Organic foods seem to be everywhere these days -- from the corner store to the grocery store, there are pesticide-free, unprocessed, free-range foods on every shelf. But could you live on nothing but organic foods? Think about it -- you'd only have a handful or restaurants to choose from, and you might have to give up on some of your favourite dishes altogether. Could you do it?

One doctor in California did, and he recently spoke to the New York Times about his experiences on the all-organic diet. "This isn't a way of eating I could recommend to anybody else because it's so far off the beaten food grid," said Dr. Alan Greene. "It was much more challenging than I thought it would be, and I thought it would be tough. There were definitely days where there was nothing I could find that was organic." Still, he thinks it has improved his health. Read the full story here.

Your thoughts?

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Eggs, the old standby breakfast food, are a fantastic source of protein. But figuring out what kind of eggs to buy is becoming more and more daunting. Labels boasting free-range, cage-free and fortified might leave you scratching your head -- luckily The New York Times in shedding some light on what they all mean. Here are a few pointers:

• Cage-free means the bird was kept out of a cage, but this doesn't mean they ever saw the light of day
• Free-range means they had regular access to the outdoors, but 'outdoor' could mean a parking lot.
• Pasture-raised means that at least some of their diet was natural (like greens and bugs.) But there's no regulation on how much of their diet needs to be natural.
• Animal Welfare Approved means they spent all their time outdoors in a pesticide-free pasture. They are bathed and not fed any animal byproducts.

Intrigued? Read more here.

(via Well)

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I try to eat organic whenever possible, but I always cringe when I head to the store and see the price of the free range meat and dairy versus the regular stuff. It's just so expensive. But I have trouble swallowing the non-organic stuff after all the horror stories I've heard about hormones and such. The result? I load up on tofu and ignore any cravings for a juicy chicken breast.

But I should suck it up, especially considering what this article from eDiets has to say. Apparently, free range eggs have the following advantages over regular eggs:

• They have less cholesterol and saturated fat
  
• They have more vitamin A, not to mention twice as much Omega-3s, 3 times more Vitamin E and 7 times more Beta Carotene.
  

All that and it still has the advantage of being hormone-free and raised out in a pasture like nature intended. I think the choice is clear, don't you?

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So what does it mean when you buy organic or free range meats? You might envision happy cows, chickens and pigs frolicking through open pastures and meadows, stopping occasionally for a snack of fresh grass or a drink of pure, clean spring water.

Ok, maybe unlike me you're a bit more realistic. And rightly so -- 'Organic' means only that the animal in question had access to a pasture, and as we wary consumers would expect, some corporations are exploiting this loophole, according to Self Magazine. And they advise this: 'Until new guidelines are enforced, look for products labeled certified humane and USDA certified organic to ensure your food comes from animals that were given space and shelter, plus a diet free of antibiotics or hormones.'

What do you think?

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First there was the whole foods diet. Then there was the low-carb craze. Then eating organic was all the rage. And I'm sure you've heard of cage-free, free range and grass fed. Now there's eating locally. Well, eating locally isn't exactly a new concept--after all, farmer's markets have existed probably as long as farms, but it finally seems to be catching on as a dieting trend.

So what exactly does it mean to eat locally, and what are the benefits? I mean, we've all seen farmer's markets, perused their offerings and even occasionally indulged in some of their maple syrup candy and apple cider but what does eating locally really translate to?

"Local" is defined as anything within a hundred miles. That makes for a lot of possibilities in terms of food options, depending on where you live.

To me, farmer's markets were always the opportunity to get a little something different than what you'd find at a local supermarket. I know the one in Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn used to house a woman we referred to as the Cheese Lady who always had THE BEST cheeses anywhere. She had this one spicy white cheddar with horseradish in it that was TO DIE FOR. Sadly, at some point she took her wares elsewhere.

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We've talked about antibiotics in meat in this blog before. A new study by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the Marshfield Clinic has made a strong link between the usage of antibiotics in chickens and the presence of "supergerms" in the humans who eat those chickens.

Antibiotics are used, quite reasonably, to help sick chickens get better. But they are also increasingly used as a growth stimulator. That is, antibiotics are fed to the all the chickens all the time on some farms.

The Marshfield researchers set out to find whether this obvious overuse of antibiotics led to the development of drug-resistant bacteria in the intestinal tract of the people who subsequently ate the meat. The connection was undeniable. They found the so-called "supergerms" much more often in the people who ate the antibiotic-laden chicken than in the vegetarians in the study or the others who ate organic chicken. This may seem obvious to a lot of us, but now that there is a government-sanctioned study pointing clearly to the link, hopefully something will change.

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