Our February Sponsor Navitas Naturals has joined forces with the famous raw food-ist Ani Phyo to create Make-Your-Own Organic Superfood Chocolate Kits in three different flavors: Goji Berry, Cacao nib or Goldenberry.

Now choco-lovers like us around the land can play mad scientist in the kitchen brewing up delicious, to-die-for creations. All you need is a few minutes, a knife, a small and large bowl and an ice cube tray.

Like most chocolate, these food kits aren’t exactly local. The raw cacao comes from Peru, the goji berries from China and the goldenberries from Columbia. But the mission behind the Navitas Naturals brand might help in justifying its hefty carbon footprint. The high quality ingredients are sustainably and ethically sourced from farmers. And this is much better alternative for us choco-addicts to reach for when that Hershey’s bar begins to beckon.

Each kit costs an affordable $10

Feeling like you’ve ate a full turkey recently? Or maybe a little too much mincemeat pie? You tried to keep it under control, but your promised diet was lost to a wave of holiday eating.  If you wake up the next day feeling overstuffed, bloated, and nauseated, don’t worry.  Use our day full of detox recipes (plus plenty of water) and get back to your healthy, happy self.

Classic Oatmeal

The morning after overindulging, give your stomach a break. Wait until you’re hungry and then start with this fiber-rich breakfast to get your digestive system in gear. The mild flavors of vanilla and cinnamon will stimulate your taste buds without causing sensory overload. Adding diced pear will add a boost of antioxidants and the high water content will help with much needed rehydration.

Greek Yogurt Parfait

Foods that contain fructose—like the honey in this recipe—will help your body burn any lingering alcohol in your system. Plus it adds a sweet flavor to the slightly-sour Greek-style yogurt and tangy clementines. A sprinkling of pistachios adds energy-boosting protein and vitamin B6, which may ease hangover symptoms.

Black-Bean Chili with Winter Squash

Drinking alcohol depletes salt and potassium levels, so replace them by eating this hearty vegetarian chili. High-fat foods empty more slowly from your stomach, but by eliminating meat from this chili, you’ll slash the fat, and bulk up on protein and fiber through black beans. The spicy chili powder may reduce pain and inflammation, and have you running on full steam by the end of the afternoon.

Lemon Chicken and Rice with Artichokes

This quick and easy, low-fat recipe will leave you satisfied, without repeating any dietary discretions from the day before. Fiber-rich and flavorful, artichokes add a Mediterranean flavor and contain silymarin, an antioxidant that may help liver functioning. Enjoy with a mixed greens salad.

Quick Baked Pears

After the holidays, your sweet tooth may still expect a rich treat at the end of the day. Use leftover pears from your breakfast to bake in the oven with a mixture of delicious spices. Plop a dollop of frozen yogurt on top, and you have a low-fat, low-cholesterol dessert.

Every year we remind our readers about the importance of enjoying a healthy and satisfying vegetarian Thanksgiving, but we recognize that some of you (and, umm, us as well) eat meat, and you probably want turkey that tastes good, is good for you and comes from good farms.  For an omnivorous, ethical, eco-friendly and organic Thanksgiving celebration, here are some tips to keep in mind:

• Was turkey raised humanely?

• Was turkey raised sustainably?

• Is turkey free of antibiotics? Growth hormones?

• Was turkey grass-fed or grain-fed?

• Is turkey toxin or chemical-free?

Some of it may be the stuff of hipster/yuppie cliches, but there’s nothing wrong with wanting a Thanksgiving dinner that meets your ethical, organic or sustainability standards — turkey included.

I was originally going to address each point separately, because people have different concerns when it comes to eating meat just like people have different reasons for being vegetarian. But the areas overlap in practice. Turkeys raised humanely also tend to be fed real food and raised in a sustainable way, and the same on the flipside. Turkeys raised in a way that’s sustainable or environmentally friendly tend to taste better and have more health benefits for human consumers.

