Food | The Green Foodprint

Peanut butter and celery

In Food to Try,

Posted on July 28, 2011
Author: Linda,
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Remember this timeless dynamic duo? Healthier than s’mores, and don’t require building a fire. If you grind your own peanut butter fresh at the supermarket, you know you’re avoiding all the sugars and added trans fats that go along with conventional store-bought peanut butter. What you may not know, however, is that peanut butter, both organic and nonorganic, contains aflatoxin. Uh oh! Aflatoxin is a mold found (by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences) to be directly linked to liver cancer. While the aflatoxin in food may not exceed minute amounts, according to the FDA, exposure to hot or humid environments can cause these small amounts of mold to grow. A particularly risky place is the grinding machines that customers use in the grocery store, which are not tested by the FDA for levels of the mold.

To minimize the amount of aflatoxin in your peanut butter, you can do the following:
* If you grind the peanuts yourself, refrigerate the resulting peanut butter as soon as possible. Or,
* Buy store-bought organic peanut butter which has already been put into sealed containers.

credit: kafka4 on flickr

Johns Hopkins University researchers found that eating celery, parsnips, carrots, parsley and other leafy greens with peanut butter actually reduces the amounts of aflatoxin in your body, so feel confident and healthy the next time you crunch away on your organic peanut butter and celery, with raisins on top. This artistic concoction is also called “ants on a log.”

Submitted by Mina Arasteh

Meat, health, and planet

In Animal Cruelty, Food to Avoid, Toxins and Pesticides, Uncategorized,

Posted on July 21, 2011
Author: Linda,
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The Environmental Working Group has released a new report. Working with CleanMetrics, they assessed the rates of greenhouse gases emitted by 20 types of proteins (meat, fish, dairy, and vegetable sources). Here’s the take-home message : “Lamb, beef, pork and cheese generate the most greenhouse gases. They also tend to be high in fat and have the worst environmental impacts.”

I love it when experts not only give you the worrisome news, they show you practical steps you can take to respond. From EWG’s exhortation to “Eat ‘greener’ meat when you do eat it,” I’ve condensed some key recommendations:

For your health:
Avoid highly processed meats like lunchmeats, hot dogs, and smoked meats.
Choose leaner cuts, which may have fewer toxins than fatty ones

For the animals:
Choose certified humanely raised. You don’t want to participate in the torture perpetrated by factory farms! Niman Ranch, which began forty years ago north of San Francisco, has grown to partner with over 650 independent ranchers and states that all its animals are raised humanely.

For the environment:
Avoid farmed and airfreighted fish. Well, we in the Bay Area have access to local fish, so the air freight has less relevance here. But what about endangered species? What about. Monterey Bay Aquarium has a list here.

And of course, the most powerful recommendation of all is, “Eat less meat and dairy.”

This report and its website version are goldmines of information. For instance, you can find out which part of the life cycle of a given product made the heaviest environmental impact. Weird fact: “Roughly 20 percent of all meat sold in the U.S. winds up in the trash. That makes the pesticides, fertilizer, fuel and water used to produce and process it, as well as the resulting greenhouse gases and environmental damage, unnecessary and preventable.”

For the full report, go here.

Attack of the Frankenfoods

In Food to Avoid, GMO's, Uncategorized,

Posted on July 5, 2011
Author: Linda,
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You may be conscientious about choosing foods that are good for the earth as well as for yourself – organic, local, minimally processed – but you may still be buying foods that are not earth-friendly. Or people-friendly. Yes, we’re talking about GMO – genetically modified organisms.

What is a genetically modified organism, and what does it mean to you? A GMO is typically a plant into which scientists have inserted altered DNA, which causes resistance to a pesticide, hardiness, or superior growth. This allows farmers to drench the growing plants in pesticides, or it causes the plants to create their own pesticides as they grow. So unless you’re eating USDA Organic Certified corn, soy, meat, and a myriad of other foods, you may be ingesting pesticides.

Doesn’t sound healthy to us!

Even wise shoppers in the aisles of stores such as Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, who wince at the very thought of genetically modified frankenfoods, may consume them unknowingly. 90% of corn and soybeans raised in the U.S. are GMO’s. 20% of Trader Joe’s products contain GMO’s. Whole Foods has some, too.

So what can you do? If you buy products such as soy, cotton, corn, canola, sugar from sugar beets, Hawaiian papaya, some zucchini, and crookneck squash, make sure they’re USDA Certified Organic. Join the Millions against Monsanto Campaign, and let companies like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s know that they need to clearly label GMO foods, or else go 100% GMO-free.

