Eat Me. You might possibly, perhaps be doing something good for the environment. Credit: Ethicurean
Last week's NY Times featured an op-ed entitled "
The Carnivore's Dilemma"--an ostensibly enlightened response to the chorus of voices promulgating a vegetarian diet as a way to significantly reduce one's emission of greenhouse gasses (not least amongst these voices is Michael Pollan, author of "Omnivore's Dilemma"). Unlike "
The Omnivore's Delusion"--a fluff piece by the industrial agriculture lobby that defends the status quo--the author of the Times' piece,
Nicolette Hahn Niman, is no great defender of current industrial agricultural practices; she's a rancher and advocate of "traditional", grass-fed livestock production. Hahn Niman's argument focuses on debunking the notion that
vegetarianism is inherently the most beneficial way of eating for the environment.
While Hahn Niman has several valid points, her arguments often fall short of a sale. She frequently compares best-case scenario meat consumption and worst-case scenario vegetarianism. She states, "It could be, in fact, that a conscientious meat eater may have a more environmentally friendly diet than your average vegetarian." First off, she doesn't say that this theoretical conscientious carnivore
will be more environmentally friendly, she merely uses the more hopeful "could" and "may". Moreover, she never deigns to compare a conscientious meat eater to a conscientious vegetarian....
What do you get when you combine
downloadable design (and the internet) and food, and splash in some molecular gastronomy? Just ask Homaro Cantu and Ben Roche: Two renowned chefs, successful restaurateurs, patent-owning mad scientists and celebrated futurists who are bringing their unique, fun, wacky brand of food to Planet Green's airwaves.
The new original series,
Future Food, will feature these two technology-obsessed chefs looking for solutions to some of the world's most pressing environmental issues from a completely unexpected place - the kitchen. Series host Cantu, and co-host Roche, and their team of chefs / gastronomists at Moto restaurant in Chicago will give viewers an inside look at their world running a real life restaurant business set in a theatre of lasers, chemical powders, flash freezing, meat glue, centrifuges, ion particle guns, liquid nitrogen, and effervescent proteins. In short, they're working with ideas on how to redefine the nature of food....
photo: J. Novak
If I were to reference "the big four" in passing you would likely assume I was talking about cars, software companies, or maybe airlines. But unfortunately in this instance you'd be wrong. Scary as it may be, 75 percent of the seeds sold come from four companies, according to Michael Olson from
Food Chain Radio. Could you guess which companies they are? ...
A worker sprays carbofuran on a tree in Kannenfeldpark, in Basel, Switzerland. Photo by pppspics via Flickr.
As of the end of the year, one more
pesticide will be absent from food crops grown in the United States.
In May the EPA ruled that the current residue limits of the insecticide carbofuran on
food crops was too high, and the agency has now decided to
fully revoke carbofuran tolerances (more commonly known as residue limits). What this means is no carbofuran residue on a food will be deemed acceptable as of 2010. The move follows in the footsteps of the European Union, which banned carbofuran nearly a year ago. But the U.S. ban isn't all that surprising--it has, after all, been three years in the making....
Photo credit: ellievanhoutte via Flickr
Farmed fish and seafood has sort of a bad reputation in some green circles. Sometimes -- as with, say,
Atlantic salmon -- it's for good reason. But there are a number of cases where farming can actually be a good thing -- for water quality, the health of the fish or seafood in question, and the aquatic environment as a whole.
As with lots of food-related issues, location has a lot to do with determining how green the process is; while a farm in the U.S. might be a good option, one from, say, southeast Asia might not, even if the species being farmed is the same. With that in mind, these are the greenest ways to go when it comes to farmed seafood....
Old Lace & Arsenic. The Movie. Image credit:
Amazon,dvd.
If you eat "burger," there is more to be concerned with than just fat intake, e-Coli, and carbon footprint. In a new addition to the "Who Knew" file at TreeHugger, we just learned that the cows which contributed to your pattie may have been fed chicken poop.
Add to that, the fact that chicken poop may be "laced" with arsenic. (Hence the illustration.) You wonder if I'm a crazed liberal environmentalist wacko for writing this, correct? The better question is
What Evil Genius Fed Arsenic To The Chickens?.
Although it is true that McDonalds and several major chicken brands have recently required their suppliers to drop the arsenic supplements from chicken feed, arsenic is still purposefully fed to chickens in the USA.
LA Times reports on the practice of feeding cows chicken poop: but from the angle of added Mad Cow Disease risk. That particular risk would be pretty low on my Chicken Little, Sky-Is-Falling list. (You see, I'm not as crazed as you think.)...