At conventional turkey farms, birds are closely confined, often inside, and sometimes abused. Birds at unconventional farms that are allowed to go outside and move around (i.e. “free range”) are clearly being treated better than those at conventional farms — and they’re also likely to taste better and have more flavor. Health magazine explains:

Those unconventional turkeys have a different lifestyle, but also a different flavor.  They’re generally heritage or heirloom breeds, rather than the standard-issue broad-breasted white (which has legs that can barely support its weight), and so their dark-to-white meat ratio is higher.

Since the birds grow more slowly and move around, their meat isn’t as soft and fine-grained.  One of the reasons dry white meat is a perennial Thanksgiving hazard is that fast-growing birds are necessarily bred to put on lean as fast as they can, and a slower-growing turkey has a bit more fat marbling, and a flavor and texture that are more like other kinds of meat. A flavor and texture just crying out for gravy and dressing.

A better tasting bird means you don’t need to mask turkey’s blandness in these carb- and fat-heavy accouterments. (Everything is interconnected!) Free-range turkeys also tend to have a better proportion of good to bad fats. Similarly, a grass-fed turkey will have a better balance of fats than grain-fed turkeys, as well as be likely to taste better.

One thing not to fret over with turkey is hormones — the USDA requires all poultry to be hormone free. But conventionally raised turkey may contain other “growth promotants,” such as antibiotics, and almost all do.

Organic means the bird was raised with no antibiotics and no growth enhancers, given only organic feed and given access to the outdoors.

Earlier this month, a now-infamous report from Stanford concluding that organic foods may not actually be any healthier or any more nutritious than conventional (hint: GMO) foods caused an uproar within the organic and natural foods community.

We here at OrganicFoodInsider decided to investigate the claims within the study a little further, and found some noteworthy items the researchers overlooked:

First of all, a basic principle in scientific studies is the idea of matched groups. That simply did not happen here in the Stanford Study, period.  Secondly, the conclusion of the study was: conventional and organic food are nutritionally equal. But absolutely no planting of food was done. No study was done at all, in fact (!)  And here’s another eyebrow-raiser: it was only a review of prior published studies. Ouch.

While the scientists analyzed vitamins and minerals, food isn’t solely a delivery mechanism for these things alone.  We are quickly learning in this industrialized food era that our food can be comprised of many other things. It has become a delivery device for artificial colors, additives, preservatives, added growth hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, insecticides and quite a bit more.

The word “organic” actually refers to the method by which agricultural products are grown and then processed, and legally details the permitted use (or not) of certain ingredients in these foods.

The details are that the U.S. Congress adopted the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) in 1990 as part of the 1990 Farm Bill which was then followed with the National Organic Program final rule published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The standards include a national list of approved synthetic and prohibited non-synthetic substances for organic production, which means that organically produced foods also must be produced without the use of:

• antibiotics

• artificial growth hormones

• high fructose corn syrup

• artificial dyes (made from coal tar and petrochemicals)

• artificial sweeteners derived from chemicals

• synthetically created chemical pesticide and fertilizers

• genetically engineered proteins and ingredients

• sewage sludge

• irradiation

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, these added ingredients are actually what differentiate organic foods from their conventional counterparts. Yet nowhere in that Stanford study, comparing organic food to conventional, are these things measured. There is no measure of the insecticidal toxins produced by a genetically engineered corn plant, no measure of the added growth hormones used in conventional dairy, no measure of the fact that 80 percent of the antibiotics used today are used on the chicken, pork, beef and animals that we eat.

Food is not just a delivery device for vitamins and minerals, as measured in the study, but it is also used as a delivery device for these substances that drive profitability for the food industry. To fail to measure these added ingredients, while suggesting that there is essentially no difference, is incomplete at best. Some might even go so far as to suggest that it is irresponsible in light of the fact that we are seeing such a dramatic increase in diet-related disease.

Additionally, anyone who knowingly sells or mislabels as organic a product that was not produced and handled in accordance with the regulations can be subject to a civil penalty of up to $10,000 per violation. In other words, if an organic producer were to add any one of the ingredients listed above, they would be fined.

WHY ORGANICS COST MORE

Admittedly, the high price of organic food can irritate anyone. But the scrutiny that these foods undergo is enormous and expensive, driving prices at the cash register and for those producing them on the farm. Why the costs? Because the cost structure on our food supply offers taxpayer-funded resources called subsidies to the farmers using genetically engineered seeds and saturating crops in insecticides and weed killers, while charging the organic farmers fees to prove that their crops are safe.

