It's convenient. It's cheap. It's usually rock hard and sprinkled with frost. Cold-weather cultures have been freezing food to preserve it for consumption later for many years, but the discovery of flash freezing to retain texture and flavor is credited to Canadian Clarence Birdseye.

The Frozen Food Digest reported last year that U.S. retail sales of frozen foods and beverages through all retail channels totaled $52 billion in 2008.
These days, many people depend on TV dinners, frozen french fries, frozen pizzas, and even frozen fish for a large percentage of their diet. But any product that markets itself as cheap and easy is usually hiding something undesirable behind all positive advertising.
Here are three chilling facts should consider before grabbing dinner on ice:

Too Much Fat, Too Few Calories
Many frozen foods manufacturers tout their product as the perfect meal for someone trying to control their portion sizes and lose weight. However, an article on WebMD points out that not all low-fat, low-calorie claims are giving consumers an accurate picture of the real nutritional content of a TV dinner.

"Some low-cal, low-fat dinners provide only about 250 or 300 calories. And if that's truly a third of your daily caloric intake (given three meals a day), that totals less than 1,000 calories -- not nearly enough food even if you are trying to lose weight."
An evaluation from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) also found that the four or five grams of saturated fat listed in most of these "low-fat" meals doesn't sound too alarming, until you consider the fact that this makes up almost 20 percent of the calories.

The CSPI study also found that frozen dinners tended to include high levels of sodium, and skimpy portions of vegetables.

Supermarket Freezers Are Big Greenhouse Gas Emitters
A recent study by Environmental Investigation Agency – an international campaigning organization – claims that greenhouse gases used in large freezers and fridges by supermarkets are as harmful to the environment as plastic bags.

In the 1990's HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons) were introduced to replace ozone depleting CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) and HCFCs hydrochlorofluorocarbons). However this switch to refrigerants that do not damage the ozone layer brought in a generation of chemicals with a greenhouse effect thousands of times stronger than CO2 (Guardian).
The Guardian states that chemicals released by fridges account for 30 percent of supermarkets' direct emissions, yet only 0.5 percent of stores have been fitted with greener equipment, according to the EIA's report, called Chilling Facts.

Waffles Taste Better With Syrup, Not Sewage
If you've cruised the frozen food aisle of your favorite grocery store lately looking for a quick breakfast option, you might have noticed that the loveable Eggo Waffles were suspiciously missing. What the "we're sorry this product is out of stock" sign didn't tell you is why.

The Food Safety Network reports that "on a routine inspection of the Kellogg's frozen food manufacturing facility on Bucknell Road in Atlanta, last Aug. 31st, the Georgia Department of Agriculture found Listeria monocytogenes in a sample of buttermilk Eggo waffles."

Although this initial inspection caused Kellogg's dispose of an entire shipment of waffles and recall some of it's other Eggo products, it was assumed that closing the Atlanta plant down for "hygienic restoration" would have taken care of the problem.
But when the FDA inspected returned to the plant in October 2009, taking a variety of samples of both finished and in-process samples and environmental swabs for its own testing, those results were also positive for Listeria.

A Jan. 27 letter from the FDA pointed out that inspectors also found "significant deviations" from current Good Manufacturing Practice regulations at the Kellogg's plant.  FDA's Acting Atlanta District Director LaTonya M. Mitchell, said Kellogg's violations mean products from the Atlanta plant are "adulterated."

Yum.

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Common knowledge tells us that organic food is good food. It is tasty to eat, good for the environment, and safer for the farmers and workers who produce it. Since agriculture is responsible for much of the pollution of the waterways, choosing organic is the eco-choice for those who want to live a more sustainable life.

Eating organic may be one of best ways to keep your body healthy and the world’s ecosystems strong. Which organic fruits and vegetables to buy with your hard earned cash can be confusing. Some produce has less pesticides, while others are laden with chemical residues. Some are obvious, because of their thick skin (bananas), while others are penetrable (berries).

