and seasonal saves fossil fuel. If you have culinary friends up for a challenge, host a seasonal theme in the dead of winter and get creative with root crops such as rutabaga, turnips and potatoes.
• Ditch the disposables. Environmental issues aside, who wants to eat a plate of delicious food off a floppy disposable plate? Don't have enough serving ware? One trip to your local Goodwill store will garner a load of inexpensive plates, silverware and cups for years of gatherings to come. The more mismatched the set, the more character.

• Fair trade. The fair trade certification label ensures that the workers or farmers who produce a product receive a fair price for their goods and have improved labor conditions. The fair trade label also often includes a measure of environmental sustainability and responsibly managed farms. Fair trade standards are decided upon and enforced by third party certifiers under the umbrella organization Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International.

• Organic. Organic coffee is grown without the use of synthetic fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides, which means less environmental pollution and improved worker health.

Chicago residents who want to get serious about eating local and organic food have a number of ways to get their hands on produce with low "food miles" that is grown in an earth-friendly way. In addition to the scores of different farmers' markets to be found in different neighborhoods throughout the city, dozens of CSA options are available from organic farms in Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana. But what happens after your farm share season ends and your friendly local farmer stops setting up his wares in the regular spot each week? Does the approach of winter mean it's back to shopping at Whole Foods, where the prices can be high and the connection to local agricultural is not nearly as strong?

Not anymore. These days, Chicagoans have another option for sourcing organic produce that lasts all year long. Best of all, they deliver.

Irv & Shelly's Fresh Picks is a unique service in the Chicago area that allows customers to order organic local produce online and have it delivered to their homes. Like a more sustainable version of online grocer Peapod, Fresh Picks offers item-by-item ordering from an inventory that's entirely organic and, by and large, locally produced. Fruits and vegetables make up the bulk of the stock, but you can also get meat, dairy, eggs, pantry items like pasta sauce and preserves, and a wide array of baked goods. Once a week your order can be delivered, with the produce arriving just hours after leaving the farm.

The prices for custom orders are comparable with organic items in any grocery store, and Fresh Picks tacks on a delivery charge of just $5.50. The value is even greater when ordering the Fresh Picks Box, a CSA-style grab bag of the best in-season produce that comes in three sizes: $15, $25, and $40.

This local blog first came to my attention via an article in the local paper about a University of Michigan medical student and his daughter who are operating a blog together that is encouraging people to eat vegetarian meals one day a week (on Wednesdays). The Vegetarian Wednesday blog began just this past summer. Originally founded by Josh Mugele and his daughter Eleanor, there are now a few other writers (relatives and med school classmates) who contribute to the blog as well.

"Vegetarian Wednesday started when my daughter wanted to become a vegetarian but couldn't do it all at once (she loves her chicken nuggets). I told her I'd help her by doing it with her, and we'd start by becoming vegetarians one day a week. Thus was born Vegetarian Wednesday. She wants to become a vegetarian because she loves animals. I want to do it because it's good for me and good for the planet. Did you know that the meat industry is one of the leading contributors to global warming in the world? Did you know that eating less meat lowers your weight and total cholesterol? Think of what we could do if we all stopped eating meat for just one day a week.

"The purpose of this blog is to encourage meat-eaters like me to make a difference in their health and in the health of the planet by trying to eat no meat one day each week. On this blog we can share recipes, stories about Vegetarian Wednesdays, and most of all spread the word."