After reading this chapter, you may wonder whether it's safe to even set foot in a restaurant, thanks to factory farming and other questionable agricultural practices. But what fun would life be without the occasional candlelit dinner for two, family get-together, or meal with friends—where someone else prepares the food and cleans up afterward?
You don't have to give up dining out when you go organic, you just need to put a little more thought into it. Here are some tips:
Check the Yellow Pages. Many phonebooks list "organic" as a restaurant category. Call and ask what percentage of the menu is made from organic foods, and for examples of organic dishes.
Look for restaurants that buy locally. As you learned earlier, locally grown food is fresher and hasn't been flown, shipped, or trucked hundreds or thousands of miles to reach you. And small, local farms are more likely to use sustainable farming practices. Knowing this, many restaurants who buy from local farms advertise that fact. If you haven't seen any such ads, call a few restaurants and ask if they buy locally (especially from farms that use organic or sustainable techniques).
LocalHarvest, a website that promotes local and organic food, has a search feature to help you find organic restaurants in the U.S. and Canada. Go to www.localharvest.org and, in the "What are you looking for?" section, turn on the Restaurants radio button. Enter a Zip or postal code, or a city and state or province, and then click Search. LocalHarvest can also help you find farms, farmers markets, and co-ops that sell organic food. You can also find organic restaurants with the Eat Well Guide (www.eatwellguide.org) and HappyCow's Vegetarian Guide (www.happycow.net).
Try vegan. Even people who aren't committed vegetarians enjoy an occasional vegetarian or vegan meal. Many vegan restaurants focus on fresh, local, organic ingredients.
Meat-eaters can be organic, too. If you're in the mood for a nice, juicy steak, look for a steakhouse that serves beef from grass-fed cattle. Ask to make sure it's grass-finished, not grain-finished (see Pesticide-free foods).
Make your preferences known. If you have a favorite local restaurant but you're not sure where they get their food, talk to the chef. Ask which items on the menu are organic and which aren't—and let the chef know that you strongly prefer organic. Suggest that they put a couple of organic specials on the menu.