The Appropriate Omnivore: Recent Episodes
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https://www.appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-agw-061825.mp3In this episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, host Aaron Zober interviews Emily Moose, Executive Director of A Greener World (AGW), to discuss the importance of food transparency and credible labeling. Emily shares her background in agriculture and explains how AGW was founded to address the need for trustworthy, third-party certifications. Together, Aaron and Emily explore which food labels are meaningful and which are misleading, emphasizing the value of independent verification in a crowded marketplace. Emily then details AGW’s four certification programs and highlights the consumer resources AGW offers, such as their comprehensive food label guide. The conversation underscores the need for reliable information to help consumers make informed, values-based food choices.
To make sure you never another episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, go to your favorite podcast app or site and subscribe to the podcast.
https://appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-ms-061125.mp3Aaron Zober hosts Holly Howe on The Appropriate Omnivore podcast, where they discuss their shared interest in sauerkraut and its health benefits. Holly shares how she first became interested in fermentation and why she focuses specifically on sauerkraut. She then explains how creating her website Make Sauerkraut eventually led to writing her book Mouthwatering Sauerkraut. Holly highlights the benefits of consuming raw, fermented sauerkraut and why making it at home is best. They also discuss similar ferments from other cultures. Finally, Holly previews her future plans to teach listeners more about the joys and benefits of sauerkraut.
To make sure you never another episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, go to your favorite podcast app or site and subscribe to the podcast.
On Valentine’s Day in the United States, $4 billion dollars is spent on Candy. Valentine’s Day is the fourth most popular holiday for candy, behind Halloween, Christmas, and Easter. Sales of candy makes up about 57% of consumer spending for the holiday. 58 million pounds of chocolate alone are purchased annually for V-Day. When it comes to eating candy, it’s important to choose organic and sustainably sourced confections.
Organic candies contain cane sugar instead of GMO sugar or high fructose corn syrup. They also use natural ingredients for color and flavors, natural waxes, and more heat stable oils as opposed to the red dye No. 3, bromated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, and propyl paraben found in conventional candy. This is especially important when buying candy canes.
Being certified organic also means it has other non-GMO ingredients which weren’t sprayed with any pesticides such as glyphosate. Additionally, the organic candy companies source their ingredients from farms where the workers are treated fairly and paid a fair price for their work.
When it comes to Valentine’s candies, I searched all of the organic candy businesses to see who had products which were related to the holiday in one way or another. One element I was looking for was ingredients associated with romance, such as strawberries, caramel, and chai. Another type of candy which could make my list are truffles, whose richness fits with the holiday. And of course, what would the holidays be without candy hearts?
In alphabetical order, here are the 18 best organic candies you can buy for Valentine’s Day:
Alter EcoAlter Eco was founded in 2005 by fellow activists Mathieu Senard and Edouard Rollet with the goal of bringing the best tasting foods to consumers concerned with the environment and fair trade. In 2010, Alter Eco was able to offset all of their emissions as carbon neutral; partnering with Pur Project, which plants and protects trees in Central and South America. Next, they accomplished two first’s of any company with the commercially compostable wrapper on their chocolate truffles in 2013 and the commercially compostable pouch on their quinoa products in 2016. Most recently, in 2020, they formed the Alter Eco Foundation to further the cause of regenerative agriculture to fight climate change and inequality. Alter Eco’s mint flavored chocolates make great Valentine’s Day treats and can found in the options of their assorted truffle flavors, dark chocolate blackout bars, and truffle thins.
BOHO ChocolateBefore founding BOHO Chocolate, Charles Burke was working in a small New England shop with a lifelong dream of crafting his own chocolate. Charles’ passion lied within the whole bean-to-bar process. He planned to create award winning chocolate where he was involved in all stages, from the cocoa beans being picked to the chocolate bars being wrapped and sealed. One day, Charles and his good friend booked a flight to South America and were able to team with Taza Chocolate. The two learned about cocoa cultivation by visiting local farmers and cooperatives. Soon after, BOHO Chocolate was born. BOHO has a large number of small batch and single origin chocolate bars. In terms of Valentine’s candy, BOHO has their spicy chai bar.
Dr. Bronner’s Third generation German-Jewish soapmaker Emanuel Bronner. Known formed Dr. Bronner’s in 1948 with his liquid peppermint soap and health food seasonings. The soaps and seasonings both contained a label which said “We are All-One or None!” Over 70 years later, Dr. Bronner’s remains a family-owned business and continues with its founders vision of selling high quality socially and environmentally responsible products as well as donating their profits to various social and environmental causes. They make a wide variety of hygiene items, including soaps, hand sanitizers, tooth pastes, and balms. In the recent years, they’ve expanded into regeneratively grown foods. In 2018, along with The Rodale Institute and Patagonia, they co-founded the Regenerative Organic Alliance to certify products as regenerative organic. Dr. Bronner’s has the first Regenerative Organic Certified coconut oil. And most recently, they launched a line of regenerative dark chocolate bars in multiple flavors. For the holidays, Dr. Bronner’s introduces the golden milk chai bar.
EvolvedRick Gusmano and Christine Cusano had both been able to reverse many of their lifelong health problems by switching to the paleo diet. After following the diet for a couple years, they one day attempted to concoct a paleo friendly dessert. The result was their first batch of truffles. Realizing there’s nothing else like this on the market, they decided to create Evolved. Evolved has many offerings of coconut sugar sweetened chocolate. Around Valentine’s Day time, a great choice of theirs are the dark chocolate strawberries & cream cups.
Fine & Raw Fine & Raw originates out of a loft in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. Artist Daniel Sklaar tried his hand at making chocolate and sharing it with his friends. He then began delivering the chocolates on his bike to local shops. Sustainability has always been important to Daniel. He has a direct relationship with farmers co-ops in Ghana and Ecuador. He supports farmers committed to fair labor and making positive contributions to their communities. Plus the farmers are involved in organic and sustainable land management practices. Fine & Raw sells limited releases throughout the year. For Valentine’s day, they have their truffle boxes, truffle hearts, and chocolate bars with heart themed wrappers.
GoodioWhile working as game developer at Rovio, the company best known for Angry Birds, Goodio founder Jukka Peltola was looking at ways to eat healthier. As he tried to find alternatives to sugary and salty snacks, he added raw cacao to his diet and removed dairy. By consuming it raw, the cacao remained all of its nutrients. This resulted in him feeling livelier, lighter, and more energetic. After telling his friends, family, and colleagues about his new diet and lifestyle, they wanted to build a company which value purpose over profit. The cacao is sourced from farms in South America and Africa. It’s then stone ground in Helsinki, where Goodio is based. They have regular chocolate bars and bars with oats known as ChocOat bars. Goodio’s Valentine’s provisions are their love collection, which includes flavors such as strawberry, salted caramel, raspberry, and strawberry shortcake. Goodio also has a customizable double chocolate bar with a choice of two flavors.
Hammond’s CandiesHammond’s Candies dates back over 100 years ago when founder Carl T. Hammond Sr. opened Hammond’s Candy Factory in Denver, CO. Carl started it as a small family business committed to quality. The first candy he created was Carl’s Honey Ko Kos, which were chocolates topped with shredded coconut. What began as a one man business soon developed into Carl hiring a manager to run the store while he traveled throughout the west selling candy to other retailers. Several generations of the Hammond family ran the company from Carl’s son Carl T. Hammond Jr. to Carl Jr.’s son-in-law Emery Dorsey. In 1995, Williams-Sonoma purchased a number of their products and Hammond’s became a national name. The company was sold in 1999 to three veterans of the candy industry who expand Hammond’s from a small business to 10 employees to a factory twice as large with over 60 employees. In 2007, candy lover Andrew Schuman purchased Hammond’s. Having a similar background in retail and enthusiasm for entrepreneurship as Carl T. Hammond Sr., Andrew eventually expanded the company to 300 employees and into the snack foods arena. For the Valentine’s, their organic options include a chery heart lollipop.
Lake ChamplainLake Champlain founder Jim Lampman bought fancy chocolates every year as holiday presents for his Ice House Restaurant staff in Burlington, VT. One year, his pastry chef said the chocolates Jim bought weren’t all that great, so Jim dared him to make better ones. His chef took him up on the challenge and the two started making hand-rolled creamy truffles together. Today, Lake Champlain has a wide variety of chocolates which are all fair trade certified and GMO free. Many of their products are also certified organic. They remain a multi-generational family business which sources from local and sustainable partners. Lake Champlain has a wide variety of organic Valentine’s Day candies with everything from chocolate hearts to raspberry dark chocolate bars.
LovelyThe Lovely Candy Co. started when Jackie Nakamura asked her husband Mike to bring her home a candy free of artificial ingredients, GMOs, and gluten. Soon after, Lovely was born. With the Lovley, their candies are perfectly suitable for Valentine’s Day. The organic products they produce are chewy candy, lollipops, and hard candy.
Raaka ChocolateRaaka Chocolate prides itself on transparent trade. They purchase cacao directly from cooperatives and grower organizations who value quality, sustainability, field support, market access, and premium prices for farmers. They always purchase cacao premium prices which are higher than the commodity market and fair trade prices, in addition to making sure the prices will remain stable. Every transaction of Raaka makes can be found on their website. For Valentine’s, they offer the chocolate bars raspberry waffle crunch, rose cardamom, and strawberry & cream.
Sweet ApricityTonya Butts founded Sweet Apricity as an answer to the question “Can I ever eat something fun again?” Tonya first made dairy free caramel as a graduation gift to her best friend who has autoimmune disease. Her friend was undergoing the autoimmune protocol (AIP) which provides strong relief for those with autoimmune disease and eliminates gluten, grains, chocolate, dairy, eggs, and refined sugar. As that meant her friend couldn’t consume any story bought sweets or snacks, Tonya saw promise in a business which caters this group. All of Sweet Apricity’s products are grain and dairy free. They also contain a natural sweetener of either coconut sugar, honey, or maple syrup in place of any refined sugar. Sweet Apricity’s line has grown since inception now ranges in everything from sea salted caramels to caramel puffs to caramel sauce to grass fed marshmallows of different flavors. Their sea salted caramels make wonderful Valentine’s Day gifts.
Taza ChocolateWhile traveling through Oaxaca, Mexico, Taza Chocolate founder and CEO Alex Whitmore took his first bite of stone ground chocolate. His trip then inspired Alex to open a chocolate factory back in his hometown of Somerville, MA. He began sourcing direct trade cacao and hand-carved granite mill stones to make less processed chocolate. In 2005, he officially launched Taza with his wife, who serves as Chief Design Officer. Taza prides itself in its sourcing. It’s the first U.S. chocolate maker to establish a third-party Direct Trade Cacao Certification program. Their holiday chocolate bars are raspberry crunch, deliciously dark, chocolate cookie crunch and toffee almond & sea salt.
TCHOThe name TCHO is the phonetic spelling of the first syllable of chocolate. The company originated with the mission to both produce the best chocolate and produce it in a way which makes the world a better place. All of their ingredients are sourced with methods to benefit the farms and taste delicious. TCHO looks for farms around the world which treat their growers fairly, source ethically, and reduce their carbon emissions. They created an in-house program called TCHOSource, which partners with cacao farmers, cooperatives, and research organizations in cacao producing countries in order to get the best cacao beans. TCHO’s Napa Noir; a mix of fudgy dark chocolate, cacao nibs aged in red wine, and sea salt, is perfect for that special somebody on Valentine’s Day.
That’s It.That’s It. was founded in 2012 by Dr. Lior Lewensztain. While in medical school, Dr. Lewensztain observed that only one third of people in the United States were consuming the daily intake of fruit needed in their diet. So he became determined to raise the numbers in this statistic. Dr. Lewensztain developed a passion for food as preventative medicine and creating snack options made with simple minimal ingredients which were good for on-the-go. That’s It.’s Valentine’s Day products are their truffles with the choices of banana, fig, date, and espresso truffles.
Theo Chocolateoe Whinney and Jeff Fairhall created Theo Chocolate was created in 2005. Joe had previously formed the first company to manufacture and supply organic cocoa and chocolate products in bulk to the U.S. food industry. Jeff was one of the founders of The Essential Baking Company. Joe & Jeff’s goal with Theo was to make high quality chocolate from scratch from the cocoa bean to the chocolate. Their practices also include using third parties to verify that everybody they work with is being truthful in their claims, negotiating stable prices with their farm partners, and having full transparency with everybody they work and trade with. Theo makes four different Valentine-themed chocolate bars in the flavors of crème brûlée and sweet & spicy.
Torie & HowardTorie & Howard is named after its founders Torie Burke and Howard Slatkin. The two were interior designers who checked out all types of cuisine and restaurant and visited farmers markets while they traveled around the world for their work. Along their journey, they both had to change their ways of eating. As Howard ate healthier to lose 100 pounds and Torie changed her diet due to food allergies, it became a lot harder to find snack food which would satisfy them. So they felt this was the time to start their own snack food company focusing on candy. Torie & Howard specializes in chewy and hard candy. They have Valentine’s Day offerings with sour cherry and lemon raspberry lollipops plus chewie fruities in pouches with a “to”/”from” heart label.
YumEarthTwo young men had been living organic lifestyles. After both becoming fathers, they felt it was time to start an organic candy business. YumEarth began with lollipops and then expanded to hard candy, gummy bears, gummy worms, jelly beans, and licorice. Their Valentine’s candies include gummy hearts, lollipops, choco yums, and sour littles.
ZazubeanThe origins of Zazubean start with a group of women on a bike trip at an island off the coast of British Columbia. Coincidentally, everybody in the group brought their favorite chocolate to keep their energy up as they pedaled along on the journey. All of the women then delved into a conversation about quality chocolate with the question of whether chocolate could follow ethical standards and be both healthy and tasty. After returning home, Zazubean co-founder Tiziana Ienna began concocting high quality chocolate with super powered ingredients. As her background was as a physiologist, she wanted to develop nutritionally dense recipes which promote a balance lifestyle. Co-founder Tara Gilbert soon joined Tiziana and brought her passion for social justice and sustainable business practices along to Zazubean. The two working together led to creating fair trade chocolate bars which are good for the environment, the chocolate growers, and people’s health. Zazubean’s Valentine’s Day chocolate bars can be found in the names of bestie, vixen, nakid, flirt, smooch, and hottie.
https://www.appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-fc-021225.mp3A major aspect of the nutrition Aaron Zober recommends on The Appropriate Omnivore is related to fermentation. So Aaron is pleased to welcome on Austin Durant. Austin founded Fermenters Club and more recently authored the book Fearless Fermenting. Austin shares his journey with Aaron and what he means by being the Forrest Gump of fermentation. He explains how his organization then led to the book he wrote. Aaron asks Austin about the best ferments for beginners, the intermediate level ferments, and which ferments are the hardest. Aaron also explains how he’s partial to Austin’s recipe for dill pickles. Austin explains the nuances of a ferment which may not be the easiest, but is a popular ferment nonetheless. Aaron and Austin also delve into some of the overlooked ferments. Austin also lets the listeners know the meaning of his book title. Plus we find out the possibility of the San Diego Fermentation Festival returning.
To make sure you never another episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, go to your favorite podcast app or site and subscribe to the podcast.
https://www.appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/ao-btf-082124.mp3Aaron Zober with The Appropriate Omnivore podcast, welcomes another wonderful regenerative organic CPG brand founder as he interviews Ben Ripple. Ben tells his story of how Big Tree Farms came to be. Aaron and Ben discuss how Big Tree’s practices fall into the certification requirements of the Regenerative Organic Alliance in terms of soil health and social fairness and why organic needs to be a part of regenerative. The episode then moves into why coconut sugar is a great option over both cane sugar and other natural sweeteners. Ben lays out the benefits coconut sugar has in terms of taste, sustainability, work conditions, and health. Aaron and Ben also cover Big Tree Farms other products, such as the coconut aminos and sauces, and what products we can expect from Big Tree in the future.
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp Organic Assam black tea
- 2 cups water
- 2 Tbsp coarsely chopped fresh ginger
- 10 crushed cardamom pods
- 1 cinnamon stick (or 1 tsp powdered)
- 1 tbsp whole black peppercorns
- Large pinch of saffron (optional but highly recommended!)
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup coconut cream
- ½ cup whole milk (for a non-dairy/vegan chai popsicle option, substitute with another ½ cup coconut cream)
- ¼ chopped raisins (optional but highly recommended!)
Instrtuctions
- Mix Assam black tea leaves with 1 cup water and boil on medium heat for 3 minutes or until the liquid is reduced by half. Keep an eye on it because this happens quickly!
- Pour all spices into another pan with the remaining cup of water and boil on medium heat for about 5 minutes or until liquid is reduced by half. As with the tea, you want to extract the most flavor, so watch it as it boils and stir occasionally.
- Strain both concentrates into a pitcher or bowl with spout to make pouring into the molds easier. Stir in sugar, mix well, and let it cool completely. Now you have your chai mixture!
- Once the chai mixture is room temperature, add coconut cream and milk (if using) and whisk well till everything is smoothly blended and creamy (it’s okay if a few small bits of cream remain unblended, this will taste quite good when frozen).
- Pour into mold, insert the popsicle sticks, and freeze for at least 6 hours or overnight until solid.
- If using raisins, wait for a few hours until popsicles solidify a bit, then add raisins gently into the mold, stir in lightly with a small utensil, and refreeze till ready. This will ensure that the raisins don’t all end up on the bottom of the mold.
This recipe was provided by Raj Vable, founder of Young Mountain Tea. From growing up with parents from India who drank tea to a friend in grad school introducing him to single origin tea, Raj now sources regenerative organic teas from India and Nepal. His mission is to build a sustainable future for Himalayan farmers and their families. 1% of every purchase of Young Mountain Tea goes to launching a farmer owned tea factory in the Himalayas.
https://www.appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-ymt-081424.mp3The Appropriate Omnivore host Aaron Zober continues his coverage of regeneratively sourced CPG with Raj Vable, the founder of Young Mountain Tea. Raj tells his story from growing up with parents from India who drank tea to a friend in grad school introducing him to single origin tea. He then goes into the problems with conventionally grown tea and the benefits of regenerative organic tea, including a higher yield from crops. Aaron then talks about the principles of regenerative agriculture and Raj explains how Young Mountain Tea’s practices fit into all of those. Raj then goes into the different flavors of teas he offers and Young Mountain Tea’s project to launch a farmer owned tea factory in the Kumaon village of Champawat.
To make sure you never another episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, go to your favorite podcast app or site and subscribe to the podcast.
https://www.appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-roa-080724.mp3The topic of regenerative agriculture has been addressed many times on The Appropriate Omnivore podcast. So for this episode, host Aaron Zober gives a warm welcome to Elizabeth Whitlow, executive director of the Regenerative Organic Alliance. As regenerative agriculture is taking on many meanings, Aaron asks Elizabeth how she would define regen ag. Elizabeth explains what she sees as the three pillars. Conversation leads into the roles organic, animal welfare, and farmer & worker fairness play in being regenerative. Elizabeth then mentions the brand that went through the pilot program to become Regenerative Organic Certified. And Aaron talks about the ROC brands he likes. All of the plus where Elizabeth and Aaron would like to see regenerative ag headed in the future.
To make sure you never another episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, go to your favorite podcast app or site and subscribe to the podcast.
https://www.appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/ao-nsf-072424.mp3The Appropriate Omnivore podcast is back for a new series of episodes. Host Aaron Zober kicks it with Sonia Acuña-Rubio. Aaron has talked about all types of productions certifications on this show. Now he brings on a person from the organization which works with so many of the food certifiers. Sonia tells Aaron what the some of the new and popular certifications are. As the program is called The Appropriate Omnivore, Aaron asks Sonia about the various types of animal products certifications the NSF works with. While the NSF is known for all of its food product certifications, it actually began as a certifier food equipment. Sonia explains this in great detail. Plus Aaron and Sonia discuss the future of food and consumers looking for more transparency in what they buy.
To make sure you never another episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, go to your favorite podcast app or site and subscribe to the podcast.
The National Confectioners Association observes June as National Candy Month to recognize employees of the candy industry at all levels. There are more than 55,000 people working for candy companies as well as the 400,000 people in agriculture, retail, and transportation working with the business indirectly. Retail generates $35 billion in candy sales annually.
Organic candies contain cane sugar instead of GMO sugar or high fructose corn syrup. They also use natural ingredients for color and flavors, natural waxes, and more heat stable oils as opposed to the red dye No. 3, bromated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, and propyl paraben found in conventional candy.
Being certified organic also means it has other non-GMO ingredients which weren’t sprayed with any pesticides such as glyphosate. Additionally, the organic candy companies source their ingredients from farms where the workers are treated fairly and paid a fair price for their work.
While chocolate amounts to 60% of retail sales in candy annual, it doesn’t sell its best during the summer as it melts easily. Instead, sweet tooths turn to other types of confections, such as gummies, chewy candies, hard candies, lollipops, and salt water taffy. So I’ve decided to focus my article on non-chocolate candies as the month falls in June.
In alphabetical order, here are the 7 best organic summer candies:
Black ForestBlack Forest lives up to its name with its commitment to sustainability and real ingredients. Its gummy bear candies are all made with fruit juice. The colors for the gummies come from plant based sources. Additionally, Black Forest works with the National Forest Foundation in planting trees to guarantee the forest will be around and thriving in the years to come. Last year, 50,000 trees were planted across 7 national forests.
Hammond’sFounder Carl T. Hammond Sr. opened Hammond’s Candy Factory over 100 years ago as a small family business committed to quality. The first candy he created was Carl’s Honey Ko Kos, which were chocolates topped with shredded coconut. What began as a one man business soon developed into Carl hiring a manager to run the store while he traveled throughout the west selling candy to other retailers. Several generations of the Hammond family ran the company from Carl’s son Carl T. Hammond Jr. to Carl Jr.’s son-in-law Emery Dorsey. In 1995, Williams-Sonoma purchased a number of their products and Hammond’s became a national name. The company was sold in 1999 to three veterans of the candy industry who expand Hammond’s from a small business to 10 employees to a factory twice as large with over 60 employees. In 2007, candy lover Andrew Schuman purchased Hammond’s. Having a similar background in retail and enthusiasm for entrepreneurship as Carl T. Hammond Sr., Andrew eventually expanded the company to 300 employees and into the snack foods arena. Hammond’s organic choices are in the forms of lollipops, hard mints, and candy canes.
Lovely Candy Co.The Lovely Candy Co. started when Jackie Nakamura asked her husband Mike to bring her home a candy free of artificial ingredients, GMOs, and gluten. Soon after, Lovely was born. They now have a large and diverse line of candies. Their organic options include chewy candies, lollipops, and hard candies.
Rosemallow Artisanal Lani Fox combines her lifelong passions for gardening and cooking with Rosemallow Artisanal. Lani also had been preserving jam for 25 years. During the pandemic and the supply chain shortages, she began making marshmallows for her children. Everybody in the neighborhood loved them from kids to adults. As it had been a while since she prepared any jam, so she took the unused strawberries and honey to make a strawberry honey marshmallow. Lani then walked out to her garden, looked at the basil, and felt it would add nicely to the strawberry and honey. Tasting this concoction, she knew this was her path. Next Lani came up with 20 unique marshmallow flavors. Many of them were made with fruits and vegetables from her own garden. She refers to using her own heirloom produce as beyond scratch. Lani went from selling the Rosemallows along her kids’ lemonade stand to once a month in the Claremont, CA community to launching an online store. Lani has regular Rosemallow flavors plus many seasonal offerings.
Surf SweetsThe story of Surf Sweets begins in Santa Cruz, CA when two surfers were looking for allergen friends treats. Surf Sweets today remains true to its origins with candies being both tasty and consisting of allergy-friendly, organic ingredients. They also keep with their founders’ vision as they donate a minimum of 1% of gross sales to causes related with keeping a clean, ocean, preserving open space, and providing access to healthy, delicious food. Surf Sweet has an extensive variety of gummy animals, including bears, fish, and worms.
Torie & HowardTorie & Howard is named after its founders Torie Burke and Howard Slatkin. The two were interior designers who checked out all types of cuisine and restaurant and visited farmers markets while they traveled around the world for their work. Along their journey, they both had to change their ways of eating. As Howard ate healthier to lose 100 pounds and Torie changed her diet due to food allergies, it became a lot harder to find snack food which would satisfy them. So they felt this was the time to start their own snack food company focusing on candy. Their year round candies are the Chewie Fruities and hard candy products.
Yum EarthTwo young men had been living organic lifestyles. After both becoming fathers, they felt it was time to start an organic candy business. Yum Earth began with lollipops and then expanded to hard candy, gummy bears, gummy worms, jelly beans, and licorice.
Ingredients
- 1 jar Wildfare Organic Fire Roasted Red Pepper Ajvar (Hot)
- 1 tbsp Wildfare Shatta (more or less)
- 1 tbsp Wildfare Pomegranate Dressing
- 1 tblsp Wildfare Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 2 tbsp honey
- 3 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tbsp mustard (Dijon, or your favorite)
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 2 tbsp brown sugar
- 1 tbsp smoked sea salt
- ½ tsp granulated garlic
- 1 tsp black pepper
- Water (to achieve your desired sauce thickness)
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan and heat gently for 15 minutes so all the flavors marry. Taste and adjust as needed. Add water to thin out the sauce if needed.
- Let cool to room temperature if you are going to use the BBQ sauce immediately. Place in an airtight container and store in the refrigerator for up to a week if you are using the sauce later.
This recipe was provided by Melissa Clemente of Wildfare. Melissa has spent the majority of her career in leadership positions at multi-national advertising companies. More recently she shifted her focus to work with companies and brands that speak to her on a deeper level and inspire creation and growth beyond business. Melissa currently serves as creative marketing director for Wildfare, which is known for its wide offering of Mediterranean foods.
https://www.appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-wf-042424.mp3On this episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, host Aaron Zober has Melissa Clemente of Wildfare on his podcast. Melissa gives her background working in marketing and sustainable food and then talks all about Wildfare. Wildfare is known for providing a great variety of Mediterranean food from ajvar to olives & olive oil to pasta and many other wonderful products. Melissa explains to Aaron what makes their offerings sustainable. This includes their Empowering Woman Farmers where they partner with fair trade women owned farms and production companies. Melissa also gets into specifics about many of the foods in Wildfare’s line and what we can expect from the company in the future.
To make sure you never another episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, go to your favorite podcast app or site and subscribe to the podcast.
September 10 is National TV Dinner Day. The origin of frozen meals, or TV dinners, can be traced back to World War II. Inventor William L. Maxson grew too much cauliflower in his personal garden. He solved his cauliflower conundrum by making them into a frozen meals of meat and veggies. Maxson got prepared meals served to the people on the Navy air transfer service during WWII. He also got the products onto airplanes.
In the mid-40s, people were also owning fridges with freezers for the first time, so William Maxson attempted selling his frozen meals to consumers. But the Maxson dinners failed to catch on with the public as they were military rations.
The success of prepared food came from the company Swanson. Similar to Maxson’s abundance of cauliflower, Swanson had 35,000 unsold turkeys. So they turned those into frozen meals and marketed them as TV Dinners. The name TV Dinners was based on the popularity of the TV trays people ate on while they watched the tube. Other brands made prepared meals, but the products became known to the public as TV dinners, regardless of who manufactured them.
The TV Dinner brand no longer exists, but people are still familiar with the concept. Today, prepared meals are in 95% of all homes. They rake in $50 million in sales annually. And they’re consumed 26 million times a day.
To readers of a blog like this, many may not see prepared meals as something sustainable or healthy. Often people who eat clean learn to become home chefs and enjoy cooking themselves. There are certainly advantages to making your own meal. You know where everything in it comes from. You can avoid using seed oils and refined sugars along with any heavily processed additives.
But not everybody has time to cook their own meals. Nobody should have to eat highly processed frozen meals due to their busy schedule. So a number of natural CPG brands now offer prepared meals with pastured meats, sustainably sourced vegetables, and other clean ingredients.
In alphabetical order, here are the 7 best sustainably prepared meals:
Chef Hak’sThe story of Chef Hak’s begins Sharone Hakman working as a financial advisor and becoming a contestant on Fox’s cooking competition show MasterChef. While on the show, he cooked barbeque sauce smothered steak to 500 Marines at Camp Pendleton and barbeque burgers to large group of truck drivers. With his barbeque dishes being praised by the toughest critics and chefs, he knew it was time to launch his own line of Chef Hak’s barbeque sauces. This then led to salad dressings. The focus of the sauces and dressings has been clean ingredients, unique flavors, and amazing taste. More recently, a large line of heat and serve products was introduced. Chef Hak’s heat and serve meals include both meat and veggie dishes. All of the chicken is pasture raised, including some from Cook’s Venture.
