A new beginning.

You did it!  You rocked Your Daily Thread’s Meatless in May campaign.  Below is a list of supportive resources to keep you on the meatless path.  Consider:

Phone apps: Good to have on hand.

• Because you can never have too many options when you’re shopping. Download the Don’t Eat That iPhone app ($1.99), which lists over 1,500 additives and ingredients that you may not want in your food. It’s easy to use. The ingredients in red may give you cause for concern. The ingredients in black are generally considered safe and are listed with definitions for easy reference.
• Locavore is a free app for you Android users out there. Locavore will help you find out what lovely veggies are fresh and local to you, no matter where you are. It uses your phone’s GPS to locate farms and farmers’ markets and even gives you some recipes to cook up.
• If you find yourself still yearning for a burger, the 21-day vegan Kickstart app, free for iPhone, is the app for you. Designed for newbie vegans, this app helps you plan your meals, telling you what to eat and how to make it.

Online support.

• National Resource Defense Council. Go to the ‘Smarter Living’ page, click on the map or enter your zip code and enter the current month and you can pull up in-season, local produce. In addition, there are daily posts on food production and on the food page, you can look up chemical names by entering them in the ‘Chemical Index’ box or click on ‘Facts & Tips’,  ‘Shopping Wise’, or ‘Cooking Essentials’.
• Greener Choices by Consumer Reports. The ‘Green Shopping’ tab on the Consumer Reports, Greener Choices website is a wealth of information. It has Buying Guides, topics on bagged salad, BPA updates and genetically modified foods. Also, don’t miss the ‘Eco-Labels’ sections, it will give you a report card on any label you happen to be looking at and help you check out the certifying organization.
• Treat yourself to a Vegkit. New vegetarians reward yourselves by grabbing this free kit. There are several helpful newsletters with veggie recipes, action alerts and nutritional information.

Now go forth and be (ahem) fruitful.

Article written by Guest Contributor, Kris Kahrs, who is a kidlit writer, humorist and essayist and whose work has appeared online as a founding member of The Pen and Ink Blog. Her essay on the pratfalls, pitfalls and spit-up of motherhood, “The Fierceness” was selected by the Listen to Your Mother Show – LA 2011, a national show about topics of modern motherhood. Kahrs is also  the author of two picture books, “The Cautionary Tale” and “Dinosaur House” and is finishing work on her first novel, “Cat of Destruction.”

Images via Etsy users chicalookate and oliveirabags.