Is buying organic worth the extra cost? The jury is still out. It seems that the research has yet to prove an adverse health effect from consuming the low levels of pesticides that are commonly found in U.S. food. This may be inconclusive, but as Time magazine points out, “Even if conventional foods don’t turn out to be as dangerous as organic advocates claim, several recent studies have suggested that organic foods contain higher levels of vitamins than their conventionally grown counterparts.” Also, for the most vulnerable groups, such as children and pregnant women, as well as for those who are interested in sustainable growing practices (and their health), buying organic makes sense. Especially, the fruits and vegetables that carry the heaviest pesticide load. Here are 15 reasons to buy organic food.

Want to get the most bang for your organic buck? Check out Heidi Kenney’s free downloadable Dirty Dozen Cheat Sheet. When you are food shopping and need to make that quick decision on whether to spend a little more for organic, the Cheat Sheet makes that decision simple. The convenient, credit card-sized guide separates 27 common fruits and veggies into two categories, those that generally have a low pesticide content and those that don’t. Cool Hunting claims it is the, “world’s cutest pocket guide to buying organic.” The guide is based on the Environmental Working Group’s comprehensive list of the Dirty Dozen and the Clean 15. If you’ve got an iPhone you can download the Shoppers Guide to Pesticides.

Do you buy organic? If so, what do you think are the most important fruits and vegetables to purchase?

Image credit: http://www.mypapercrane.com/blog/?p=2135#comments

Ronnie Citron-Fink is a writer and educator. Ronnie regularly writes about sustainable living for online sites and magazines. Along with being the creator of www.econesting.com, Ronnie has contributed to numerous books about green home design, DIY, children, and humor. Ronnie lives the Hudson Valley of New York with her family.

Image Credit: cizauskas on Flickr.

We try to shop organic as much as we can, and sometimes organic produce is considerably pricier than conventional. When you pay a premium for organic food, you want to get your money’s worth! Before you throw those fruit and veggie scraps into the compost bin, check out these ways to use the bits and pieces that you’d normally toss.

Swiss Chard

Chard leaves are the star in lots of tasty veggie dishes, but after chopping up all of those greens, you’re left with a pile of stems. The stems, or ribs, are actually great in recipes, too! They’re crunchy and slightly tangy. You can treat them like celery or onions and add them to stir fries, casseroles, soups, and stews.

Celery Leaves

Margie, the woman who operates the local Atlanta CSA Vegetable Husband, has a great suggestion for the leaves on the top of celery. She adds them to soups and stews for a deep, celery flavor. Celery leaves also work really well in salads of both the greens- and mayonnaise-based varieties. Just chop them up finely and mix them right in to add a little kick!

Mushroom Stems

Many stuffed mushroom recipes call for chopping the stems right up into your filing mixture, but these tasty leftovers have more uses than just that! Once you remove the tough part at the very bottom of the stem, try adding them to everything from soups and casseroles to salad dressings. You can toss your dressing into a food processor with some mushroom stems and process until smooth to add a nice, earthy taste to your salads.

Citrus Peels

After peeling that orange or juicing a lemon, you can take advantage of the zest before composting the rest! Citrus zest is the dark-colored part of the skin, and it’s perfect for adding a citrusy flavor to baked goods. You can remove it using a paring knife or vegetable peeler. Just wrap the zest in wax paper and put it in a container in the freezer. It should last a couple of weeks.

Broth

Home made, organic vegetable broth is a great catch-all for your scraps! You can save veggie leavings - like onion and garlic peel, carrot ends, mushroom stems, and stems from fresh herbs and spices - in a container in the freezer. Once you have enough, just put them into a pot with enough water to cover and bring to a rolling boil. Lower the heat and simmer for an hour, then strain out the scraps. What’s left is a wholesome, tasty veggie broth that’s just as good as (if not better than) the store-bought sort!

Becky Striepe is an indie crafter living in Atlanta, GA with her husband, two cats, and her trusty sewing machine.