Kevin’s Natural FoodsWhen Kevin McCray was in his early 20s, he was struggling with autoimmune disorder. Conventional medicine wasn’t helping as was continuously going back to the hospital. So Kevin decided to turn to a clean diet of whole foods and no refined sugar. Upon this change, he went back to being energetic and in good health. Kevin then decided to pay it forward and change how people thought of clean eating. Many saw it as boring and flavorless. He founded Kevin’s Natural Foods, so others would have tasty prepared clean meals which would be easy to make. Kevin’s Natural Foods has over 15 varieties of precooked beef and chicken dishes.
Roam FreeBefore Roam Free, co-founder Jon Sepp was testing parachutes while he served in the military. After completing his service, he couldn’t see himself in a 9 to 5 job. So he decided to follow his early passion of bison ranching. To support his dream, Jon took a part time job in Seattle. There he met Brittany Masters, a self-proclaimed health freak obsessed with high quality food and a natural lifestyle. Jon successfully convinced Brittany to leave the corporate world and become a first generation rancher with him. They moved to Western Montana to start the Roam Free Ranch. On their ranch, they use regenerative agriculture to raise bison roaming the Great Plains of Western Montana. The duo combined their passions of animal welfare and healthy nutrition by creating a bison jerky free of sugar and additives. Roam Free has recently moved into prepared meals with bison chili and bison fajitas.
Thousand HillsMatt Meier worked for 20 years in conventional food marketing before he returned home to the farm he grew up on. In 2003, he founded Thousand Hills Lifetime Grazed with the mission of nourishing the soil, the plants, cattle, and people by holistically grazing cattle for their entire lives. His home farm in Clearwater, MN is one of the 13 Savory Institute hubs in North America as the ranch is a leader in holistic and regenerative grazing practices. Thousand Hills now sources cattle from other family farms which they’ve hand picked for their similar deep commitment to regenerate land and having nutrient rich beef as a result. The farms range from the midwest, northeast, and west regions of the United States. Already 600,000 acres of land has seen positive benefits. All of their products are now Land to Market certified regenerative. Thousand Hill’s heat and serve products are barbeque beef brisket, barbeque pulled pork, and bone broth chili.
TribaliAngela Mavridis, founder of Tribali, spent her childhood summers in Greece where she saw her grandmother cook everything from scratch with all organic, local, and heirloom ingredients. While at the time she didn’t know it was paleo or what the paleo diet was, it turns out paleo is a Greek word. As an adult, Angela had gone far off track from the nutrient dense Greek/paleo diet as she was often feeling bloated and tired. Then when modern medicine was unable to identify her health conditions, she decided to become a holistic nutritionist and take improving her health into her own hands. Realizing that protein powders, shakes, supplements, and bars weren’t helping, she returned to what she grew up eating in Greece. Angela had been a vegetarian for 35 years, but then discovered pairing clean animal meats with ancestral veggies helped her feel better both physically and emotionally. Shortly after, her digestive issues decreased and she began healing. Angela now runs Tribali Foods which makes prepared meals from a variety of humanely raised animals. Also, a portion of Tribali’s proceeds go to benefit the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund. Tribali’s premade offerings include their coconut chipotle chicken, tikka masala chicken, turkey & white bean chili, and lemongrass basil chicken.
Truly SimpleTruly Simple is completely devoted to 100% grass fed beef. Their cattle spend 365 days a year grazing on the pastures of sunny Australia. In addition to livestock, Truly Simple makes the most of the land, water, and air through their sustainable methods of agriculture. Their offerings of ready to heat meals are barbacoa, smokehouse chipotle brisket, chimichurri, and Mediterranean style garlic herb beef.
Wild ZoraZora Tabin grew up in the the Czech Republic with both sets of grandparents living on farms raising livestock and growing crops. Zora spent many hard working summers on her family’s farms. At this time, there was also very little processed and packaged foods where she was. In 2012, Zora and her family moved to Fort Collins, CO after having lived all over Europe. As her family loved to hike, she looked for healthy snacks to sustain them on the trails. She noticed that all of the bars were low in protein and high in sugar. So Zora begin making meat veggies bars. In 2014, she started selling them at farmers markets. Wild Zora was born. In 2018, Zora entered in the prepared meals space, when she purchased her friend’s business Paleo Meals to Go. The Wild Zora Paleo Meals To Go consist of chicken, chicken curry, beef chili, coconut berry, cacao banana, and pineapple mango.
August is National Sandwich Month. For me, a good sandwich starts with the bread. I recommend going with a sourdough bread for its nutritional benefits. Of course, choosing sourdough baked with organic flour is also a very important element. I’ve been on a journey for several years now to find organic sourdough bread. What started […]
The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council recognizes July as National Hot Dog Month and is observing National Hot Dog Day this year on Wednesday July 19. The Council celebrates it in July as they see the hot dog as a vibrant part of Americana and want it to occur the same month we celebrate our nation’s independence. […]
With July being the hottest month of the year, we celebrate National Ice Cream Month. National Ice Cream Day is also held on the third Sunday of July. Ice cream is one of the most profitable industries. Over 1.3 billion gallons of ice cream is produced every year. Ice cream adds $13 billion dollars to […]
Ingredients 1 cup organic white basmati rice 1 1⁄4 cup vegetable stock 1 1⁄2 frozen shrimp, peeled, deveined, or chicken thighs 3 tbsp tamari or soy sauce 2 tbsp coconut oil 2 tbsp brown rice syrup or honey 2 tsp rice vinegar 1 cup yellow onions, diced 1 cup red bell peppers, thick slices 1 cup […]
https://www.appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-lff-071223.mp3 As The Appropriate Omnivore is all about supporting family farms and family business, Aaron Zober welcomes Brita & Bryce Lundberg of Lundberg Family Farms. Lundberg Family Farms is a successful CPG rice brand known for its regenerative and organic practices. Brita & Bryce discuss how they went from growing up on a farm to […]
With July being the hottest month of the year, we celebrate National Ice Cream Month. National Ice Cream Day is also held on the third Sunday of July. Ice cream is one of the most profitable industries. Over 1.3 billion gallons of ice cream is produced every year. Ice cream adds $13 billion dollars to […]
Ingredients 1 tsp minced garlic 1 – 1 ½ cup Bubbies Kosher Dill Pickle brine 1 lb of chicken wings ½ tsp oregano ½ tsp smoked paprika 1 tbsp Cajun seasoning 1 tbsp chicken rub seasoning 1 tbsp olive oil Instructions Place thawed wings into a resealable plastic bag. Add pickle brine and minced garlic and rub […]
https://www.appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-ffh-070523.mp3 July is National Pickle Month, so The Appropriate Omnivore podcast host Aaron Zober couldn’t be more excited to devote a show to a favorite food of his since childhood. To talk about everything pickles with Aaron is Chris Glab, chief innovation officer for Bubbies Fine Foods and Fermented Food Holdings. Like Aaron, ferments […]
https://www.appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-kehe-070223.mp3 The leading natural product distribution group KeHE just held its annual Holiday Show. The Appropriate Omnivore podcast host Aaron Zober brings on Ari Goldsmith, vice president of marketing & digital media at KeHE Distributors, to give a recap of the Show and other development news about the company. Ari lists the major trends […]
June is observed as National Dairy Month. This celebration started in 1937 with grocer organizations sponsoring National Milk Month during the hot summer months order to distribute extra milk. In 1939, June was declared the official dairy month. One of the most beneficial dairy products is butter. Butter, like all dairy and saturated fat, has […]
Ingredients 4 Tbsp butter, divided 1 lb Italian sausage, removed from casings 2 bell peppers, diced 8 large eggs ½ cup whole milk or cream ½ cup sun dried tomatoes ½ cup parmesan cheese, divided ½ cup ricotta cheese Salt, pepper and crushed red pepper to taste Torn parsley (for garnish) Instructions Preheat oven to […]
https://www.appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-nb-061423.mp3 Aaron Zober returns with a new cycle of The Appropriate Omnivore podcast for the summer season. His first guest back well represents the idea of being an appropriate omnivore. Jasen Urena is vice president of NestFresh Eggs and New Barn Organics. Jasen explains how you should never take the position that any […]
In 2012, the Wisconsin Beef Council declared June 12 as National Jerky Day. Meat snacks, which jerky is included under, are the fourth highest selling product in the salty snack sector. Jerky is more popular than pretzels and popcorn. While jerky in concept is a real food, so many of the jerky products available to […]
To foodies, especially burger lovers, May is known as National Hamburger Month as it’s the time of the year when people start grilling outside. Along with backyard barbecues, it’s always great meeting a friend for a burger and catching up.
I’ve been covering grass fed burger restaurants since the beginning of this blog in 2011. I’m amazed at how many great options there are now for grass fed burgers in Los Angeles. These real burgers can be found at everything such as pop-ups, butcher shops, fast casual joints, cafes, gastropubs, family restaurants, and even fine dining.
While more people understand the concept of grass fed beef, unfortunately the USDA requirements for a grass fed label simply mean the animal was fed grass one day. So now ranchers are using the term “100% grass fed”. All of the entries on this list both use meat from farms I’m familiar and meat which is indeed 100% grass fed.
With the places I list below, I also point out other ways the restaurants and businesses use real food from organic hamburger buns to local and organic produce to grass fed cheese to real condiments. I even list great beverage pairings that these burger eateries include in terms of cane sugar soda pops and shakes made with grass fed ice cream.
In alphabetical order, here are the 16 best grass fed burgers in Los Angeles:
Burger LoungeLocations: Larchmont, Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Culver City, Marina del Rey, Santa Monica, Sherman Oaks, Northridge
www.burgerlounge.com
Originating in San Diego, the Burger Lounge has been popping up all over Los Angeles in the past decade and more recently have opened restaurants in Orange County, the Inland Empire, northern California and Las Vegas. Their beef comes from Grass Run Farms in the Midwest. If you get cheese in your burger, it’s pasture raised cheese from Rumiano, which is based in California. Burger Lounge works hard to also get all of their other ingredients from sustainable sources. The hamburger buns are baked with organic wheat. The 1000 island dressing for the burgers is made from scratch. Their burgers can then be paired with their drinks from the California based Batch Craft Soda. Burger Lounge is even sustainable in terms of recyclable to-go packing, composting leftover food, and using table tops made from recycled water bottles.
Burgers by Standing’sLocation: Hollywoodwww.instagram.com/burgersbystandingsWhile Jered Standing was working in and managing retail stores and restaurants, he got the idea to open a butcher which would combine local, sustainable sourcing with top notch customer service. Also being able to lend his vast knowledge of international and lesser-known cuts of meat, he opened Standing’s Butcher in 2017. Along with providing his loyal customer base with the highest quality meats, he’s also glad to pass along his expert cooking advice. Jered has been featured in New York Times, Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Los Angeles Magazine. On Sundays, Standing’s serves grass fed cheese burgers outside its location from 11 AM – 3 PM. During the summer, Burgers by Standing’s does numerous pop-ups as well. The farms he uses are Richards Grass Fed Beef and Marin Sun Farms.
Clark Street BakeryLocations: Echo Park, Larchmont, Brentwoodwww.clarkstreetbarkery.comAfter having learned the bread making craft in Portland bakeries, working in traditional stone ground bakeries in his wife’s home country of Sweden, and being an assistant baker for organic farm Kenter Canyon, Zack Hall decided to venture on his own out of his West Hollywood apartment. He first delivered his bread to restaurants and shops and then opened a brick and mortar called Clark Street Bakery. There are now three locations for Clark Street, serving sourdough bread, organic baked goods, plus a breakfast and lunch menu. This includes the cheeseburger with it grass fed beef from Marin Sun Farms on Clark Street’s organic sesame seed bun.
The Curious PalateLocation: Santa Monica
www.thecuriouspalate.comThe Curious Palate co-founders Elliot Rubin and Mark Cannon had come from different walks of life when they launched the restaurant. Rubin was an engineer and Cannon was a television producer. Just as they came from diverse backgrounds, the plan was to also provide a menu with a diverse variety of foods found all over the world. In addition to a large menu, sustainability is an important part of The Curious Palate. Their produce is purchased from local farmers markets. Their grass fed beef comes mainly from Sun Fed Ranch with a part of it coming from Painted Hills Natural Beef. The Curious Palate has several types of burgers with toppings using worldly cuisines from California to Greece to Japan.
A Cut AboveLocation: Santa Monica
www.acabutchershop.comAcclaimed chef Eddy Shin founded A Cut Above after having spent over 20 years working at high end restaurants. For five years, he was executive chef at Primitivo Wine Bistro. Prior to that, he gained his fame at Nick & Stef’s Steakhouse in downtown LA, working for Chef Joachim Splichal of The Patina Group. Shin’s resume also includes his time at Fleisher’s Grass-Fed & Organic Meats in Kingston, NY. Additionally, he was featured on the History series Modern Marvels in an episode titled “The Butcher”, where he gave expertise on dry aging. At his current A Cut Above butchery, he sells beef from Novy Ranches in Mount Shasta. A Cut Above has a diverse menu of sandwiches and salads. Among these items is a grass fed burger made from a blend of short rib, ribeye, and brisket, topped with caramelized onions, blue cheese, and a fresh Russian dressing, and on a brioche bun.
GoldburgerLocations: Highland Park, Los Feliz
www.goldburgerla.comThe origins of Goldburger began as an Instagram account about founder Allen Yelen’s favorite burgers and then turned into a burger pop-up all around Los Angeles. In October 2018, they opened a long running pop-up on a Silverlake patio. This lasted until restaurants were shut down on the March 15, 2020 due to the pandemic. On their last day at this location, they served a constant line until they sold out. Goldburger launched a pop-up in Highland Park two months later and ended up turning into their first brick and mortar. A year after, they built a second location in Los Feliz. Their grass fed beef is provided by Grass Run Farms. Goldburger also has Swell Soda on their menu. This soda is microbrewed and hand bottled in San Diego.
Graze and Gather MeatsLocation: Claremont
www.grazeandgathermeats.comIn 2016, after 15 years of public relations for the health care industry, Graze and Gather Meats founder Steve Sabicer decided to try his hand at butchery. Like all of his staff, Steve had an apprenticeship where he trained for 10 weeks. The apprenticeship had him hooked. A year later, he became a partner at Electric City Butcher in Santa Ana. Being a Pomona College graduate and Claremont resident for over a decade, Steve had always wanted to set up shop in the City of Trees and PhDs. In December 2021, he was finally able to live his dream and opened up Graze and Gather. Graze and Gather has since done burger pop-ups and recently introduced a small menu at its butcher shop available on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday afternoons. On the menu are smashburgers and specialty burgers using their grass beef from Marin Sun Farms , Mariposa Ranch, and Stemple Creek Ranch.
HiHo CheeseburgerLocations: Marina del Rey, Mid-Wilshire, Santa Monica, Studio City
www.hiho.laHiHo Cheeseburger is making a giant splash not only in the sustainable food world, but in the burger world overall. The eatery has won Los Angeles Magazine‘s annual Burger Bracket two years in a row. Last year, it was also awarded the people’s choice at the burger battle in the Los Angeles Times Food Bowl. Their beef comes from First Light Farms, which is a collective of 61 farmers in New Zealand raising wagyu cattle. HiHo’s burgers also contain organic lettuce and ketchup free of high fructose corn syrup.
HopdoddyLocations: Playa Vista, El Segundo
www.hopdoddy.comGuy Villavaso, Larry Foles, Larry Perdido, and Chuck Smith are four friends who shared the goal of creating new standards for a burger bar. Their vision was to bring together craft beer and gourmet burgers with high quality ingredients and even higher standards. In 2010, they accomplished this goal by launching Hopdoddy in Austin, TX. Hopdoddy is now found in 7 states, including California. Earlier this year, Hopdoddy again raised the standards by offering regenerative meat from Force of Nature. Regenerative ground beef is an option for any of their burgers or you can go for the two specifically developed to include the regenerative meat. The Mother Nature burger has Force of Nature’s beef plus Raw Farm‘s grass grazed raw cheddar and Vital Farms pasture raised egg. And the Buffalo Bill burger contains Force of Nature’s regenerative bison patty.
Hugo’sLocations: West Hollywood, Studio City
www.hugosrestaurant.comTerry Kaplan founded Hugo’s Restaurant with the vision of “a kitchen producing original, wonderful foods found nowhere else”. He describes the restaurants as “real food made in real ways”. They prepare the meals the way they’d feed their own families. Hugo’s sees that the principle of sustainability relies upon meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Their dishes are made to order from scratch using organic, non-GMO, and sustainable ingredients. Hugo’s has a large menu providing different items for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Among their lunch items is their burger using beef from Grass Run Farms, a collaboration of family farms producing 100% grass fed beef.
Lady Byrd CafeLocation: Echo Park
www.ladybyrdcafe.comLady Byrd Cafe is a small neighborhood cafe in the Echo Park community. The restaurant is somewhat hidden as it’s surrounded by houses. Lady Byrd’s commitment to sustainability, isn’t limited to just it’s food. Its outdoor dining is filled with plants, flowers, and small greenhouses where people can privately dine. It also has two large open-air patios along with seating inside. Founder Misty Mansouri was inspired by European al fresco dining and the Amsterdam restaurant Mediamatic, which placed greenhouse for outdoor dining last year. As for Lady Byrd’s burgers, the beef they use is Grass Run Farms.
Lingua FrancaLocation: Frogtown
www.linguafrancaco.comHuHusband and wife restaurateurs Peter & Lauren Demos hit it big on the Los Angeles culinary scene when they debuted the sandwich shop Wax Paper Co. in 2015. In 2017, they opened a second and larger location of Wax Paper. But it would take six years before the concept of Lingua Franca would happen. Peter & Lauren wanted to create a restaurant where all ingredients were local to the state of California. And from their first Wax Paper being located in Frogtown, they loved the idea of having a restaurant on the walking path of the LA River. After being delayed due to the pandemic, Lingua Franco finally opened its doors in 2023. Among its menu listings is its burger with Stemple Creek beef and Point Reyes Toma cheese. The burger can be nicely paired with the root beer from the Indian Wells Brewing Company.
Market BurgersLocation: Torrance
www.marketburgers.comTorrance Certified Farmers’ Market has one of the largest farmers’ markets in California with its 60 California famers every Saturday morning. The Torrance Market also has nearly as many food vendors, including Market Burgers. Market Burgers prepares its burgers with Novy Ranches beef and toppings from local farms. Market Burgers also does pop-ups in breweries in the South Bay, Long Beach, and surrounding areas.
Pono BurgerLocation: Santa Monica
www.ponoburger.comThe word “pono’ is Hawaiian for “to do things the right way”. This fits well with Pono Burger‘s Chef Windy “Makani” Gerardi’s philosophy listed right on the menu of using organic and farm fresh ingredients s for a handcrafted burger made with integrity that above all, tastes great. Their beef, in particular, comes from Eel River, which is located in Humboldt Country and part of the business collective Humboldt Made. Their toppings for burgers include produce from various organic California farms. One And if you’re in the mood for a shake with your burger, they’ve got milkshakes crafted with organic ice cream from the Straus Family Creamery.
True Food KitchenLocations: Pasadena, Century City, Santa Monica, El Segundo
www.truefoodkitchen.comTrue Food Kitchen was founded by Dr. Andrew Weil, a renowned physician of integrative medicine. The restaurant is all about serving food which works for people by nourishing them as healthfully as possible without sacrificing the flavor. True Food Kitchen carefully selects every ingredients of their signature dishes on the menu. Their grass fed burgers are a top menu item with its Cape Grim Beef and flax seed bun. Among the burger variations is their Peruvian grass fed burger with caramelized onion, Peruvian pepper sauce, a Vital Farms fried egg, and Point Reyes blue cheese. Another one of their burgers uses Force of Nature bison. On True Food Kitchen’s refreshers menu is limeade from the Tractor Beverage Co., the first only organic certified non-GMO beverage company for the restaurant and hospitality industry.
Tuning ForkLocation: Studio City
www.tuningforkla.com Chef Jason Jay Bedassie prepares burgers and other menu items with locally sourced ingredients at this Studio City gastropub. Tuning Fork supplies its beef from the Premier Meat Company, which has Sun Fed Ranch grass fed beef. Several nights a week, Tuning Fork has live entertainment with bands performing and its open mic Monday.
To foodies, especially burger lovers, May is known as National Hamburger Month. This is likely because it’s the time of the year when the days are longer and the weather is warm enough to start grilling outside. An option for grilling hamburgers has always been the frozen patty. It allows you to save time not having to thaw the ground beef out, divide it up, or season the meat. You can simply remove the patties from the freezer and cook them.
Now that grass fed beef is more available than it’s ever been in modern times, we even have the option of getting it in the form of frozen burger patties. From farmers and ranchers to sustainable prepared food producers and even some brands that previously made conventional frozen burgers, there are a number of choices now. And lately we’ve seen a trend of burgers blends mixing beef and vegetables together.
In alphabetical order, here are the twelve best frozen 100% grass fed burger patties.
50/50 FoodsThe story of 50/50 Foods begins with two best friends, Andrew Arentowicz & Stephen Theiss, sitting down for burgers and beer and talking about how they like both meat and vegetables. Andrew & Stephen asked why couldn’t they have BOTH when it comes to burgers. The two then headed to the kitchen to work on a burger which would be the perfect blend of 50% meat and 50% veggies. This became their flagship BOTH Burger, which is half grass bed beef and the other half a mix of roasted mushrooms, caramelized onions, riced cauliflower and broccoli, and garlic. Since releasing the BOTH Burger, Andrew & Stephen are now developing 50/50 hot dogs and 50/50 chicken nuggets.
ApplegateIn 1987, Stephen McDonnell and his friend Christopher Ely bought Chris’ family business Jugtown Smokehouse, which produced smoked meats without any synthetic nitrates. Stephen started Applegate with the purpose of asking “what if you weren’t afraid to read a hot dog ingredient label?” Next they made deli meat which was antibiotic free, followed by introducing the first widely distributed deli meat with an organic certification. In 2015, all of their beef products became 100% grass fed. Their frozen patties are their most recent grass fed beef additions. Applegate has two different lines, both of which mix beef or turkey with veggies into the patties. The Great Organic Blend Burger has beef mixed with mushrooms. And the Well Carved Burger mixes beef with cauliflower, lentils, spinach, and butternut squash.
Bubba BurgerIn the early 90s, Walter “Bubba” Eaves began Bubba Burger to fulfill his dream of creating a perfect and juicy burger which he’d be proud to serve his friends at home. Bubba invented a production method where he felt he could cook the patties after being frozen yet they still remained juicy and flavorful. He was always for choosing the highest meat in his burgers with only whole muscle meat chucks. He refused to use any fillers or trimmings. As Bubba has always prided himself in his patties containing high quality beef, he decided to go a step further in recent years and add burger patties consisting of 100% grass fed beef free of preservatives or added hormones.
Eel River Organic BeefEel River Valley native Clint Victorine’s passion for cattle ranching dates back to when he was a member of Future Farmers of America in high school. Clint then went on to major in ag business at Cal Poly followed by a cow calf and stocker cattle operation after his graduation in 1996. In 2000, the Eel River Brewing Company put his grass fed beef on their grill menu and convinced to him move into organic beef. Clint saw the demand and met with some independent ranchers in the Eel River Valley to see they’d be interested in raising their cattle organically. Eel River Organic Beef remains an alliance of small family-owned ranches. In addition to burger patties, Eel River has steaks and hot dogs.
First Light FarmsWagyu beef is known for being well marbled, having great texture, and tasting flavorful, but not a lot of it is 100% grass fed. The First Light Wagyu Producers Group, a collective of 61 farmers in New Zealand, took up the challenge of raising Wagyu cattle on grass and out of their pens. Their frozen burger patties are among other products they sell, including various cuts of steak, ground beef, hot dogs, and meatballs.
Force of Nature The team behind Force of Nature spent six years studying regenerative agriculture and touring ranches around the world before deciding to start their own company. So Force of Nature was founded on the principle of being able to jumpstart a global regenerative supply network. Their main focus in terms of products is ground meat from all types of animals, including a number of wild game. They also sell various cuts of their different animals. And then there’s the Force of Nature frozen patties, which come in their varieties of bison and venison.
Grass Run FarmsGrass Run Farms is a collaboration of family farms. They use affidavits to trace the animals back to the grasses and farms they were raised on. Grass Run Farms believes in raising cows on grass for the health benefits, the environmental advantages of maintaining healthy soil and sequestering carbon, and the way the agricultural method treats livestock humanely. They produce frozen ground beef patties along with fresh ground beef, steaks, roasts, hot dogs, and sausages.
Raise AmericanRaise American is all about raising the bar extremely high when it comes to beef. All of the meat they supply is 100% grass fed, 100% organic, and 100% sustainable for the planet. Additionally, their beef comes entirely from America with ranches ranging across the country, including Minnesota, Colorado, Oregon, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Texas. Raise American has partnerships with its ranchers where they oversee the entire process from the pasture where the cow was born to how the cow is being treated on the farm to how the cow is transported. They’re encouraging all organic beef ranchers to go regenerative in order to revive the soil, replenish the land, and remove greenhouse gases. Raise American president Scott Lively wrote the book For the Love of Beef: The Good, the Bad and the Future of America’s Favorite Meat, which covers everything about beef from the different cuts to the benefits of being grass fed. Their frozen burger patties are one of many of their offerings, which also include steaks, ground beef, hot dogs, and meatballs.
Sun FedThe Byrne’s and Donati’s were two families who had been ranching in the Sacramento Valley for over 100 years. Matt Byrne and Chris Donati joined together to create Sun Fed Ranch. Sun Fed partners with other family farms which raise cattle in open spaces and adapt to natural weather cycles to sustain the land and grow 100% grass fed and finished beef 365 days a year. Along with frozen patties, Sun Fed has a large line of grass fed beef products, including many cuts of steaks and roasts, bone broths, deli meats, hot dogs, sausages, and prepared meals.
Teton Waters RanchBeginning out as an experiment in environmental conservation, Teton Waters Ranch discovered how they can replenish the abused soil of an old potato farm by the means of planting native grasses, cattle rotation, and the livestock fertilizing where they eat. These practices led to a system of food which is both sustainable and healthy. They ended up forming a company which produced hot dogs and sausages made from grass fed and finished beef. Teton Water then expanded their line to include burger blends, giving us a healthy and balanced mix of meats and vegetables. Their burger blends are salt & cracked pepper, mushroom & onion, and a southwest style of mushrooms & poblanos peppers.
Thousand Hills Lifetime GrazedMatt Meier worked for 20 years in conventional food marketing before he returned home to the farm he grew up on. In 2003, he founded Thousand Hills Lifetime Grazed with the mission of nourishing the soil, the plants, cattle, and people by holistically grazing cattle for their entire lives. His home farm in Clearwater, MN is one of the 13 Savory Institute hubs in North America as the ranch is a leader in holistic and regenerative grazing practices. Thousand Hills now sources cattle from other family farms which they’ve hand picked for their similar deep commitment to regenerate land and having nutrient rich beef as a result. The farms range from the midwest, northeast, and west regions of the United States. Already 600,000 acres of land has seen positive benefits. Beef patties are part of a diverse amount of products which can be found from Thousand Hills, such as bone broth, chili, ground beef, sausages, steaks, roasts, jerky, and sticks. All of their products are now Land to Market certified regenerative.
Tribali FoodsTribali founder Angela Mavridis spent her childhood summers in Greece where she saw her grandmother cook everything from scratch with all organic, local, and heirloom ingredients. While at the time she didn’t know it was paleo or what the paleo diet was, it turns out paleo is a Greek word. As an adult, Angela had gone far off track from the nutrient dense Greek/paleo diet as she was often feeling bloated and tired. Then when modern medicine was unable to identify her health conditions, she decided to become a holistic nutritionist and take improving her health into her own hands. Realizing that protein powders, shakes, supplements, and bars weren’t helping, she returned to what she grew up eating in Greece. Angela had been a vegetarian for 35 years, but then discovered pairing clean animal meats with ancestral veggies helped her feel better both physically and emotionally. Shortly after, her digestive issues decreased and she began healing. Angela now runs Tribali Foods which makes patties from a variety of humanely raising animals, including cattle which are 100% grass fed. The beef patties come in they style of Mediterranean and umami. Also, a portion of Tribali’s proceeds go to benefit the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund.
Dry Ingredients
- 5g cinnamon
- 6g ginger powder
- 2g licorice powder
- 1g nutmeg
- 1g mace
- 1g black pepper
- 1g cardamom
- 1/2g clove
- 1g spearmint
- 1g horehound
- 1/2g hop
- Mesquite powder
- 55 oz cane sugar
Wet Ingredients
- 45 oz wate
- 50g blackstrap molasses
- 1g juniper berries
- 50g sorghum syrup
- 50g malted barley
- Carbonated water
Instructions
- In a 1 gallon pot, add water and heat to 130 degrees.
