Organic Restaurants Turn Fast Food Into Great Food

Are you in a fast food lunch rut? Have you eaten the same burger and fries every day for a week? Getting that same old Caesar salad again today?

You know why you do it. It's quick and it's cheap. But did you know that you can get a fast, cheap, great tasting lunch that's also good for you at an organic restaurant?

Organic restaurant choices in the East Village area abound. Long known to be vegetarian friendly, many East Village restaurants have embraced new organic food options with relish. Armed with fresh, chemical free ingredients, chefs have created lunch menus to appeal to even the most dedicated burger-addict.

Organic lunches taste better than fast food

The food has no choice but to be better at organic restaurants. Without all those nasty preservatives to extend shelf life, produce and dairy products have to be fresh. Some even have delivery contracts with local producers, meaning that the egg on your plate just arrived this morning, straight from the chicken. It doesn't get any fresher than that.

Organic chefs are experts at creating great tasting meals from natural ingredients. You don't have to eat just another fast food lettuce-cheese-egg-chicken chef salad at an organic restaurant. You could have a mesclun salad, filled with tender baby greens, julienned vegetables, crispy sprouts and hand-mixed dressing. Feeling adventurous? Try a salad made with arame, a type of seaweed that is both delicious and packed with nutrients. You'll have no more blah salads when you eat your lunch at an organic restaurant.

Even if you can't imagine lunch without a piece of meat, organic restaurants that focus on vegetarian dishes can still tickle your taste buds. Meat-replacement products, those "pretend meat" options that vegetarians use when they want BLTs and cheeseburgers, have come a long way since their introduction in the 1980s. Seitan, made from wheat and used by monks in India as a meat replacement, is so like real meat that some vegetarians won't eat it. Black bean veggie burgers are so tasty that rib-lovers have been known to forgo the beef and chow down on a salsa-covered black bean burger instead.

Organic lunches cost the same as or less than fast food

"All right," you say. "It's healthy. It tastes good. But I'm not spending $20 on lunch."

You don't have to! Lunch menus at quality organic restaurants have prices comparable to other popular lunch spots. Typical lunch fare at an organic restaurant costs under $10.00 for a wrap and soup or a veggie burger with fries. Similar fare at a fast food restaurant runs from $7.50 to $11.00, but you won't get as much food and you can guarantee that it won't be good for you. Cost is definitely not a reason to avoid having a fast, healthy lunch at an organic restaurant.

Before you grab another greasy fast food cheeseburger, check your neighborhood for a great organic restaurant instead. You arteries - and your taste buds - will thank you.

About The Author
Vladmir Grinberg has been involved in the natural food industry since 2001. He has made it his mission to promote healthy food choices by educating readers about the benefits of natural and organic foods. To help make healthy food more convenient for busy people, Mr. Grinberg started OrganicDirect, an organic food delivery service for the New York Metro area. For more information, visit https://www.OrganicDirect.com

Mr. Grinberg's organic, vegetarian restaurant, The Organic Grill , serves diners in Manhattan's East Village "Good, Clean Food." The Organic Grill has an extensive organic lunch menu with a variety of great entree options at less than $10.00. To learn more go to http://www.theorganicgrill.com.

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The Benefits of Using Organic Spices

With the high environmental, social and economic costs of corporate agriculture, more and more people are realizing that choosing organic is good not only for their health, but for the world in general - and that includes organic spices. Bulk organic herbs can be used in both the kitchen as well as to stock the medicine cabinet. Organic bulk herbs are an excellent way to add flavor to food, but have many other uses as well.

Spice History

The use of dried herbs in the preparation of food goes back a long way in history. Perhaps the earliest bulk herbs to be traded as commodities were cloves, cinnamon and pepper, all of which have been used in the Middle East for over 3,000 years. In the Old Testament, the collection of ancient Hebrew wedding songs known as the Song of Solomon contains passages in which the bridegroom compares his bride with various spices, indicating that such dried herbs were available - if not common.

Another noteworthy botanical among organic spices that has been used since ancient times is horseradish, which has been used in the Passover Seder since at least 1500 BCE; the powerful, sinus-blasting wasabi variety has been a stable of Japanese cuisine since the days of the shoguns.

In Europe, the earliest mention of spices is found in the 1st Century writings of Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder, who refers to cloves. During medieval times, such bulk herbs were literally worth their weight in gold. Contrary to popular belief, organic spices were not used by medieval chefs to disguise the taste of rotten meat. Because of their extravagant cost, using precious bulk herbs in such a fashion would have been seen as tremendously wasteful. However, many dried herbs that were used as spice could also be used to preserve meat and fish in the days before refrigeration.

New World Spices

When European explorers discovered the Americas, they also discovered a plethora of new organic spices that had hitherto been unknown. The best-known of these are of the chili pepper family, which was used by native peoples of Mexico and Mesoamerica for centuries. Chili peppers have found their way into cuisines from Africa and the Mediterranean to east Asia and Japan.

Organic Spices Today

Organic Spices in the form of bulk organic herbs are no longer ruinously expensive as they were as little as 500 years ago. The main reason is that organic bulk herbs that in olden days might have been found in only one or two places in the world are now grown virtually all over the world.

That said, you can expect to pay somewhat more for bulk organic herbs, mainly because they such are grown locally by small, independent farmers in relatively small quantities, and thus are less abundant. When you consider the flavor and health benefits of organic bulk herbs however, organic spices are still a bargain.

Anne Harvester incorporates a variety of organic products into her life, including organic spices. Anne uses many types of dried herbs in her kitchen and has researched the benefits of purchasing organic bulk herbs. In this article Anne discusses the benefits of using organic spices.

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