Healthy Living, Ethical Eating

By: Mary MacVean
Source: The Los Angeles Times, 04.22.2009
Photo: Green Wellies

There was a time, not so long ago, when eating in an environmentally, ethically conscious way was a drab business -- brown and beige food, with a few wilted organic vegetables relegated to a woebegone produce bin at the grocery store.

But these days, everything is coming up green and, forgive us, groovy. Buying delicious, locally and humanely raised food is the new righteous way to save your health and your planet. Wal-Mart shoppers can buy organic food, and the first family is planting vegetables on the first lawn.

Since January, there's even been a green convenience store in Hollywood called Locali, stocked with items such as grass-fed beef hot dogs from Let's Be Frank. The slushy is "ginger tonic," and the ice cream comes from Carmela. Store owners Melissa Rosen and Greg Horos give away filtered water to their customers and sell canvas bags decorated by the students at a nearby elementary school.

"It's not like we all have to hold hands and sing 'Kumbaya' together," Rosen says, but she and Horos made "a deliberate choice to do better" with their business.

But as sustainable living turns chic, the choices for living the simple life become anything but. Should you wash your dishes by hand, or does the dishwasher use less water? Drive to the farmers market or save gas and make do with what's in the closest supermarket? Must you become a vegetarian?

Read the rest...