She runs a crafty business: Glue & Glitter, sewing handmade housewares from vintage and revamped materials. Her mission is to use existing materials in products that help folks reduce their impact without sacrificing style!

To me, healthy eating simply means removing, or limiting the foods in your diet that could be harming you and eating enough of the foods that contain the nutrients essential to your health. It is always preferable to get your nutrients from food itself rather than supplements, although replenishing nutrients using supplements is necessary, too. Most importantly, eating should be a pleasurable experience. If you are not enjoying your meals because you feel deprived or bored, your diet is not right for you. There is no one right diet, or way to eat, different people thrive on different foods.

1. Try doing some of your shopping at local farmers markets if possible. Here is a great link to find one near you.

2. Never go shopping when you are feeling hungry. This will help prevent impulse buying – usually something junky – to satisfy your hunger.

3. Most of your shopping should be in the outer aisles – the produce, the meats, fish, eggs. The inner aisles are usually full of processed foods (which you want to avoid) – the ones full of sugar, trans fats and other preservatives that extends their shelf life. Processed foods also tend to have a lot of the healthy protective micronutrients missing and are high in sodium and low in fiber.

4. Buy fresh food whenever possible – the fresher the food, the more nutritious.

5. Buy organic fruits and vegetables whenever you can and if possible, locally grown. Locally grown fruits and vegetables are less likely to have been sprayed with pesticides and chemicals. It’s also a great way to support local farmers.

6. Choose the most colorful fruits and vegetables, the more varied the colors, the better. This way you will get as many different phytonutrients as possible.

7. Choose simple whole foods – those closest to mother-nature. The more refined or processed, the less the nutritional value.

8. As a general rule, if there are ingredients that you cannot recognize, pronounce or spell, you should not be putting those into your body. And no cartoon characters either.

9. Become a label reader – though most of the foods you should be eating do not require labels. If you do buy packaged or boxed foods, know what is in them.

10. Be wary of “all natural” labels. Although I recommend an all natural way of eating, “all natural” on a label is often meaningless and deceptive and a guise for hidden sugars.

11. Look for sugars in all its different forms on the label. A variety of different versions of refined sugars are often used to trick you into thinking that there is not much sugar in the product. Here are some of the different versions of refined sugar – cane sugar, brown sugar, beet sugar, date sugar, grape sugar, glucose, sucrose, maltose, maltodextrin, dextran, dextrose, sorbitol, corn syrup, fructose, high fructose corn syrup, corn sugar, fruit juice, fruit juice concentrate, barley malt, caramel, carob syrup and sorghum syrup.

12. Look for the number of grams of sugar on a label – 4 grams is equivalent to 1 teaspoon. If possible buy foods that contain 3 grams or less.

13. Try to buy grass feds meats and free range chickens. Organic meats and poultry without hormones would be next best and if you cannot find them, then chose lean cuts of meats and remove the skin from chicken as this is where toxins are stored.

14. Limit buying fish with a high mercury content. Choosing ocean caught fish is generally better than farm raised fish which are usually full of PCB’s.

15. Lastly, bring your own shopping bags with you to the supermarket.

Follow Dr. Frank Lipman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/lipmo .

Frank Lipman MD, is the founder and director of the Eleven Eleven Wellness Center in NYC a center whose emphasis is on preventive health care and patient education. His personal blend of Western and Eastern Medicine combined with the many other complimentary modalities he has studied has helped thousands of people recover their energy and zest for life. He is the author of the recent Revive: Stop Feeling Spent and Start Living Again (2009) and Total Renewal; 7 key steps to Resilience, Vitality and Long-Term Health (2003).

By Chuck Sudo

By the time I've brewed my morning coffee at 7 a.m., Carl Galvan has been Twittering for close to three hours.

Galvan, a sales representative at Supreme Lobster & Seafood in Villa Park, uses the messaging service Twitter to post photos of fish and other seafood Supreme is offering and to interact with chefs interested in placing orders based on those photos.