Green and Global

Healthier choices in the supermarket aisles

Last month saw two big supermarket changes that offer consumers healthier food choices.

The first-ever Publix GreenWise Market opeend in Beach Gardens, Florida. The store offers an extensive selection of earth-friendly, organic and all natural products in addition to non-organic items.

To help shoppers sort out what's what, they're using brown tags to indicate an all-natural product, a brown tag with the USDA Organic icon to indicate a 95 to 100% organic product, a brown tag with the phrase, "Made with Organic Ingredients" to indicate a product containing 70 to 94% organic ingredients and a white tag to indicate a conventional supermarket item.

Three more Publix GreenWise Markets are scheduled to open next year in Boca Raton, Vero Beach and Tampa.

Also last month Hannaford Supermarkets announced that in the year since they introduced Guiding Stars, a storewide nutrition rating system helping shoppers make more informed nutritional choices, the sale of star-rated foods outsold non-star foods. The ratings consist of one, two and three stars for 'good', 'better' and 'best' nutritonal value.

Since the company began its star rating system, whole milk sales dropped by 4% while fat-free milk increased 1%.  Other starred foods that sold more during the same time period included breakfast cereals, packaged foods, 90% or more fat-free ground beef and frozen dinners/entrees. Watch the video here.

My employer, News Broadcast Network, distributed a B-roll package on the anniversary of the program.

Posted by Dawn

Good eats, at a price

About a year ago, I made a conscious effort to ramp up my organic grocery purchases. I've long been aware of the health benefits of consuming pesticide-free produce, grains and meats, but at some point (call it a mini mid-life crisis), what I was putting in my body held increasingly greater personal importance to me.

Still, monthly grocery bills of upwards of $300 for a family of one have been making me wince. Is it really worth the price? Does organic pasta sauce really taste better than non-organic, or does it have more to do with the mental satisfaction you gain from knowing you're making a healthy choice?

Then I read with, more than a little amazement, a New York Times article today recounting the similarly strong organic preferences of a bunch of 40 well-fed Swiss rats. A 21-year-long study assessing the quality of organic wheat production found that given a choice, the lab animals preferred organic bisquits to those made of conventional wheat, paws down.

From there, the story veered off into a discussion of organic produce's higher concentration of anti-oxidants and phytochemicals and the implications this may have on ongoing research to intensify the flavor of specific foods. But it left me still thinking about those Swiss rats. They have a remarkable sense of smell, no?  Perhaps the furry rodents know something I don't.

Posted by Dawn

Going local

I don’t know about you, but I’m weary of E. coli scares and other health-related issues associated with our industrialized food supply.  So I supplement my weekly trip to Stop & Shop by frequenting our local farmer’s market.

You may be familiar with Stop & Shop’s Peapod grocery home delivery service. Gazing out my office window the other day, I caught sight of a commercial van with the words Organic Connection emblazoned on the side.  A minute later, at http://organicconnection.com I was reading up on the latest interpretation of the slow food movement and a new model for decentralizing our food supply.

(The slow food movement favors small, local growers close to the point of consumption over fast food and the standardization of taste.)

Serving the tri-county area straddling New York and Connecticut, the Brewster, N.Y.-based company specializes in food delivery right to your door, just like Stop & Shop.  But unlike Peapod, Organic Connections’ line of food products is 98% organic. They offer prepared meals, too. Organic bison stew, anyone?

Posted by Dawn