Green Daily

Last week Josh wrote about the exciting new Chipotle restaurant in Gurnee, Illinois, which will be powered by wind energy. It turns out that this is not a one shot deal, but yet another in a series of cool, green decisions by Chipotle founder, Steve Ells.

On the Chipotle website you can read all about Steve's Food With Integrity vision. He explains it as a philosophy that "we can always do better in terms of the food we buy." Educated at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America, Steve takes his food seriously, always striving to find better ways of sourcing, prepping and serving delicious, responsibly created foods.

After reading about Niman Ranch and humane, antibiotic-free pork farming, Ells switched all of the restaurants to naturally raised pork. Since then, he also switched all of their chicken and half the beef to naturally raised, with the ultimate goal of 100% their meat coming from these sources.

In addition to making better tasting burritos, this also creates and supports a market for farms that follow these healthy, humane practices.

I think this kind of leadership deserves to be rewarded, plus the food really is fast and yummy, so I'm definitely heading out to my local Chipotle to vote with my dollars!

And for all of you green foodies out there, check out this video of Steve making a delicious meal with New York Times food journalist Mark Bittman.