Food & Health

Our readers will have to stop us if they get bored of hearing about Transition Towns because we find it hard to stop writing about them. While Oily Cassandra might be busy educating the world about peak oil in her own scantily-clad (and perhaps slightly pessimistic) way, the folks involved in the Transition movement are busy pioneering a path towards reduced fossil fuel dependence. So far we’ve interviewed Rob Hopkins, the founder of the movement, about peak oil and community resilience, we’ve seen how whole cities are stepping up to plan for power down, we’ve heard about the launch of the Transition Handbook, and we’ve celebrated as Transition Towns reach Australia. But the positive news from over the pond just keeps on coming. The latest transition-related initiative that’s caught our eye is efforts by the Totnes group to make the town the ‘Nut Tree Capital of Britain’. Much like Transition City Bristol’s ‘virtual orchard’, the idea is to use town-wide plantings to create a stock of healthy, productive trees that can serve as a great source of local food, and a buffer in times of scarcity.

Recent Comment by Sirerdrick : "I love reading about stuff like this. It makes me sad that I live in Japan... a countr..." [read]

Food & Health

Store Wars!

Revolution is in the air, as the Swiss Government's Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology concludes that plants have rights, and we have to treat them appropriately. A majority of the panel concluded that "living organisms should be considered morally for their own sake because they are alive." The Weekly Standard, which is appalled, gives an example of how a farmer mowing his field is OK, but if he carelessly decapitates flowers while walking home, that is immoral. It suggests that "The animal rights movement grew out of the same poisonous soil." Patrick Metzger at Green Daily suggests that "this concept is a little extreme even for the most committed treehugger."

Having scanned the report, I am not so sure that it is that far off base. It isn't just Julia Butterfly Hill who has fought for the rights of trees, and there are many who fall in love with their garden and protect their tomatoes like their pets, and give them the proper reverence when they are eaten. They don't pick them and throw them against the wall.

Millions of Jains refuse any food obtained with unnecessary cruelty, and many will not eat root vegetables because it kills the plant; it is not like this is a new idea.

They are not, like the Weekly Standard suggests, writing a vegetable Bill of Rights, they are only saying that all living things should be treated with respect. How can one argue with that? Download the PDF report here.

Food & Health

A study in the April 15 edition of Environmental Science & Technology by the prolific Carnegie Mellon University researcher Christopher Weber found that food transport accounts for only 11 percent of food-associated greenhouse gas emissions, while production contributes a whopping 83 percent. Specifically, nitrous oxide and methane -- mainly byproducts of fertilizer use, manure management and animal digestion -- make up a far bigger piece of the emissions pie than emissions from transporting our food from faraway places, the study found.

Weber and colleague Scott Matthews conducted a life-cycle assessment of greenhouse gases emitted during all stages of growing and transporting food consumed in the U.S. (using Department of Commerce data) and calculated that the average U.S. household generates 8.1 metric tons (t) of greenhouse gases (in CO2 equivalents) annually as a result of food consumption. By comparison, driving a car that gets 25 miles per gallon of gasoline for 12,000 miles per year (the U.S. average) produces about 4.4 tons of CO2.

Food & Health

We’ve already heard lots about the food crisis that is threatening global development, and we have had plenty of debate about how eating no meat, a little meat, fake meat and even the plain old potato might help ease global hunger, stop global warming, and generally make life easier for all of us. But let’s forget about what we do eat for a moment – a new report coming out of the UK shows the staggering costs of what we don’t eat:

Food & Health

Who said the revolution would not be televised? What with national newspapers talking about survivalism and community resillience, and radio soaps joining the Transition Towns initiative, it really seems like the mainstream media in the UK are embracing the idea that peak oil, fossil fuels and climate change are very real, and very immediate, threats to our way of life. Now, thanks to one of our periodic check-ins with Rob Hopkins' Transition Culture blog, we've come across this BBC Wales series, in which Patrick Holden of the Soil Association explores how to move his farm, and our food systems in general, away from their precarious reliance on dwindling oil supplies. It's dynamite stuff, looking at both the problems with the way we eat now, and the solutions that may help us move away from this crisis. Topics covered include everything from local food festivals to potential civil unrest in the face of rising fuel prices to urban community gardening to supermarket's phoney 'local' food initiatives - click below the fold for parts two, three and four.

Recent Comment by Jikki : "They should do a program like this in America. Like a special on ABC. I think i..." [read]

Food & Health

A perfect storm of research and technology has emerged that when taken together may provide part of a solution to food production and global warming. The key ideas are:

1. Biodiversity increases the ability of an ecosystem to capture carbon, says Brown University.
2. There are 100's of economically important native seeds according to Lee and Maggie Arbuckle.
3. Native perennial grasses can be used as food, according to The Land Institute.
4. Harvesting perennial grasses is getting easier, with the Arbuckle Native Seedster.

Together these innovations change the framework for how we can turn sunlight and water into food. Incorporating these ideas could sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, provide economic growth, improve soil health, reduce fossil fuel use, and provide sustainable and resilient food production.

Food & Health

As food prices go up, many people are trading down. "In Ohio, Holly Levitsky is replacing the Lucky Charms cereal in her kitchen with Millville Marshmallows and Stars, a less expensive store brand." Others are changing what they eat and perhaps having a healthier diet.

Food & Health

Lambert, Getty Images

We had a faint hope that the rise in food prices might lead people to buy more carefully, perhaps cook more from scratch instead of buying prepared food, or even cut back on meat and eat more vegetables. No such luck; according to the IHT, Americans are just buying more crap, because the cheap calories come from the most processed, corn-based foods. My favourite quote:

"In Ohio, Holly Levitsky is replacing the Lucky Charms cereal in her kitchen with Millville Marshmallows and Stars, a less expensive store brand." Pizza sales at Domino's are down, while Wal-Mart says that sales of peanut butter and spaghetti are up. On the other hand, so are the sales of packaged food.

Donna Dunaway, a homemaker, used to splurge on the ingredients for homemade lasagna, her husband's favorite, before food prices began to surge this year."Now he's lucky to get a 99-cent lasagna TV dinner, or maybe some Manwich out of a can," she said. "I just can't afford to be buying all that good meat and cheese like I used to."

Sigh. ::International Herald Tribune