That’s like getting fined to wear your seat belt.

So while conventional food production allows for the addition of cheap, synthetic and often controversial ingredients that have been disallowed, banned or never permitted for use in developed countries around the world, organic food carries the burden of having to prove that its products are safe — products produced without the use of added non-food ingredients that other countries have found controversial or removed from their food supply.

In other words, it’s an un-level playing field right now. Is this the way America should be using its resources? Canada is not much better either. Wouldn’t we rather have the organic food be the one that we fund, making it cheaper, more affordable and more accessible to all Americans?

Or if given the choice, would we rather eat food hopped up on growth hormones, antibiotics and chemical pesticides? You can answer that.

And while correlation is not causation, in light of the growing rates of cancer, diabetes and other conditions affecting our families, the answer would appear to be “eat less chemicals.”

But right now, the majority of the population does not have that choice. Food, clean from antibiotics, added growth hormones and excessive pesticide residue, should be a basic human right, afforded to all Americans, regardless of socioeconomic status.

WHERE TO START?

Since the high price of organic produce and a flawed food system that continues to charge organic farmers more to prove that their products, produced without ingredients that mounting scientific evidence has shown to cause harm, is still an insurmountable hurdle to the majority of the population, especially the growing number of unemployed, where can a person who wants to avoid these ingredients start?

Start small. None of us can do everything, but all of us can do something. And thankfully, foods without these controversial additives and ingredients are increasingly sold in grocery stores like Wal-Mart, Costco, Kroger and Safeway, which represent the largest single distribution channel, accounting for 38 percent of organic food sales in 2006. In Canada, Whole Foods, Sobey’s and smaller chains such as Rowe Farms have been offering a multitude of organic options for years. Look for milk labeled “RbGH-free” or look for products without high fructose corn syrup or artificial colors. An increasing number of companies, from Kraft to Nestle, are producing them, because their employees have kids battling conditions like asthma, allergies, diabetes and cancer, too.

So maybe you rolled your eyes at this whole thing a few years ago, dismissing it as an expensive food fad. The Stanford study goes a long way towards reinforcing that. But read between the lines. You are smarter than you realize and braver than you think. And the love that you have for your family and your country can propel you to do things you could never imagine. So navigate the grocery store a bit differently, get involved with a food kitchen, a community garden, a child’s school. And reach out to your legislators. They have families, too.

Because as the science continues to mount, from the Presidents Cancer Panel to the American Academy of Pediatrics, we are learning just how much the food we eat– and the artificial ingredients being added to it — can affect the health of ourselves and our families.

Stock up with these 9 basic essentials for your vegan pantry including beans, whole grains, non-dairy milk and a variety of seasonings.

Against the assumptions of many carnivores, vegans don’t purely exist on lettuce and carrots. But what, exactly, should be stocked in a vegan’s pantry? Anyone looking to make healthy, nutritious meals that are free of animal products should have a few basic ingredients on hand at all times to provide protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals – and let’s not forget flavor. These 9 pantry essentials make sticking to a vegan diet easy and interesting, from beans and whole grains to truffle oils and agave nectar.

Beans, Tofu, Tempeh and Seitan

If there’s one nutrient that North Americans tend to focus on when it comes to healthy diets, it’s protein. But no matter what meat-obsessed fad diets imply, it’s easy to get plenty of protein from vegan sources. Beans and tofu are two lean, cholesterol-free options for protein, and they’re incredibly versatile. Canned beans are convenient, but dried beans are cheaper and don’t come with the risk of hormone-altering BPA in the lining of the can. They simply need to be soaked overnight before cooking, or you can whip them up rapidly with a pressure cooker. Firm tofu can be marinated and tossed into just about any dish, while silken tofu is a nutritious addition to smoothies. Seitan is made from wheat gluten and has a meaty texture reminiscent of chicken, and chewy tempeh is a vegan sandwich staple.

