on 11.18.09It has been a science fiction dream: the completely integrated, closed loop system "micro-farm." And we get it with the Inka Curve, a vertical minifarm that provides herbs, grasses, fruits or vegetables grown on a vertical "bio-quilt."
on 11.17.09
Image via TheSquigglyLine.
If gentically engineered (GE) crops mean more chemicals, farmer costs, and health risks...is that a good thing?
If you've listened recently to public radio, you may have heard the following promotional announcement on Marketplace, produced by American Public Media: "Marketplace is supported by Monsanto, committed to sustainable agriculture; creating hybrid and biotech seeds designed to increase crop yields and conserve natural resources."
The problem with this ad, according to research published by The Organic Center, and also a recent article on Bloomberg.com, is that it is just not true.
on 11.14.09
Image credit: Asymmetric
A looming peak oil crisis isn't the only thing we have to worry about. Jeremy has already noted that the world could be facing a severe phosphorus shortage over the coming century, a shortage that would seriously curtail our ability to grow food. (Phosphorus is a vital plant nutrient used as fertilizer.) Warren has already pointed out that recycling human urine could help preserve this precious resource, a task that's easy enough for the home gardener. But what other measures can we take at home to keep the phosphrous in our gardens? It turns out that part of the answer may lay in the bones. (The other part may lie in leaving the bones well alone.)
on 11.14.09
photo: The Nature Conservancy
The Food and Drug Administration announced today that it will back off on its plan to ban as of 2011 the sale of raw oysters from the Gulf Coast during part of the year because they have been linked with about a dozen annual deaths from poisoning. The move met stiff resistance from oysterman and foodies who say that frozen oysters are no substitute and that the ban will ruin a cultural tradition.
on 11.13.09
Eating Animals, the new book by Jonathan Safran Foer (of Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close fame) takes a look at what it actually means to give up meat, take it out of our vocab and eliminate it from our most gluttonous popular, holiday traditions. If you've read The Jungle or Fast Food Nation, or any variety of farming-industry tell-alls, this is like a 2.0 version. Safran Foer attempts to look more closely at what it means to be human and change an entire way of thinking. Like John Mayer said, "We're never gonna beat this if belief is what we're fightin' for." Then again, apparently the book was powerful enough to turn Natalie Portman vegan. No kidding.
on 11.12.09
Image credit: Friendly Aquaponics
It always appeals to me when I see a business that lists, as one of its goals, to "put ourselves out of business as soon as we can" by spreading its knowledge as freely as generously as possible—especially when Leonard Nimoy is quoted as inspiration. But I suspect Friendly Aquaponics in Hawaii will be in business for some time to come. And that's no bad thing. If their website is anything to go by, their aquaponics system is one of the most impressive I've seen.
on 11.12.09
Photos: Window Farms
With city space at a premium and urban sprawl devouring previously prime agriculture land, vertical farming has been touted as one possible solution to the metropolitan masses. We've covered many of the grand schemes, most of which are likely to remain no more than stylish computer renderings of an architect's skyscrapery wet dreams.
Window Farms take the vertical farming notion and make it both real, and more human scale. Whether they are more functional art than a real direction forward for urban agriculture is a matter for conjecture. But at least the prototypes are out there growing stuff, which is way more than can be said for a CAD rendering.
on 11.11.09
Old Mother Hubbard's Cupboard Was Bare. Image credit:StoryBookLane
For the 193 national delegations gathering in Copenhagen for the U.N. Climate Change Conference in December, the reasons for concern about climate change vary widely. For delegations from low-lying island countries, the principal concern is rising sea level. For countries in southern Europe, climate change means less rainfall and more drought. For countries of East Asia and the Caribbean, more powerful storms and storm surges are a growing worry.
This climate change conference is about all these things, and many more, but in a very fundamental sense, it is a conference about food security.
At Earth Policy Institute, we note that we need not go beyond ice melting to see that the world is in trouble on the food front. The melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets is raising sea level. If the Greenland ice sheet were to melt entirely, sea level would rise by 23 feet. Recent projections show that it could rise by up to 6 feet during this century.
Photos via Pop Up Lunch
So the slow food movement isn't necessarily about literally slowing down...but in a way, it is. When we slow down, actually stopping to eat, we spend more time considering what it is we're putting in our bodies and might make better food choices. Not that it's the motive behind the Pop Up Lunch project, but it's certainly a potential green side effect. The art project props up street food eaters, so those grabbing a quick meal have a place to enjoy what they're eating. That, combined with another cool gadget could help fast food slow down and green up. ...