- Add all dry ingredients, except cane sugar, and cook to 180 degrees. Then steep for 4 hours.
- Strain all liquid through a fine strainer and then pour liquid back into the pot.
- Heat to 130 degrees. Then add cane sugar, blackstrap molasses, sorghum syrup, and malted barley and heat to 160 degrees.
- Let chill to 70 degrees. Then refrigerate to 38 degrees.
- Add 5 parts cold (less than 38 degrees) carbonated water to 1 part root beer base. Enjoy over ice!
- (Optional) Serve with homemade vanilla ice cream.
This recipe was provided by Justin Herber, chief brand officer for Tractor Beverage Co. Tractor is the first only certified organic and non-GMO beverage line for the food service industry. The pouring partners for their carbonated and non-carbonated drinks include restaurants, hospitals, and universities. Recently Tractor Beverage Co. has partnered with the sustainability research company HowGood to launch the Organic Impact Tracker., which measures synthetic pesticides found inside ingredients.
https://appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-tbc-042623.mp3For his latest podcast, Aaron Zober welcomes on two people from Tractor Beverage Company, chief brand officer Justin Herber and consulting agronomist Dr. Stephanie Bledsoe. Tractor Beverage is the only organic certified, non-GMO beverage company in restaurants. In partnership with the research company HowGood, Tractor Beverage recently debuted its Organic Impact Tracker. The Organic Impact Tracker measures the amounts conventional pesticides present in food ingredients. Justin and Dr. Stephanie discuss the results they discovered in Tractor Beverage drinks as a result of the tracker, in terms of which ingredients were shown to be potent with pesticides and how Tractor can source in the future. They also get into the specific restaurants and other places where Tractor Beverage can be found. Plus potential new flavors we can see Tractor Beverage Company introduce.
To make sure you never another episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, go to your favorite podcast app or site and subscribe to the podcast.
https://appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-bgk-041923.mp3The Appropriate Omnivore host Aaron Zober loves all kinds of jerky. In a field dominated mainly by beef jerky, Aaron was excited when Brave Good Kind launched and focused on chicken. Prabal Chaudhri comes on his program to tell the story of founding Brave Good Kind. Prabal explains that his products differ not only in terms of protein type, but also by making bars and bites instead of typical jerky and meat sticks. He talks about how his daughter being born was an influence in terms of what he should feed her and feed himself. While Aaron and Prabal have different reasons for wanting more chicken snacks on the market, they both understand the importance of meat snacks using clean ingredients, free of items such as nitrites and MSG. Prabal then discusses the future of Brave Good Kind as well as what he sees for the future of meat snacks.
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From HealthyOnYou.com
Ingredients
- Marinade
- 1 medium onion, quartered
- 2 scallions white and green parts + more for garnish
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 scotch bonnet pepper, seeded
- 1 tbsp Healthy On You® No Woman No Spice Jamaican Jerk Spice
- ¼ cup coconut sugar or brown sugar
- 1 thumbnail-size piece of ginger, peeled
- 8-10 whole allspice berries
- 2 sprigs fresh thyme
- ¼ cup soy sauce
- ½ tsp kosher salt
- 2 tbsp of dark rum (optional)
- 2 tsp apple cider vinegar (optional)
- Scotch bonnet peppers (optional)
- Chicken
- 4 organic chicken leg quarters (legs and thighs attached)
- 1-2 tbsp Healthy On You® No Woman No Spice Jamaican Jerk Spice
- Kosher Salt
- Chicken Sauce (Optional)
- ½ cup sour cream/yogurt/ or mayonnaise
- ¼ cup marinade
- 1-2 tbsp lemon juice
- Kosher salt, to taste.
Instructions
- Add all of the marinade ingredients into a food processor and blend for 15-30 seconds.
- Marinate the chicken: apply the marinade to the chicken leg quarters and rub it in (gloves are recommended.)
- Place in a zip lock back and refrigerate for up to 24 hours.
- When ready to cook, set your grill on medium-high heat. Remove the chicken from the bag and remove the excess spices. Reserve the marinade.
- Sprinkle the chicken all over with the Healthy On You® No Woman No Spice Jamaican Jerk Spice and kosher salt.
- When the grill is hot-between 350-400˚F, add the chicken skin-side up. Reduce the heat to 325˚F and close.
- In the meantime, use the reserved marinade to baste the chicken, but first, add it to a small saucepan and bring to a boil for 5 minutes. You need to do this since the marinade has come into contact with raw chicken.
- Baste the chicken, turning occasionally until the internal temperature measures 160+ and the juices run clear-about 1 hour if you cook this low and slow which is preferred to minimize over-charring.
- You can use the cooked marinade to make a sauce for the chicken.
- Mix well and serve alongside the Jerked Chicken.
This recipe was provided by Sam Binkley, founder of the organic spice and salt blend line Healthy On You. While teaching healthy cooking classes, Sam realized the food in the classes needed flavor. This led to her coming up with spice and salt blends. She cited, as influence, her mother’s Indo-Jamaican cooking where everything she cooked had spice. Sam also remembered listening to music while her mom cooked, so Sam decided to name all of Healthy On You’s spice blends as plays on popular song titles.
https://www.appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-hoy-041223.mp3This week on The Appropriate Omnivore, host Aaron Zober welcomes Sam Binkley to the podcast. Sam discusses how her career path lead her to found Healthy on You, which sells organic spices all with names based on popular songs. Sam began with “No Woman No Spice”, a Jamaican jerk spice which was an ode to her Jamaican heritage. Healthy on You now has 20 different blends. Sam talks about the many ways music plays a role in her life. Aaron and Sam both get into how music is important while they cook. San then mentions what spices we can expect from Healthy on You in the future and other types of products her brand is planning on expanding into. Plus Sam shares the ways which Healthy on You goes beyond what other organic companies do as it focuses on very clean and simple ingredients.
To make sure you never another episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, go to your favorite podcast app or site and subscribe to the podcast.
From the book Eat HappyIngredients
- Marinara
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp minced garlic
- Bunch of basil leaves, 7-10 leaves-chopped
- 2 14 oz. cans of tomatoes, puréed
- 1/2 can tomato paste
- 1 tsp salt, plus more for seasoning
- Pepper
- 1 tbsp of butter
- Chicken
- 1 lb. boneless chicken breasts, trimmed and pounded to a 1/2 inch thickness
- salt and pepper
- 1 cup almond flour for breading
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella
- 1/2 cup grated parmesan
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a medium saucepan, heat olive oil to medium high heat and sauté garlic and basil for 2-3 minutes.
- Add in pureed tomatoes, tomato paste, 1 teaspoon of salt, and a twist of fresh pepper.
- Bring the tomatoes to a boil while stirring in butter with a wooden spoon.
- Turn the heat down low, and let the sauce simmer while prepping the chicken, seasoning with a little extra salt and pepper every 10 minutes.
- Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper.
- In a shallow bowl, spread out almond flour.
- Dredge the chicken breasts in the almond flour to coat.
- Heat olive oil on medium high heat in a sauté pan until it shimmers.
- Cook the coated chicken breasts for 6-7 minutes per side.
- Transfer to a casserole pan.
- Sprinkle half of the mozzarella on the chicken breasts.
- Ladle sauce over the chicken, covering it, but reserving some for serving.
- Sprinkle remaining mozzarella cheese and parmesan over sauce and chicken.
- Bake in oven for 10 minutes, or until cheese is melted and bubbly.
- Serve with additional reserved sauce, if desired.
This recipe was provided by Anna Vocino, best selling author of the cookbooks Eat Happy and Eat Happy Too. Anna is a standup comedian and voice over artist who was diagnosed with Celiac’s disease. Hating all of the gluten free options, she started making her own dishes and blogging about them. Later she shifted her focus on cooking grain free. After the success of her cookbooks, she launched the CPG line Eat Happy Kitchen, offering organic sauces and seasonings.
https://www.appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-ehk-032223.mp3This week on The Appropriate Omnivore podcast, Aaron Zober welcomes Anna Vocino of Eat Happy Kitchen. Anna is both a best selling author with her cookbooks Eat Happy and Eat Happy Too and a CPG entrepreneur with her product line Eat Happy Kitchen. Anna shares her story of becoming an entrepreneur at a young age as she was raised by a single mother and needed money in her pocket for yummy food. Anna currently wears many other hats as well. She’s also a voice over artist and standup comic. She jokes about being diagnosed with Celiac’s disease for it was cool. Hating all of the gluten free options, she started making her own dishes and blogging about them. After hosting a podcast, she shifted her focus from gluten free to grain free. Anna discusses the origins of the recipes she created. Plus how both her Italian heritage and California influence played a major role in her cooking. Aaron also gets her to talk about her venture into CPG, what we can expect from Anna in the future with both more cookbooks and more products from Eat Happy Kitchen, and all the ways that a low carb/grain free diet has helped her live healthier and happier life.
To make sure you never another episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, go to your favorite podcast app or site and subscribe to the podcast.
Last week I returned to the Anaheim Convention Center for the annual Natural Products Expo West. The Expo West always has an excellent and diverse selection of exhibitors in natural and sustainable CPG in everything from pastured meats and dairy to fermented foods and beverages to organic snacks and much much more. It’s a time for me to revisit my favorite brands, see some of my favorite brands introduce new products, and learn about new brands altogether. I always find a plethora of new items to try. The exhibitors listed below have the 10 most innovative discoveries I saw at the 2023 Expo West.
4th & Heart4th & Heart is an excellent grass fed ghee brand. I love ghee for it’s high smoke point. I often cook food in it, but also scoop off a little piece while doing so and snack on it. While I clearly love ghee and use it frequently, many people are still unfamiliar with it. Ghee is shelf stable, so it’s often found on the cooking oil aisles at the supermarkets. That’s great if you’re aware of what it is. For those who don’t know, they zoom right over it. So 4th & Heart has developed a ghee in the form of butter sticks which will be found in the butter section. For their ghee butter sticks, 4th & Heart also won one of the NEXTY Awards.
50/50 FoodsWe’ve seen many beef and veggies burger blends, but 50/50 Foods‘ blend which they call Both is the first to have half grass fed beef and half vegetables. As an Appropriate Omnivore, I stress the importance of both animals and plants. With burger blends, you can get both (like the product’s name suggests) into one.
Chosen FoodsAvocado oil is another oil I love cooking with. Chosen Foods has a wonderful, authentic avocado oil and various products with its avocado oil in it. Avocado oil is great for cooking at high heat. Olive oil, on the other hand, gives a great flavor when you cook food in it, but it’s not as heat stable as avocado oil. So Chosen introduces a combination of avocado and olive oil.
Country ArcherCountry Archer is one of my favorites when it comes to grass fed jerky and meat sticks. Now they have a third category of meat snacks – smoked sausages. Their sausages are a combination of 100% grass fed beef and antibiotic free pork and are completely sugar free. They currently come in the flavors of original and fuego.
DeeBee’s OrganicsWith the sweet tooth that I’ve got, I’m grateful for organic desserts with cane sugar and basic ingredients. DeeBee’s Organics has been a leader with its freezies popsicles. At this year’s Expo West, they introduced two new products: dairy free gelato pops and Italian ice with no added sugar. I’m especially excited for their Italian ice as it’s a treat I love, but rarely have as I hadn’t found a clean version of it before. Also, they had one of the best booths at Expo West with their Colorful World theme.
GutsyThe natural CPG industry is still finding new ideas for beverages and shows no sign of slowing down. One of many popular beverage trends is incorporating adaptogens into drinks. The cleverly titled kombucha company Gutsy introduced a beverage called Adapt2 with fermented adaptogens in several fruit flavors. It makes a great fermented drink option for those who don’t like the taste of kombucha. Or for somebody like me who loves both.
Philosopher FoodsI discovered Philosopher Foods at a conference 8 years when they were relatively new. What caught my attention was they offered a nut butter using sprouted nuts. They still are one of the few nut butters which do so. Now they’ve added a new line called Gut Nuts, which are fermented nuts. Their patent-pending process has nuts lacto-fermented and then dehydrated to make a great postbiotic snack. Date syrup is also added for a little sweetness to it. Gut Nuts give us all five of the tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter and savory. And you gotta love the lab coats and beakers worn by its team at their booth!
Roam FreeBison is a great tasting meat which is underrepresented in the market. Roam Free steps up to the calling with all types of 100% grass fed bison products from jerky to steaks to even heat and serve meals such as chili and fajitas. The bison comes from a veteran and woman owned farm in Western Montana who are first generation ranchers and follow the principles of regenerative agriculture.
ScoutA major takeaway which I had at the 2023 Expo West is that we’re seeing plenty more options for sustainable seafood. Scout not only has sustainably sourced canned seafood, but also seafood snacks. Scout mixes tuna with nuts, legumes, seeds, and spices into some tasty on the go treats. They also pride themselves on their packaging, which is hand packed, recyclable, and completely BPA free.
Top SeedzI remember a time when flax seed crackers didn’t taste good. But thanks to entrepreneurs with tons of creativity, we now have many amazing tasting organic flax seed crackers. The NEXTY Awards winner Top Seedz joins this elite group. Their crackers have a nice thin crunchy texture. The seasonings and spices of their different flavors, including sea salt, rosemary, and cumin, also add to their savory taste.
https://www.appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-npew-031523.mp3For the second year in a row on The Appropriate Omnivore podcast, Aaron Zober follows his attending the annual Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim with a show recapping the highlights. No guests. Just Aaron talking about the takeaways he discovered in terms of natural food trends and new products. What’s in and out in the sustainable food world? Are some trends a continuation from last years show? Are there new trends? And how does Aaron feel about all of this? Plus while no main interview, Aaron does play sound bites taken on the floor of Expo West with his favorite exhibitors saying what they thought of the show.
To make sure you never another episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, go to your favorite podcast app or site and subscribe to the podcast.
https://www.appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-ftcldf-030823.mp3Aaron Zober devotes another podcast of The Appropriate Omnivore to his love of butter. The episode, it’s combined with his advocacy for raw dairy. Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF) executive director Alexia Kulwiec joins him to discuss legalizing raw butter sales across state lines. Alexia talks about the petition filed by California dairy farmer Mark McAfee and the FTCLDF and where we go from the upheld ban issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals last year. Alexia then delves into why she sees raw butter as safe to sell across state lines as well as why all daw dairy should be legal on a national level. Aaron and Alexia converse in how we can make raw milk safe and the importance of keeping it legal. The podcast concludes with Alexia discussing further developments in law milk legislation in various states and if she sees us heading in the right or wrong direction in terms of legally obtaining raw milk.
To make sure you never another episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, go to your favorite podcast app or site and subscribe to the podcast.
Ingredients
- 1 lb. arborio rice
- 2 oz. Churn truffle butter (about 1/3 the container)
- 2-3 quarts chicken stock
- 1/2 bottle white wine, at room temperature
- Minced shallots and/or garlic
- Grated parmesan cheese (Pecorino, or Reggiano)
- Freshly chopped herbs of your choice: basil, parsley, chives, tarragon, rosemary, sage, etc.
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Turn the heat under your pot to medium, spoon in your truffle butter, and heat for about 1 minute until it’s melted.
- Toss in your shallots and/or garlic. Sauté until translucent, about 2-3 minutes.
- Pour in your arborio rice into the hot pot. Stir constantly for about 2-3 minutes, until rice is toasted. You should be able to see the rice grains brighten in color, and smell the aromas from the toasting rice.
- Keep your stock at a warm temperature. Heat up in a small pot right next to your risotto pot. With your ladle, continuously add the stock and stir it into the risotto, so you’ll need to have the stock warm so it doesn’t cool down the pot when poured in.
- Heat up chicken stock in a small pot right next to your risotto pot. With your ladle, continuously add the stock and white wine to the rice for about 25 minutes, until the grains are soft.
- The natural starches of the arborio rice will magically release throughout the process of adding stock/wine and stirring, working with you to create the creamy consistency desired. For an acid & sweet taste, use a ratio of 4/1 stock to wine. If you like it milder, use a 6 or 7/1 ratio. Never drown the risotto in the broth and wine. Always add in enough to just barely submerge the rice grains in liquid.
- Repeat this process for about 20 to 25 minutes, stirring vigorously, adding in salt and pepper throughout, and tasting as you go, until the risotto grains are softened to your liking.
- For those using a 4/1 ratio of stock to wine, add in wine for every 4 times you add in stock until the risotto is soft. You’ll want to add in liquid every 1 to 1.5 minutes. Follow the same pattern if using a 6 or 7/1 ratio. If the dish is too acidic and you taste too much of the wine for your liking, simply reduce the ratio to add in more stock. And remember to season with salt and pepper throughout.
- Once the risotto grains are soft, and you’ve achieved a creamy (but not too thick) consistency, turn off your heat, and stir in your grated parmesan.
This recipe was provided by Michael Tashman. Michael is founder of Churn Foods. While working as a fine chef, Michael came up with the idea of a chef-to-shelf CPG business for flavored butter. At the time, he didn’t see any others being offered nationwide. While there are some flavored butters on the market now, none of them go for sustainable sourcing like Michael does with organic grass fed butter. He also sources relatively local in terms of getting butter from his home state of California.
https://appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-churn-030123.mp3The Appropriate Omnivore podcast host Aaron Zober says he can spread butter on any food he likes. For this episode, he brings on a guest who shares this sentiment. While working as a fine chef, Michael came up with the idea of a chef-to-shelf CPG business for flavored butter, which became known as Churn Foods. At the time, he didn’t see any others being offered nationwide. While there are some flavored butters on the market now, none of them go for sustainable sourcing like Michael does with organic grass fed butter. He also sources relatively local in terms of getting butter from his home state of California. Michael delves into what it’s like producing a gourmet butter as the market is changing and more people are consuming butter. What foods do the various flavored Churn butters pair well with? Can you savor the Churn flavors by themselves? And what can we expect for future flavors from Churn as well as products outside of butter and maybe even expansion beyond CPG? All of this and more as Aaron and Michael share their love of butter and other fine foods.
To make sure you never another episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, go to your favorite podcast app or site and subscribe to the podcast.
I first attended the Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim in 2011. Since then, I’ve made it back every year except for one. And for the last two years, it’s been online due to the pandemic. This year the Expo returns in person. This is one of the largest conventions, so it can be a challenge to see everything. Since having gone for almost a decade, I’ve learned new ways each time to be able to see as much as possible. It takes place this year March 9-12.
Here are my 10 tips for making the most of your time at the Expo:
1. Take a look at the exhibitor list on their website
You don’t going exploring without a compass or a map. Similarly, it’s best to attend Expo West knowing what businesses will be there and where they’ll be located. Their website has a search engine which allows you to find where the exhibitors will be located. The Expo West search engine has many functions. The most basic one is searching by exhibitor name. Having gone many times, I have my favorites which I look for. These include Pure Indian Foods, Tribali, Cleveland Kitchen, Sioux Honey, Big Picture Foods, To Your Health, Philosopher Foods, and Tureveda. A more advanced search option on the website allows you to search for key words with exhibitors. By using this tool, I’m able to learn about companies I might not have thought of or even known about. Some of the key words I type in are “grass fed”, “paleo”, “broth, “ferment”, “sauerkraut”, and “kombucha”.
2. Take a look at the NEXTY Awards finalists and winners
Expo West is where the natural food companies introduce new products to their line. To highlight some of the new products, the New Hope Network which puts on the show, holds awards for what they see as the best. You can see who the finalists and the winners are on the website and then search for where the companies’ booths are located.
3. Use the app
The Natural Products Expo has an app which can be downloaded on your smart phone or tablet. Along with the website, the app also allows you to search for exhibitors, which can be added to your favorites on there. Other perks of the app are a map of all the exhibit halls and being able to pull up your badge registration on it. As Expo West is about sustainability, what’s better than being able to save on paper and not having to print out your registration confirmation?
4. If you need help with anything at the Expo, use SPARKY the EventBot
The app is one way to find get information on Expo West. Another option is using SPARKY the EventBot. You can access SPARKY by texting “Expo West” to 25525. The EventBot can answer all types of questions regarding the exhibitors, the schedule of the entire week, and even directions on how to get to the Anaheim Convention Center.
5. Don’t skip the exhibitors off the main floor
While the most well known names in organics will be found by and large on the main floor, the exhibitors on other floors in the Anaheim Convention Center as well as in the nearby hotels are also worth checking out. The other floors are great for discovering new products and being the first to know what they’re all about.
6. Attend the day before the main floor opens
The main floor opens on Thursday, but the North Hall of the Convention Center and the Anaheim Hilton are filled with over 1,000 exhibitors known as the Hot Products. I’ve spend over a day visiting these businesses alone. Attending a day early makes it easier to be able to see both the newer smaller companies and the major organic and natural food brands.
7. Get to know the other people talking to the exhibitors
If you’re an attendee as opposed to an exhibitor, you’re obviously there to check out the booths. But the other people attending can also be a major resource into the natural foods network too. I’m always excited meet other bloggers and social media influencers to learn some new tricks of the trade. Additionally, some business don’t feel ready to exhibit yet, but like to walk the floor to get connections. So people behind the exhibitor tables aren’t the only way to learn about exciting new products out there.
8. It’s an exhibitor heavy conference, but hearing the speakers can be beneficial too
With products and expo in its title, it should be clear it’s more about exhibitors than speakers. And even spending every day and minute of the conference on the floor, it’s likely impossible to see every exhibitor there. Still there are many great panels there with valuable knowledge of the sustainable and natural worlds. So if any of the topics pique your interest, it’s worth taking a break from the floor. While some sessions require separate registration, many such as the keynotes every days are included in the general badge registration.
9. Go for seconds with your favorites
I like to hit as many exhibitors as possible, but I also want to make return visits to my favorites to learn more about them and maintain connections. Let the companies know you appreciate them by popping your head in again.
10. There are benefits of attending the last day
Many people I know tend to skip the last day, feeling they’ve covered enough in the other days. This is the day I tend to spend going for seconds with my favorites. It’s also the best day to get samples from the exhibitors as a lot of them don’t plan to take everything back with them. And you never know what you might have missed the other days. It never hurts to take one last walk around all the halls.
I love the wealth of connections I make at the Expo West every year and the great people I get to meet. If you’re attending this year, be sure to look for me.
World Kombucha Day is celebrated every February 21st. While the exact origins of kombucha are unknown, the legend goes that kombucha dates back to the Qin Dynasty starting 221 BC. Hence the reason for 2/21 being World Kombucha Day. It is believed that emperor Qin Shi Huang would do anything to extend his time living on earth. So Qin requested alchemists to bring him this Tea of Life.
Today kombucha is loved as a beverage made with real ingredients and offering the benefits of a healthy gut from its SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast) used to ferment tea. All kombucha has alcohol in it naturally, but extremely tiny amounts. More recently a subcategory of kombucha has emerged known as hard kombucha. Hard kombucha is brewed by adding more sugar and strains of yeast in the fermenting process and then keeping it in a tank for another week or two.
Hard kombucha is about producing a beverage which is fun to drink, but also offers some health benefits with its probiotics from fermentation. The hard kombucha brewers on the list below pride themselves on sourcing the highest quality and cleanest ingredients. These kombucha brands also all use real sweeteners and not any sugar alcohols or heavily refined sweeteners such as agave.
In alphabetical order, here are the 8 best hard kombuchas:
BoochcraftBoochcraft was founded by three friends from the Ocean Beach community in San Diego. They wanted to make a kombucha which tasted great, gave a feeling of connection, and used whole foods and quality ingredients. They also specifically saw the need for there to be an alcoholic beverage which people can feel good about drinking at the same time they enjoy the taste of it. Boochcraft is a Certified B Corporation as they strive to equally support the planet, people, and profit. To produce their kombucha, they use real fruit and fresh press it themselves. 1% of their gross sales are donated to fund projects which work toward building a sustainable global community. Boochcraft is also a member of 1% For the Planet. They have five regular flavors along with four seasonal ones and a large collection of limited release flavors. All of Boochcraft’s flavors are based around fruits. In San Diego, their hard kombucha can be found at their taproom as well as in supermarkets.
Dr HopsHaving worked as a bartender, barista, and liquor caterer in his 20s, Dr Hops co-founder Joshua Rood was amazed when he heard a company in Michigan was brewing hard kombucha. As nobody else was making hard kombucha at the time, he felt this was something he could do really well. So Dr Hops was born. To make their hard kombucha, Joshua looked at sourcing the highest quality and most healthy conscious ingredients. The name and logo for Dr Hops was based off of a rabbit Joshua’s wife adopted named Dr. Hops. The flavors are derived from other types of alcoholic beverages people know and love. For those who drink mimosas, there’s Dr Hop’s strawberry lemon flavor. For IPA fans, they have a kombucha IPA. Their ginger lime is inspired by a Moscow mule. And Dr Hops’ rosé uses rosé grapes as it’s inspired by that type of wine. Joshua sees these flavors as a way to introduce people to hard kombucha as they might not otherwise feel like they understand the beverage.
Flying EmbersIn 2017, the largest fire in North America swept through around the home of Flying Embers founder Bill Moses and the R&D facility where his kombucha was. Bill was fortunate that the fire department was working hard day and night to put out the fires. As Bill came to appreciate the sacrifice they were making, the brand and purpose of his business became all about giving back to the first responders. A portion of their profits is donated to them. As on the third night of the fire; Bill could see the embers flying over the hillside, he decided to name the brand Flying Embers. Flying Embers puts wellness first using the highest quality USDA organic ingredients to produce flavorful beverages. They brew four types of hard kombucha along with canned cocktails and hard seltzer. People can also order all of Flying Embers’ products at the Santa Barbara taproom.
JiantFriends Larry Haertel Jr. and Aaron Telch founded Jiant in 2019 when they saw tea and botanicals as the perfect way to introduce a new type of adult beverage. They wanted an adult drink which provided more nutritional benefits and didn’t use conventional ingredients. At the beginning they brewed the hard kombucha at their Santa Monica apartments. While they’ve since moved out, Jiant still keeps its promise to source the highest quality organic ingredients. Jiant has six flavors of hard kombucha and three flavors of hard tea.
Local RootsCousins Ryan White & Joe Carmichael discovered they shared a passion for health and wellness. As both of them had personal experiences which led to them changing their lifestyles and the food and drinks they consumed, they found a love in clean eating and juicing. They then both began brewing kombucha in their home kitchens, eventually resulting in them forming the company Local Roots in 2017. “Local” referred to being part of a particular neighborhood while “Roots” was about being a established with a deep purpose. Local Roots makes large varieties of both regular and hard kombucha. Additionally, Local Roots has two tap rooms in Southern California with 40 rotating tap handles.
Luna Bay Booch Co.The Luna Bay Booch Co. was created with the desire to make a change in the alcohol industry. Its founders wanted an alcoholic beverage which was better for themselves, their minds, and their planet. This desire turned into them brewing a natural hard kombucha with real and ethically sourced ingredients. Luna Bay is both the first hard kombucha founded and run by all women as well the first produced and distributed in Chicago. 1% of the brand’s total sales are donated to environmental nonprofits, including I Grow Chicago, 1% for the Planet, and The Brave Spice Alliance. Luna Bay’s hard kombucha is available in eight different flavors.
Strainge BeastHaving been a leader in craft beer for over 40 years, the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company was up for a challenge. They decided to try their hands at hard kombucha, knowing there’s a large room for things to go wrong when mixing together fruits, botanicals, bacteria and yeast. But when done right, it can turn into a great tasting and flavorful beverage. To Sierra Nevada, hard kombucha is a Strainge Beast. As they uses the best natural and organic ingredients, they never have to compromise on flavor. Strainge Beast currently has four different types of hard kombucha.
Wild TonicBefore launching Wild Tonic, founder Holly Lyman was a painter who made her artwork out of beeswax. Being interested in bees, she one day discovered jun. Jun is similar to kombucha, but uses green tea and honey instead of black tea and cane sugar. Holly experimented with jun for several years and ultimately perfected it to be sold as Wild Tonic. Wild Tonic focuses on both sharing jun kombucha with the world and teaching people the importance of bee conservation. Wild Tonic brews traditional jun kombucha, hard jun with 5.6% and 8% alcohol, and mocktails.
https://appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-lm-021523.mp3Nakisa Nowroozi makes her return to the Appropriate Omnivore podcast to discuss her new brand Luv Maman Superfood. Luv Maman sells organic sprouted nuts and seed spreads, including ones with mixed ghee. Nakisa gets into how the word superfood is often misused while explaining what she defines as a real superfood. Mislabeled superfoods are why she started making her own. Nakisa and host Aaron Zober find they share many of the same views when it comes to what real, healthy food is. They go through a whole variety of food topics in this episode, including sprouted foods, ghee, the GAPS diet, natural sweeteners, sugar alcohols, and gluten free products. Nakisa mentions what products we can expect from Luv Maman in the future, including keto products different than what we’re used to seeing on the market.