Lambert/Archive Photos/Getty Images
Two new bits of research: A new study by members of the Reproductive Toxicology Branch of the EPA did not find any evidence that Bisphenol A (BPA), was a "gender bender" in female rats. BPA "Does not Alter Sexually Dimorphic Behavior, Puberty, Fertility and Anatomy of Female LE Rats" (
Abstract here, via
Stats.org)
This is particularly good news in the light of the Consumers Union's recent report that showed leaching of BPA from canned food, as reported in
Calorie Lab. The worst product, Progresso Vegetable Soup, had BPA content in the range of 67 to 134 parts per billion. These are levels comparable to those found in the polycarbonate bottles that we have all been dumping like mad.
...
Photo courtesy of Sunkist
I've always been curious about how green it is to pick up a piece of organic fruit that has two or three different stickers pasted onto it. Each piece of fruit in the pile sporting several stickers has got to add up in terms of material waste and a little boost in the carbon footprint. So, would laser etching be a greener, safer alternative? While it's been approved in a variety of countries, it has yet to make it into the US. ...
Philips Design
We love vertical farms on TreeHugger, but some question whether they make any sense. But perhaps if they were downsized and brought into our homes they might be just what we need. "This Biophere home farm contains fish, crustaceans, algae, plants and other mini-ecosystems, all interdependent and in balance with each other."...
We've been following
Stephanie Bernstein's company,
To-Go Ware, over the past few years and have seen the company expand its
product lines to offer a wide range of products for life "on the go." With re-usable
food carriers, utensils, and
convenient bags to tote your lunch to school or work, there isn't any excuse to send disposable to-go plastics off to the landfill again!...
Photo credit: NOAA
Finding sustainable seafood has always been about balancing the health of a given fishery with the health effects of consuming that fish. Some that can be sourced sustainably are also high enough on the food chain that they accumulate toxins in their flesh, transferring those to us humans when we eat them.
The
Super Green List from the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program balances the two considerations, providing a list of the healthiest seafood that comes from sustainable sources.
...
Photos: Chris Chapman website
Chris Chapman is an early twenties British designer, who baulked at the idea of studying design to make "pretty things for wealthy, privileged consumers." So he changed tack and learnt design-for-sustainability instead. He now has a quiver of cool green projects ready to fling at prospective clients or employers.
The one that most captured our attention was his Roll-Out Veg Mat. Each season householders buy a new roll of corrugated cardboard impregnated with vegetable seeds. Simply roll out the cardboard and cover with soil. Presto! Near instant veggie garden. It's simplicity could even push the No-Dig Garden for uncomplicated elegance. ...
Image Source: TetraPak
TetraPak, the company that makes aseptic milk carton-like packaging that holds everything from
wine to soup to tomato sauce, has been receiving a lot of coverage in the green media lately, both
good and
bad. This surge in attention is in part due to a recent TetraPak-sponsored media event in Sweden,to which I had the fortune to get invited. Before I continue I should state that what I am about to write is based entirely on my professional opinion as a sustainability engineer and was not influenced by pickled herring or Swedish meatballs....
A snap of a dazed and skeletal addict after copping. Credit: Religion Compass
Before you or your child dig into that plastic jack-o-lantern (or its post-consumer equivalent) full of sugary snacks, you might do well to check out former FDA Commissioner David Kessler's new book
The End of Overeating. The book highlights the addictive nature of
junk food, showing how these processed, nutrient deprived products are consumed to overcome a craving rather than sate hunger.
A piece in
Science News that highlights a study done by the independent, not-for-profit Scripps Research Institute, seems to bore out Kessler's claims. The study shows how brains respond to sweet, salty and fatty processed food the same way it does heroin. ...
Image credit: Stobart Group
Hybrid trucks may cut carbon, and even
slowing down road freight may save gas, but truckers still have a long way to go before they can beat the efficiencies offered by rail. But road freight does have its place—perhaps most notably in allowing perishable goods to be transported from farm to warehouse to store with minimal risk of delay. Traditionally, fruit and vegetables grown in Southern Europe and sold in the UK have been shipped by road for this very reason. Until now. But an iconic UK freight company is launching a first-of-its-kind refrigerated rail service that will dramatically cut the carbon footprint of imported veggies. ...
by Guest on 10.30.09
Makenna Goodman is Community Outreach Coordinator for Chelsea Green Publishing, the publisher of The Raw Milk Revolution,
by David Gumpert, whom she interviewed for this guest post. She is also a guest blogger at Planet Green.
Food regulation is one of the most important issues consumers face today. And for people who are concerned with where their food comes from (and how it got there),
milk is now at the center of this debate. And because of its health benefits, many more people are turning to
raw milk. Even
lactose intolerant folks have found they can digest the un-pasteurized liquid; and it's been said to reduce allergies and asthma in children—ailments that are on the rise in the U.S.
But there's one hitch: raw milk is illegal....
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 11.10.09
Image credit: Jenni Grover (with thanks to Kris, and the fish, for the fish.)
The gun rights advocates who got upset at my post about 
Image credit: LXTV
Remember 
photo: J. Novak
If you've never before been plagued with 
