Farm to Table: Do the Right Thing, Eat the Right Thing

Farm to table. Sustainable cuisine. Seasonal offerings. These are all benefits that you’ll enjoy here at Hearthstone, but how much do you know about how these options benefit our environment and even our health? Whether you’re looking for a gluten free dinner, a vegetarian dinner, or a vegan dinner, at Hearthstone, you’ll have plenty of top-quality, delicious options to choose from.

The Farm to Table Movement

At a farm to table friendly restaurant, products like produce and meat are sourced directly from a local farm and brought straight to that restaurant. Generally, farm to table arrangements offer restaurants excellent variety in their ingredients, and these foods are healthier than processed and packaged options. Because the foods don’t have to travel far and are put to use sooner, they have more nutrients. For instance, the produce you buy at a grocery store is often picked before it’s fully ripe, and this process reduces its nutritional value. Plus, locally farmed foods taste better.

But there’s another important benefit of opting for a farm to table restaurant: Your dining choices help the environment. When a restaurant sources its ingredients from suppliers located far away, that food has to travel long distances. Shipping food via planes, trains, boats, and trucks burns fossil fuels and releases emissions into the environment. By sourcing from local farms, restaurants help to limit that, and your dining choices support this important movement.

Understanding Sustainable Cuisine and Seasonal Offerings

Sustainable cuisine refers to food products that have minimal impact on the environment. These products are carefully grown, harvested, packed, and shipped to the restaurant in ways that avoid some common issues surrounding food production, like the application of pesticides, the use of plastics in food packaging, and the issue of shipping foods long distances to restaurants and buyers. Sustainable food is often organically grown.

Because shipping food long distances negatively impacts the environment, the availability of sustainable cuisine will change with each season. Here in America, we can access cherries in the winter only once they’re flown in from other countries where they’re growing at the time. The same is true of apples in the winter; they’re stored in temperature-controlled environments and shipped. These practices expend more energy and resources than are necessary, especially since there are plenty of seasonal offerings that we can eat, instead.

Your Dining Choices at Hearthstone

At Hearthstone, we source quality ingredients that have a minimal effect on the environment. We’re proud of our farm to table arrangements that allow us to use flavorful, locally sourced foods in each and every dish. The freshness of our ingredients is part of what gives Hearthstone dishes their characteristic flavor.

Because we’re dedicated to using sustainable cuisine and seasonal offerings, our menu changes with the seasons. We highlight the foods that are available with each season and get to put our creativity to work as we come up with new dishes all year round. This also means there’s almost always something new for you to try when you stop in.

Gluten Free, Vegetarian, and Vegan Dinner Options at Hearthstone

Hearthstone offers many different vegetarian dinner and vegan dinner options. Choose from six vegan and vegetarian dishes, including a Vegan Cheese Pizza with seasonal vegetables, Zucchini Ribbons Pesto with cherry tomatoes, garlic, pine nuts, and basil, or our Impossible Burger. The Impossible Burger is topped with vegan cheddar, fresh veggies, veganaise burger sauce, and avocado spread – and it’s absolutely delicious.

We also offer plenty of gluten-free dinners, including our Beet Salad with sherry vinaigrette, pistachios, and orange segments, our Roasted Brussel Sprouts with apples and lemon, and our Herbs & Green Salad with shaved vegetables and meyer lemon dressing.

At Hearthstone, you don’t have to sacrifice choices, variety, or flavor for vegetarian, vegan, or gluten-free options. Plus, you can dine knowing that you’re making environmentally-choices with your food. Our servers are always happy to assist and accommodate changes to our dishes to cater to your diet; just ask.

For a delicious meal that accommodates your diet while also featuring locally sourced and fresh ingredients, you only need to head to Hearthstone. Make an RSVP today and join us for your next meal.