To make sure you never another episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, go to my Apple Podcasts , Stitcher, or Google Podcasts page and subscribe to the podcast.
With Valentine’s Day tomorrow, 58 million pounds of chocolate will be sold. Chocolate has been considered a symbol love dating back to the the ancient Aztec society, who knew about chocolate’s aphrodisiac powers. Chocolate was introduced to Europe after Mexico became part of the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The modern celebration of Valentine’s Day, including the tradition of chocolate, originated in England in the mid-1800’s.
In addition to being a food of love, chocolate has some health benefits. Chocolate comes from the fruit called cacao, which has twice as many antioxidants as any other fruit or vegetable. It contains flavonoids which can help lower blood pressure, increase brain function, help with depression, and reduce coughing. Plus the cacao butter in it is a saturated fat.
So why don’t too many people associate chocolate with being healthy? One reason is a lot of the chocolate by the large candy companies is milk chocolate, which has a low cacao content. The darker the chocolate, the higher the cacao content. Milk chocolate ranges from about 35 – 55% cacao. Dark chocolate, on the other hand, typically is at least 70% cacao.
Another reason chocolate is regarded as unhealthy is because the mainstream chocolate tends to be loaded genetically modified sweeteners, such as high fructose corn syrup or beet sugar. In addition to being GMO, these sugars lack nutrients as they’re heavily processed.
While the majority of the chocolates sold use ingredients found too often in the standard American diet, we’re fortunately seeing a growing number of better chocolate bars on the market. These bars contain natural sweeteners such as coconut sugar, whole cane sugar, and honey. These sweeteners all have more nutrients as they’re less refined. They also all use dark chocolate of at least 70% cacao and some of them even higher. And lastly, they’re made with organic chocolate and other organic ingredients.
In alphabetical order, here are the 12 best organic dark chocolate bars using natural sweeteners:
AntidoteAntidote started with founder Red Thalhammer sending a text which said “Sorry, I’ve been poisonous today.” The response was “Don’t worry. I’ll make an antidote to that.” She woke up the next morning thinking chocolate is the antidote. Red began looking at every type of raw cacao, roasted cacao, sugar and natural sweetener option from all over the world. She ended up falling in love with the Arriba Nacional beans from Ecuador. Antidote now has 15 different types of bars, including a couple with raw cacao.
Natural Sweetener Used: Whole cane sugar
Blue Stripes Urban CacaoMax Brenner’s journey with chocolate goes back 25 years ago. It started when Max was looking for inspiration as a writer and visited a chocolate store in Paris by famous chocolatier Michel Chaudun. What followed was the creation of the brand Max Brenner Chocolate by the Bald Man and opening chocolate restaurants globally. He then took a five year break from chocolate and picked up working on the other side of chocolate with cacao. From learning how cacao can be used to prepare chocolate beverages while on a trip in Jamaica to finding the cacao fruit pulp in a Jamaican supermarket in Queens, Max decided to open the Blue Stripes Cacao Shop in Manhattan. Blue Stripes since expanded to supermarkets with products using whole cacao, such as chocolate bars, chocolate covered cacao beans, cacao water, granola, trail mix, and dried cacao fruit.
Natural Sweetener Used: Coconut sugar
Dr. Bronner’sThird generation German-Jewish soapmaker Emanuel Bronner Known formed Dr. Bronner’s in 1948 with his liquid peppermint soap and health food seasonings. The soaps and seasonings both contained a label which said “We are All-One or None!” Over 70 years later, Dr. Bronner’s remains a family-owned business and continues with its founders vision of selling high quality socially and environmentally responsible products as well as donating their profits to various social and environmental causes. They make a wide variety of hygiene items, including soaps, hand sanitizers, tooth pastes, and balms. In the recent years, they’ve expanded into regeneratively grown foods. In 2018, along with The Rodale Institute and Patagonia, they co-founded the Regenerative Organic Alliance to certify products as regenerative organic. Dr. Bronner’s has the first Regenerative Organic Certified coconut oil. And last year, they launched a line of regenerative dark chocolate bars in six different flavors.
Natural Sweetener Used: Coconut sugar
Elements TrufflesBefore being in the chocolate business, Elements Truffles founder Alak Vasa was a Wall Street trader who began meditation as she felt something in her life was missing. Meditating made her more conscious of the food she was eating. She noticed she was reincorporating parts of the Ayurvedic lifestyle, a sister science to yoga, which was a big part of her life growing up. This led to her creating a line of chocolates handcrafted with cacao, honey, Ayurveda superfoods, and pure essential oils. Elements’ ingredients all come from Fair Trade manufacturers strongly aligned with their ethos. They currently have several collections of uniquely flavored chocolate bars, truffles, cacao nibs, and hot chocolate mixes.
Natural Sweetener Used: Honey
Endorfin FoodsWhen Brian Wallace snacked on whole cacao beans from a Theobroma tree, he realized the chocolate he’d been eating his entire life was over-processed and diluted with refined sugar and milk. This inspired Brian to create a new chocolate which would mix classical European technology, and the ways cultures in America had used cacao for thousands of years. After Brian himself took many years to come up with the perfect recipe, Endorfin Foods was born. Endorfin has several different lines of bars, including ones with dark chocolate, ones with coconut milk, and ones of single origin from the countries of Columbia, the Dominican Republic, and Ecuador.
Natural Sweetener Used: Coconut sugar
EvolvedRick Gusmano and Christine Cusano had both been able to reverse many of their lifelong health problems by switching to the paleo diet. After following the diet for a couple years, they one day attempted to concoct a paleo friendly dessert. The result was their first batch of truffles. Realizing there’s nothing else like this on the market, they decided to create Evolved. They now have a large lineup of dark chocolates, including 12 types of dark chocolate bars, nut butter cups, keto cups, and chocolate chips.
Natural Sweetener Used: Coconut sugar
Fine & RawFine & Raw originates out of a loft in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. Artist Daniel Sklaar tried his hand at making chocolate and sharing it with his friends. He then began delivering the chocolates on his bike to local shops. Sustainability has always been important to Daniel. He has a direct relationship with farmers co-ops in Ghana and Ecuador. He supports farmers committed to fair labor and making positive contributions to their communities. Plus the farmers are involved in organic and sustainable land management practices. Fine & Raw’s items consist of chocolate bars and truffles of various flavors.
Natural Sweetener Used: Coconut sugar
GoodioWhile working as game developer at Rovio, the company best known for Angry Birds, Goodio founder Jukka Peltola was looking at ways to eat healthier. As he tried to find alternatives to sugary and salty snacks, he added raw cacao to his diet and removed dairy. By consuming it raw, the cacao remained all of its nutrients. This resulted in him feeling livelier, lighter, and more energetic. After telling his friends, family, and colleagues about his new diet and lifestyle, they wanted to build a company which value purpose over profit. The cacao is sourced from farms in South America and Africa. It’s then stone ground in Helsinki, where Goodio is based. They have regular chocolate bars and bars with oats known as ChocOat bars.
Natural Sweetener Used: Coconut sugar
Hu KitchenThe story of Hu Kitchen begins with the three founders, Jordan Brown, Jason Karp, and Jessica Karp, all wanting to improve their health. Jordan did extensive reading on health and wellness. Jason had successfully overcome autoimmune disease himself. Jordan left the corporate world to devote himself full time to nutrition and food. The three researched the gut-brain connection, what causes inflammation, and the effects of foods and additives have on our health, immunity, and performance. They concluded processed ingredients needed to be replaced with basic and healthier alternatives. And the food brand of Hu Kitchen was born. They now offer different flavored chocolate bars, chocolate covered fruits and nuts, and chocolate gems.
Natural Sweetener Used: Coconut sugar
Lulu’s ChocolateLulu’s Chocolate is named after its founder, who thought giving up sugar included giving up chocolate. Then Lulu discovered a cacao tree in Hawaii. She wanted to share her joy of organic dark chocolate with world to let them know about the whole food it truly is. Lulu’s began as a cottage business and then expanded to the national brand it is now. They have chocolate bars with different flavors plus maca butter cups and truffles.
Natural Sweetener Used: Coconut sugar
MOMOs CBDOver thirty years ago, MOMOs CBD founder Mo George-Payette went from being a chef to an advocate for ethically sourced and sustainable products and organizations. Cacao, hemp, and herbalism are three areas in the natural product industry which she’s most passionate about. It’s also very important to Mo that the ingredients used are organic, non-GMO, and fair trade. MOMOs’ organic cacao is sourced from a co-op in the San Martin region of Peru. For their CBD, they partner with a Colorado-based broad spectrum hemp CBD. The CBD has been lab tested to assure it has 0% levels of THC. Their CBD chocolate is available six varieties.
Natural Sweetener Used: Coconut sugar
ZazubeanThe origins of Zazubean start with a group of women on a bike trip at an island off the coast of British Columbia. Coincidentally, everybody in the group brought their favorite chocolate to keep their energy up as they pedaled along on the journey. All of the women then delved into a conversation about quality chocolate with the question of whether chocolate could follow ethical standards and be both healthy and tasty. After returning home, Zazubean co-founder Tiziana Ienna began concocting high quality chocolate with super powered ingredients. As her background was as a physiologist, she wanted to develop nutritionally dense recipes which promote a balance lifestyle. Co-founder Tara Gilbert soon joined Tiziana and brought her passion for social justice and sustainable business practices along to Zazubean. The two working together led to creating fair trade chocolate bars which are good for the environment, the chocolate growers, and people’s health. Zazubean has a series of naturally sweetened chocolate bars with seven different flavors.
Natural Sweetener Used: Coconut sugar
For my last post about food to serve while watching the big game with the pig skin, it’s literally about pig skins. National Pork Rind Appreciation Day always takes place the same day as the Super Bowl. The sharing of the day is likely for a number of reasons. While today all pro and collegiate footballs are made from cowhide leather, they were once derived from pigs. And the football is often still called the “pig skin”. Plus a carnivorous food like pork rinds fits well with the toughness of the game of football.
Pork rinds have a number of health benefits. The rinds are a great source of glycine, an essential amino acid which many don’t get enough of in their diet. Glycine is important for your skin, joints as well as for stabilizing your blood and helping you sleep.
Another advantage of pork skins are they’re carbohydrate free. As we snack on lots of food while watching the Super Bowl, pork rinds make a great substitution for carb heavy snacks such as potato chips, tortilla chips, and crackers. With more people turning to paleo and ketogenic diets, there’s been a rise on the market for pork rinds.
Like any product, it’s important to choose pork rinds which are sustainably sourced. Many pork skin products out there like to market that they’re paleo or keto, yet they used factory farmed pigs or add chemicals to their product. Some are even cooked in omega-6 oils instead of lard. While a lot is still misunderstood about the wonderful fat called lard, I’d think somebody who likes to eat pig skins wouldn’t have an issue of them being cooked in the fat from pigs.
Fortunately, there are a number of pork rind brands whose owners source from humanely raised pigs and are free of unnatural and chemical ingredients.
4505 Meats4505 Meats was originally a whole animal meat company in San Francisco, founded in 2009 by chef and butcher Ryan Farr. Since the beginning, Ryan was frying pig skins at home to make extra money selling them at farmers markets and to local bars. The rinds soon become a legend in the city as people passionately dubbed them “crispy clouds of porkaliciousness”. Now 4505 has a wide variety of pork rinds. The varieties include multiple flavors of their Chicharrones made from skin of the pig’s back and bellies and their Cracklins made from skin of the pig’s shoulder with the fat still attached. 4505 Meats also a product called Crumbles, which are breadcrumbs made from pork skins, and a snack mix of their Chicharrones, Cracklins, and Whisps Cheese Crisps. Additionally, Ryan runs the restaurant 4505 Burgers & BBQ, where he partners with ranchers who raise their livestock humanely. Ryan has authored the books Sausage Making and Whole Beast Butchery.
Epic ProvisionsWhen EPIC Provisions first began, its founders Katie Forrest and Taylor Collins were vegetarians. They were experiencing gastrointestinal and inflammatory health issues due to the high fat, low carbs, soy, and other highly processed proteins. They then went vegan, only making matters worse. And being raw foodists didn’t improve anything. They finally began looking at the foods eaten by our ancestors and following what’s now known as the paleo diet, focusing on animal fats, grass fed protein, and leafy vegetables. Within a few months, they were stronger, faster, and leaner than they had ever been before. It was easy for them to cook healthy meals at home, but they couldn’t find any pre-packaged nutrient dense animal products in the supermarkets. They needed these for when they traveled, exercised, or worked. Their plan was to create the 100% grass fed meat, fruit, and nut bar. Katie and Taylor called their product EPIC, because the bars were about animals being pasture raised in humane conditions, regenerating our bodies, and healing the land. The EPIC line began expanding into many other products, including traditional jerkys made of beef, pork, and chicken. Among the pork offerings are pork rinds in multiples flavors in their different varieties of fried pork rinds, oven baked pork rinds, and pork cracklings.
Field TripIn 2010, three friends in a New York City apartment agreed they needed to change the meat snack world after tasting craft jerky on a ski trip in Vermont. This led to them forming Field Trip. Founders Tom Donigan, Matt Levey, and Scott Fiesinger all felt it was important not only to come up with protein-rich snacks which are healthy, but also ones which were high quality and tasted great. After starting with jerky, Field Trip expanded into other types of meat snacks. This includes their pork rinds in the flavors of parmesan peppercorn, island BBQ, and sweet chipotle.
Pork King Good Pork King Good started in 2018 with the mission to place low carb and high protein snack foods on the market. They were proud to cook their rinds in their own pork fat and contain only clean labels with no artificial ingredients, colors of flavors. In 2022, Pork King Good was acquired by the 74-year-old The Porkie Company of Wisconsin. This purchase made Pork King Good become the only woman-owned pork rind manufacturing company in the United States. Pork King Good has 10 different flavors of pork rings, along pork rind breadcrumbs, seasonings, and pickled eggs and sausages.
Sonoma CreameryFounded in 1931, Sonoma Creamery was inspired by the amazing agriculture of Sonoma, CA’s Wine Country. Since then, they’ve gone by the simple concept of using the best milk and producing the highest quality cheese. Currently Sonoma Creamery’s focus has been on making healthier snacks by including a few simple handcrafted quality ingredients. Their products contain cheese from hormone free dairy and organic ancient grains. Their products are also all free of preservatives and artificial ingredients. Their Cheese Crisps and Cheese O’s were introduced in 2014. Soon Sonoma Creamery will be releasing their line of pork rinds which they combine with their cheese crisps, using real cheese.
I’ve spent the past four articles on Super Bowl parties covering the food. Now it’s time to get into beverages. After beer, the most popular beverages on Super Bowl Sunday are soft drinks. A total of $979 million is spent on soft drinks every year.
Conventional soda pop is also one of the unhealthiest drinks. It’s loaded with sugars. And high fructose corn syrup at that. Additionally, conventional pops lack any nutritional value. Fortunately, one of the fastest growing subcategories of natural products and natural beverages is prebiotic and probiotic soda pops. These products were founded by people who loved a good soft drink, but wanted something healthier.
As both prebiotics and probiotics are used by different companies to make these healthy and functional soda pops, the question arises as to what’s the difference between prebiotics and probiotics. Here it is. Prebiotics are plant fiber which feed your good bacteria. Probiotics are living bacteria which add on to the amount of good bacteria in your digestive system. Both are beneficial and necessary to maintain good digestion. The functional soda pop manufacturers have many different reasons for why they chose to go with prebiotics or probiotics.
Along with prebiotics and probiotics, a number of other functional ingredients are used from kombucha cultures to apple cider vinegar to ginger. Many of these sodas use cane sugar while some use only natural sweeteners such as stevia, monkfruit, or fruit juice. The people who founded these businesses are also very diverse. Some came from the kombucha industry and wanted to delve into different kinds of natural beverages. Others who created these healthier pops include a gastroenterologist and a founder of a non-profit to end trafficking.
Here are the best prebiotic and probiotic soda pops:
PrebioticHealth-AdeDaina Trout founded Health-Ade in 2012 with her husband Justin Trout and best friend Vanessa Dew. Daina learned how to make kombucha while earning her masters in nutrition and public health at Tufts University. The trio began selling their kombucha at farmers markets in Los Angeles and soon Health-Ade became the fastest selling kombucha in the country. Daina’s goal had always been to brew the best tasting and highest quality kombucha on the market. More recently, Health-Ade expanded its line to probiotic mixers and the prebiotic drink Health-Ade Pop. They decided to go with prebiotics for their Pop label since both probiotics and prebiotics are important to include in your gut and they had probiotics in their kombucha. The Health-Ade Pop flavors mostly incorporate fruits such as lemon lime and pomegranate berry, but mix in other ingredients in some of the pops such as strawberry vanilla and ginger fizz.
OlipopFor over a decade, Ben Goodwin and David Lester both shared the vision of a healthier and tastier future. So they set out on a odyssey to make a product which would change how people felt about soda pop. This journey led them to forming Olipop. Their idea was a thoughtfully crafted tonic which relied on wholesome hardworking ingredients for its taste as opposed to loads of sugar. In order to accomplish the product they had in mind, they put together a global team of pioneers in the field of gut microbiome research. Ben and David were specifically looking for researchers with knowledge in digestive health, prebiotic structures, model gut systems, and gut microbiome-supportive nutritional strategies. Some of the Olipop flavors include traditional styles of soda pop, such as cola and root beer, while others contain fruits mixed with various ingredients, such as cherry vanilla and ginger lemon.
PoppiPoppi began with co-founder Allison Ellsworth learning about apple cider vinegar in hopes that it could cure her chronic health issues. She and her husband Stephen decided to experiment in their kitchen by mixing fresh fruit juice with apple cider vinegar. After drinking ACV every day for a week, her symptoms were gone. Seeing that it worked for her, she felt others would be interested in this breakthru beverage. So the two began bottling up the drinks and offering them at Dallas farmers markets. They developed a loyal following with the beverages quickly selling out every weekend. Next they received an investment on Shark Tank and rebranded to the name Poppi to sell their soda pop. Alison and Stephen use prebiotics in the ingredients as they’re more shelf stable than probiotics. Poppi has a wide variety of options from numerous fruits and fruit combination to their versions of soda pop, which are cola, root beer, and Dr. Pepper.
RebblBefore Dave Batstone co-founded REBBL, he founded the non-profit organization Not for Sale. While being part of this non-profit, Dave met with thought leaders from around the world to develop a sustainable business solution for the human trafficking in Peru. From this gathering, came the idea of producing a beverage with native ingredients from economically deprived regions. Dave and the other leaders felt by providing these communities with new opportunities to contribute positively to the global economy, they would also reduce the risk of trafficking and exploitation. Dave then set out to find somebody with passion and experience in natural products to help this concept come to life. This such person was Palo Hawken, who loved herbalism and botanical beverage and co-founded REBBL. REBBL stands for roots, extracts, botanicals, and love. The company could also be described as a REBBL with a cause. Their first product was elixirs where 2.5% of the net sales from every bottle were donated to Not for Sale. Since then, REBBL has ventured into cold brew coffee and prebiotic pop. They went with a prebiotic pop as they found the formula easier to develop than a probiotic one. The majority of REBBL’s pops are fruit flavors, but they also have a root beer.
TurvedaTurveda co-founder Dev Chakrabarty was always slightly addicted to the conventional soda pop. As he grew older, he started taking functional shots. Then one day Dev was drinking a Dr. Pepper in his grad school class and an idea came to him. He realized it was time to reinvent the conventional unhealthy soda pop and make it better for your gut and brain by using real plants and spices. So Dev teamed up with his gastroenterologist father Dr. Milan S. Chakrabarty, M.D. to create a soda using ingredients which are scientifically proven to improve digestive health and boost immunity. The Chakrabarty’s referred to this as Super Soda. Super Soda combines superfoods and soda pop to provide about 20% of your daily fiber and all the benefits found in a wellness shot, instead of large amounts of soda and citric acid. The functional ingredients added to the fruits in the beverages come from the founders’ Indian culture and consist of spices such as turmeric, cinnamon, and ginger. Dev and Milan went with prebiotics because some heat is applied to the spices they add and probiotics would be destroyed by the heat.
VinaTen years ago, Vina founder Alex Matthews was into juicing before it had caught on with the mainstream. While he was sipping liquified leafy greens at a hippie juice bar, he then realized he wasn’t the only one. So Alex opened Juice Served Here in Los Angeles in 2012. Next he started a creative studio known as Here Studio, an all day cafe called Highly Likely, and a tepache brand named De La Calle. And then most recently Alex launched Vina, which he refers to as a soda with smarts. By Smarts, Alex is referring to the fiber, minerals, and apple cider vinegar he includes with every beverage to give them both functionality and flavors. As probiotics have a flavor of their own, Vina uses prebiotics because they don’t have any flavor. So consumers can focus on the ingredients themselves in the Vina drinks, which consist of a number of different fruits plus a ginger flavored one.
ProbioticCulture PopHaving worked in the kombucha world, Culture Pop Soda founder Tom First set out to reinvent carbonated drinks by concocting a soda with probiotics along with other functional ingredients and a small amount of sweetness. Their beverages contain organic fruit juices, ground organic herbs & spices, and live probiotics consisting of billions of bacterial cells. The sweetness comes exclusively from the organic fruit juices. No artificial sweeteners, refined sugars, or even natural sweeteners are added. Culture Pop sells seven different flavors, all containing fruits or fruit combinations.
HummHumm originated from a conversation at the dinner table. Michelle Mitchell was a kombucha home brewer who spent years perfecting her mother-in-law’s recipe. Her friend Jamie Danek took one sip and said it was so amazing that she could sell it to everybody. They first called the company Kombucha Mama, where it was brewed out of Michelle’s kitchen and delivered door-to-door in a Prius. Then Michelle and Jamie began selling it at the farmers market in Bend, OR and developing new flavors. This gave way to them being able to deliver it in a van and series of larger and larger facilities they continually moved into. Along with a change in facility location came the brand name change to Humm, which they felt was more universal and inclusive. Michelle and Jamie also moved into other versions of kombuchas, a zero sugar and a Whole 30, and probiotic seltzer and probiotic soda. Their sodas are made of raw kombucha, allulose syrup, and fruits flavors in the choices of lemon lime or berry cream.
Live BeveragesIn 2013, Trevor Ross originally made his first Live Beverages as a way to help his father kick his soda addiction. Instead of taking aways his dad’s soda pop altogether, Trevor came up with a soda substitute which tasted like cola. He also felt that making kombucha with pop flavors would help differentiate his kombucha from others in what had became a very saturated market. So Trevor was able to take his drinks made for his father and sell them to help millions of other people make better decisions. Since devising the cola kombucha, Live Beverages now has numerous kombuchas with soda pop flavors. Some of the other kombucha versions of traditional pop are root beer, cream soda, Dr. Pepper, cherry cola, and lemon lime. Live Beverages also produces a probiotic tea.
ReviveRevive was born based on the idea of making a drink which is both good for you and tastes good. Founders Sean and Rebekah Lovett liked soda, but soda didn’t like them. At the time, Rebekah was working at Whole Foods and introduced Sean to kombucha to help him kick his soda pop addiction. He didn’t like the taste, but he loved the positive effects it had on his body. To make a kombucha Sean and Rebekah liked, they began brewing some in their garage. They then pedaled the kombucha on their bikes 20 miles to a local farmers market. From there, the Lovett’s were able to move the business into a commercial brewing facility and sell it regionally. Today, Revive can also be found through a number of major online retailers. Revive also has probiotic seltzers and probiotic pops, making a healthier version of the beverage which got them into kombucha brewing in the first place. The two types of soda pop Sean and Rebekah currently produce are root beer and cherry cola.
Continuing with popular foods served at Super Bowl parties, we come to chips and other salty treats. These are the most popular foods of all found at parties for the big game. Among the money the salty snack industry rakes in: $278 million is spent on potato chips, $224 million on tortilla chips, and $86 million on popcorn. But the next day, many Americans pay the price for the Standard American Diet. Antacid sales go up 20%. And 1.5 million people call in sick to work.
The biggest problem facing snack products such as potato chips, tortilla chips, popcorn has been the use of seed soils such as canola and soybean oil. Another problem has been ingredients which aren’t organic and are sprayed with multiple pesticides. In the case of tortilla chips, that also means genetically modified corn.
The good news is over the past decade, there’s been a huge growth in snacks foods using real ingredients. These products use healthy oils including avocado, coconut, and palm oil. The manufacturers are responsible about the other ingredients they source too. Many of them are certified organic. Some of the companies give us better versions of the classic potato chips and popcorn. Others do more contemporary takes using ingredients such as sweet potatoes, cassava flour, and coconut flour to come up with twists on the traditional potato and tortilla chips. These alternative flours are great for anybody who has issues consuming grains.
If you serve any of these better snacks foods below at your Super Bowl party this year, you’ll score a touchdown. In alphabetical order, here are the 12 best snack foods using real ingredients:
Artisan TropicArtisan Tropic began in 2012 when the Guzmans’ daughter Maca was diagnosed with autoimmune disease. They tried all types of medicine for treatment, resulting the holistic methods working the best. This led to the Guzmans becoming passionate about food and nutrition and deciding to produce healthy snacks. As they’re Colombian, they wanted to reinvent the plantain and cassava snacks, which they loved, by making them with whole and clean ingredients. Most recently, Maca married the plantain farmer’s son Joe Agudelo. Now Artisan Tropic’s entire process from farm to snack is literally in the family. Their products are cassava and plantain strips cooked in palm oil, in the flavors of naturally sweet, sea salt plantain strips, jalapeño, and barbecue.
Boulder CanyonIn 1994, brothers John and Mark Maggio founded Boulder Canyon to create snacks which were both healthy and delicious. The two learned how to make potato chips and soon started frying them in better oils, such as avocado oil. Boulder Canyon’s potato chips come in both ridged and thin textures and in the flavors sea salt, malt vinegar and sea salt, and cheddar sour cream.
Good HealthGood Health has been around the longest of any of the chips here, dating back to 1994. They pride themselves on innovative ingredients and great tasting tasting flavors. Their slogan is “Enjoy Being Good”. Good Health makes a number of avocado oil potato chip flavors from sea salt to lime ranch to barbecue. They also have baked organic cheese puffs and cheese fries with cheese sourced from Organic Valley.
HardbiteOriginating in British Columbia, Hardbite founder Pete Schouten was determined to handcraft an all natural chip which tasted as good as the big brands but didn’t have any artificial flavors or preservatives. Pete experimented with cooking them until he got the perfect crunch, taste, and flavor. Along with using all natural ingredients, he was an advocate of non-GMO before the movement was well known. Hardbite also buys the highest quality potatoes from local farmers. As the company has grown, Pete has expanded its product line. More recently, Hardbite introduced its potato chips cooked in avocado oil, coming in the flavors of apple cider vinegar, black truffle sea salt, spicy honey dijon, and sweet ghost pepper.
Jackson’s ChipsThe story of Jackson’s Chips starts with the Megan and Scott Reamers’ son Jackson getting diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disorder. After trying various methods to improve his health and quality of life, they found that a high fat low carb diet worked the best. The entire family began living a HFLC lifestyle, but they missed eating snack foods. So they attempted cooking locally sourced and thinly sliced sweet potatoes over their stovetop. They loved how the sweet potato chips tasted. Their son Jackson’s legacy lives on through the chips he inspired and the company. Jackson’s Chips has sweet potatoes fried in avocado oil in the flavors of sea salt, spicy tomatillo, and carolina BBQ plus a coconut oil sea salt option.
KiwaKiwa founder Martin Acosta had a calling to change the world. At the beginning, he had just five employees and basic plantain chip machinery, but he also had a room filled with dreams. It took the company a year and a half to figure out what exactly they were going to do, to put the basics of the business into practice, and to get selling. In 2009, Kiwa introduced their first product, the vegetable chips mix. Presently, Kiwa is a global leader with their vegetable chips sold in over 30 countries. They take part in the Direct Trade program. This program connects farmers to manufacturers, building long term trusting relationships between the two sides, guaranteeing better working conditions, technical support, and a higher pay for the farmers. Kiwa has also shifted from its traditional farming practices to regenerative agriculture. They work directly with farmers in eight of Ecuador’s 24 provinces and northern regions of Peru. Kiwa’s offerings are mixed vegetable, plantain, and cassava chips.
