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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Living healthy isn't just for us humans, it's good for the planet too! Reap the benefits of a healthier you and a happier Earth by supporting a local farm.

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In Medieval times, peasants lives relatively short lives compared to us -- elderly people were those who lived into their 40s, 50s and 60s. So the news that the Medieval diet was much healthier than ours should come as a shock, shouldn't it? Well, not really. Truth is, the Medieval people probably would have lived longer than most of us if they'd had our access to modern medicine and farming technologies.

Here's the thing: Medieval people ate much better than us. According to the BBC, they typically ate 8 oz of protein, a variety of fresh, organic vegetables and two loaves of whole wheat bread per day. Nothing was processed, and nothing was refined. Any sugar they got was typically from the fruits they grew. And they didn't go to the gym, but couple that with a day of physical labour and you've worked off those calories easily. They were fitter, and the reason they lived shorted lives than us was typically due to illness, starvation, pestilence and so forth.

Doesn't it seem odd that we have all this technology and yet we're going backwards in terms of life expectancy? It seems about time we started going back to basics. What do you think?

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I was alerted to this article, The Meat We Eat, from this post on our sister blog, Parentdish, and like Kristin, I haven't been able to get it out of my mind. Does the idea of animals spending their entire lives inside a shed, never seeing the light and of day and being injected with antibiotics to prevent the spread of disease appeal to you? Because that's where those cheap supermarket cuts of meat probably come from. Although it's hard to know just where your meat comes from -- unlike past generations, when meat was bought from a butcher who knew the rancher by name.

The point is, it's worth it to buy organic, free-range meats -- that is, if knowing that the animal your eating lived off the earth like it was supposed to is important to you. Otherwise, you don't know what you're getting, and you can bet it didn't come from a naturally healthy animal. And after all, we are what we eat, right?

I don't usually buy organic meats. In fact, I don't usually buy meats at all, but if I do, the budget usually wins out and I go for the non-organic stuff to save money. What about you? Do you eat organic meats?

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I've mentioned my hesitance to eat meat before -- and while I'm not a vegetarian per se, becoming one wouldn't be much of a stretch for me. I like meat, but I don't like to consider where it came from, what kind of hormones are in it or how many questionable practices were used to get this slab of meat on my plate. I'm what this article might call a 'compassionate carnivore' -- I don't see much wrong with eating meat, as long as the animal lived how nature intended it to. I'll eat meat, but I prefer it to be free-range. I also believe that the food industry needs to come up with sustainable farming practices.

Compassionate carnivores are a new breed of meat eaters that it's thought are inspired by Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. I can't say the book inspired me because, well, I've yet to read it, but there's lots of literature out there these days that calls into question to methods used to get animals on our plate. And whether you believe in vegetarianism or not, I think it's important to figure out what you're putting into your body -- don't you?

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Living in the big city, it's sometimes hard to get really fresh fruit and veggies. However, you can't throw a stone without hitting a McDonald's or Burger King. They're everywhere, and in most cases, it's cheaper to get a greasy cheeseburger than it is to get a fresh salad made of local produce. There are always farmer's markets, but I find them to be quite expensive. It's one of the unfortunate realities of our industrialized world.

A farm just outside of Boston is trying to change that though by offering freshly-picked fruits and veggies that are competitively priced and in a convenient location. What's more, the farm employs about 60 inner-city youth, which helps the teenagers of Boston learn about healthy eating and sustainable community.

I think this is a great idea and one that I hope catches on throughout North America. What do you think?

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As a general rule, self-employment is supposed to be good for you, but for some reason farmers aren't getting the benefit. In a new report published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine, farmers come out scoring low on every measure of health and quality of life.

This news strikes me as really sad because it's such a natural and honest way to make a living, and we need farmers! But if it's such an unpleasant way of life then why will anyone choose it in the future? And unfortunately the article doesn't give much in the way of what to do, other than suggesting farmers need more emotional and social support.

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We're getting pretty conscious of what good disease and infection control means in this country, what with instant hand sanitizers, toilet seat covers, and signs reminding us to wash our hands in public bathrooms. But somehow all that great effort flies right out the window when it comes to petting zoos, where the majority of safety precautions to limit people's exposure to organisms like E. coli, salmonella, cryptosporidium, and campylobacter are frequently not followed. The simplest of interventions, like washing hands when leaving the petting zoo, were not done by people as often as 77% of the time in a recent survey.

Now that you know there's no excuses: wash your hands! And save the snacks and drinks for later.

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Organic foods and produce are really catching on -- years ago you had to go to a special market or private store to find good products, but today you can find them practically everywhere. Even big national chains are quickly increasing their organic inventory.

The down side? Organic farmers are struggling to keep up with demand. Sure, there are bigger problems than "too much demand" (and it's always nice to hear that farmers are making money), but although there are a few incentives currently in place encouraging farmers to switch from traditional farming to organic, the conversion process is long and daunting and more help is needed. Industry leaders are, however, continuing to work with local and federal governments to see what else can be done to help meet the ever-increasing demand.

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Most of the time a purple-colored tomato should give off some warning signs. After all, red is the preferable shade of this particular culinary vegetable. However, researchers at Oregon State University have been tweaking a different variety of tomato that isn't unlike a blueberry!

This dark-skinned purple version comes from six years of mad science, but is actually traceable from a wild type out of South America. So what's in the new color anyway? Well it's not all aesthetics, believe it or not. The new tone brings with it a phytochemical that fights the risk of cancer and heart disease.

Don't go out looking just yet: it could be another two years before we actually see them. How the public will react to a radically different color of a popular salad ingredient has yet to be seen. Would you be receptive to a purple tomato? It would be interesting to see other varieties of vegetables or fruit undergo a paint job as well!

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After almost 200 people were infected with E. coli due to bad spinach these past weeks, it didn't take long for cries of regulation and inspection to fill the air. Supermarkets experienced recalls, restaurants stopped serving it, but one niche group of providers never stopped production.

Michael Ableman, a farmer in British Columbia, writes about how he had no such absence of spinach during the weeks of the bacteria scare. That's because he has one integral advantage which the large, mass-producing industrial food systems lack: relationships. When people buy produce from supermarkets, bring them home and consume with little or no preparation, they lose an important health-conscious factor.

Because in terms of being health-conscious, industrial food systems which are responsible for large amounts of cheap food care largely about the overall profit margins -- maybe not always health. Mr. Ableman knows that this is why customers regularly consume his produce over theirs: they know him. They know his food and his reputation, and trust it. Could this be the missing link in our own nutrition?

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There are plenty of reasons why people would rather sink their teeth into salmon that is "wild" as opposed to farm-raised. It has a more distinct taste with a stronger flavor and firmer feel to it. Not to mention it isn't gray like the farmed kind.

Turns out that some stores are stocking farm-raised salmon that's labeled "wild" during the slower season. In November, December, and March, a test was conducted on 23 store-bought salmon that were marketed as "wild." Only 10 passed the test as being such; the other 13 were frauds.

Another interesting twist involved the "organic" salmon. With no federal standards, the unlabeled fish that were tested came from farms as well. So what does this mean? Well, since the "wild" kind ordinarily costs more, and doesn't have added toxins, people should be getting what they paid for -- not a farmed alternative marked up at a higher price. If you want to avoid the fish fraud, get it during the summer when it's most abundant. This will minimize your chances of getting salmon that's falsely labeled.

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