Whole Grains & Flours

The difference between whole grains and refined grains goes beyond increased fiber and nutrients. Whole grains are packed with flavor, which translates into tastier dishes and baked goods. Brown rice, quinoa, amaranth, bulgur, spelt, oats, millet, barley and wild rice are a few examples of whole grains that you can incorporate into your diet, and most of them are available in flour form, too. Flours made from oats and quinoa aren’t just for people avoiding gluten – they impart their own particular flavor and texture to recipes like chocolate amaranth quinoa cake.

Non-Dairy Milks

Who needs cow’s milk when there’s almond milk, rice milk, hemp milk, coconut milk and soy milk? Stock your pantry with your favorite varieties of non-dairy milks, each of which has its own particular flavor and texture. Coconut milk and soy milk tend to be richer and heavier, frothing up a little more for satisfying beverages. Rice milk and almond milk have a natural sweetness, and heart-healthy almond milk is appropriately nutty. Soy milk is the highest in protein, and hemp milk has lots of omega fatty acids. Avoid the flavored varieties to cut unnecessary sugar and calories. You can easily make your own almond milk with nothing more than raw almonds, water and a blender.

A Variety of Oils and Vinegars

No kitchen is complete without extra virgin olive oil and white vinegar, no matter what kind of foods you like to eat. Beyond those two absolute basics is a wide variety of vinegars and oils with all kinds of different uses and characteristics. Vinegars include balsamic, red wine, white wine, apple cider, rice and malt. Coconut oil is great for high-heat cooking and baking, sesame oil has lots of flavor for stir-fries and salads, and truffle oils are a luxurious treat. Try oils and vinegars infused with herbs, garlic, chilies and even fruit, too.

Nuts, Seeds & Butters

Head to the bulk bins at your local natural foods store to stock up on a wide variety of nuts and seeds like almonds, cashews, walnuts, macadamia nuts, sesame seeds, flax seeds, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds. You can actually use cashews, macadamias and other types of nuts to make your own vegan ricotta cheese. And when it comes to nut and seed butters, don’t be afraid to branch out from the standard peanut and almond varieties – try cashew, hazelnut and sesame.

Nutritional Yeast

Missing cheese? Aside from making your own nut-based ricotta, you can add a cheesy flavor to all kinds of foods using nutritional yeast. This inactive yeast is a great source of vitamin B12, which can be difficult for vegans to get from other sources. Light and flaky, it can be added to popcorn as a topping, melted into margarine and/or non-dairy milk for a cheesy sauce or just tossed into any dish you like.

Healthy Condiments

Most condiments are processed junk full of fat, sugar and sodium. But there are some healthy condiments that can add complex flavors to your vegan dishes, elevating a simple meal to the sublime. Mustard, soy sauce, miso and hot sauces add a huge punch of flavor with just a few drops. Bragg’s Liquid Aminos, a great vegan source of amino acids, is a popular way to add a little bit of savory “umami” flavor to any dish. Agave nectar is a popular vegan sweetener, and fruit preserves are almost always free of animal products.

Herbs and Spices

Like condiments, oils and vinegars, herbs and spices simply make everything taste better. If you’re new to cooking and/or using spices, buy a variety and experiment to see what you like. Most herbs, including parsley and basil, are best used fresh, but some – like bay leaves and oregano – retain lots of flavor when dried. Spices, which are usually the dried seeds, bark or buds of plants, tend to stay fragrant a bit longer. Some basics include chili powder, paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, turmeric and black pepper. Dried mushrooms are another delicious source of umami flavor.

Canned Fruits and Vegetables

Canned goods generally aren’t the best when it comes to flavor and texture, with many canned veggies – like green beans – barely resembling their fresh or frozen brethren. But they do have their use, especially as emergency back-ups and for quick meals. Home-canned fruits and vegetables tend to be superior in flavor to commercially canned goods. Tomatoes are one item that change in a positive way when canned; their flavors become richer and more concentrated, making them ideal for sauces.

Fresh Fruits and Vegetables

While most fresh fruits and veggies need to be refrigerated, some are ideal for pantry storage. The dark, cool and dry environment of a pantry (or a shelf out of direct sunlight) can help preserve onions, garlic, potatoes, sweet potatoes and winter squash. For best flavor and texture, tomatoes should also be stored at room temperature until ripe.