One issue that’s come to my attention since I started thinking more about my food is the debate about organic foods — are they healthier, and is the cost worth the potential benefits?

I’d love to buy organic food all the time, but it’s just not financially possible for me right now. That said, I believe in the health risks of pesticides on foods and would like to start moving in the direction of eating foods grown without them. But if I’m going to get a bang for my buck, which foods should I buy organic in order to protect myself from ingesting the most pesticides? Are some fruits and vegetables more susceptible to absorbing pesticides than others?

One list I found that can help answer this question is the Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides, which ranks 47 popular fruits and vegetables based on how many pesticides they contain, often after being washed and peeled. The list was put together by the Environmental Working Group, a non-profit group working on public health and the environment.

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Trail mix is a favorite fall time snack of mine. Fun to take on hikes and picnics, it always hits the spot. Try mixing some seasonal seeds in your favorite nut mix to stay healthy this season. Here is a simple recipe with remarkable immune boosting powers.

Sunflower Seeds: Rich in vitamin E, magnesium and selenium, sunflower seeds are high in phytosterols which are known cholesterol reducers.

Pumpkin Seeds: Carve that cute Halloween pumpkin and, save those seeds to roast for snacks! Pumpkin seeds are abundant in proteins and vitamins. They contain L-tryptophan, a compound that prevents and treats depression. Nutrient rich pumpkin seeds contain zinc, magnesium, boron phytosterols, carotenoids, omega-3 fats, manganese, phosphorus, iron, and copper. They are also proven to be anti-inflammatory.

Raisins: Raisins are amazingly good for you, especially if they’re organic raisins. Raisins are rich in calcium, vitamin C, iron, b-vitamins, oleanolic acid, and catechin, a phenolic antioxidant effective for prevention of tumors and colon cancer. Raisins are also a known high fiber snack. The healthiest raisins are sulphite-free and organic.

But of course, being in San Fran, we struck up the whole Green thing as far as Bowmore and whisky production. The Bowmore crew being from Scotland aren’t exactly strangers when it comes to Green or sustainable practices. After all, we would have to say that whisky might be one of the ultimate slow foods. A few tastes later only spurred the spirited dialogue. The fact that Bowmore came in second in the Green Apple award a few years ago impressed us. We even liked the fact that they got downright innovative in the fact that they use the waste heat generated from the stills plant to not only dry the barley but heat the local public swimming pool as well. They also use the generated hot water to pre-heat the facility that works like a form of radiant heating.

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Here is a scrumptious and healthy alkaline rich beet and orange salad with refreshing lemon zest and your choice of protein and toppings.

Try silky light tofu, or organic cottage cheese, crumbled feta, or plain. To top it off try fresh thyme or rosemary. I happen to have a blood orange I threw into the mix, so get creative and treat yourself to this healthy root vegetable and citrus salad.

Below is the recipe and an example menu to pair this nutritious side dish with.

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Are you looking to feel balanced inside? Perhaps you’ve tried eating alkaline and are looking for a new recipe.

Try this simple sprout recipe you can grow yourself! Try these Organic Sprouted Seed Kits.

Sprouts are one of the most natural and healthy foods for the body. Nourish yourself, and feel the difference. Most supplements for digestion, alkalinity, immunity, energy, and extra greens, include sprouts of some sort. Almost anything that is a seed may be sprouted. Beans are sprout-able too!

Keep reading for this easy recipe that may serve as a side dish, a larger salad or taco topping, or a mid day snack.

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Stewart and Brown is one of our favorite eco clothing brands. They’ve added a “late fall, curtain call” line to their collections. This playfully staged organic collection features softly draping chemise silhouettes and creatively tailored jackets for blustery autumn days.

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Going to a body and nutrition expert with my husband is one of the best things we’ve done for ourselves. What was the key take away? Warning! Turn Alkaline!

Turn Alkaline? Are we magicians? Well according to biochemists we are! You can change your body chemistry with what you eat!

Chemicals have seeped into foods, air, and water, which in turn lower our system’s ability to control the chemistry of our body fluids, increasing illness and chronic disease.

The sad fact is that most food consumption in the wealthiest nations has shifted from nutritious raw foods to low nutritional value processed foods and we need to shift it back. Now that our total biological terrain is at risk, we urgently need to do some clean up by shifting our body chemistry back to the raw, organic foods it was designed to function on as we’ve evolved.

