How to Be a Conscious Eater

OVERALL SUSTAINABILITY

The quickest way to get this information may be from the non-

profit Green Restaurant Association. They certify restaurants

on a four-star scale across eight environmental indicators:

water efficiency, waste reduction and recycling, sustain-

able durable goods and building materials, sustainable food,

energy, reusables and environmentally preferable disposables,

chemical and pollution reduction, and transparency and edu-

cation. The Green Restaurant Association has been assessing

restaurants since its founding in 1990. So far, the certification

has been earned by independently run coffee shops, cafés,

fine-dining restaurants, and select venues in corporate and

university settings, rather than large-scale chain restaurants

or food-service companies. Search dinegreen.com for listings of

certified green restaurants by state.

AVAILABILITY OF PLANT-BASED MEALS

Power begins with choice—so finding places to eat where

you can choose from a variety of plant-based meals is key to

being an empowered conscious eater. Why? Because the sta-

tus quo is meat-centric menus wherever you go, and we know

that plant-based foods tend to have lower water and carbon

footprints. Enter the Good Food Restaurant Scorecard. It’s an

annual ranking of the top 100 restaurant brands in the United

States based on the extent of their plant-based menu options.

The Good Food Institute rates each company on a ten-point

scale based on factors such as:

entrées that are completely plant-based (no ingredients

coming from animals);

having default entrées be free of meat, meaning a cus-

tomer might be able to add chicken to a pasta order, but

it’s been decoupled from the base entrée;

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