Photo: Kelly Rossiter
When I visited my friend Barbara in
Ireland last year I mentioned something about buying
stinging nettles at the farmers' market. Now, Barbara doesn't cook at all, I mean, not even boiling water and she had the temerity to laugh at me because stinging nettles are weeds in Ireland and people just go outside and pull them up and toss them in a pot. The thought of paying for them, especially at farmers' market prices was ridiculous to her. So I boldly said I would make a dinner for Barbara and her partner Mark, out of local nettles.
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photo: J. Novak
Fish farming has become a reality within an industry that over fished its way through global fish stocks at a remarkable rate. According to the
U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, 75 percent of the world's fisheries are now either overexploited, fully exploited, significantly depleted, or recovering from overexploitation. And Hawaii is no exception. Twenty years ago Hawaii became the nation's testing ground for factory fish farming and though documented environmental repercussions are coming to light, the industry plans to expand 900 percent by 2013, according to Food and Water Watch....
Of all the environmental issues to think about -- and there a lot of them -- questions concerning food and health are common to us all. We've all got to eat, and do so every day, and so questions of how we manage the environment and how the environment affects human health affect all humankind. How we will feed the world's burgeoning population? Which farmers are pushing beyond organic? Can corporate growth and products that are healthy for people and the environment ever meet in a happy place? Nothing, it seems, is so systematically and emotionally complicated as agriculture and health -- because it's not just about tasty recipes, there are economics, science, and politics involved. On the following pages, we highlight some of the companies, products, people, and ideas that are pushing the envelope when it comes to balancing and navigating the complex universe of ecologically sound food and health issues.
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The design magazine Azure's May issue is almost all about food, and the subject never looked so good. The issue focuses on the changes in the food system, and how it affects design:
"There's a profound shift taking place in the realm of what we eat, how we eat it, and the social and political climate around food.....The following pages consider many ways to rethink cooking, eating and growing - and food's relationship to landscape architecture, graphic design, product development, interiors and more."
Designs for food include a few items seen in TreeHugger, including the
Ekokook kitchen and the
MIT Food printer.
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by Tonic on 04. 9.10
Guest post by Anne Driscoll, originally published on Tonic.
Day in, day out, we use the stove - and of course, our cookware -- to heat our meals and cook our snacks. But a revolutionary company called Ecolution has put green where we are not used to seeing it: in pots, pans and skillets. It has developed a Hydrolon non-stick surface which is made using a water-based process unlike traditional Teflon, which, according to Ecolution, uses harsh solvents to create a non-stick surface. The company claims the Ecolution surface is therefore safer for healthy, earth-friendly cooking and eating....
You know the drill. Maybe you were tired after work so you picked up some fast food rather than cooking and now you've had a lousy meal and you have the garbage to show for it. Or maybe you are going to cook, but you don't realize the fish you just bought is endangered. Alexandra Zissu would like you to give some consideration to these sorts of things, and she's written
The Conscious Kitchen to help you do it.
So, what does she mean by the phrase the conscious kitchen?
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Image from Evening Standard
Bread from
Hovis, a major bakery in Britain, is now being made of 100% British wheat. It is great news for the 600 farmers who are growing it on their farms and great for the environment because previously they had imported and transported their wheat from Canada.
It's bad news for Canadian farmers, because that was $27M that had been spent buying the red wheat that was grown only in the Prairies. Now all of the Hovis bread will be made from almost all British ingredients....
Happy as a pigweed in GMOs. Appropriately named superweed takes over a soybean field. Photo by Pawpaw67 via Flickr
The Organic Center, a research institute focused on the science of organic food and farming, recently revealed concerns for the state of the food industry and agriculture. Despite the symbolism of an organic garden at the White House, last year ended with little progress on changing policies. Though Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn) claims the Senate will pass a Food Safety bill this year, there are bigger issues than ensuring importers meet US standards, the apparent holdup in the Senate. How about cleaning up our fields first? Otherwise, here is the ominous outlook:...
Photo: Kelly Rossiter
Alice Waters, the American doyenne of the green food movement just written this beautiful new book entitled The Green Kitchen. She and a whole host of chefs have a few ideas about how you can eat really well and become a good cook in the bargain:...
Image credit: Good
For apartment dwellers, it's a common lament: The view out of the window is of little more than an empty dirt lot walled by other buildings. One
Good community member is tired of this scene and is beginning a project to change it....
Photo via the Consumerist
Perhaps you've seen the harrowing images of this food-like thing haunting the blogosphere. Perhaps it has haunted your dreams. It was way back in August when
news of this beast of a food product (and I hesitate to call it even that) first surfaced. If the mere concept played like a bad joke then--a bacon sandwich where the bun is made out of fried chicken--then the effect was only heightened when KFC chose April 1st as the day to announce its fried Frankenstein-wich was indeed becoming a reality. Yes,
the Double Down is real, unfortunately--but more disturbing than the idea that people are actually going to eat this thing is the logic employed to sell it to the American public . . . ...
Photo: Kelly Rossiter
One of the things I love about spring is the anticipation of
tender greens at the farmers' market. Although we've had very unseasonably warm weather here in Toronto off and on for the past month, it's still a bit early for harvesting anything grown outdoors, so I had to make do with some seedlings. I bought a bag with a mixture of all kinds of things, including beet greens, kale, radish greens, sunflower greens and cilantro.
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The
Earth Island Journal "combines investigative journalism and thought-provoking essays that make the subtle but profound connections between the environment and other contemporary issues." It does, indeed. I interviewed the Journal's editor, Jason Mark, via email on his magazine, how he balances farming and writing, and what it was like to be media mogul Arianna Huffington's press secretary during her failed California gubernatorial run in 2003....
When it comes to choosing a low-impact vino, there are certainly some tough questions. Which wine has a lower carbon footprint,
Californian or French? Should I look for
a cork or a cap? Box, bottle, or
pouch? Glass or plastic? Assuming you end up with wine in bottles, you'll be looking for a place to store them. These clever crates from
Storvino are specially made to accommodate wine, and they are modular, and so can be stacked mighty high as your collection grows. Plus, they're made in the US from 100% post-consumer recycled plastic....
For
five years, the team behind TreeHugger has been discovering, debating, and discerning which people, companies, products, and ideas are helping push green into the mainstream. Along the way, we have seen green fashion blossom, international climate treaties stagnate, and electric vehicles come to market. We have seen some green ideas rise and some green leaders fall. We've ranted and we've raved. But through it all, our optimism remains.
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Photo:Kelly Rossiter
TreeHugger founder Graham Hill found himself in a quandry about a year ago. He knew the health problems that can be caused by eating meat, the awful treatment of animals in
factory farming, as well as the ecological problems for the health of the planet. And yet, he still ate meat.
Graham found a solution to this conundrum that he was comfortable with. Here is a bit of his TED talk earlier this year outlining that solution:
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Image Source: Kelly Sue
Dear Pablo: I have heard that sunscreen actually causes more skin cancer than it prevents. Is there any truth to this?
It sounds unbelievable but there is actually some truth here. In 2009, the Environmental Working Group released a
major study on sunscreen, in which they independently tested almost 2000 sunscreens. Only 1 in 10 sunscreens offer superior protection and healthier ingredients. There are two main concerns about sunscreen; the protection that they offer, and the chemicals that they contain. ...
We'll be working on better category archives soon. In the meantime, take a look at the
if you really want to dig around, or use the search box at the top of the page.
on 04.14.10
Products containing Triclosan
Four years ago, John wrote 
Truman School Green River (WY) Classroom Tasting Party Image via 
Image credit: 