JansSince 1998, Jans Enterprises‘ mission has been to improve people’s quality of life by providing them with better food products. Their product line consists of everything from beverages to dairy products to desserts to chips. Among Jans’ chips are organic yellow and purple sweet potato chips fried in coconut oil. Jans also has non-GMO cassava chips mixed root chips cooked in palm oil.
Lesser EvilPresident and CEO Charles Coristine came to Lesser Evil as he thought it could be a great opportunity to have the company carry out his practices of mindfulness and healthy living, not to mention he loved the name. He saw the goal of Lesser Evil as creating organic, sustainably made delicious snacks that inspire mindful snacking. Examples of their sustainable practices are the energy efficient facility they own, composting their food waste, and packaging the products in NEO Plastics. Lesser Evil produces a wide line of snack foods cooked in either coconut oil, avocado oil, or olive oil. The snacks range in everything from organic popcorn to cassava flour puffs and curls to veggie sticks to paleo cookies.
MasaUnsatisfied with all of the chips on the market, Ancient Crunch founder Steven A. set out to create a chips with two simple requirements. First, the corn must be naturally grown and the tortillas must be naturally prepared. Second, the tortillas need to be free of any inflammatory seed oils. So he came up with MASA, the first tortilla chips made with both organic corn and grass fed tallow. Steven is now working on his next project known as vandy crisps.
Pop Art SnacksPop Art Snacks founder Mike and Venessa Dobson both come from an art background. Their company is all about making snacks not just healthy but also fun. They add that they do for snack food what Andy Warhol did for Campbell’s soup cans. Pop Art’s products take the traditional popcorn snack and elevate it into a savory “taste of art”. Their products are all sourced with organic and natural ingredients. Pop Art’s popcorn comes in bold flavors, including cheddar jalapeno, Hawaiian sea salt, and dill pickle ranch. All of those flavors are with kernels cooked in avocado oil.
PopzupFounders Julie & Marty Lapham created Popzup with the purpose of offering a healthy snack which is better both for the people and the planet. Popzup has popcorn made with pure and simple ingredients which are sourced at least 50% from the local community and 100% within the eastern United States. Their cleverly named popcorn flavors are butter me up, cheddar head, cheesie herbie, and maple cinnamon toast. Popzup also sells popcorn kernels and seasonings.
SieteSiete‘s formation can be traced to founder Veronica Garza’s family of seven (or siete in Spanish) helping her overcome numerous health challenges. As a teen, Veronica was diagnosed with multiple autoimmune conditions which made her fatigued, overweight, and depressed. So her family began exercising and joined her in following a low-inflammation, grain free diet. Being a Mexican American family in South Texas, using lettuce in place of the flour and corn tortillas for tacos and fajitas wasn’t cutting it. Veronica began making grain free tortillas. When her Grandmother Campos told her that the grain free tortillas tasted better than the flour tortillas her grandmother had been making for decades, Veronica knew she had a winning product she could sell on the market. The first products were tortillas and tortilla chips made from cassava flour and fried in avocado oil. Siete has since expanded into avocado oil potato chips and even sauces, seasonings, churro strips, and cookies. Their tortillas and potato chips are available in a wide variety of flavors.
https://appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-flackers-020823.mp3Super Bowl Sunday is coming up this weekend. Appropriate Omnivore host Aaron Zober loves this holiday both due to it being the big game for his favorite sport plus a time when he can serve all of his favorite sustainable snack foods. This year’s Super Bowl episode focuses on crackers with Donn Kelly, co-founder of The Dr. in the Kitchen, maker of Flackers flax seed crackers. Donn co-founded the company with Dr. Alison Levitt M.D. as she did integrative medicine and had clients on the side. The focus of Flackers is gluten free crackers made with sprouted seeds. Flackers also recently launched a line made with the ancient grain fonio. Donn talks about the process of making a great tasting cracker and the importance of Flackers’ various certifications. Plus Donn gets into what products we can expect from Flackers in the future. And Don and Aaron discuss what to pair Flackers with at your Super Bowl parties this Sunday.
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This Super Bowl Sunday, over 100 million people will be throwing parties to watch the big game. At these parties, hosts will be serving smorgasbords of everybody’s favorite treats. After chips & dip, wings, and pizza, the most popular food is cheese & crackers.
Conventional crackers contain several of the denatured foods which contribute to the Standard American Diet and make people unhealthy. Crackers typically have refined flour along with baker’s yeast, which lacks nutritional value. Spraying glyphosate is common among conventional wheat growers. Many crackers use rancid vegetable oils, such as canola and soybean oil. Additionally, conventional crackers often contain synthetic vitamins, fillers, stabilizers, and GMOs.
In the recent years, we’ve seen companies pop up who offer healthier crackers with better ingredients . The methods of making better crackers vary from sourdough to ancient grains to gluten free to grain free. All of these types of crackers have benefits for different reasons. For my selections, it’s also important that the crackers are organic, free of seed oils, and contain simple and clean ingredients.
In alphabetical order, here are the 10 best organic crackers with basic ingredients:
FlackersDr. Alison Levitt M.D. co-founded the company The Dr. in the Kitchen with the mission to improve her patients’ diets by eating nutrient dense, organic foods. Dr. Alison worked nonstop to concoct a great tasting crackers made only from flax seeds and a few simple organic ingredients. Her product became known as Flackers flax seed crackers. Over 10 years later, co-founder and CEO Donn Kelly continues that mission of creating clean snacks which are good for both our health and our planet. Their gluten free crackers come in three categories: classic flax seed, toasted seed crisps, and flax & fonio. The first two are grain free while the last uses the ancient grain fonio. Fonio is a gluten free grain native to West Africa. The crackers are seasoned with organic herbs and spices to make such flavors as sea salt, rosemary, cinnamon & currants, tomato & basil, garden vegetable, and everything.
Georgia SourdoughComing from 25 years in the restaurant industry, Georgia Sourdough founder and baker Tracy Gibbon knows the importance of clean and healthy food. While on a summer trip to the supermarket with her niece, Tracy began looking at the ingredients on snack crackers. She noticed the basic ingredients were surrounded by bizarre and hard to pronounce words. Melissa attempted to explain the problems of conventionally farmed food and GMOs to her sister. Her sister responded that she doesn’t have time to think about every ingredient and just needs to think they’re safe. What Melissa’s sister said opened Tracy eyes. Tracy then set out to create a company serving modern day healthy food which people know is safe. Her snacks use organic ingredients made with the ancient process of sourdough making. Tracy’s crackers are all baked with the sourdough starter she used at the beginning. Georgia Sourdough crackers come in the flavors of sea salt, rosemary olive oil, cheese, everything, and cinnamon sugar.
Hu KitchenThe story of Hu Kitchen begins with the three founders, Jordan Brown, Jason Karp, and Jessica Karp, all wanting to improve their health. Jordan did extensive reading on health and wellness. Jason had successfully overcome autoimmune disease himself. Jordan left the corporate world to devote himself full time to nutrition and food. The three researched the gut-brain connection, what causes inflammation, and the effects of foods and additives have on our health, immunity, and performance. They concluded processed ingredients needed to be replaced with basic and healthier alternatives. And the food brand of Hu Kitchen was born. Their products range from chocolates to snacks such as grain free cookies and grain free crackers. The crackers use a flour blend of almond, cassava, and coconut and offered in the flavors of sea salt, everything, and pizza.
JovialJovial Foods Inc. was founded by the husband and wife team of Carla and Rodolfo Bertolucci. Both were born into families of talented home cooks. Food played an important role in their childhoods. When they discovered their daughter had gluten sensitivities, they felt it may be due to the changes in wheat and other plants. Looking at food’s past, they learned about nature’s original wheat einkorn. At the time, this ancient grain was nearly extinct. Carla and Rodolfo realized they had to bring it back to help other families. As they were both professionals in the organic food industry, they were able to revive it for the Jovial brand. Jovial sells einkorn flours, pasta, cookies, and crackers. Their einkorn crackers are baked with an organic sourdough and are found in the varieties of sea salt, rosemary, and everything. Jovial also has gluten free and grain free pastas along with jarred tomatoes, beans, and olive oil.
Julian BakerySince 1990, Julian Bakery has offered products which are free of gluten, grains, and GMOs. They cater to all styles of eating, including paleo, keto, vegetarian, and vegan. Julian Bakery has a wide range of products, including bread, crackers, cookies, brownies, granola, protein bars, and monk fruit. They have a Paleo Thin cracker salt & pepper cracker made with almond flour and cassava flour and a Primal Thin parmesan cracker made with tapioca flour.
Mary’s Gone CrackersThe story of Mary’s Gone Crackers begins with founder Mary Waldner one day figuring out how to make great tasting snacks out of only whole, plant based ingredients. The love for Mary’s crackers went far beyond her kitchen, so she felt inspired to leave her successful career and follow her passion. She prides her crackers on being minimally processed and containing consciously and sustainably sourced ingredients. She sees it as important to keep both ourselves and our planet healthy. Mary’s Crackers partners with the organizations The California Ricelands Waterbird Foundation, Palm Done Right, SAVE the BEE, and SowNaked. The crackers are a mix of rice flour, quinoa, flax seeds and sesame seeds plus other ingredients depending on the flavor. Mary’s also has super seed cracker using the same mix plus sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and poppy seeds.
Rustic BakeryRustic Bakery founders Carol LeValley and Josh Harris always had a passion for the simple sourdough flatbread crackers they’d bake for their friends. After a 2005 visit to the Cowgirl Creamery Outlet at the San Francisco Ferry Building, they told the Creamery’s owner that their cheese belongs on artisan crackers. With the Cowgirls’ first bite into the flatbread, they were ready to order 50 cases. Carol and Josh then searched for a commercial kitchen in their hometown of Marin county. They learned about a wine bar in Larkspur with an unused bakery in the back. They ended up buying the entire space and used the wine bar to serve coffee and croissants along with their crackers. Then in 2006, Rustic Bakery exhibited at the Winter Fancy Food Show, which was then held in San Francisco. Buyers all across the country took interest in their flatbread. Rustic Bakery now has 4 cafes and 28 products, including artisan crisps and flatbread cookies. They have regular sourdough flatbread crackers and a smaller version known as flatbread bites. Rustic Bakery’s flatbread flavors are olive oil & sel, rosemary & olive oil, sweet onion & creme fraiche, and everything spice.
The Greater Goods Snacking Co.While shopping in the snack aisle for her children, The Greater Goods Snacking Co. founder Sujatha Duvvuri was upset to see that the selections were either unhealthy or bland. As a mother she felt the need for families to have whole and fun snacks which are also flavorful and tasty. So Sujatha got to work in her kitchen to figure out how to make “greater-for-you” grain free biscotti, cookies, and crackers with organic ingredients. The crackers are a made with almond flour, dried tapioca, arrowroot powder, and psyllium husk and come in the choices of sea salt, caramelized onion, and tangy tomato & basil. Presently Greater Goods supports women around the globe to also be able to provide for their families. Greater Goods is committed to employing women at entry level positions and strengthening the female workforce in India, which is currently only at 19%.
The Sourdough ProjectThe Sourdough Project begins with founders Jen & Danny El-Azzi being overwhelmed with baking loaves of sourdough bread. So they decided try their hands at other types of sourdough baked goods, including crackers. As the crackers were a hit with everybody from their immediate family to their friends to their co-workers, Jen & Danny began selling them at the farmers market. This led to moving into an organic kitchen and selling in supermarkets. The heirloom wheat for The Sourdough Project is grown organically in Texas and fresh milled for them. Jen & Danny continue to make the cracker by hand so they can pay attention to every detail. Their crackers are available in the flavors for sea salt, dilly, everything, sun dried tomato & herb, beet & thyme, whole wheat, & za’atar.
Top SeedzNew Zealand tennis pro Rebecca Brady always baked crackers to bring to her tournaments. When she and her husband moved to New York, she would offer them as hostess gifts. Soon she found herself selling them at farmers markets. Rebecca was fortunate to have a buyer from Wegman’s taste it there and put it in his stores. Other supermarkets soon followed. Top Seedz crackers consist of a seed mix of sesame, sunflower, flax, and pumpkin plus cornstarch and other seeds depending on the flavors. The flavors are sea salt, 6-seed, rosemary, and cumin. Paying it forward is also important for Rebecca. Her 11 employees are all female refugees from diverse countries such as Burundi, Somalia, Eritrean, Cabinda and Afghanistan.
https://appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-99c-020123.mp3The Appropriate Omnivore kicks off its new season in 2023, talking about what else? Locally sourced meat. Aaron welcomes Nick Wallace, co-founder of 99 Counties, to the program. 99 Counties delivers local and sustainable beef, pork, and poultry to the front doors of people living in the midwest. Nick tells his story of overcoming serious health issues as he had a father who worked with farmers in the organic industry and learned about the Weston A. Price Foundation. This led Nick to do local farming using traditional grazing methods and starting 99 Counties. 99 Counties sees regenerative agriculture as the key to solving many of our problems. Nick explains how he defines regenerative agriculture. Aaron then asks Nick about where we can see 99 Counties expanding as a far as both territories and other products, including produce, prepared foods, and honey.
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It’s December and the holidays will be happening before we know it. As part of the tradition, many will partake in eating lots of candy. The winter holidays are third in terms of candy sales, only behind Halloween and Valentine’s Day. When it comes to eating candy, it’s important to choose organic and sustainably sourced confections.
Organic candies contain cane sugar instead of GMO sugar or high fructose corn syrup. They also use natural ingredients for color and flavors, natural waxes, and more heat stable oils. Plus being certified organic means it has non-GMO ingredients which weren’t sprayed with any pesticides such as glyphosate. Additionally, the organic candy companies source their ingredients from farms where the workers are treated fairly and paid a fair price for their work.
In terms of holiday candies, I searched all of the organic candy businesses to see who had products which were holiday related in one way or another. One element I was looking for was ingredients associated with winter time, such as peppermint or gingerbread. Another type of candy which could make my list is winter season or holiday related shapes, such as a snowman, a Christmas tree, or coins known as Hanukkah gelt. And of course, what would the holidays be without candy canes?
In alphabetical order, here are the 12 best organic candies you can buy for the holidays:
Dr. Bronner’sThird generation German-Jewish soapmaker Emanuel Bronner Known formed Dr. Bronner’s in 1948 with his liquid peppermint soap and health food seasonings. The soaps and seasonings both contained a label which said “We are All-One or None!” Over 70 years later, Dr. Bronner’s remains a family-owned business and continues with its founders vision of selling high quality socially and environmentally responsible products as well as donating their profits to various social and environmental causes. They make a wide variety of hygiene items, including soaps, hand sanitizers, tooth pastes, and balms. In the recent years, they’ve expanded into regeneratively grown foods. In 2018, along with The Rodale Institute and Patagonia, they co-founded the Regenerative Organic Alliance to certify products as regenerative organic. Dr. Bronner’s has the first Regenerative Organic Certified coconut oil. And most recently, they launched a line of regenerative dark chocolate bars in multiple flavors. For the holidays, Dr. Bronner’s introduces the cool peppermint cream chocolate bar.
GoodioWhile working as game developer at Rovio, the company best known for Angry Birds, Goodio founder Jukka Peltola was looking at ways to eat healthier. As he tried to find alternatives to sugary and salty snacks, he added raw cacao to his diet and removed dairy. By consuming it raw, the cacao remained all of its nutrients. This resulted in him feeling livelier, lighter, and more energetic. After telling his friends, family, and colleagues about his new diet and lifestyle, they wanted to build a company which value purpose over profit. The cacao is sourced from farms in South America and Africa. It’s then stone ground in Helsinki, where Goodio is based. They have regular chocolate bars and bars with oats known as ChocOat bars. Goodio’s holiday provision is a peppermint crunch chocolate bar.
Hammond’s CandiesHammond’s Candies dates back over 100 years ago when founder Carl T. Hammond Sr. opened Hammond’s Candy Factory in Denver, CO. Carl started it as a small family business committed to quality. The first candy he created was Carl’s Honey Ko Kos, which were chocolates topped with shredded coconut. What began as a one man business soon developed into Carl hiring a manager to run the store while he traveled throughout the west selling candy to other retailers. Several generations of the Hammond family ran the company from Carl’s son Carl T. Hammond Jr. to Carl Jr.’s son-in-law Emery Dorsey. In 1995, Williams-Sonoma purchased a number of their products and Hammond’s became a national name. The company was sold in 1999 to three veterans of the candy industry who expand Hammond’s from a small business to 10 employees to a factory twice as large with over 60 employees. In 2007, candy lover Andrew Schuman purchased Hammond’s. Having a similar background in retail and enthusiasm for entrepreneurship as Carl T. Hammond Sr., Andrew eventually expanded the company to 300 employees and into the snack foods arena. For the holidays, their organic options include candy canes of various flavors, mint pillows, and mint mini ribbons.
Hu KitchenThe story of Hu Kitchen begins with the three founders, Jordan Brown, Jason Karp, and Jessica Karp, all wanting to improve their health. Jordan did extensive reading on health and wellness. Jason had successfully overcome autoimmune disease himself. Jordan left the corporate world to devote himself full time to nutrition and food. The three researched the gut-brain connection, what causes inflammation, and the effects of foods and additives have on our health, immunity, and performance. They concluded processed ingredients needed to be replaced with basic and healthier alternatives. And the food brand of Hu Kitchen was born. They now offer different flavored chocolate bars, chocolate covered fruits and nuts, and chocolate gems. Hu has a holiday-themed chocolate bars in the flavors of gingerbread, crunchy mint, hazelnut butter, and pumpkin spice.
Lake ChamplainLake Champlain founder Jim Lampman bought fancy chocolates every year as holiday presents for his Ice House Restaurant staff in Burlington, VT. One year, his pastry chef said the chocolates Jim bought weren’t all that great, so Jim dared him to make better ones. His chef took him up on the challenge and the two started making hand-rolled creamy truffles together. Today, Lake Champlain has a wide variety of chocolates which are all fair trade certified and GMO free. Many of their products are also certified organic. They remain a multi-generational family business which sources from local and sustainable partners. Lake Champlain has a wide variety of organic holiday candies with everything from Hanukkah gelt to peppermint cream dark chocolate jubilees to chocolate snowmen and Santas.
OCHO CandyNatural food expert Denis Ring thought we’d soon see an organic candy bar hit the market. But he waited year after year without seeing this happen. So he eventually felt it was time to create one himself. Denis tried several different concepts and had his friend entrepreneur Scott Kucerik taste. As it only took one bite for Scott to be won over, Denis asked him to join OCHO Candy. Their holiday contributions are milk chocolate tree-shaped candies filled with caramel or peanut butter and peppermint-filled dark chocolates.
Raaka ChocolateRaaka Chocolate prides itself on transparent trade. They purchase cacao directly from cooperatives and grower organizations who value quality, sustainability, field support, market access, and premium prices for farmers. They always purchase cacao premium prices which are higher than the commodity market and fair trade prices, in addition to making sure the prices will remain stable. Every transaction of Raaka makes can be found on their website. For the holidays, they offer the chocolate bars ginger snap, candy cane crunch, and winter spice.
Taza ChocolateWhile traveling through Oaxaca, Mexico, Taza Chocolate founder and CEO Alex Whitmore took his first bite of stone ground chocolate. His trip then inspired Alex to open a chocolate factory back in his hometown of Somerville, MA. He began sourcing direct trade cacao and hand-carved granite mill stones to make less processed chocolate. In 2005, he officially launched Taza with his wife, who serves as Chief Design Officer. Taza prides itself in its sourcing. It’s the first U.S. chocolate maker to establish a third-party Direct Trade Cacao Certification program. Their holiday chocolate bars are peppermint stick, gingerbread cookie, hazelnut praline, and holiday toffee, almond, & sea salt bar.
TCHOThe name TCHO is the phonetic spelling of the first syllable of chocolate. The company originated with the mission to both produce the best chocolate and produce it in a way which makes the world a better place. All of their ingredients are sourced with methods to benefit the farms and taste delicious. TCHO looks for farms around the world which treat their growers fairly, source ethically, and reduce their carbon emissions. They created an in-house program called TCHOSource, which partners with cacao farmers, cooperatives, and research organizations in cacao producing countries in order to get the best cacao beans. TCHO’s newest product is Karl the Nog, an eggnog oat white chocolate flavored with nutmeg and rum.
Theo ChocolateTheo Chocolate was created in 2005 by Joe Whinney and Jeff Fairhall. Joe had previously formed the first company to manufacture and supply organic cocoa and chocolate products in bulk to the U.S. food industry. Jeff was one of the founders of The Essential Baking Company. Joe & Jeff’s goal with Theo was to make high quality chocolate from scratch from the cocoa bean to the chocolate. Their practices also include using third parties to verify that everybody they work with is being truthful in their claims, negotiating stable prices with their farm partners, and having full transparency with everybody they work and trade with. Theo makes six different holiday-themed chocolate bars in the flavors of peppermint crunch, nutcracker brittle, gingerbread spice, egg nog white chocolate, milk & cookies, and peppermint mocha.
YumEarthTwo young men had been living organic lifestyles. After both becoming fathers, they felt it was time to start an organic candy business. YumEarth began with lollipops and then expanded to hard candy, gummy bears, gummy worms, jelly beans, and licorice. Their holiday candies include candy canes, mini candy canes, and candy pops.
ZazubeanThe origins of Zazubean start with a group of women on a bike trip at an island off the coast of British Columbia. Coincidentally, everybody in the group brought their favorite chocolate to keep their energy up as they pedaled along on the journey. All of the women then delved into a conversation about quality chocolate with the question of whether chocolate could follow ethical standards and be both healthy and tasty. After returning home, Zazubean co-founder Tiziana Ienna began concocting high quality chocolate with super powered ingredients. As her background was as a physiologist, she wanted to develop nutritionally dense recipes which promote a balance lifestyle. Co-founder Tara Gilbert soon joined Tiziana and brought her passion for social justice and sustainable business practices along to Zazubean. The two working together led to creating fair trade chocolate bars which are good for the environment, the chocolate growers, and people’s health. Zazubean’s holiday chocolate bars share the names of Santa’s reindeer Blitzen, Vixen, Dancer, Prancer, and Dasher.
As we approach the winter season, hot chocolate is a staple among many. Especially those who live in a cold climate. As a slight tweak on this traditional winter time drink, I propose having it with the added superfood collagen. Collagen is ripe with health benefits, including strong bones, anti-aging, and digestion. Plus it provides the essential amino acid of glycine. Chocolate and collagen go together so well that many of the collagen producers offer chocolate collagen powder blends. I’ve got a recipe to turn a chocolate collagen powder into a version of the classic hot chocolate. Add in some grass fed gelatin marshmallows and you’re incorporating even more collage in your diet.
Servings: 2
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups milk
- 1/2 heavy whipping cream
- 4 tbsp cocoa powder
- 4 tbsp Primal Kitchen chocolate collagen powder
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extra
- 2 tbsp honey
- 1 pinch of salt
- Sweet Apricity grass fed gelatin marshmallows
Instructions
- Mix together milk, cream, cocoa powder, chocolate collagen powder, vanilla, extract, honey, and salt in a saucepan.
- Place saucepan on the stove at medium and heat. Continue stirring until cocoa begins to steam.
- Remove the saucepan from the heat and pour into two mugs. Add in as many marshmallows as you’d like and serve.
Collagen is one of the fasting growing products in the natural food world. There are many health benefits from collagen, including strong bones, anti-aging, and digestion. Also, collagen is rich in glycine, an essential amino acid which many people don’t consume enough of. This is especially important for meat eaters as red meat is high in the amino acid methionine. Too much methionine is problematic if your body is low in glycine. So to be an appropriate omnivore, it’s crucial to make sure you’re getting enough glycine in your diet.
One way to get collagen is through food, such as bone broth, chicken and fish skin, beef tendons, oxtail, head cheese. As many people aren’t used to eating meat with the skin on and bone in or consuming organ meats, another way to get collagen is in the form of a protein powder. And that’s the way it’s making a splash in the marketplace. Not only are collagen powders hot products right now, but many of the producers are fortunately sourcing it from grass fed cattle.
Collagen protein powder can be mixed with all kinds of foods and beverages. The powders also come in a variety of flavors. Chocolate is a popular flavor from many of the collagen business. If you add hot water and maybe some milk to your chocolate collagen, you have a healthier and more nutrient dense substitute for hot cocoa. A nice warm cup of chocolate collagen can feel good as we deal with the cold weather this time of the year.
In alphabetical order, here are the 10 best chocolate grass fed collagens:
Ancient NutritionAncient Nutrition was founded by Jordan Rubin, who started the nutritional supplement company Garden of Life, and Dr. Joseph Axe, a chiropractor and doctor of natural medicine. The company was created with the mission to “to restore health, strength and vitality by providing history’s healthiest whole food nutrients to the modern world.” The collagens come from a combination of chicken, beef, turkey, and egg shells. They offer chocolate collagens in both multi collagen protein and their bone broth protein flavors. All of their collagen is sweetened with a Stevia extract.
BulletproofWhen people hear Bulletproof, they mostly likely think of putting butter in their coffee. This comes from the mind of Dave Asprey. Asprey was a tech company VP under 30 who felt lacking in energy. He was told by doctors that he had a high risk of stroke and heart attack. After hearing this, Asprey decided to make a trek to Tibet to learn meditation. When given a cup of yak tea, he said his brain woke and he felt better than he had in a long time. Asprey then began experimenting with adding butter to tea and coffee. He soon followed by started Bulletproof Coffee, selling certified clean and Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee along medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) oils, extracted from coconut oils, to be placed into the coffee. Bulletpoof has since expanded into to other products such as collagen. Their chocolate collagen includes their XCT oil, a type of MCT oil.
Dr. KellyannDr. Kellyann Petrucci was studying biological medicine at the Marion Foundation and Paracelsus Clinic in Switzerland when she learned how collagen and bone broth have an amazing power to heal the gut and slow aging. After graduating, Kellyann started her practice with a focus on stopping and reversing inflammation. She helps her patient lose body fat, so they become thinner, younger, and healthier. Knowing about the benefits of collagen and broth, Kellyan has a line of products for them with her name on it. Dr. Kellyann’s collagens come in a number of flavors, including the collage cocoa sweetened with monk fruit.
Further FoodFurther Food began with three women all experiencing chronic illness. They originally were a community based education program to support each other and provide holistic health solutions. Further Food next turned to making real food free of additives, fillers, or preservatives. Their products are reviewed by health practitioners, including naturopaths, herbalists, and nutritionists. They also donate a portion of their proceeds to chronic illness and healthy eating initiatives. Along with collagens, they have turmeric and matcha blends. Further Food’s chocolate collagen is mixed with mood boosting reiki mushrooms.
Garden of LifeGarden of Life prides themselves on always making their products with real foods, whether it be a vitamin, a probiotic, or a protein powder. They have three principles they rely on for all of their products. The first principle is to looking for the highest quality which we’re missing in our diet and which can give us extraordinary health. The second is all about traceability from where it was grown to the agricultural practices of the farmers to how the farmers were paid and treated. The last principle is paying as much as what’s in their products as to what they keep out of them. As people don’t want chemicals in their food, they see no reason to include them in their supplements. Among the supplements they produce are many types of collagen. Their chocolates varieties are a regular chocolate collagen sweetened with stevia and a chocolate collagen creamer with coconut cream, MCT oil, and a probiotic formula.
Great LakesSince 1922, Great Lakes has been selling gelatin products. In 2009, they made a breakthrough in the collagen industry by creating collagen peptides which could be mixed into beverages. This development paved way for all of the collagen products on this list. The company has recently rebranded itself into Great Lakes Wellness. In addition to gelatin and collagen products, they’ve also formulated products to help in the areas of digestion, joint, performance, and beauty. Plus they launched a marine based collagen to offer a collagen to pescatarians and flexitarians. And for the keto lifestyle, they have an MCT powder and MCT oil. Along with chocolate collagen, Great Lakes’ collagens also come in the flavors of vanilla, chai, mixed berry, apple + cucumber, and lemon + lime.
Perfect KetoPerfect Keto was established as a response to the lies of the standard American diet. Perfect Keto understands the problem of seed oils, sugars, and highly processed / poor quality ingredients leading to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. All of Perfect Keto’s products use clean, simple ingredients which are backed by research. They sell both foods and supplements. Their supplements include ketones, electrolytes, whey, MCT powder, and collagens. Perfect Keto’s collagens come in regular and beauty + sleep in numerous flavors. Each line has chocolate as a choice.
Primal KitchenMark Sisson became one of the first ancestral health bloggers back in 2006 with Mark’s Daily Apple. He started writing it as a way for people to take full control of their health and to investigate, discuss, and be critical thinkers of everything we’ve thought was true about health and wellness. After a huge success in the blogosphere, Sisson set foot in the natural food world with offerings that didn’t have any dairy, gluten, grains, refined sugar, or soy. Primal Kitchen was born in 2015. Their first product was a mayonnaise made with avocado oil. Primal Kitchen has since expanded into many other condiments and and delved into protein products. They have a chocolate collagen containing coconut milk powder and a monk fruit extract for sweetening.