Below I’ve listed out a quick list of the good foods (alkaline) to treat your body to often…

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As a female farmer myself, running Inn Serendipity farm and B&B with my husband, John Ivanko, in Wisconsin, this increasing blending and crossover between new women farmers with a passion for raising both cabbage and change cultivates a hefty serving of inspiration. These new women farmers grow more than food for our table; they rethink the status quo approach to our food system and provide keen insights into what needs to change.

“As one of the fastest growing groups of new farmers, women can be the change makers that transform our agricultural system into one that provides organic, healthy and fair food to us all,” explains Faye Jones, Executive Director of the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES), a Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) member organization that sponsored two women farmers to attend this conference. Wisconsin women farmers Jai Kellum of King’s Hill Farm and Erin Schneider of Hilltop Community Farm attended the CFSC Conference on behalf of MOSES.“It is important to keep the voice of farmers represented in the national discussion on food and agricultural policy and priorities,” sums up Jones.

Here are four of their tips for politicians to policy makers from Kellum and Schneider to improve our agriculture and food system:

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From 1926 to 1951, Henry Schroeder farmed 80 acres off County Trunk BN and Schadel Rd. in Section 2, Range 11 East, Town 6 North — a parcel that included five other farms of similar size.  Schroeder got into the work he loved as Wisconsin farming was completing a major shift to crop diversification as corn replaced wheat as the state’s most productive and profitable grain and the College of Agriculture encouraged more farmers to raise dairy cows to produce milk, butter, cheese and beef.

Schroeder raised corn for feed, oats for animal bedding, and devoted one-tenth of his land to tobacco, a labor-intensive cash crop.  His farm featured a steep hill that was the second-highest elevation in Dane County, according to county land records and interviews with descendants.  To conserve his topsoil, Schroeder used the high land for pasture and initiated contour farming practices.  He applied manure and other farm wastes to fertilize crops, never using chemical alternatives. Livestock included cows, pigs, and chickens for family use or sale to neighbors.  Schroeder was proud of his ecologically and economically efficient family farm long before those terms were used.

“He was in his glory when he was on the farm,” his late wife Meta used to tell me as we looked through old photo albums.

You see, Henry Albert Schroeder was my grandfather.

Would you like to know the direct benefit of buying organic versus conventional?  Do you ever wonder what the cumulative impact of purchasing organic versus conventional products is over the course of a year?  There’s a website out there that allows you to calculate the number of pounds of synthetic nitrogen, pesticides, and herbicides that are eliminated by choosing organic products.

The website is for Organic Valley Family Farmers.  Organic Valley is a co-operative of farmers that produce dairy products, juice, eggs, meat, soy, fruit, and vegetables.  It claims to be the largest organic farmer owned co-operative in North America, and you can review on their website their array of various products.

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Oslo, Norway based FIN, is an organic global fashion line we’ve admired for some time now.

Shown here are various looks from FIN’s Fall 09 Eco Lux Collection. The eco materials they proudly use are:

• Organic Cotton
• Wild non-violent Silk
• Organic Baby Alpaca
• All Fair Trade Fabrics and Embellishments
• Produced with Love
• Carbon Neutral

The organic collection features exquisite tailoring details as well. 

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Fresh, organic fruit salads are so festive and healthy, make someone you love glow with one soon. I love mixing fruit flavors together and I think I’ve found a few secrets to delectable fruit salad blends. Here are some elements that make a great fruit salad sure to please and win smiles:

• Marinade: First off a good juicy base fruit is best, citrus and melons both make nice frescas marinades. If you can find organic watermelon or organic citrus in season near you, go for it, you body will thank you.
• Bite size delights of nutrients: The essence of fruit salad is to combine healthy organic bite size fruit slices that vary in texture and flavor. For instance organic white peach, green and red grape pair well with pear and berry. It is amazing how well fruits meld when combined.
• Freshness: Depending on how fresh the fruit is when cut, it will keep for half the week. To ensure this you may like to wash the fruits or add Grapefruit Seed Extract to the mixture for natural freshness.
• Rainbows: Creating a feast for the eye as well as the palate is key, I like adding edible flowers!

Keep reading for the recipe.

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The Candle Cafe was established more than 25 years ago. Now located on 307 Third Avenue Between 74th & 75th, shown on the map here, it’s an organic and vegetarian cafe that was once a natural foods store.

If you live in New York, then check out the fine dining too at Candle Cafe’s sister restaurant Candle 79 on 79th and Lexington. It is one of NYC’s premiere vegan dining spots on the upper east side.

