Discover What's Worth it

Something is off about the way we eat, and you already know it. The labels don't make sense. All the plastic packaging doesn't make sense. The higher price of organic, unadulterated food doesn't make sense, and the cheap price of fake food makes even less.

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I know why. I spent 18 years inside the system.

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I'm Alison Bailey Vercruysse. I started an organic food company called 18 Rabbits in my home kitchen in San Francisco, and grew it into a national brand. That journey gave me a front-row seat to how the food industry actually works — how ingredients are sourced and grown, how marketing shapes what people believe they're eating, how the modern grocery store is engineered from fossil fuels, and how our culture of convenience has created staggering amounts of environmental waste.

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I walked away with a different understanding of what matters in the kitchen.

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Now I create content on Stale Bread & Moonshine, essays and recipes about the space between the industrial food system and what you're eating. I write about ultra-processed foods and the quiet economics of managed illness — but I always come back to the kitchen. Every systemic problem I name has a practical exit: something you can make instead of buy, a choice worth paying more for, or a habit worth simplifying. Sometimes, it's simply recognizing the people, places, and makers already doing it right.

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This isn't a cooking blog. It's a case for kitchen sovereignty. The idea that reclaiming a few basic skills gives you more agency over your health, your waste, your spending, and your participation in a system that wasn't designed with your well-being in mind.

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If you already cook a little, pull up a stool. Let's discover what's worth it, whether with our own hands, or through the hands of others.

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Start here

• Subscribe to Stale Bread & Moonshine for essays + recipes

• Read or listen to "Fertilizer: Friend or Foe?" — the essay that traces the line from the Strait of Hormuz to your plate

• Read or listen to "Why Buy It When You Can Make It" — the 10-part series that replaces 25% of your grocery aisle