Ultimate Paleo ProteinUltimate Paleo Protein was created to introduce a unique protein called HydroBEEF. HydroBEEF is a non-GMO grass fed beef protein combined with L-glutamine, probiotics, MCT powder, and stevia. Ultimate Paleo Protein also has a performance formula made with BeefISO, which has a slightly higher protein content. Their products mix the HydroBEEF with collagen peptides and have flavored options such as chocolate.
Vital ProteinsKurt Seidensticker was beginning to feel a lot of knee pain when he was running and feared having to give it up because of this. But he was able to get back into running after discovering and consuming collagen. Seidensticker then decided to create a product to incorporate protein easily into our diets. Vital Proteins has a diverse array of collagen products from beef to marine collagen, powders with all sorts of flavors, a whey protein and collagen combo, and even flavored collagen waters. And of course, Vital Proteins has their version of the chocolate collagen made with cocoa powder, coconut milk powder, cinnamon, and monk fruit extract.
http://appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-dh-112922.mp3 This week on The Appropriate Omnivore, Aaron talks to Joshua Rood; co-founder, CEO, and managing director of Dr. Hops. Dr. Hops is an organic beverage in the ever growing market of hard kombucha. Aaron and Joshua delve into who high alcohol kombucha is targeted toward and the benefits of it. Joshua explains the […]
http://appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-ltm-112322.mp3 Having been a guest on The Appropriate Omnivore podcast 10 years ago, Aaron Zober welcomes back Chris Kerston. When Chris was previously on the show, he had been working on a farm. Chris now works for the Savory Institute heading their Land to Market program. Chris talks about how he originally got into […]
October 22 is National Nut Day. The day was started by Liberation Foods back in 2016 to advocate for fair trade nuts and encourage a healthy diet. Nuts are considered an excellent source of food by virtually every type of diet and lifestyle from ancestral health to plant based diets to even conventional nutrition. But […]
As we approach another Halloween, I’m reminded of how candy companies see a big boost in sales around the holiday. $2.08 billion to be exact. The major candy brands consist of ingredients sprayed with pesticides and chemicals plus are made with items such as sugar from genetically modified beets, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, soybean oil, […]
As I stated in a previous article, September is National Honey Month. Honey has many advantages from being a great sugar substitute to obtaining beneficial enzymes when it’s raw and unfiltered. There are some extra advantages to buying local honey. Like buying any local product, you’re supporting your local economy and reducing your carbon footprint […]
Since 1989, the National Honey Board has declared September as National Honey Month. They chose the month of September as this is the time when most of the honey is harvested. For me, honey in September has another meaning as it’s the month when the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah falls. On Rosh Hashanah, it’s […]
September 23 is celebrated as National Snack Stick Day to honor on-the-go snacks. Meat snacks, which snack sticks are included under, are the fourth highest selling product in the salty snack sector. Meat snacks are more popular than pretzels and popcorn. While snack sticks in concept are a real food, so many of the jerky […]
And now for the fourth and final installments of my articles for National Sandwich Month. Now that I’ve touched upon sourdough bread, lunch meats, and cheeses, it’s time to get into the best condiments. Afterall, nobody wants their sandwich to be too dry. Big ag condiments are some of the unhealthiest products out there. Almost […]
My coverages of August as National Sandwich Month continues. Now that I’ve given my recommendations for bread and for meat, I get into the cheeses to place in middle of the sandwiches. Like meat, it’s important to source cheeses from grass fed cows. Conventional dairy comes from cows which raised in feedlots and fed corn, […]
August is known as National Sandwich Month. I previously covered the best choices of sourdough bread. Now that I’ve given my recommendations for the bread to build your sandwiches with, it’s time to get to the “Omnivore” part of The Appropriate Omnivore. I’m talking of course about the meat in it. Cold cuts are meats […]
In the culinary world, August is known as National Sandwich Month. It’s observed in August, because it’s the time of year cooks concoct up new sandwich ideas for both summer events and school lunch menus. Over the month of August, I’ll be releasing a series of articles about the best ingredients to use in your […]
Summer has officially begun. As this may be one of the hottest summers yet, we’re all looking for a way to stay cool. And who doesn’t enjoy a cold summer treat? A favorite of mine for those hot days has always been popsicles. As a child, I remember coming inside the house after basking in […]
November 14 is celebrated as National Pickle Day. This day was first observed by the Pickle Packers International back in 1949 to observe the pickle as one of the most popular fermented foods. I’m pleased to be taking part in this day devoted to everything about the pickles as it’s the first food I remember […]
The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council recognizes July as National Hot Dog Month and is observing National Hot Dog Day this year on Wednesday July 21. The Council celebrates it in July as they see the hot dog as a vibrant part of Americana and want it to occur the same month we celebrate […]
https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.190.156/t6c.9c6.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/appomnivore-hd-042022.mp3 For Aaron’s latest podcast, he welcomes on Hart Dairy marketing manager Mandy Schulz. Hart Dairy is another brand he discovered at the Natural Products Expo West last month. Being a new company, they exhibited for the first time at the show. Mandy explains to Aaron everything that Hart Dairy has to offer in terms of how they do dairy right. Hart Dairy is a farm in the ever expanding arena of regenerative agriculture. They also have their cows grazing outside on the grass 365 days a year. Additionally, Hart Dairy is non-GMO and humane certified. Mandy tells Aaron the details about all of them and makes him extremely pleased at how they’re raising the bar for dairy standards.
To make sure you never another episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, go to my iTunes , Stitcher, or Google Podcasts page and subscribe to the podcast.
Ingredients:
- 4 ounces of nuts (soak time)
- Cashews (2-4 Hours)
- Macadamias (2-4 Hours)
- Pecans (4-6 Hours)
- Walnuts (4-6 Hours)
- Almonds (8-12 Hours)
- 4 cups of water
- 3 pitted dates
- Tsp of coconut oil
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
- 4 dashes of sea salt
Equipment
- Bowl for soaking nuts
- Blender
- Strainer
- Jar with lid
- Dehydrator (Optional)
Instructions
- Soak in water the nuts of your choice for the workshop. Each type of nut has it’s soak time noted above.
- Once the nuts are soaked for the appropriate amount of time, drain the water and refrigerate until it’s time to utilize them.
- If you don’t have time to sprout your nuts, you can purchase your favor type of Rich Nuts and skip the first two steps.
- Take 4 ounces of sprouted nuts and mix with other ingredients in blender.
- Pour the milk through a strainer if you don’t want to keep the pulp in. The pulp can be used for making nut bread or putting in your cereal.
- Pour the milk into a jar, place a lid on it, and store it in the fridge or drink it.
- Milk will last in the fridge for 2-3 days. If milk starts to separate, give it a shake or put it back in the blender.
This recipe was provided by Rich Pauwels. Rich first discovered sprouting nuts while working long hours as a firefighter and paramedic during the California wildfires. He then co-founded Rich Nuts with his wife Samantha. They’re committed to sourcing all of their ingredients from regenerative agriculture along sustainable packaging and every person along the supply chain being treated well. Rich Nuts prides themselves on being a triple bottom line business (TBL).
Spring is here again. And no food better represents springs than eggs. The egg has been a symbol of spring in many different cultures dating back to ancient Rome. To Romans, the egg meant new life and reproduction.
My connection with eggs and spring time is Passover. For the holiday, a roasted hard boiled egg represents a festival sacrifice that was offered in the Temple of Jerusalem. We also dip eggs into salt water, combining two of my favorite things: eggs and salt.
And eggs are well known with the holiday of Easter. To Christians, the egg means the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Additionally, egg hunts and colored eggs have become popular with the holiday in modern times.
As The Appropriate Omnivore, eggs have another special meaning to me. It’s one of the earliest foods I remember enjoying. Even before steak. Back in 2011, I learned the benefits of cholesterol and saturated fat. I then realized how amazing of a food eggs are as the yolk has the highest amount of cholesterol in any food. Eggs are also a great source of vitamins A, B, D, E, and K plus provide iron, phosphorus, potassium and calcium, choline. So I can now savor my eggs at breakfast time and not fear eating the yolks.
But as with all foods, it’s important to properly source your eggs and know the true meaning of the labels. There are many brands of organic eggs, but the organic label doesn’t say anything about whether or not the chickens where raised in confined spaces. It simply means the hens were given an organic feed. Even free range isn’t all it’s cracked up to. The only requirement for a free range label is the chickens have access to the outdoors, but they may never be let outside.
The minimum for finding nutrient dense eggs is a label of pasture raised. This means the chickens are given at least 108 square feet of pasture. However many of the eggs listed below go beyond this standard.
A great option for pasture eggs is your local farmers market. You’re buying locally and might even be able to visit the farms yourself to find out if the hens are truly pastured. For those who don’t have that option, here in alphabetical order are 10 pasture raised eggs you can find in supermarkets:
Alexandre Kids
Alexandre Family Farm founders and 5th generation farmers Blake and Stephanie Alexandre began a dairy in 1988 in southern California, where Stephanie grew up. With Blake always wanting to return to northern California, they seized upon a farm was for sale in Del Norte County in 1992. This location was just two hours north of the original Alexandre farm in Ferndale. In addition to Blake returning to northern California, this was also the chance for both Blake and Stephanie to return to the practice of organic grass grazing cows like their grandparents did. More recently they’ve been certified regenerative by the Savory Institute‘s Land to Market and the Regenerative Organic Certified program. Their cows are also A2. Along with dairy, they have eggs under the label Alexandre Kids as the children helped them start the egg business back in 2005. Their children are now adults and are 6th generation farmers working for Alexandre Farms.
Blue Sky Family Farms
The company Egg Innovations is about improving animal welfare and returning to family farms. Through their subsidiary Blue Sky Family Farms, they’re able to provide pastured eggs. Their devotion to being environmental also includes putting their eggs in cartons which are made from 100% recycled post-consumer newsprint. Plus the cartons are 100% recyclable and biodegradable.
Burroughs Family Farm
The Burroughs Family Farm is a joint effort Burroughs siblings owning and operating individual farms while connecting with the other farms by methods organic and sustainable agriculture and other shared resources to help each farm out. They also enroll their hens in a management intensive grazing system of intense grazing followed by three weeks of rest.
Farmers Hen House
Originating from an Amish farmer in 1997, Farmers Hen House was born with a few farms in Kalona, IA. A few years later, Kalona local Mark Miller helped expand the farm further. The majority of it is still local farms along with some in Bloomfield, IA and northern Missouri. Many of their farms are powered by solar energy, including their processing plant.
Handsome Brook Farm Handsome Brook Farm is a collection of small farms who share in their values of providing acres after acres of rotated pasture. Their family farms range across six states from the east coast to the midwest.
Mary’s Organic Pasture Raised Eggs Since 1954, the Pitman family has been raising chickens. Many people are familiar with the brand Mary’s Free Range Chickens. They also have a label Mary’s Free Range Pasture Raised Chickens, which abide by their highest standards. With their pasture raised category, shoppers can find eggs in addition to chicken meat.
Pete and Gerry’s Organic Eggs
The history of Pete and Gerry’s dates back to the late 1800’s and the Ward Family Farm in Monroe, NH. Robert Ward farmed dairy cattle and hens. When World War II ended, Robert’s son Les returned from the Navy and expanded the farm with his brother-in-law Rodney Stanton. When factory farmed eggs were driving small farms out of business in the 1980s, the two refused to go in that direction. The farm is now run by Les’ daughter Carol, her husband Gerry Laflamme, and Rodney’s son Peter Stanton. The Pete and Gerry’s brand was named after them and created to sell pasture raised organic eggs. Their eggs are free of antibiotics, synthetic pesticides, GMOs, or animal by products. In 2003, Pete and Gerry’s became the first Certified Humane eggs.
Raw Farm
Raw Farm started in 1998 as Organic Pastures in Fresno, CA . Founder Mark McAfee discovered soon after opening the operations that the largest raw dairy in the world had folded. People began showing up at his ranch wanting milk which was raw and unpasteurized, so Mark began selling it after researching the principles of raw milk and seeing the benefits in it. More recently, they’ve begun selling pasture raised eggs in addition to their various dairy products.
Vital Farms Vital Farms starts in 2007 with a 27 acre farm in Austin, TX. When Whole Foods discovered their eggs at a farmers market, they began selling them throughout their supermarkets in the midwest. Vital Farms began working with small farmers all over the country using the Vital Farms name on their products. They’re now partnered with over 100 family farms and are sold nationwide.
Wilcox Family Farms
Wilcox Family Farms is over 100 years old and is currently run by the fourth generation of the Wilcox family. Their organic and sustainable practices date back to when the land was purchased by the family in 1909. Being along the Nisqually River in central Washington State, the family knew they had a responsibility to not use any chemicals or pesticide which could run off into the river. They also use locally grown feed for the chickens when possible. Their eggs are now verified as coming from regenerative farms as part of the Savory Institute‘s Land to Market program.
https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.190.156/t6c.9c6.myftpupload.com/podcasts/appomnivore-rn-041322.mp3 Aaron’s guest for this episode of the Appropriate Omnivore is Rich Pauwels, founder of Rich Nuts. Rich begins with his story of going from being a firefighter to selling sprouted nuts. Rich talks about the health benefits of sprouting nuts, how they improved his health and how they can improve yours. In addition to the nuts being sprouted, they’re also certified organic and sourced from regenerative farms. Rich concludes with telling Aaron what it means for Rich Nuts to be a triple bottom line business.
To make sure you never another episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, go to my iTunes , Stitcher, or Google Podcasts page and subscribe to the podcast.
This article is also posted on Booch News
On March 31 & April 1, the first in-person KombuchaKon Conference & Expo since 2019 was held at the Westin Long Beach. KombuchaKon is organized by the non-profit trade organization Kombucha Brewers International. At KombuchaKon, not only are current kombucha brewers able to attend, there’s also a registration category known as Brewers in Process. A large number of KKON2022 attendees consisted of Brewers in Process. They found the konference to be a kornucopia for learning and networking about everything kombucha.
KKON2022 kicked off with a networking mixer on the hotel balcony. All attendees were given kombucha sampler glasses. A number of kombucha companies had their drinks to sample, both regular and hard kombucha. Additionally, there was a cash bar for beer and wine. So with the drink of their choice, Brewers in Process had the chance to interact with established brewers and learn some tricks of the trade.
From top left clockwise: Aluminum cans with twist-off tops from Twistee Can; kegs and tops for taps from UBC Group USA; purees, extracts, and concentrates from Amoretti; and fermentation tanks from Stout Tanks.
The exhibit floor consisted of exhibitors for all stages of the kombucha production. Many kombucha brands begin as home brewers. The exhibitors lay it all out in terms the stages needed when transitioning from brewing at home to a starting a commercial facility. The types of exhibitors range from SCOBY, tea leaf, and concentrate suppliers to bottle and machinery manufacturers to inspections services for breweries. One Brewer in Process said they learned about the show from approaching exhibitor Stout Tank about providing the specific tanks for their brewery.
In addition to the exhibitors, KKON2022 had many great talks. A number of the topics were well tailored for Brewers in Process, such as making kombucha commercially, creating your brand identity, and planning your production facility. And then there was the keynote from Teatulia founder Linda Appel Lipsius. Linda gave inspiring story about having gone from working in her family’s cleaning product business Orange Glo to founding and running the tea company Teatulia to now serving as executive director of the non-profit Denver Urban Gardens. She talked all about how to follow your dreams and start the business you want to do.
After the conference, Saturday April 2 offered a bonus to attendees with a tour of the Local Roots Kombucha taproom and brewery in San Diego. This was then followed by a tour of the Fermentation Farm store in Orange County. At Fermentation Farm, they make ferments of all types, kombucha included. In both locations, people got to see in person what a commercial kombucha brewery looks like and get inspiration for their own breweries.
From top left clockwise: Tank at Local Roots where the ingredients, fermentation tank at Fermentation Farm, large bottle of kombuchas with SCOBYs at Fermentation Farm, and taproom at Local Roots.
KKON founder Hannah Crum has this to say about the about the growing market of kombucha: “We very much mirror the craft beer industry. The first slew of keynote speakers we had at KombuchaKon came from the beer industry and that’s what everybody says to us. Oh, you’re just like us 30 years ago.” As craft beer is now everywhere, we can one day expect kombucha to be all around us thanks in part to current kombucha brewers, the Brewers in Process at KKON22, and the Brewers in Process who will be attending future KombuchaKons.
Along with this being the first KKON for the Brewers in Process, this was also my first KKON. Attending it gave me a much greater appreciation of what goes into kombucha making. By and large, people registered for KKON were either Brewers in Process or newer kombucha producers on the scene, so I was able to learn about countless kombucha brands. I look forward to seeing where these brands go years from now.
Kombucha itself is perfect for an appropriate omnivore. I’m all about advocating for traditional foods, especially ones which are fermented. Sustainability is also very important to me. The vast majority of kombucha companies are committed to this with their organic and non-GMO certifications. And now some are even going for regenerative sourcing. Plus kombucha has appeal to so many different dietary lifestyles from paleo to vegan. Being an appropriate omnivore is about getting both the right animal and plant products. Attending Kombucha Kon 2022 let me share my appreciation for a great product which is 100% plant based.
From the book Real Food Fermentation**
Ingredients
- 1 lb. green cabbage
- 1 large onion (red, yellow, or white)
- 1 large green bell pepper
- 1 large carrot
- 1⁄2 apple (optional)
- 1⁄4 lb. celery root, or 1 teaspoon celery seed
- 4 tsp sea salt
- 1⁄4 cup honey (or less, if you have included an apple)
- 6 tbsp oil (a mixture of sesame, coconut, and olive oils works well)
- 2 tsp dry mustard
- 1 piece ( 1⁄3 inch) ginger root, peeled and grated (optional)
- Freshly ground black pepper
Equipment
- Large cutting board (wood is ideal)
- Large knife (a chef’s knife is ideal)
- Large mixing bowl
- 2 mason jars (1 pint each) or similar glass jars with tight-fitting lids
- Colander or strainer
Instructions
- Thinly slice the cabbage,onion,and bell pepper.
- Cut the carrots into coins.
- Grate the apple, if using, and celery root, if using.
- In a large bowl, sprinkle the cabbage with sea salt and toss well
- Allow the mixture to stand for 10 minutes, then gently massage cabbage until a light brine forms.
- Add the peppers, onion, apples, and celery root and toss to combine.
- Pack the vegetable mixture into a mason jar, pressing firmly down to remove air bubbles and keep the brine level above the surface of the vegetables.
- Secure the top of the jar with a fermentation airlock and set on the counter to ferment at room temperature, out of direct sunlight, for about a week, or until the desired level of sourness is reached.
- Once the vegetables are fermented, drain them in a colander set over a mixing bowl and press the liquid out with your hands, reserving the liquid.
- Combine 1⁄2 cup of the liquid with the honey, oil, dry mustard, and ginger, and mix well with a fork, whisk, or blender. Add salt and pepper, or additional kraut liquid as needed. The leftover fermentation liquid can be saved to mix with oil and spices to use as a salad dressing. It’s also excellent all by itself, as a shot in the morning, or before meals, to stimulate digestion.
- Mix the dressing into the slaw mixture to taste and season with salt and pepper if desired and serve at room temperature.
This recipe was provided by Alex Lewin. Alex writes the blog Feed Me Like You Mean It. He’s the author Real Food Fermentation and Kombucha, Kefir, and Beyond, which he co-authored with Raquel Guajardo. His books provide photos and simple recipes for fermented foods and drinks, respectively. Alex also serves on the advisory board of The Fermentation Association and is an advisor to Dr. Hops Real Hard Kombucha.
http://www.appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-rff-032322.mp3 Aaron welcomes author Alex Lewin to the Appropriate Omnivore podcast. Alex recently released the second edition of his book Real Food Fermentation. Real Food Fermentation is both a book about fermentation and a cookbook with many recipes of popular ferments. Alex delves into the books he read which led him to learning about fermentation. He discusses how with the pandemic, many people turned to fermentation. Alex even talks about the possibility of a certain ferment being able to help with COVID. Aaron and Alex then discuss how to ferment correctly, their favorite types of ferments, and foods that many don’t realize are fermented.
To make sure you never another episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, go to my iTunes , Stitcher, or Google Podcasts page and subscribe to the podcast.
http://www.appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-npew-031622.mp3 For the latest episode of The Appropriate Omnivore podcast, Aaron Zober does something a little bit different. As Aaron attended the Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim last week, he recaps the highlights. No guests. Just Aaron talking about the takeaways he discovered in terms of natural food trends and new products. What’s in and out in the sustainable food world? How does the show rank in terms of meat products vs. plant products? And how does Aaron feel about all of this? Plus while no main interview, Aaron does play sound bites taken on the floor of Expo West with his favorite exhibitors saying what they thought of the show.
To make sure you never another episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, go to my iTunes , Stitcher, or Google Podcasts page and subscribe to the podcast.
March 9 is known as National Meatball Day. The origins of why it’s celebrated on this specific date are unknown, but it’s no mystery that everybody loves meatballs. And meatballs are popular in many different cultures. They were believed to be invented by the Chinese in the 2nd Century B.C. Swedish meatballs are a popular type. And Italian-American created the combination of spaghetti and meatballs.
As the sustainable food scene is ever expanding, there are now even prepared nutrient dense meals for those with busy lifestyles. One of the most popular products from these healthy prepared food companies is meatballs.
While looking for the best grass fed meatballs, I have a few different requirements. It’s important that the brands aren’t simply using grass fed beef or pastured pork or turkey, but are sourcing from farms committed to regenerative agriculture. Also, if the food manufacturers are cooking the meatballs in marinara sauce, the sauce must be free of any rancid oils such as soybean or canola. And finally, I like to find ones which are available all over the United States.
Here are the eight best sustainably sourced meatballs:
Applegate
In 1987, Stephen McDonnell and his friend Christopher Ely bought Chris’ family business Jugtown Smokehouse, which produced smoked meats without any synthetic nitrates. Stephen started Applegate with the purpose of asking “what if you weren’t afraid to read a hot dog ingredient label?” Next they made deli meat which was antibiotic free, followed by introducing the first widely distributed deli meat with an organic certification. In 2015, all of their beef products became 100% grass fed. Their meatballs are among their most recent grass fed beef additions. Applegate has two different varieties, both of which mix meat and veggies. The Asian style meatballs combine pork with brown rice, green onions, carrots, and parsley. And the Mediterranean style meatballs have turkey mixed with lentils, feta cheese, and spinach.
Beetnik Beetnik is an Austin based business working with certified organic beef, chicken, vegetable, and herb farmers to make healthy frozen meals. They get their beef from ranchers whose cattle roam on open ranges their entire lives and are never fed corn. The company also works with a series of dieticians to advise them on making organic convenient foods. Beetnik now provides over 10 different meal options that get as diverse as lemongrass chicken to chili and sweet potatoes. And they have both grass fed beef and organic chicken meatballs. They sell packages of frozen meatballs and frozen meals of meatballs in marinara sauce with carrots and zucchini. The meatballs are all gluten free. The ones in the packages use a combination of organic white and brown rice flour while the meals are certified paleo being made with organic almond flour.
First Light
Wagyu beef is known for being well marbled, having great texture, and tasting flavorful, but not a lot of it is 100% grass fed. The First Light Wagyu Producers Group, a collective of 61 farmers in New Zealand, took up the challenge of raising Wagyu cattle on grass and out of their pens. Their meatballs are among other products they sell, including various cuts of steak, ground beef, and hot dogs.
Fifty Five Farmers
Like the company’s name implies, Fifty Five Farmers consists of 55 farmers in Australia who are devoted organic farming practices to raise grass fed beef. They’re committed to restoring the soil health by the means of grazing, organic composts, native grass species, and rest. The cattle at Fifty Five Farmers cell-graze in order to restore the grasslands into healthy areas thriving in biodiversity. The ranchers also don’t use any chemicals on the animals or the land at any of their farms. Fifty Five Farmers has three different flavors of meatballs, which are a Sicilian spice using red chili pepper, roasted garlic, and a three cheese consisting of romano, paremesan, and asiago.
Panorama Meats
Northern California sixth generation cattle rancher Darrell Wood felt he wasn’t being rewarded or recognized for raising cattle entirely on grass and never giving them hormones or antibiotics. After discovering that consumers in San Francisco appreciated what he did, Wood formed Panorama Meats with two of his friends. Today Panorama Meats has over 1 million acres of USDA certified organic grasslands spanning the nine states of California, Oregon, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, South Dakota, New Mexico, Nebraska, and Colorado. In addition to raising cattle naturally, Wood has established land conservation trusts throughout the U.S. guaranteeing that the land will be used for grazing and not torn down for real estate development. Meatballs are one of the items which Panorama Meats sells along with steaks, roasts, hot dogs, beef sticks, and bone broth.
Raise American
Raise American is all about raising the bar extremely high when it comes to beef. All of the meat they supply is 100% grass fed, 100% organic, and 100% sustainable for the planet. Additionally, their beef comes entirely from America with ranches ranging across the country, including Minnesota, Colorado, Oregon, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Texas. Raise American has partnerships with its ranchers where they oversee the entire process from the pasture where the cow was born to how the cow is being treated on the farm to how the cow is transported. They’re encouraging all organic beef ranchers to go regenerative in order to revive the soil, replenish the land, and remove greenhouse gases. Raise American president Scott Lively wrote the book For the Love of Beef: The Good, the Bad and the Future of America’s Favorite Meat, which covers everything about beef from the different cuts to the benefits of being grass fed. Their meatballs are one of many of their offerings, which also include steaks, ground beef, frozen burger patties, and hot dogs.
Teton Waters
Beginning out as an experiment in environmental conservation, Teton Waters Ranch discovered how they can replenish the abused soil of an old potato farm by the means of planting native grasses, cattle rotation, and the livestock fertilizing where they eat. These practices led to a system of food which is both sustainable and healthy. They ended up forming a company which produced hot dogs and sausages coming from grass fed and finished beef. They’ve since partnered with the Savory Institute, a worldwide nonprofit with the goal of restoring grasslands using holistic management. Teton Water has also recently expanded their product line into ground beef, starting with frozen burger patties and now meatballs. Their meatballs are cooked in marinara sauce and use white and brown rice flour to make them gluten free.
U.S. Wellness
U.S. Wellness is one of the most successful online retailers in sustainable food. The business began in 2000 with working family farms in northeast Missouri and Illinois who been raising animals on the land for generations. Since then, they’ve partnered with a few other small family farms across the U.S. and their friends’ farm in Tasmania to provide all of their 100% grass fed and finished beef. U.S. Wellness gives their cattle a 30 – 45 day resting period between grazing to make the plants in the pasture more dense and grow back new native plants. U.S. Wellness has meatballs made from 100% grass fed beef and seasoned with adobo as well as ones made from their heirloom pork. Meatballs are among their large varieties of beef, lamb, bison, pork, seafood, poultry, dairy, and even non-meat products such as nuts and chocolate. U.S. Wellness’ main model is the Internet, but they also have a select number of physical retailers across the U.S. which carry some of their products.
I first attended the Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim in 2011. Since then, I’ve made it back every year except for one. And for the last two years, it’s been online due to the pandemic. This year the Expo returns in person. This is one of the largest conventions, so it can be a challenge to see everything. Since having gone for almost a decade, I’ve learned new ways each time to be able to see as much as possible. It takes place this year March 9-12.
Here are my 10 tips for making the most of your time at the Expo:
1. Take a look at the exhibitor list on their website
You don’t going exploring without a compass or a map. Similarly, it’s best to attend Expo West knowing what businesses will be there and where they’ll be located. Their website has a search engine which allows you to find where the exhibitors will be located. The Expo West search engine has many functions. The most basic one is searching by exhibitor name. Having gone many times, I have my favorites which I look for. These include Pure Indian Foods, Tribali, Cleveland Kraut, Sioux Honey, Hu Kitchen, and To Your Health. A more advanced search option on the website allows you to search for key words with exhibitors. By using this tool, I’m able to learn about companies I might not have thought of or even known about. Some of the key words I type in are “grass fed”, “paleo”, “broth, “ferment”, “sauerkraut”, and “kombucha”.
2. Take a look at the NEXTY Awards finalists and winners
Expo West is where the natural food companies introduce new products to their line. To highlight some of the new products, the New Hope Network which puts on the show, holds awards for what they see as the best. You can see who the finalists and the winners are on the website and then search for where the companies’ booths are located.