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A Letter to the Editor in the September 17, 2009 Wisconsin State Journal could not have been timed better. A Madison resident who had farmed for a career questioned why UW-Madison was spending its financial resources to bring author Michael Pollan to the Kohl Center (Sept. 24, 7 p.m.) to speak on his book, In Defense of Food, especially because he has been so critical of the current agricultural production system.

I am reading Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, an account of his personal journey through the modern food chain that criticizes U.S. farm policies and large-scale industrialized farming for turning cheap surplus corn into a variety of consumer products that pose risks to public health and the environment.  The man did a tremendous amount of research and interviews - and even bought his own cow.

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With all the news surrounding food safety, global pollution, misguided government food policies, and the myriad of other problems faced by consumers, it’s always comforting to occasionally read some good news.  Here’s a bit of uplifting news.  An organization, Edible Schoolyard, bringing gardening knowledge to junior high school kids in urban areas.

The program strives to teach inner city youth about gardening and consuming fresh, seasonal produce.  From its own website, Edible Schoolyard specifically defines its goal of involving students “in all aspects of farming the garden and preparing, serving, and eating food as a means of awakening their senses and encouraging awareness and appreciation of the transformative values of nourishment, community, and stewardship of the land.”

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Branded by fuseproject their motto is change starts with your underwear. Unmentionables are worth mentioning when they can save the world with special (buying) power.

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Of course, the health benefits are clear.  I’m 34, and while I don’t worry about this kind of stuff, my family history of very high cholesterol had me wondering about the claim Wilford Brimley made about Quaker oats removing cholesterol from your bloodstream.  So I decided to run a little self-experiment.  In one year, my cholesterol dropped from over 300 down to 164.  Call me a believer.

But what about that drywall?

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Going Meatless on Mondays doesn’t have to mean deprivation of all your favorite foods. By making some simple changes to recipes, you can easily swap out the animal products for vegan options. Here is a simple veganized muffin recipe, so you can start your Meatless Monday off with delicious, healthy, energizing and decadent baked good.

Tibetan Goji Berries are regarded in Tibet as the “Fruit of Longevity and Well Being”. Goji berries have been traditionally regarded as a food that offers your body longevity, strength-building, and sexual potency. Goji’s are a complete protein source and a low calorie snack that strengthens your immune system, increases energy and helps to curb cravings. It has one of the highest antioxidant contents in all food, which helps to fight free radicals, keeping you young and vibrant. Goji’s contain 18 amino acids, vitamin C, beta-carotene, 20 rare trace minerals, vitamin B1, B2 and B6 and vitamin E.

In honor of this Meatless Monday, let’s boost our energy, keep ourselves looking and feeling young and chow down on some delicious vegan, anti-aging muffins.

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The popularity of organic foods in the last few years has been as well documented as it was explosive. As the growth and popularity of organic and natural foods increased, large agri-business and giant food producers became extremely interested in increasing their market share by acquiring smaller organic food companies.

With all the acquisitions that have taken place over the last few years, do you know who owns your favorite organic foods company? I sure don’t.  Between large companies engulfing smaller organic food producers, and large agri-business developing “strategic alliances” with once independent companies, it’s hard to know if the little local tofu producer is still just that, or part of a behemoth entity that you thought you were avoiding.

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Pear pie. Pear ginger muffins. Pear cordials made from fruit, sugar and vodka. Pears canned in sugar syrup. Pear jam.

When my senior neighbor Mary calls me every year at the end of August with her annual message of “The tree is ripe – come pick,” I turn into the Bubba Gump of pears, gratefully using the four bushels of pears I harvest off her abundant backyard tree.

As the country whines about escalating food prices, there’s often rotten apples falling from some tree near you. Or pears, plums – name your fruit. You know the tree I’m talking about – the one you pass by every day in someone’s yard that is practically falling over with ripe fruit and you think to yourself, “Someone needs to do something with that.” How true – and that “someone” is you.

Talk about an organic homerun: By connecting with and harvesting a local fruit tree, you not only garner more organic, fresh, local fruit booty than you know what to do with – and put something to use that would otherwise have gone to waste. You build community by connecting with others. We’re talking community at its core, most sustainable essence, sharing abundance with others, relishing the gifts of the land.

Step up to the plate – or bushel – and tap into these unwanted fruit on trees in backyards across the nation that could be making the world a better place through more pie – or jam or cobblers or muffins – you get the picture. Here are three tips for foraging a fruit tree near you:

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