For products to use the USDA labeling it must contain at least 95% organic ingredients that have not had any chemicals, fertilizers, pesticides or genetically modified organisms used.

For products to use this ECOCERT logo all ingredients must be 100% of natural origin.


For products to use the NPA Certified logo the ingredients must be 95% natural or from natural sources that are renewable. Packaging must be from recycled materials and no animal testing.


In a world where we are bombarded with logos and messaging to influence our purchase behavior, pay attention to the three logos above to help ensure you are buying products that are truly good for our environment and good for you as well.

Post from: Diets in Review Blog

Logos That Really Mean “Green” or Organic Foods

Case in point: Laura Pensiero’s Real-Food Diet, which has been recently lauded in O magazine. Pensiero is the current owner of Gigi Trattoria in Rhinebeck, New York and a former culinary coordinator at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Wellness and Prevention Center.

Her Real-Food Diet focuses on just that: Eating real food that is fresh, seasonal and void of preservatives and additives. Local food, as Pensiero points out, is nutritionally and environmentally superior to the same items that we normally purchase in large grocery store chains. The bagged lettuce that you grabbed from the produce section of your grocery store was likely harvested thousands of miles away and transported across the country in order to end up in your grocery cart. From farm to fork, our food is looking less and less like anything but fresh. But food and health advocates like Pensiero want to change that.

While overhauling the entire way you shop and prepare your meals may sound like a mountainous task, this nutritionist-turned-chef-turned-green-market-champion has broken it down into six very simple steps that anyone can easily incorporate into their lifestyle. And she promises that by eating foods that are closer to nature and less packaged and processed, your diet will inevitably be more nutrient dense and you will inevitably feel, well, like a million bucks.

Penseiro offers up some tantalizing recipes in her cookbook, Hudson Valley Mediterranean, which as its names implies, is heavily influenced by the healthy cooking practices of the Mediterranean culture. The Gigi Barbina Salad is filled with fresh beets, butternut squash, walnuts, goat cheese, baby greens and olive oil, and her Rustic Fruit Tart is overflowing with summer berries, apples and farm-fresh eggs.

The Real-Food Diet is not a diet like the ones we are typically used to, but rather it’s a way of eating that connects you closer to nature and closer to your health.

Here is the complete review of the Real-Food Diet.

Post from: Diets in Review Blog

Oprah’s Real-Food Diet

Noble Bars: The Food of Ancient Rome

So when I heard about the Noble Bar, an all-natural fruit, nut and whole grain bar that coins itself as being The Food from Ancient Rome, I had to give it a try. Then when all I had to do was send the company an email to receive a free bar, I really had to give it a try.

Just a few days ago, the whole-foods enthusiasts at Noble Bar sent me a sample of Centurion Fig in the mail. And quite different from the four lines of ingredients that accompany most nutrition bars, many of them unrecognizable, the ingredients of the Noble Bar contained only five items – organic figs, apples, walnuts, organic hard wheat berries and honey. Already, I liked it. And when I tasted it, it was like eating a sweet and nutty mixture blended up by Mother Nature herself. I loved it! The sweetness from the natural fruits, crunch from the wheat berries and figs and moistness from the all-natural goodness created a yummy bar that felt super healthy - in a good way.

The nutritional stats are quite comparable to other bars. One very generously-sized bar contains 230 calories, 7 grams of fat, 6 grams of fiber and 3.5 grams of protein.

Noble bars come in six flavors: Centurion Fig, Spartan Pear, Viking Cherry, Samurai Persimmon, Kobukson Asian Pear and Han Dynasty Apricot. There are more flavors rumored to be on their way. All of them contain only a handful of ingredients and similar nutrition stats. Each bar is completely preservative free (except the Han Dynasty Apricot which contains sulfur dioxide to preserve the dried apricots) and they are all hand-crafted at the Noble Bar HQ in Tacoma, Washington. Currently, only select stores in Washington sell them but you can order them online through the Noble Bar website. One bar costs $2.

The mission behind the Noble Bar is to create a nutritious, whole-foods bar that is based on the foods our ancient ancestors like the Romans, Greeks, Vikings, and Chinese ate. To sustain the labors of our hard-working forefathers, they relied on foods that were natural, whole and healthy like dried fruits, nuts, and grains. The Noble Bar thus honors and remembers our ancient ancestors, their values and their contributions to our world today through its taste and pure ingredients.

A bar that tastes great, is great for you and takes us back to a time when life was a bit more natural, I can eat to that.

Happy Noshing!

Post from: Diets in Review Blog

Food Find: Noble Bars