3. Use the app
The Natural Products Expo has an app which can be downloaded on your smart phone or tablet. Along with the website, the app also allows you to search for exhibitors, which can be added to your favorites on there. Other perks of the app are a map of all the exhibit halls and being able to pull up your badge registration on it. As Expo West is about sustainability, what’s better than being able to save on paper and not having to print out your registration confirmation?
4. If you need help with anything at the Expo, use SPARKY the EventBot
The app is one way to find get information on Expo West. Another option is using SPARKY the EventBot. You can access SPARKY by texting “Expo West” to 25525. The EventBot can answer all types of questions regarding the exhibitors, the schedule of the entire week, and even directions on how to get to the Anaheim Convention Center.
5. Don’t skip the exhibitors off the main floor
While the most well known names in organics will be found by and large on the main floor, the exhibitors on other floors in the Anaheim Convention Center as well as in the nearby hotels are also worth checking out. The other floors are great for discovering new products and being the first to know what they’re all about.
6. Attend the day before the main floor opens
The main floor opens on Thursday, but the North Hall of the Convention Center and the Anaheim Hilton are filled with over 1,000 exhibitors known as the Hot Products. I’ve spend over a day visiting these businesses alone. Attending a day early makes it easier to be able to see both the newer smaller companies and the major organic and natural food brands.
7. Get to know the other people talking to the exhibitors
If you’re an attendee as opposed to an exhibitor, you’re obviously there to check out the booths. But the other people attending can also be a major resource into the natural foods network too. I’m always excited meet other bloggers and social media influencers to learn some new tricks of the trade. Additionally, some business don’t feel ready to exhibit yet, but like to walk the floor to get connections. So people behind the exhibitor tables aren’t the only way to learn about exciting new products out there.
8. It’s an exhibitor heavy conference, but hearing the speakers can be beneficial too
With products and expo in its title, it should be clear it’s more about exhibitors than speakers. And even spending every day and minute of the conference on the floor, it’s likely impossible to see every exhibitor there. Still there are many great speakers there with valuable knowledge of the sustainable and natural worlds. So if any of the topics pique your interest, it’s worth taking a break from the floor. While some sessions require separate registration, many such as the keynotes every days are included in the general badge registration.
9. Go for seconds with your favorites
I like to hit as many exhibitors as possible, but I also want to make return visits to my favorites to learn more about them and maintain connections. Let the companies know you appreciate them by popping your head in again.
10. There are benefits of attending the last day
Many people I know tend to skip the last day, feeling they’ve covered enough in the other days. This is the day I tend to spend going for seconds with my favorites. It’s also the best day to get samples from the exhibitors as a lot of them don’t plan to take everything back with them. And you never know what you might have missed the other days. It never hurts to take one last walk around all the halls.
I love the wealth of connections I make at the Expo West every year and the great people I get to meet. If you’re attending this year, be sure to look for me.
Monday March 7 to Sunday March 13 of this year is National Butchers’ Week. The Week is used to recognize the great innovations done in butcher shops across the country. Butcher shops are also a great way to know more about where your food comes from. They can let you know about everything from the farm where the meat originated, how the animals were raised, how the meat was processed, and even advice on the best ways to cook it.
In alphabetical order, here are the best butcher shops:
A Cut Above
Location: Santa Monica
www.acabutchershop.com
A Cut Above was founded by acclaimed chef Eddy Shin, who has spent over 20 years working at high end restaurants. For five years, he was executive chef at Primitivo Wine Bistro. Prior to that, he gained his fame at Nick & Stef’s Steakhouse in downtown LA, working for Chef Joachim Splichal of The Patina Group. Shin’s resume also includes his time at Fleisher’s Grass-Fed & Organic Meats in Kingston, NY. Additionally, he was featured on the History series Modern Marvels in an episode titled “The Butcher”, where he gave expertise on dry aging. At his current A Cut Above butchery, he sells beef from Novy Ranches in Mount Shasta, CA, pork from Stone Valley in Alamo, CA, chicken from Jidori Farms in Central Valley, CA, and turkey from Shelton Farms in Pomona, CA. Shin’s butchery also has options for same gamier meats such as duck, venison, and rabbit. Along with cuts of meat, A Cut Above serves sandwiches containing the sustainably sourced meats.
McCall’s Meat & Fish Co.
Location: Los Feliz
https://www.mccallsmeatandfish.com/
In 2010, McCall’s Meat & Fish Company opened to offer a gourmet neighborhood market with the highest quality meats fishes, and retail products. McCall’s looks for products from farmers who avoid using antibiotics and growth hormones while practicing humane conditions for raising the livestock. In addition to meat and poultry, they sell wild caught fish and specialty items such as cheeses and cured meats. Some of the farms their cuts originate from are beef from Grass Run Farms, Mary’s Chicken, Beeler’s Pure Pork, Salmon Creek Farms, and Niman Ranch.
Novy Ranches
Location: Simi Valley
https://novyranches.com/
Source: Google Earth
Dr. Lowell Novy has been ranching most of his life, beginning with growing up in the Great Plains in Western Kansas. After serving overseas in the U.S. Air Forces and earning a veterinary degree from Kansas State University, he and his family moved to California. In 1976, he founded Novy Ranches in the Shasta Valley area of Northern California. The pastures at Novy Ranches are free from being sprayed with any pesticides, herbicides, or chemical fertilizers. Novy Ranches’ meats are minimally processed with no additional ingredients or food colorings. When it comes to the processing facilities, a Novy employee will go on site to the plant to guarantee that all of the animals are being treated in the most humane manner. Their meat can be purchased at their butcher shop in Simi Valley along with farmers markets.
Standing’s Butchery Location: Hollywood & (Coming Soon) Venicehttps://standingsbutchery.com/
While Jered Standing was working in and managing retail stores and restaurants, he got the idea to open a butcher which would combine local, sustainable sourcing with top notch customer service. Also being able to lend his vast knowledge of international and lesser-known cuts of meat, he opened Standing’s Butcher in 2017. Along with providing his loyal customer base with the highest quality meats, he’s also glad to pass along his expert cooking advice. Jered has been featured in New York Times, Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Los Angeles Magazine. Among the farms he sources from are Richards for beef, Marin Sun Farms for poultry and lamb, and Pasturebird for chicken.
Coming Soon: Meat & Essentials Location: San Marino https://www.facebook.com/meat.and.essentials
Meat & Essentials founder Eagle Yu first sparked a desire to work in the culinary world from having worked corporate career in the entertainment industry. Eagle then took trips around the U.S. to visit famous food destinations, and international travel including time spent in Taiwan reconnecting him with familial roots. This was followed by studying and working in whole animal butchery in upstate New York. Eagle eventually returned to the west coast, first selling pasture-raised meat and cooked goods at local farmers markets across Los Angeles and then as a private chef and caterer. His talents were showcased with him appearing as a contestant on the History series The Butcher. He’s expecting to open his Meat & Essentials butcher shop to be open by mid-2021, where the focus will be on pasture-raised meats and deli products, third-wave coffee, and a collection of highly curated local and artisanal food and beverage offerings that are sustainable and ethically produced.
Ingredients
For the eggs benedict:
- 4 eggs
- 2 split English muffins (or 2 slices of bread)
- Freshly grated nutmeg for garnish
- Fresh tarragon for garnish
For the Hollandaise sauce:
- 3 egg yolks
- 2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 tbsp water
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes and chilled
- Freshly grated nutmeg
- Salt
- White pepper
Instructions
- Poach or coddle the eggs in simmering water in a deep saucepan until soft set, about 3 minutes. The yolks should be a bit runny, so be careful not to overcook.
- Keep the eggs warm while you make the hollandaise sauce.
- Bring a small pot of water to a boil.
- Add the egg yolks, lemon juice, and water to a heatproof glass bowl and set it over the pot of boiling water, making sure the water doesn’t touch the bottom of the bowl.
- Whisk the mixture until combined.
- Slowly add the butter, a few pieces at a time, whisking continuously until the butter is melted and fully incorporated.
- Cook the hollandaise sauce for another minute or two, continuing to whisk until it thickens. Season with nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Immediately remove the sauce from the heat.
- Toast the muffins or bread slices and place on 2 plates.
- Using a slotted spoon, place a poached egg on each English muffin half or 2 eggs side by side on each slice of toast, then spoon the hollandaise sauce generously over the top.
This recipe was provided by Lisa Steele. Lisa is a fifth-generation chicken keeper. Her coop consists of two dozen chickens, ducks, and geese. She runs the blog Fresh Eggs Daily. On her blog, she gives advice on raising poultry naturally. The media has dubbed her as “Queen of the Coop”. Lisa is also a master gardener, DIYer, and “coop to chicken” cook, using fresh eggs from her coop and fresh produce and herbs from her garden. Lisa is the author of seven books including her most recent, The Fresh Eggs Daily Cookbook.
March 3 is known as National Cold Cuts Day. Cold cuts are meats cured using age old traditions. With the industrialization of food, both the meats and the way they’re cured have become denatured. Meat producers began looking for shortcuts. Processors began adding in nitrates, which have negative health effects. At the same time, farmers began raising livestock and growing crops on separate land. So lunch meats were often sourced from factory farms. Currently, so many sandwich meats are made from feedlot animals given feeds filled with pesticides and GMOs.
While the majority of cold cuts come from unsustainable sources, there are a handful of companies dedicated to finding farms with animals raised in humane conditions for them to produce their lunch meats. And all of them continue to expand the type of deli meats to include more options.
In alphabetical order, here are the 10 best sustainably sourced deli meats:
Applegate
In 1987, Stephen McDonnell and his friend Christopher Ely bought Chris’ family business Jugtown Smokehouse, which produced smoked meats without any synthetic nitrates. Stephen started Applegate with the purpose of asking “what if you weren’t afraid to read a hot dog ingredient label?” Next they made deli meat which was antibiotic free, followed by introducing the first widely distributed deli meat with an organic certification. In 2015, all of their beef products became 100% grass fed. In addition to their grass fed roast beef and pepperoni, Applegate has organic deli slices of salami, ham, chicken, and turkey.
Creminelli
The Creminelli family comes from Biella, Italy, where they ‘ve been making artisan salami for centuries. Cristiano Creminelli began running the production for their salami when he was 25, earning his family an official recognition by Italy’s cultural ministry as Artisans of Excellence. In 2006, Cristiano moved to Utah to form Creminelli Fine Meats with business partners Chris Bowler and Jared Lynch and introduce the United States to his family’s artisanally cured charcuterie. Creminelli offers a diverse variety of salamis, including genoa, sopressata, calabrese, and varzi, along with prosciutto.
Diestel
Back in 1949, Jack Diestel founded the Diestel Family Ranch based on philosophies and techniques he had learned from his Great Uncle Earnest. The farm remains in the family, maintaining the Diestel commitment to lean, clean, and delicious poultry. Recently Tim and Joan Diestel transitioned the business over to their children Heidi and Jason. The Diestels practice methods of regenerative agriculture and holistic farming to help rebuild the soil and restore biodiversity. Diestel composts its organic waste not only for fertilizer on their farm, but for other commercial farmers and even school gardens as well. They use fresh well water to clean their barns and pipes. They’re able to use less groundwater for farming as they have a membrane water technology system, which eliminates the need to use chemicals. Diestel’s turkey comes in various flavors, such as smoked, oven roasted, and honey roasted. Plus they sell antibiotic free black forest ham.
La Quercia
Herb and Kathy Eckhouse started La Quercia a little over a decade ago to create a premium quality American prosciutto based on what they had learned living for three and a half years in Parma, Italy, where prosciutto originates from. Along with taste, sustainability is a top priority for La Quercia. They source their pork from farmers who treat their animals and land responsibly. The vast majority of their pigs comes from within a 200-mile radius both of both where the animals are raised and the slaughterhouses where they’re processed. Their pork is cured with sea salt from the United States and organic spices when possible. The La Quercia facility uses energy efficient technology and eco-friendly packaging. While La Quercia’s main focus is prosciutto, they also cure salami, pepperoni, and pancetta.
Maestri
Europeans have been enjoying the charcuterie from Maestri for three generations now. Their deli meats come from Italy as well as Spain, France, and Germany. When looking for farmers partner with, simple things like surrounding air and water and what the animals are fed are all important. In 2014, Maestri began offering their specialties to American consumers. Their products range from Italian meats such as prosciutto, salami, coppa, and mortadella to European meats such as chorizo and jamon.
Old World Naturals
Old World Naturals is a collection launched by a fourth generation family in the deli meat business. Old World is proud to now be sourcing its meats from sustainable farms. They’re currently looking at new ways to support sustainability and regenerative agriculture on a larger scale. In terms of their current practices, they use 100% grass fed beef for their roast beef, corned beef, and pastrami. Old World Naturals’ other cold cuts are made with antibiotic free turkey and nitrate free ham.
Olli
Oliviero Colmignoli’s family has been curing salami since 1850 with roots in Norcia, Italy. In 1900, Oliviero’s great grandfather moved the company to Rome for a larger market and opened stores throughout the city. Then in 1950, his grandfather formed a manufacturing business. Oliviero was born in 1978 and learned how to cure meats at a young age. In 2000, he joined his grandfather’s company to learn more about curing pork. Ten years later, he formed his own salami brand known as Olli Salumeria in Virginia. Most recently in 2015, Oliverio moved his work to Oceanside, CA for a larger facility and to be able to sell nationwide. Olli makes salamis in the flavor of genoa, sopressata, and calabrese. They also produce pepperoni and prosciutto.
Organic Valley
In 1988, seven Wisconsin farmers in the Coulee region were fed up with industrial chemical farming taking over the American agriculture system. They created a cooperative of family farms known as CROPP (Coulee Region Organic Produce Pool). The coop later became Organic Valley, specializing in organic dairy. In 1996, they moved into the meat industry. They were the first in the industry to ban animal by-products from a cow’s diet. Today, they’re a cooperative of over 2,000 farms in 34 states plus Canada and Australia. Organic Valley’s deli slices consist of 100% grass fed roast beef and organic pepperoni, ham, chicken breast, and turkey breast.
True Story Foods
The people running True Story are third-generation food producers who have visited farms throughout America and Europe. Their methods for making their products go back to the way their fathers and grandfathers did things. True Story says their mission extends way beyond putting food on people’s plates by running a business which supports farmers, producers, and growers so we have a sustainable world for the future generations. True Story Foods’ line of cleaner deli meats includes organic pepperoni, applewood smoked ham, chicken breast, and turkey breast.
Volpi Foods
Volpi Foods‘ origins are on a hot summer night in 1899 when John Volpi arrived in the United States from Milan, Italy. Coming to America, he brought along the centuries old tradition of dry-curing meats overseas and bringing them to the U.S. midwest. Four generations later, the Volpi family continues the tradition of making the products by hand. And keeping with the promise of quality, Volpi has created its Raised Responsibly program. Practices of this program include comprehensive animal care from birth to harvest; herds with agricultural biodiversity; no gestation crates, steroids, or growth promotants; humane harvesting; third party animal welfare audits; and transportation audits. Volpi has a wide assortment of deli meats, including prosciutto, capicola, coppa, pancetta, salami, pepperoni, chorizo, and mortadella.
http://www.appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-fed-030222.mp3 For his latest podcast, Aaron Zober welcomes Lisa Steele to The Appropriate Omnivore. Lisa is a fifth-generation chicken keeper and runs the blog Fresh Eggs Daily. She’s also the author of the recently released The Fresh Eggs Daily Cookbook. Aaron and Lisa discuss everything people should know about eggs: why they’re good for you, what labels to look for when buying, what shell and yolk colors mean, and why you should raise backyard hens. Aaron and Lisa also talk about their favorite types of egg dishes, including some dishes you might not have heard of and foods you wouldn’t necessarily think to put eggs in.
To make sure you never another episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, go to my iTunes , Stitcher, or Google Podcasts page and subscribe to the podcast.
Ingredients
- Farfalle (bow tie) or Radiatore (spiral) pasta
- Chicken breasts
- Cherry or sun dried tomatoes
- 5-6 garlic cloves
- Basil
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Salt and pepper to season and taste
Instructions
- Pre-cook pasta and coat it with extra virgin olive oil to prevent sticking again.
- Pre-heat the oven to 375ºF.
- Line a sheet pan with foil and drizzle extra virgin olive oil all over it.
- Wash and dry chicken breasts and set them on the oil in the sheet tray.
- Season chicken breast with salt and pepper and cook until done, usually 30 minutes.
- Allow chicken breasts to cool and then cut it into bite-sized pieces.
- Wash and half cherry or sun dried tomatoes instead.
- Chop garlic cloves.
- Finely cut fresh basil leaves and set aside.
- Assemble the cooked pasta, cut the chicken breast, and toss in the tomatoes and garlic.
- Add ¼–½ cup of EVOO, and season to taste with an emphasis on a bit more salt than usual — it will enhance the flavor.
- Toss in the basil and mix.
- Allow to chill for a few hours and serve.
This recipe was provided by David Neuman. David is founder of the olive oil brand EVOOGuy.com and author of the book Extra Virgin Olive Oil: The Truth in Your Kitchen. His career in the specialty and natural foods industry began as a commis chef at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington D.C. David also worked for various high-end food retailers and the organic cereal company Nature’s Path before becoming president and partner of the olive oil company Lucini Italia.
http://www.appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-evoog-022322.mp3 Aaron Zober welcomes olive oil professional David Neuman to The Appropriate Omnivore podcast. David has a career in the natural food industry in numerous areas from supermarkets to cereal to his long and current involvement in olive oil. David sells his olive oil through EVOOGuy.com and authored the upcoming book Extra Virgin Olive Oil: The Truth in Your Kitchen. Extra virgin olive oil is one of the foods which is most often defective. Aaron asks David all of the question about what makes your olive oil rancid from the production of it to when it gets into your kitchen. Aaron also asks David about the labels we often see. Do they help at all in choosing better olive oil? Are some of them meaningless? Are there labels we need which aren’t on the olive oil bottles? David then gets into how to find real extra virgin olive oil, including tasting it for yourself.
To make sure you never another episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, go to my iTunes , Stitcher, or Google Podcasts page and subscribe to the podcast.
Ingredients
- 1 cup organic coconut cream
- 1 tbsp raw unfiltered honey
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup organic sprouted chia seeds
- 1 tbsp Paleonola – Grain Free Granola Original Flavor
Instructions
- Add the vanilla and honey to the coconut cream and blend for a few seconds until it forms a uniform mixture. Transfer to a mixing bowl.
- Whisk in the chia seeds.
- Refrigerate for 1 hour.
- Add the granola to the top and serve.
This recipe was provided by Dr. Nakisa Nowroozi. Naskisa has a PhD is in cell and molecular biology and masters in biochemistry. She currently teaches anatomy and physiology at Orange Coast College. She also founded Nourishality, which produces grain free nutrition bars and energy balls. Her products use the most nutrient dense ingredients and are all free of gluten, grains, and natural sweeteners.
http://appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-ft-020922.mp3 It’s the first Appropriate Omnivore podcast of the 2022 season. Aaron Zober kicks off the new year as one of his favorite holidays is soon approaching – Super Bowl Sunday. The day is also observed as National Pork Rind Appreciation Day, being that the football is referred to as the pig skin and pork rinds are the perfect Super Bowl snack. To discuss this wonderful carnivorous food, Aaron brings on Field Trip co-founder Tom Donigan. Tom gets into how Field Trip got started, what he looks for in terms of farmers and ranchers to partner with, and how they decide on the right ingredients for all of their products. In addition to pork rinds, Field Trip also produces jerky, meat sticks, and chickpea butter. All of their foods, both meat and veggie, make for perfect Super Bowl treats. Tom also discusses how the business has changed now that all of the co-founders have families. Plus Aaron and Tom state their choices of who they’d like to see win the Super Bowl.
To make sure you never another episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, go to my iTunes , Stitcher, or Google Podcasts page and subscribe to the podcast.
In the United States, National Pizza is celebrated every year on February 9. And who doesn’t love pizza? I know I certainly do. But there are couple of issues related to pizza made with conventional ingredients and by conventional methods. Many pizzerias use non-organic wheat which is sprayed with various pesticides. Plus traditionally wheat has been fermented into what’s known as sourdough.
Sourdough uses wild yeast while conventional pizza uses baker’s yeast, which is a single strain of yeast from a wild yeast culture. Baker’s yeast made it faster and cheaper to produce baked goods, but also removed a lot of the nutritional value.
Sourdough pizza is healthier and easier to digest than regular pizza for a number of reasons. It has a lower glycemic index than other pizza. Sourdough is much lower in phytates due to the lactic acid bacteria in it. The fermentation process creates prebiotics and probiotics. Some people with gluten sensitivities can even handle sourdough.
But not all sourdoughs are created equally. Even with sourdough, it’s important to use organic flour. Many sourdough bakers take a shortcut and use conventional flour thinking people will eat it just because it’s sourdough.
In alphabetical order, here are the 5 best organic sourdough pizzas in Los Angeles:
Erewhon
Location: Silverlake, Fairfax, Santa Monica, Venice, Pacific Palisades, Calabasas
www.erewhonmarket.com
Erewhon began as an independent natural foods store in Boston in 1966 and launched Erewhon West in Los Angeles in 1968. In the past decade, additional Erewhon stores were built and there are now a total of five supermarkets. Erewhon has high standards for what they allow in their stores, including no refined flour. As even some natural and organic loaves used refined flour, Erewhon bakes its own fresh organic line of breads with sourdough being among them. The Erewhon stores all also have cafes where shoppers can take out food. Some also have tables to eat at outside. Among the menu items offered at the cafes are organic sourdough pizzas. They have several types of pizzas or you can make your own with the wonderful veggies and meat that pass the Erewhon standards.
Full Proof Pizza
Location: Culver City
www.fullproofpizza.com
Full Proof Pizza comes from the team behind the Lodge Bread Company. Lodge founders Or Amsalam and Alexander Phaneuf said to each other “I dare you to do it.” They began working on the business at the end of 2014 and opened the physical bakery a year later. They mill the flour themselves and have various types of sourdough breads. In 2015, Lodge began having bakery pizza nights. Now they make pizzas at their Culver City location on Wednesday through Sunday nights with the name Full Proof Pizza.
Grá Restaurant
Location: Historic Filipinotown
Takeout Link
www.grá.com
Michael McSharry went from being in the advertising world in London to making pizza and bread at a restaurant on the border of Echo Park and Historic Filipinotown. He said that while sourdough wood fired pizzas are all over London, Los Angeles is just getting warmed up to them. He’s helping in part with Grá Restaurant. Grá not only focuses on pizza, but other types of ferments as it menu also includes pickles, kimchi, kombucha, and skin-contact wine.
Hail Mary Pizza
Location: Historic Filipinotown
Takeout Link
www.hailmarypizzala.com
The ingredients for the pies at Hail Mary Pizza are sourced directly from small farmers, so they know how the food was grown, raised, and harvested in addition to having a relationship with the growers. Their organic wheat is grown in California and Utah and uses a good amount of wheat flour. The dough is made by hand daily. They also use ethically sourced meat and seafood to top their pizzas. These toppings include sausage, chorizo, salami, porchetta, and anchovies.
Pizzana
Locations: West Hollywood, Brentwood
Delivery & Takeout Link
www.pizzana.com
Chris & Caroline O’Donnell were holding Sunday night pizza parties when they met chef Daniele Udati. Daniele grew up in Naples, Italy. His craft is a combination of what he learned through his family bakery’s traditional bread recipes and having been trained at some the best pizzerias in Campania. Daniele introduced the O’Donnells to his signature slow dough fermented for 48 hours and the idea for Pizzana began. Also a part of the restaurant are Sprinkles founders Candace & Charles Nelson. The couple have a passion and undertaking to using fresh and seasonal produce from the local farmers markets.
Topanga Grain Company
Locations: West Hollywood, Brentwoodwww.topangagrainco.comwww.malibuwines.com
Topanga Grain Company founder Lisa McCullough Roark was raised by a family of great bakers and cooks where everything was homemade. Her father’s side of the family also followed a branch based off of the Amish and her cousins milled their own flour. She then began learning about the dangers of white flour while working many years for a health practitioner. Growing up in the south, Lisa had a love of good food. She decided to buy her own mill and see if she could make food which was both healthy and tasted great. To learn how to cook better, she enrolled in the San Francisco Baking Institute. In 2018, she opened the Topanga Grain Company. For her business, she still mills the grains herself and hand mixes the flour and water to make her wide range of sourdough breads. The Topanga Grain Company sells its breads at farmers markets all over Los Angeles. Most recently, they began selling sourdough pizzas at Malibu Wines & Beer Garden in West Hills on Friday & Sunday and soon Saturdays.
Another Super Bowl is coming up. And while the Super Bowl is about football, it’s also about the musicians performing at the Halftime Show, and the great commercials… and of course, all of the snack foods that are consumed. Among the money the salty snack industry rakes in: $278 million is spent on potato chips, $224 million on tortilla chips, and $86 million on popcorn. But the next day, many Americans pay the price for the Standard American Diet. Antacid sales go up 20%. And 1.5 million people call in sick to work.
The biggest problem facing snack products such as potato chips, tortilla chips, popcorn has been the use of seed soils such as canola and soybean oil. Another problem has been ingredients which aren’t organic and are sprayed with multiple pesticides. In the case of tortilla chips, that also means genetically modified corn.
The good news is over the past decade, there’s been a huge growth in snacks foods using real ingredients. These products use healthy oils including avocado, coconut, and palm oil. The manufacturers are responsible about the other ingredients they source too. Many of them are certified organic. Some of the companies give us better versions of the classic potato chips and popcorn. Others do more contemporary takes using ingredients such as sweet potatoes, cassava flour, and coconut flour to come up with twists on the traditional potato and tortilla chips. These alternative flours are great for anybody who has issues consuming grains.
If you serve any of these better snacks foods below at your Super Bowl party this year, you’ll score a touchdown. In alphabetical order, here are the 10 best snack foods using real ingredients:
Artisan Tropic
Artisan Tropic began in 2012 when the Guzmans’ daughter Maca was diagnosed with autoimmune disease. They tried all types of medicine for treatment, resulting the holistic methods working the best. This led to the Guzmans becoming passionate about food and nutrition and deciding to produce healthy snacks. As they’re Colombian, they wanted to reinvent the plantain and cassava snacks, which they loved, by making them with whole and clean ingredients. Most recently, Maca married the plantain farmer’s son Joe Agudelo. Now Artisan Tropic’s entire process from farm to snack is literally in the family. Their products are cassava and plantain strips cooked in palm oil, in the flavors of naturally sweet, sea salt plantain strips, jalapeño, and barbecue.
Atha
Cassava is also used by the chip company Atha as they’ve got tortilla chips made with them. Their chips are free of gluten, grains, and soy. Plus they’re fried in palm oil. Atha gives fun names to all of its flavors, which are skinny dippin’ sea salt, BBQ blast off, and sour dreamin onion.
Boulder Canyon
In 1994, brothers John and Mark Maggio founded Boulder Canyon to create snacks which were both healthy and delicious. The two learned how to make potato chips and soon started frying them in better oils, such as avocado oil. Boulder Canyon’s potato chips come in both ridged and thin textures and in the flavors sea salt, malt vinegar and sea salt, and cheddar sour cream.
Good Health
Good Health has been around the longest of any of the chips here, dating back to 1994. They pride themselves on innovative ingredients and great tasting tasting flavors. Their slogan is “Enjoy Being Good”. Good Health makes a number of avocado oil potato chip flavors from sea salt to lime ranch to barbecue. They also have baked organic cheese puffs and cheese fries with cheese sourced from Organic Valley.
Jackson’s Chips
The story of Jackson’s Chips starts with the Megan and Scott Reamers’ son Jackson getting diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disorder. After trying various methods to improve his health and quality of life, they found that a high fat low carb diet worked the best. The entire family began living a HFLC lifestyle, but they missed eating snack foods. So they attempted cooking locally sourced and thinly sliced sweet potatoes over their stovetop. They loved how the sweet potato chips tasted. Their son Jackson’s legacy lives on through the chips he inspired and the company. Jackson’s Chips has sweet potatoes fried in avocado oil in the flavors of sea salt, spicy tomatillo, and carolina BBQ plus a coconut oil sea salt option.
Jans
Since 1998, Jans Enterprises‘ mission has been to improve people’s quality of life by providing them with better food products. Their product line consists of everything from beverages to dairy products to desserts to chips. Among Jans’ chips are organic yellow and purple sweet potato chips fried in coconut oil. Jans also has non-GMO cassava chips mixed root chips cooked in palm oil.
