Living and working in Thailand for 8 years as a scuba-diving instructor and dive-shop manager (soooo many things you don’t know about me…), I learned one thing: what we eat and do over here has a huge impact over there. In 8 years, I saw the impact of over fishing, climate change (yes, it is real people) and our unhealthy addiction for plastic. So when I came back to the Western world, I had made some serious changes to my lifestyle: I stay away from plastic as much as I can (and honestly, it is not that difficult, as I will share in an upcoming blog post), switched to a vegetarian diet and was in general pretty mindful about what I was buy and most of all, eating. Now that I work full time as a food photographer, one of my goal is to focus my business to work with brands and businesses that also give a hoot. So I was thrilled to start working with Nic and his awesome team at HoneyFlower Foods.

You’ve surely heard a lot about farm-to-table and sustainably grown foods, either on social media, on the street, or on a restaurant menu. It’s trendy. But that doesn’t mean everyone can try it: farm-to-table options are expensive, and as a result are often only available in wealthier areas. Plus, small, family-owned farms can be environmentally friendly, but cannot realistically produce enough food to feed the growing world. Nic Bash founded HoneyFlower Foods because he believes that healthy and sustainable foods can be accessible and supplied to the masses. His solution is scalable sustainability: choosing foods that require little input (water, fertilizer, etc) yet have big outputs. Certain types of peas, for example, do not require much water or extra nutrients, yet they yield bushels and bushels of product. By making produce like that popular, Nic hopes to drive down the cost of healthy food and lessen our impact on the environment. Talk about an impactful goal.

It’s easy to get excited about Nic’s food. His three super salads are allergen-friendly, and are packed with tons of different ingredients so that the flavor profiles are really rich and unique. My personal favorite is the Aldi: roasted eggplant, spicy tomato sauce, chickpea lentil tabbouleh, and roasted beet salad, topped off with tahini and preserved lemon sauce. His buckwheat soba noodles with dashi vinaigrette are also not to be missed. Another huge plus is that the dishes are packed in easy, to-go containers (they are compostable, of course), and the servings are generous (think 800+ healthy calories, loaded with protein) so I often get two filling meals out of each order. There is no brick-and-mortar HoneyFlower store as of yet, but the dishes are sold at various partners throughout the Greater DC area (check out HoneyFlower social media for details) and also available for order through Seamless, UberEATS, and GrubHub. This week, they also launched a GoFundMe campaign to  help their business grow and make waves in building Sustainable Foods for the Future. Go check the page and feel free to donate and share if you want to see more sustainable food in the world!