The Green Fork is the official blog of the Eat Well Guide. Click here to Find Good Food.

An invaluable “extern” addition to the Eat Well team, Lewis Seton is an environmental policy and international studies double major at Colby College in Maine. After graduating in May, he plans to spend most of his free time playing Frisbee and frantically searching for a job.

In supermarkets across the country, meats with labels like “organic” and “pasture-raised” have become more commonplace. While this started out as a positive way to distinguish certain practices from others, soon the number of labels grew out of control. There are currently more than a dozen different labels on meat alone, including “naturally raised (a newly defined label)” “100% grass fed,” and “biodynamic.” As an average consumer, it’s difficult to differentiate between labels, especially when some labels don’t seem to have any standards associated with them.

In order to ease some of the confusion associated with labeling, Sustainable Table has created a swell, new wallet-sized “Glossary of Meat-Production Methods.” The glossary defines some of the most commonly used labels on meat, and gives advice on which are the best choices. If you’re like us, it’ll fit in nicely with your collection of other handy pocket sized guides that help you find other sustainable food, like Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Fish and Sushi Guides and Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen.

Over the last couple of decades, the average consumer has grown more concerned about how and where their food is produced, and rightfully so with increasing concerns about personal health, environmental ethics, and even taste. The meat industry in particular has been discovered to be a leading cause of global warming, a potential source for MRSA infection, which kills thousands of people a year, and a place of enormous animal cruelty. Exposés of the meat industry, including The Omnivore’s Dilemma and The Meatrix, have helped to raise millions of people’s awareness worldwide—opening their eyes to our industrial system of food production, but also shedding light on, more humane and sustainable ways of raising animals.

Of course, the best way to be sure of how your food was grown or raised is to skip the supermarket altogether and find local producers in your area who you can trust. Check out the Eat Well Guide to find farms, stores and other outlets near you that produce local, sustainable products– you won’t need to consult the pocket guide when you can ask the farmer yourself!

meat, food labels, sustainable table,