Lesser Evil
President and CEO Charles Coristine came to Lesser Evil as he thought it could be a great opportunity to have the company carry out his practices of mindfulness and healthy living, not to mention he loved the name. He saw the mission of Lesser Evil as creating organic, sustainably made delicious snacks that inspire mindful snacking. Examples of their sustainable practices are the energy efficient facility they own, composting their food waste, and packaging the products in NEO Plastics. Lesser Evil produces a wide line of snack foods cooked in either coconut oil, avocado oil, or olive oil. The snacks range in everything from organic popcorn to cassava flour puffs and curls to veggie sticks to paleo cookies.
Pop Art Snacks
Pop Art Snacks founder Mike and Venessa Dobson both come from an art background. Their company is all about making snacks not just healthy but also fun. They add that they do for snack food what Andy Warhol did for Campbell’s soup cans. Pop Art’s products take the traditional popcorn snack and elevate it into a savory “taste of art”. Their products are all sourced with organic and natural ingredients. Pop Art’s popcorn comes in bold flavors, including cheddar jalapeno, Hawaiian sea salt, and dill pickle ranch. All of those flavors are with kernels cooked in avocado oil.
Sana
The origin of SANA starts with the restaurant The Real Coconut Kitchen. Founder Daniella Hunter cared a great deal about her health, so she decided to do a 180 degree turn on the conventional restaurant model. Her bold restaurant offered a menu free of gluten, dairy, and refined sugars; cooked only with avocado oil; and used the highest standards of meat sourcing. After expanding from the flagship restaurant in Tulum, Mexico, two additional restaurants have opened in Los Angeles. Daniella also now sells her coconut flour tortillas and coconut flour tortilla chips to supermarkets. They were originally marketed with the name The Real Coconut Kitchen, but are now under the label SANA. Their chips are cooked in coconut oil coming in the flavors of original, Himalayan pink salt, splash of lime, and sea salt & vinegar.
Siete
Siete‘s formation can be traced to founder Veronica Garza’s family of seven (or siete in Spanish) helping her overcome numerous health challenges. As a teen, Veronica was diagnosed with multiple autoimmune conditions which made her fatigued, overweight, and depressed. So her family began exercising and joined her in following a low-inflammation, grain free diet. Being a Mexican American family in South Texas, using lettuce in place of the flour and corn tortillas for tacos and fajitas wasn’t cutting it. Veronica began making grain free tortillas. When her Grandmother Campos told her that the grain free tortillas tasted better than the flour tortillas her grandmother had been making for decades, Veronica knew she had a winning product she could sell on the market. The first products were tortillas and tortilla chips made from cassava flour and fried in avocado oil. Siete has since expanded into avocado oil potato chips and even sauces, seasonings, churro strips, and cookies. Their tortillas and potato chips are available in a wide variety of flavors.
Every year on January 31st, it’s National Hot Chocolate Day. As this is the coldest part of the year, it’s a perfect time to have some hot chocolate. With a slight tweak on this traditional winter time drink, I propose having it with the added superfood collagen. Collagen is ripe with health benefits, including strong bones, anti-aging, and digestion. Plus it provides the essential amino acid of glycine. Chocolate and collagen go together so well that many of the collagen producers offer chocolate collagen powder blends. I’ve got a recipe to turn a chocolate collagen powder into a version of the classic hot chocolate. Add in some grass fed gelatin marshmallows and you’re incorporating even more collage in your diet.
Servings: 2
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups milk
- 1/2 heavy whipping cream
- 4 tbsp cocoa powder
- 4 tbsp Primal Kitchen chocolate collagen powder
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extra
- 2 tbsp honey
- 1 pinch of salt
- Sweet Apricity grass fed gelatin marshmallows
Instructions
- Mix together milk, cream, cocoa powder, chocolate collagen powder, vanilla, extract, honey, and salt in a saucepan.
- Place saucepan on the stove at medium and heat. Continue stirring until cocoa begins to steam.
- Remove the saucepan from the heat and pour into two mugs. Add in as many marshmallows as you’d like and serve.
January is known as National Meat Month. As the main focus of this blog is about letting readers know where they can find the best meat, I want to take this time to talk about buying it from vendors at your local farmers markets.
It’s important to know where your food comes from. By purchasing meat and poultry at your farmers market, it allows you the opportunity to get to know the farmers directly. You have the chance to ask them any questions you want about the agriculture practices.
Ranchers who sell at farmers markets also tend to be the most sustainable. You won’t find the major meat companies selling there. All of the livestock farmers on this list have practices which include family owned businesses, grass fed and grass finished ruminants, animals who roam on the pastures outside, and no antibiotics or hormones being administered to their herds.
In alphabetical order, here the 7 best ranchers available at farmers markets in Los Angeles:
Apricot Lane Farms The husband and wife team of John and Molly Chester left their jobs as a documentary filmmaker and private chef, respectively, to pursue their dream of starting Apricot Lane Farms. Their farming practices involve a system known as biomimicry. Biomimicry is a practice which learns from and mimics the strategies of living species in order to create products, processes, and policies which solve challenges of sustainability. Apricot Lane’s goals are for enhancement of the environment and wildlife habitat and regeneration of the soil. They farm cows, sheep, pigs, chicken plus a biodynamic garden and orchards. Apricot Lane Farms pays fair wages to its workers and provides them a safe and chemical free working environment. Molly is also active in the traditional foods community with her blog Organic Spark and her Back to Butter Cookbook. John has continued with his documentary making as he directed and co-wrote Biggest Little Farm, which captured the development of Apricot Lane from dream to reality.
Farmers Markets: Santa Monica, Calabasas, and Mar Vista
Autonomy Farms Meredith Bell had worked in food and beverage sales for almost a decade, but eventually became fed up with the conventional food world. In 2013, she decided to change careers and follow her passion and found Autonomy Farms. Meredith felt there was a disconnect from the farmer to the consumer and felt the need to reconnect the two by having direct relationships with the local community. Their breeds of animals are Angus cattle, Suffolk lamb, Hampshire pigs, and cornish cross breed chicken. Their farm is in Bakersfield and all of the animals are harvested in Southern California, except for the lamb which are processed twice a year in Northern California. Along with their regular meat and poultry products, they have seasonal offerings of turkey for Thanksgiving and prime rib roasts, beef tenderloins, and briskets for the winter holidays.
Farmers Markets: Santa Monica, Burbank, and La Canada
Buy Ranch Direct Buy Ranch Direct is a cooperative of family owned and operated ranches in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The majority of the animals are raised on their Diamond Mountain Ranch, but they occasionally partner with other small ranchers who pass their standards of grass fed and finished meat. Their livestock dine off of certified organic grass. Their types of meats are beef, pork, lamb, chicken, turkey, goat, rabbit, yak, and their speciality – bison. Buy Ranch Direct sells a number cured meats, including hot dogs, bacon, salami, and jerky, which are nitrate free and use only celery powder for curing.
Farmers Markets: Torrance, Long Beach Southeast, Mar Vista, and Studio City
Harvest Gathering Farm Before being a farmer, Wendy Marchant Kammermann managed farmers markets in Los Angeles and owned a farmers market in East Ventura. She referred to the market she owned as “The Harvest Gathering Farmers Market”, because she loved the idea of bringing a community together to enjoy the livestock and crops of local farmers. Wendy was always interested in knowing where her food came from and decided to go a step further by raising animals on pastures herself on Harvest Gathering Farm. All of their cattle, chicken, pigs, lamb, turkey, and ducks maintain a diet which doesn’t include any GMOs, corn, or soy. After Wendy started farming, she then discovered that a family member on her mom’s side raised livestock in the late 1800s on the pastures of rolling hills in Guiggesburg, Switzerland. They then emigrated to the United States and opened up the Kammermann Brothers Butcher Shop in Forrest, IL. Learning about her family’s ancestry helped her continue as Harvest Gathering Farm was just getting started.
Farmers Markets: South Pasadena, Old Town Newhall, and Westlake
Novy Ranches Dr. Lowell Novy has been ranching most of his life, beginning with growing up in the Great Plains in Western Kansas. Aftering serving overseas in the U.S. Air Forces and earning a veterinary degree from Kansas State University, he and his family moved to California. In 1976, he founded Novy Ranches in the Shasta Valley area of Northern California. The pastures at Novy Ranches are free from being sprayed with any pesticides, herbicides, or chemical fertilizers. Novy Ranches’ meats are minimally processed with no additional ingredients or food colorings. When it comes to the processing facilities, a Novy employee will go on site to the plant to guarantee that all of the animals are being treated in the most humane manner. The area where the ranch is located provides both wonderful pastures for the cows to graze on and an important habitat to a number of species, including geese, swans, herons, and Sand Hill cranes. Additionally, the Shasta River, which flows through Novy Ranches, is an important habitat for the Coho Salmon.
Farmers Markets: Calabasas, La Canada, and Palisades
Rocky Canyon Farm
Rocky Canyon Farm started as a project idea for founder Greg Nauta’s Ag Business 101 class while he was attending Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in the 90s. Greg began selling sweet corn on the streets. His desire to have a farm was able to happen. The property located in Atascadero, CA has now been family owned and operated by the Nauta family for 29 years. All of the work on their farm is done by them and their children. Greg still drives the tractor while his wife Lisa does most of the picking. Their children are involved too. All of the animals are given organic feed and left over produce scraps. The animals on their farm consist of cows, pork, chicken, turkey, and lamb. They not only raise livestock, but also a wide variety of organically grown fruits and vegetables and even some grains. Their 10 acres of wheat and barley make them one of the few farmers to sell grains at Southern California farmers markets.
Farmers Markets: Hollywood and Santa Monica Farmers Market
SZ Ranch
Along the Cayuma Valley in Central California is the SZ Ranch above the valley floor and surrounded by the mountains. Their cattle are raised on open range national grasses throughout the year. SZ’s chicken and turkeys are given a non-GMO certified organic feed. The floors in the chickens’ rooms are changed every couple days to provide them with fresh new organic pine shavings. When the chickens reach three weeks, they then get to run outside on the pastures. They then return indoors as the sun sets. Their eggs are hand gathered, hand washed without any soaps or chemicals, candled, graded to size, and each egg is packed individually.
Farmers Markets: See website for list
Collagen is one of the fasting growing products in the natural food world. There are many health benefits from collagen, including strong bones, anti-aging, and digestion. Also, collagen is rich in glycine, an essential amino acid which many people don’t consume enough of. This is especially important for meat eaters as red meat is high in the amino acid methionine. Too much methionine is problematic if your body is low in glycine. So to be an appropriate omnivore, it’s crucial to make sure you’re getting enough glycine in your diet.
One way to get collagen is through food, such as bone broth, chicken and fish skin, beef tendons, oxtail, head cheese. As many people aren’t used to eating meat with the skin on and bone in or consuming organ meats, another way to get collagen is in the form of a protein powder. And that’s the way it’s making a splash in the marketplace. Not only are collagen powders hot products right now, but many of the producers are fortunately sourcing it from grass fed cattle.
Collagen protein powder can be mixed with all kinds of foods and beverages. The powders also come in a variety of flavors. Chocolate is a popular flavor from many of the collagen business. If you add hot water and maybe some milk to your chocolate collagen, you have a healthier and more nutrient dense substitute for hot cocoa. A nice warm cup of chocolate collagen can feel good as we deal with the cold weather this time of the year.
In alphabetical order, here are the 8 best chocolate grass fed collagens:
Ancient Nutrition
Ancient Nutrition was founded by Jordan Rubin, who started the nutritional supplement company Garden of Life, and Dr. Joseph Axe, a chiropractor and doctor of natural medicine. The company was created with the mission to “to restore health, strength and vitality by providing history’s healthiest whole food nutrients to the modern world.” The collagens come from a combination of chicken, beef, turkey, and egg shells. They offer chocolate collagens in both multi collagen protein and their bone broth protein flavors. All of their collagen is sweetened with a Stevia extract.
Bulletproof
When people hear Bulletproof, they mostly likely think of putting butter in their coffee. This comes from the mind of Dave Asprey. Asprey was a tech company VP under 30 who felt lacking in energy. He was told by doctors that he had a high risk of stroke and heart attack. After hearing this, Asprey decided to make a trek to Tibet to learn meditation. When given a cup of yak tea, he said his brain woke and he felt better than he had in a long time. Asprey then began experimenting with adding butter to tea and coffee. He soon followed by started Bulletproof Coffee, selling certified clean and Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee along medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) oils, extracted from coconut oils, to be placed into the coffee. Bulletpoof has since expanded into to other products such as collagen. Their chocolate collagen includes their XCT oil, a type of MCT oil.
Further Food
Further Food began with three women all experiencing chronic illness. They originally were a community based education program to support each other and provide holistic health solutions. Further Food next turned to making real food free of additives, fillers, or preservatives. Their products are reviewed by health practitioners, including naturopaths, herbalists, and nutritionists. They also donate a portion of their proceeds to chronic illness and healthy eating initiatives. Along with collagens, they have turmeric and matcha blends. Further Food’s chocolate collagen is mixed with mood boosting reiki mushrooms.
Garden of Life
Garden of Life prides themselves on always making their products with real foods, whether it be a vitamin, a probiotic, or a protein powder. They have three principles they rely on for all of their products. The first principle is to looking for the highest quality which we’re missing in our diet and which can give us extraordinary health. The second is all about traceability from where it was grown to the agricultural practices of the farmers to how the farmers were paid and treated. The last principle is paying as much as what’s in their products as to what they keep out of them. As people don’t want chemicals in their food, they see no reason to include them in their supplements. Among the supplements they produce are many types of collagen. Their chocolates varieties are a regular chocolate collagen sweetened with stevia and a chocolate collagen creamer with coconut cream, MCT oil, and a probiotic formula.
Great Lakes
Since 1922, Great Lakes has been selling gelatin products. In 2009, they made a breakthrough in the collagen industry by creating collagen peptides which could be mixed into beverages. This development paved way for all of the collagen products on this list. The company has recently rebranded itself into Great Lakes Wellness. In addition to gelatin and collagen products, they’ve also formulated products to help in the areas of digestion, joint, performance, and beauty. Plus they launched a marine based collagen to offer a collagen to pescatarians and flexitarians. And for the keto lifestyle, they have an MCT powder and MCT oil. Along with chocolate collagen, Great Lakes’ collagens also come in the flavors of vanilla, chai, mixed berry, apple + cucumber, and lemon + lime.
Primal Kitchen
Mark Sisson became one of the first ancestral health bloggers back in 2006 with Mark’s Daily Apple. He started writing it as a way for people to take full control of their health and to investigate, discuss, and be critical thinkers of everything we’ve thought was true about health and wellness. After a huge success in the blogosphere, Sisson set foot in the natural food world with offerings that didn’t have any dairy, gluten, grains, refined sugar, or soy. Primal Kitchen was born in 2015. Their first product was a mayonnaise made with avocado oil. Primal Kitchen has since expanded into many other condiments and and delved into protein products. They have a chocolate collagen containing coconut milk powder and a monk fruit extract for sweetening.
Ultimate Paleo Protein
Ultimate Paleo Protein was created to introduce a unique protein called HydroBEEF. HydroBEEF is a non-GMO grass fed beef protein combined with L-glutamine, probiotics, MCT powder, and stevia. Ultimate Paleo Protein also has a performance formula made with BeefISO, which has a slightly higher protein content. Their products mix the Hydrobeef with collagen peptides and have flavored options such as chocolate.
Vital Proteins
Kurt Seidensticker was beginning to feel a lot of knee pain when he was running and feared having to give it up because of this. But he was able to get back into running after discovering and consuming collagen. Seidensticker then decided to create a product to incorporate protein easily into our diets. Vital Proteins has a diverse array of collagen products from beef to marine collagen, powders with all sorts of flavors, a whey protein and collagen combo, and even flavored collagen waters. And of course, Vital Proteins has their version of the chocolate collagen made with cocoa powder, coconut milk powder, cinnamon, and monk fruit extract.
It’s December and the holidays will be happening before we know it. As part of the tradition, many will partake in eating lots of candy. The winter holidays are third in terms of candy sales, only behind Halloween and Valentine’s Day. When it comes to eating candy, it’s important to choose organic and sustainably sourced confections.
Organic candies contain cane sugar instead of GMO sugar or high fructose corn syrup. They also use natural ingredients for color and flavors, natural waxes, and more heat stable oils. Plus being certified organic means it has non-GMO ingredients which weren’t sprayed with any pesticides such as glyphosate. Additionally, the organic candy companies source their ingredients from farms where the workers are treated fairly and paid a fair price for their work.
In terms of holiday candies, I searched all of the organic candy businesses to see who had products which were holiday related in one way or another. One element I was looking for was ingredients associated with winter time, such as peppermint or gingerbread. Another type of candy which could make my list is winter season or holiday related shapes, such as a snowman, a Christmas tree, or coins known as Hanukkah gelt. And of course, what would the holidays be without candy canes?
In alphabetical order, here are the 8 best organic candies you can buy for the holidays:
Hammond’s Candies
Hammond’s Candies dates back over 100 years ago when founder Carl T. Hammond Sr. opened Hammond’s Candy Factory in Denver, CO. Carl started it as a small family business committed to quality. The first candy he created was Carl’s Honey Ko Kos, which were chocolates topped with shredded coconut. What began as a one man business soon developed into Carl hiring a manager to run the store while he traveled throughout the west selling candy to other retailers. Several generations of the Hammond family ran the company from Carl’s son Carl T. Hammond Jr. to Carl Jr.’s son-in-law Emery Dorsey. In 1995, Williams-Sonoma purchased a number of their products and Hammond’s became a national name. The company was sold in 1999 to three veterans of the candy industry who expand Hammond’s from a small business to 10 employees to a factory twice as large with over 60 employees. In 2007, candy lover Andrew Schuman purchased Hammond’s. Having a similar background in retail and enthusiasm for entrepreneurship as Carl T. Hammond Sr., Andrew eventually expanded the company to 300 employees and into the snack foods arena. For the holidays, their organic options include candy canes of various flavors, mint pillows, and mint mini ribbons.
Hu Kitchen
The story of Hu Kitchen begins with the three founders, Jordan Brown, Jason Karp, and Jessica Karp, all wanting to improve their health. Jordan did extensive reading on health and wellness. Jason had successfully overcome autoimmune disease himself. Jordan left the corporate world to devote himself full time to nutrition and food. The three researched the gut-brain connection, what causes inflammation, and the effects of foods and additives have on our health, immunity, and performance. They concluded processed ingredients needed to be replaced with basic and healthier alternatives. And the food brand of Hu Kitchen was born. They now offer different flavored chocolate bars, chocolate covered fruits and nuts, and chocolate gems. Hu has a holiday-themed gingerbread dark chocolate bar.
Lake Champlain
Lake Champlain founder Jim Lampman bought fancy chocolates every year as holiday presents for his Ice House Restaurant staff in Burlington, VT. One year, his pastry chef said the chocolates Jim bought weren’t all that great, so Jim dared him to make better ones. His chef took him up on the challenge and the two started making hand-rolled creamy truffles together. Today, Lake Champlain has a wide variety of chocolates which are all fair trade certified and GMO free. Many of their products are also certified organic. They remain a multi-generational family business which sources from local and sustainable partners. Lake Champlain has a wide variety of organic holiday candies with everything from Hanukkah gelt to peppermint cream dark chocolate jubilees to chocolate snowmen and Santas.
OCHO Candy
Natural food expert Denis Ring thought we’d soon see an organic candy bar hit the market. But he waited year after year without seeing this happen. So he eventually felt it was time to create one himself. Denis tried several different concepts and had his friend entrepreneur Scott Kucerik taste. As it only took one bite for Scott to be won over, Denis asked him to join OCHO Candy. Their holiday contributions are milk chocolate tree-shaped candies filled with caramel or peanut butter and peppermint-filled dark chocolates.
Raaka Chocolate
Raaka Chocolate prides itself on transparent trade. They purchase cacao directly from cooperatives and grower organizations who value quality, sustainability, field support, market access, and premium prices for farmers. They always purchase cacao premium prices which are higher than the commodity market and fair trade prices, in addition to making sure the prices will remain stable. Every transaction of Raaka makes can be found on their website. For the holidays, they offer gingersnap chocolate bars with ginger-steamed Tanzanian cacao mixed with winter spice-infused cocoa butter and sparkling brown sugar sprinkled on top.
Taza Chocolate
While traveling through Oaxaca, Mexico, Taza Chocolate founder and CEO Alex Whitmore took his first bite of stone ground chocolate. His trip then inspired Alex to open a chocolate factory back in his hometown of Somerville, MA. He began sourcing direct trade cacao and hand-carved granite mill stones to make less processed chocolate. In 2005, he officially launched Taza with his wife, who serves as Chief Design Officer. Taza prides itself in its sourcing. It’s the first U.S. chocolate maker to establish a third-party Direct Trade Cacao Certification program. Their holiday products are chocolate bars with peppermint stick and gingerbread cookies.
Theo Chocolate
Theo Chocolate was created in 2005 by Joe Whinney and Jeff Fairhall. Joe had previously formed the first company to manufacture and supply organic cocoa and chocolate products in bulk to the U.S. food industry. Jeff was one of the founders of The Essential Baking Company. Joe & Jeff’s goal with Theo was to make high quality chocolate from scratch from the cocoa bean to the chocolate. Their practices also include using third parties to verify that everybody they work with is being truthful in their claims, negotiating stable prices with their farm partners, and having full transparency with everybody they work and trade with. Theo makes six different holiday-themed chocolate bars in the flavors of peppermint crunch, nutcracker brittle, gingerbread spice, egg nog white chocolate, milk & cookies, and peppermint mocha.
YumEarth
Two young men had been living organic lifestyles. After both becoming fathers, they felt it was time to start an organic candy business. YumEarth began with lollipops and then expanded to hard candy, gummy bears, gummy worms, jelly beans, and licorice. Their holiday candies include candy canes, mini candy canes, and candy pops.
http://www.appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-ftlob-120121.mp3
For the last podcast of 2021, Aaron Zober welcomes Scott Lively to The Appropriate Omnivore podcast. Scott was working in IT before getting into the organic grass fed beef industry. He founded Dakota Grass Fed Beef and now runs the grass fed beef company Raise American. He also recently released the book For the Love of Beef: The Good, the Bad and the Future of America’s Favorite Meat. His book covers everything about beef from the different cuts to the benefits of being grass fed. Aaron asks Scott about what inspired him to write it. Aaron then has Scott get into the parts of the book which intrigued him the most, such as if we need to worry about E. coli, the importance (or lack thereof) of all the different labels, the roles processing plants play, and what are the underrated cuts of beef. Aaron and Scott conclude things with what they see as the future of grass fed beef.
To make sure you never another episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, go to my iTunes , Stitcher, or Google Podcasts page and subscribe to the podcast.
http://appropriateomnivore.com/podcasts/appomnivore-s4c-112421.mp3 With the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) having just occurred, Aaron Zober welcomes Seth Itzkan of Soil4Climate to the Appropriate Omnivore podcast. Seth is an environmental futurist advocating for holistic land management in order to reverse climate change. He makes a visit to the show having just been to the U.N. Food Systems Summit where he and his team presented a paper on regenerative agriculture. After the Food Systems Summit he also attended COP26 and was able to address people there about holistic management. As he’s on a program called The Appropriate Omnivore, Aaron has him address the meaty issue of why animals are needed for regenerative agriculture and reducing carbon emissions. Seth then gets into what foods we need to eat less of and what he’d like to see as the theme for next year’s Climate Change Conference.
To make sure you never another episode of The Appropriate Omnivore, go to my iTunes , Stitcher, or Google Podcasts page and subscribe to the podcast.
November 14 is celebrated as National Pickle Day. This day was first observed by the Pickle Packers International back in 1949 to observe the pickle as one of the most popular fermented foods. I’m pleased to be taking part in this day devoted to everything about the pickles as it’s the first food I remember falling in love with. Little did I know that this was also my introduction to traditionally fermented real food.
Growing up in Cleveland, there was a great local pickle company Don Hermann’s, which made true kosher dill pickles with salt and water to pickle the cucumbers. They also didn’t use any vinegar. Like my family, these pickle makers were a Jewish family with Hungarian ancestry. So I was raised knowing what good old Jewish deli pickles tasted like.
When I went off to a college in a small town in upstate New York, I was unable to find Don Hermann’s or any raw fermented pickles. The only ones I saw in grocery stores were ones made with vinegar. At the time, it was the taste I missed from real kosher pickles. Later I learned lacto-fermented pickles also have way more health benefits than vinegar based ones. Raw fermented pickles are filled with probiotics, which are great for your gut. On the other hand, pickles using pasteurized vinegar lack any living cultures. This means your digestive system won’t reap any rewards from vinegar based pickles. Plus if vinegar isn’t organic or non-GMO certified, then it’s often processed from genetically modified corn.
I now love and consume kosher dills pickles for many reasons: a connection to my Jewish culture, the health aspects of fermentation, and of course their out of this world flavor. Real pickles are one of the harder ferments to find, but I’ve been able to locate some food producers keeping the tradition of kosher dill pickles alive. Literally alive as they’re raw. Many of their reasons for individuals making truly fermented kosher dill pickles is to provide consumers like myself access to them. Others do it for the health advantages of fermented foods and to support local, and organic farmers, all of which I’m also a big proponent of.
In alphabetical order, here are the 6 best fermented kosher dill pickles:
Ba-Tampte
Ba-Tampte is one of the few companies which makes New York style pickles and is still based in New York. Having been around since 1955, they also have stayed family owned. Founder Meyer Silberstein’s father and grandfather ran pickle stands and pushcarts in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The business is currently run by Meyer’s sons and grandsons, following many of the pickle recipes which have lasted in the family for generations. While now using an automated pickle packing process, the final touches remain done by hand. Ba-Tampte’s pickles come in the flavors of garlic dill and half sour.
Bubbies
Leigh Truex started Bubbies in 1982 as a hobby on the side after her family friends suggested she sell her homemade pickles commercially. While her pickles were a hit taste wise, she unfortunately didn’t have the same luck financially. Then entered John and Kathy Gray, a couple who met working together at a bank and wanting to go into business for themselves. They Grays bought Bubbies in 1989, working to make it a well known brand in stores nationwide. A big part of their success has been focusing on the marketing, such as changing their labeling to include a photo of the perfect Bubbie (aka the kind and passionate Jewish grandmother). Sadly Kathy Gray passed away in 2011, but her legacy is remembered every day by the people at the company.
Don Hermann & Sons
The Hermann family are descendants of Hungarian Jewish immigrants and have been making dill pickles in northeast Ohio since 1967. Their father was a chicken farmer until an infectious disease killed his flock. His family and friends then encouraged him to sell his homemade pickles. In addition to the Don Hermann & Sons brand being sold at supermarkets, they also make custom label pickles for other brands. The legendary New York hot dog chain Nathan’s Famous puts their name on the Hermann’s pickles sold in supermarkets across the country. Additionally, Don Hermann’s pickles are found at many restaurants around Ohio.
Oregon Brineworks
Oregon Brineworks comes from Brian and Connie Shaw, who met while running an organic farm. The two connected as they found they had the same passions for produce, farming, and the great outdoors. They then decided to start a fermentation business as a way to create delicious and healthy foods using produce from organic farmers in their region. Brian and Connie felt Oregon Brineworks would also be a great source for more healthy local food available all year round. 90% of their ingredients come from farmers in a 100 mile radius. The farms that they work with are all listed on their website. They make garlic dill and spicy dill pickles, which are both organic.
Real Pickles
After attending a workshop at the Northeast Organic Farming Association Conference in 1999, Real Pickles founder Dan Rosenberg began making traditional pickles. After a couple years of practicing his new craft, he decided to start a small company devoted to local, regional, and organic foods. In 2001, he started pickling cucumbers and selling them to a dozen local stores. In 2009, the company had steadily grown as they added other fermented foods. Dan then saw it as time to move out of the incubator kitchen and get his own property. He bought a century-old industrial building in Greenfield, MA and retrofitted it into a solar-powered, energy facility. n 2013, Dan continued his commitment of balancing purpose and profit by making Real Pickles a worker co-operative. Real Pickles offers the varieties of dill, garlic dill, and spicy dill. All of the farmers they use can be found on their web page. Dan also cites the studies of Dr. Weston A. Price as an influence on him becoming interested in locally grown foods.
Sonoma Brinery
In 2004, Dave Ehreth picked some cucumbers out of his garden at home in order to make salt-cured kosher pickles similar to the ones found in New York delis. His pickles received such wild enthusiasm that Sonoma Brinery was born. Dave sees his pickles as an homage to the traditional kosher pickles which were fermented in salt brine with garlic and spicing. He found too many pickles being labeled as kosher, but being made with vinegar, artificial colors, flavorings, heat processing and preservatives. So he wanted to bring some on the market which did it the old fashioned way the Jewish communities around New York did it. Sonoma Briney is based in Healdsburg, CA and has always been a family business.