5 Foods to Satiate Your Hunger to Help Animals

When you make a purchase, you make a statement about what you like and what sorts of companies you're willing to support. So I'm a big fan of giving my dollars to companies who give back to causes that are important to me. Here are five recent finds of foods that were designed to make a difference for animals:

1) Rescue Chocolate: Forget saving the best for last, or waiting until after dinner to have dessert — this is my favorite on the list. Rescue Chocolate launched in January of this year with flavors like "Peanut Butter Pit Bull" to promote a positive pit bull image and "Pick Me! Pepper" to highlight the importance of adopting pets from shelters.

And it's not just a pretty package. Every month, Rescue Chocolate picks an animal rescue organization to get 100 percent of their net profits (this month's sweet non-profit is In Defense of Animals). In case you didn't think it could get any better, the products are all vegan; they made sure they weren't harming animals in their efforts to help animals.

2) PETA Butter: In honor of PETA's 30th anniversary, Peanut Butter & Co. just released a special edition jar of their all-natural peanut butter. A portion of the sales of each PETA Butter will benefit PETA's "Pledge to be Veg" program, which encourages people to give a vegan diet a try for 30 days. And peanut butter is a good source of protein to help you meet the challenge.

3) So Delicious Coconut Milk: Coconut milk is one of the entries (along with soy milk, rice milk, almond milk, hemp milk and others) that makes it easy not to support the dairy industry. Turtle Mountain, an Oregon-based natural food company, not only helps animals by specializing in dairy-free products, but they're also sponsors of the Sea Turtle Restoration Project. Through the month of September, Turtle Mountain has teamed up with Farm Sanctuary to donate $1.00 for every UPC that's mailed in from any flavor of So Delicious Dairy Free Coconut Milk.

4) Limited Edition Animal Crackers: Remember eating animal crackers when you were a kid? The cute shapes ... their sugary cookie-ness hiding under the healthier "cracker" name ... the bright red box with animals locked behind the bars of a circus train. That box, and the adoption of the Barnum name on Nabisco's animal crackers, dates back to 1902, a time when circuses enjoyed a lot more popularity and lot less notoriety for their cruelty to animals. But earlier this year, some of the animal crackers were let out of their cages.

In honor of the Year of the Tiger, Nabisco teamed up with designer Lilly Pulitzer to create a more animal-friendly box. In addition to raising awareness for tiger conservation, the boxes coincide with a $100,000 donation to the World Wildlife Fund. Theses boxes were billed as a limited-edition creation, but hopefully by the Year of the Rabbit in February, Nabisco will come up with a new cage-free design.

5) Animal Welfare Wines: What's a menu without a wine list? Vineyards and dogs are a classic pairing; wine country is filled with canine mascots and many tasting rooms allow dogs. There are several companies out there whose love for animals goes beyond the label. I've mentioned the Dog Lovers Wine Club before and their Vicktory Dogs Wine Collection that honors the dogs rescued from Michael Vick's dogfighting operation and supports Best Friends Animal Sanctuary with every purchase.

There's also Canine Wines, who donates $5 from every bottle sold to animal rescue organizations; Mutt Lynch Winery, who encourages customers to support their local animal shelters and walks the walk with a donation from every sale; and Cru Vin Dogs Wine Group, whose proceeds support a range of canine causes including the Morris Animal Foundation and Canine Companions for Independence.

But it's not all about dogs. Burning Hawk Wine is dedicated to a unique mission: To raise awareness and support for the impact of our energy system on birds and wildlife. The inspiration comes from an incident where a vineyard caught fire from a hawk who had been electrocuted. While they understand the importance of our energy system, Burning Hawk supports organizations and projects that aim to reduce the collateral damage of our country's power grid.

They may not always be the ones making the news or a spot on the Fortune 500, but there are companies out there with a conscience. Share your favorite animal-friendly food finds and use your wallet to vote for what matters to you.

Photo credit:millicent_bystander