Contributed by Mina Arasteh

Compassion in Action

In Animal Cruelty, Food to Avoid, In the News, Take Action,

Posted on October 5, 2010
Author: Linda,
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Nine survivors of shark attacks are now campaigning to save the species that terrify most people. But the truth is that humans are a greater danger to sharks than they are to us – we kill 100 million of them a year, while the Florida Museum of Natural History estimates that fewer than a dozen people a year are killed by sharks (see statistics here). Many shark species are threatened with extinction, partly due to human beings’ appetite for them. Asians, for instance, consider shark fin soup a delicacy. To get the main ingredient, 73 million sharks a year are killed for this dish. After their fins are cut off, they are dumped back into the ocean to drown or bleed to death.

This is unacceptable to many people – including these nine survivors. Twenty-nine-year-old Achmat Hassiem was attacked during practice for his lifeguard duties – but even though he lost his foot, he hopes to save sharks. Australian navy diver Paul de Gelder, who lost his right hand and lower leg to a shark, agrees. “Regardless of what an animal does according to its basic instincts of survival, it has its place in our world.” (See news story here)

Peter Benchley, the author of the novel Jaws,belatedly realized this and later in life became a protector of sharks, campaigning to educate people about them. An annual award is given in his name by the Shark Research Institute to the person or group that makes outstanding contributions to shark conservation.

What can you do to help? Don’t order shark fin soup.

*This story is also found on the Examiner.com

Prescription Produce

In Food, Recommended Company,

Posted on September 30, 2010
Author: Linda,
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We know that childhood obesity is a serious problem. Experts worry that today’s children will be the first generation to live shorter lives than their parents because of the health hazards of obesity. We also know that as a society, we’ll need to help create a world where children can find healthy food, exercise, and play.

Some Massachusetts doctors are taking active steps to do just that. Realizing that low-income children are especially at risk, they are helping them adopt a healthier diet by advising patients to buy “prescription produce” at local farmers’ markets–and even giving them coupons to help them pay for it. Check out the article here.

Since obesity costs this country $14 billion in treating health problems in children, and $147 billion in adults, this seems like a sensible preventive effort. In fact, 36 states have programs to encourage women and young children to benefit from the healthful produce available at farmers’ markets. Luckily, in the US there are over 6,000 farmers’ markets, with annual sales of over $1billion, and more are opening all the time.

School lunch programs are also becoming healthier – and so is the connection between farm and table. A program called Farm to School (which has branches in all 50 states) helps schools link lessons and contacts with their local farmers. In our area, Marin, Berkeley, Hayward and San Rafael have schools that participate in Farm to School.

The beauty of the program is that it does not require a large initial commitment—a school can start by just adding one item, such as local apples, to its offerings. That’s how Dover-Eyota schools got started, and now it’s adding other locally grown foods. Check out the article, “Minnesota Schools “Digging” Their Local Farms This Week.” Carrie Frank, nutrition director for the district, says, “This excites me – the opportunity to buy local, to buy the freshest. I’ve been in schools now for 17 years, and I don’t know when I’ve been more excited to be in the industry. The students are quite proud of it. I hear comments like, ‘My mom grew this.’ Or one child said, ‘My grandfather and I picked this.'”

*Story also found on Examiner.com

There are Plenty of (Other) Fish in the Sea! – GMO Salmon

In Food, Food to Avoid, GMO's, Take Action,

Posted on September 23, 2010
Author: Linda,
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Recently there has been a debate on genetically modified salmon since there are supposedly not enough fish in the ocean to feed everyone. According to this Opinion article on CNN.com, there is only one modified gene in the salmon. It will help benefit the farming of salmon because they eat less and will produce more fish faster, and the added hormone has not effect to humans. (That we know of yet!) One of the biggest concerns is that some of these farmed salmon will escape into the wild and contaminate the other fish by breeding and endangering the environment in a way that we can no longer control or reverse.

In my opinion although these instant benefits seem wonderful and easy, the long run results may turn out detrimental to other fish as well as us. There are plenty of other fish in the ocean. We can cut back on our consumption on salmon. Honestly I’d rather not eat salmon then eat anything genetically modified. To tell the FDA you won’t eat GMO Salmon, please sign this petition by FoodDemocracyNow!!!! There are only 48 hours left to sign!

What are your concerns with this? What are your thoughts on GMO salmon?

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