Image via Sara Snow.
It's happened to me a thousand times or more so I'm sure it's happened to you as well. Dinnertime is looming, you look in the refrigerator, the pantry, the cupboards...and nothing. Not a can of beans or bundle of beets jumps out and says, "Look at me, I can be a tasty meal for dinner."
So now what?
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La Tomatina Food Fight
We noted earlier that Consumers Reports Confirms Bisphenol A Leaches From Tin Cans. This didn't sit well with our friends at Stats.org, who responded with Consumer Reports BPA study filled with factual errors. Consumers Reports shot back with Industry reacts to Consumer Reports' BPA report, noting:
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Image credit: FOE
From Meatless Mondays to Weekday Vegetarianism to going raw food vegan to adopting the 100-Mile Diet, there are plenty of individual actions we can take to reduce the impact of our meals. But personal action is not enough, and with the complex, interrelated clusterf**k that our food system has become, individuals can feel powerless to make positive change on a systemic level. Luckily, a new campaign from Friends of the Earth UK is connecting the dots for you. ...
Eat Me. You might possibly, perhaps be doing something good for the environment. Credit: Clara Molden via Telegraph.co.uk
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....
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? ...
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.
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SoA Architects- the future of farming?
Philip Proefrock and TreeHugger emeritus Hank Green are no fun at a party, if it is a party like the one designers and bloggers like us have been having on the subject of vertical farms for the last five years. From Mike's first post in 2005 (showing SoA Architectes iconic tower) to Romses Architects Harvest Green, we have been collecting them. They are wonderful images, visions of a green future of hyperlocal food. But Philip and Hank throw cold water all over them, saying Let's Make This Clear: Vertical Farms Don't Make Sense
We have occasionally noted that they are perhaps a bit "pie in the sky", quoting Adam Stein of Terrapass:
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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."...
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 5 Things I Hate about the USA may be surprised at this, and the vegans who despised my post on urban farming and backyard slaughter will be no happier, but I am an increasingly big fan of hunters and fishers. In fact, (responsible) hunting and fishing may make it on my next list of 5 things I love about America. Here's why. ...
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. ...
Flaxseed from Canada's prairie has been contaminated with a genetically modified seed. Photo by bdearth via Flickr.
It sounds like science fiction: A genetically modified flax seed--named after an experimental plant in a sci-fi flick--is popping up in flaxseed harvested in Canada's prairie. This might not be so strange in today's world of genetically modified foods if it weren't for one thing: The seed never made it to market and all seed was supposed to have been destroyed in 2001.
The flax mystery was brought to light in a recent article in The Globe and Mail, which revealed the contamination has prompted Europe to put a halt to imports of Canadian flax--a move that could bring the $320-million industry to its knees....
Pierre Desrochers, U of T
No doubt you have heard of ear worms, those songs that just get caught in your head and never leave. There are also news worms, the same story and the same guy popping up on radio, TV and in print everywhere. The news worm of the week in Ontario, Canada is U of T Mississauga geography professor Pierre Desrochers, who is attacking the idea of local food and the hundred mile diet. It isn't news; he first released his study Yes We Have No Bananas: A Critique of the 'Food Miles' Perspective from the George Mason University Mercatus Institute over a year ago, quickly picked up in an edited version by the National Post as Food mile myths: Buy Global.
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Images from Divine Caroline
PSFK picks up an interesting post about how food portions, both in restaurants and at home, have increased over the last twenty years. While a dietitian will tell you that a portion of meat shouldn't be larger than a deck of cards, most servings now are more like the size of a paperback book.
It is the inevitable result the corn-based industrial food system; while other costs, like staff and real estate were increasing, food costs were stable or decreasing so you just made things bigger, added another layer to the whopper. Divine Caroline notes that " large quantities of cheap food have distorted our perceptions of what a typical meal is supposed to look like."...
Image via: Mr Luke Harby on Flickr.com
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Do you have to slide on your values when you want to eat a nice meal out on the town? Are you in a smaller town and figure there's not much but fast food around you? How do you find a restaurant that is able to purchase local, fresh food when your city is 3 feet under snow? Do restaurants these days compost? And of course, how are workers treated? These are among the 14 items included in Heavy Table's Atlas of Ethical Eating Guide to Minneapolis - St Paul restaurants, now available. The Atlas is not just a guide to good eating but a celebration of all things local in Minneapolis - St Paul....
photo: J Novak
In response to what the Cornucopia Institute calls a continual blurring of the line between organic and all natural, last week they filed a complaint against Target with the USDA. ...
Here are a few recommended websites.
