Food Choices for Healthy People and a Healthy Planet

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Another brave move by New York Mayor – food composting

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  • Posted on June 16, 2013
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Today, the New York Times reported that outgoing mayor Michael Bloomberg will follow up on his February comment deploring food waste by establishing a program to allow (and some day require) households to recycle it through city-collected bins.

This is good news to everyone who knows that food waste is one of our most unnecessary losses. San Francisco, of course, required food recycling starting in 2009. The East Bay city of Lafayette has been collecting food waste for years.

As I wrote in The Green Foodprint, “There is no waste in nature. Every plant, animal, rock, and drop of water is broken down and reused. Fallen trees, leaves, the shells left by a nut-eating squirrel, and the fur or feathers left by a predator are recycled in the ecosystem, decaying and becoming soil in which new plants and animals can live and grow.” Yet 30% of food produced, worth billions of dollars, is wasted every year.

The mayor’s administration, we are told, is about to hire a composting plant to receive and process 100,000 tons of food scraps a year. According to reporter Mireya Navarro, that’s still only one tenth of the waste generated by city’s residents, but that this measure could save $100 million a year. Not to mention the topsoil or energy that can be generated by skillfully recycling it.

Some day we’ll look back and be amazed at what people used to throw away.

Related links:
Bloomberg Plan Aims to Require Food Composting
Bloomberg Wants Restaurants to Compost – The New York Times

 


Publishers Weekly Review of The Green Foodprint

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  • Posted on July 26, 2012
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The Green Foodprint was recently selected for review by Publishers Weekly, one of the most distinguished and respected sources for book reviews in the industry. For their expert opinion, click here and read the glowing review they gave The Green Foodprint. 


Organic and fair in the Middle East and the Bay Area

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  • Posted on July 24, 2012
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This month’s E Magazine has an encouraging story by Melinda Tuhus about a positive development in the West Bank. The Palestine Fair Trade Association has organized olive growers into cooperatives, so they receive a fair wage for their work and have their own brand, Canaan Fair Trade, which is sold in stores like Whole Foods. Said one member, “The people here [in the association] are very nice and they treat the farmers very well,” he says. “And they give scholarships to the children of the farmers.”  Canaan Fair Trade also produces other Middle Eastern delicacies like tahini, couscous, fig spread, and more. Check out the website to see all they do in their community!

 

 

 

 

Here are some places in the Bay Area where you can buy Canaan products:

 GLOBAL EXCHANGE STORE
2840 College Avenue,  Berkeley, CA 94705

RAINBOW GROCERY COOPERATIVE
1745 Folsom Street, San Francisco, CA 94103

 COUNTRY SUN NATURAL FOODS
440 California Avenue, Palo Alto, CA

Just as heartwarming to those of us who care about good, sustainable, fair trade food, I’ve written elsewhere about several collaborations among Israelis, Jordanians, and Palestinians:

“Friends of the Earth/Middle East is an organization of Israeli, Jordanian, and Palestinian environmentalists who work together to clean up the Jordan River and the Dead Sea. This organization also promotes healthy food, solar energy, and eco-tourism.”

 

 

 

 

 

“Yossi Leshem, an Israeli bird expert and director of the International Center for the Study of Bird Migration, was troubled by the deaths of hundreds of birds in northern Israel. The birds were being killed by the chemicals used to eradicate the rats that were eating the farmers’ crops. Leshem persuaded a kibbutz to try a different solution. Barn owl boxes were installed to lure owls to make their homes at the kibbutz, and within a few years the rat problem was solved. An Ohio Jewish community group gave funds so the kibbutz members could donate building materials for owl nesting boxes to their Jordanian neighbors. Little by little, overcoming obstacles, the project is helping former enemies reach out to one another.”

May food be a bridge to peace.


Food and wildlife, rice and birds

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  • Posted on July 16, 2012
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A few weeks ago, Audubon California conservation biologist Monica Iglecia got her 15 minutes of fame – she was written up in two news stories that were highlighted in the week’s Bureau of Land Management newsletter. The first appeared in the AppealDemocrat, the local newspaper of Sutter and Yuba counties, and described her visit to a California rice farm. If you have images of rice paddies covered by inches of water, you’re on the right track. Rice does require a lot of water to grow, and California has half a million acres devoted to growing rice.

Where do birds come in to this picture?  So many acres of wetlands have been filled in and converted to human use that migratory birds can have a tough time finding places to stay over during their migrations. Solution: get rice farmers to make their fields more hospitable to our flying friends. Turns out this is eminently doable, and the Migratory Bird Conservation Partnership is making it happen. Said Ms. Iglecia, “That’s exciting when you see chicks because you know the nesting efforts are working.”

 

 

 

 

One thing rice farmers can do is flatten the tops of their water-retaining levees, so birds can find a place to build nests. Another is to leave grass and weeds at the fields’ borders, instead of pulling them out, thus providing bird habitat. For a great photo, go here.

Ms. Iglecia was also interviewed by an AP reporter and the two saw an avocet nest on top of such a levee. “It’s a full clutch of four eggs,” said Monica Iglecia, a shorebird biologist with Audubon California, looking through binoculars. “This is why we do this work. It’s exciting to see.”

Let’s hope that soon all these wonderful partners will create a “bird-friendly” label for rice packages, so we can seek out rice from growers that are hospitable to the birds that pass through our state.


Have a green July 4 picnic

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  • Posted on June 30, 2012
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Ah, back to nature. Cooking and eating outdoors like our ancestors…. But this rustic scene is not so innocuous. Each July 4, millions of people light their barbecue grills, burning the equivalent of 2,300 acres of forest, emitting nearly 225,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide. Particulates fill the air. Grease burns onto the grills and harsh cleansers are used to clean them. Plastic, paper, and glass trash litter our picnic areas. We throw food away rather than carry it home, accustoming wild animals to finding food in waste bins or thrown on the ground. This is not safe for them or for us.

We can do better than this – and here’s how:

 

 

 

 

 

The barbecue: Lighting up the fire doesn’t have to be a soot- and gasoline-smell-producing act. Don’t use lighter fluid to start the barbecue–it contributes to smog. Use a chimney starter instead, a metal cylinder with a handle into which you put your charcoal briquettes. They heat up much faster and require no lighter fluid. Douse them with water after you’re done cooking. This helps prevent fires, and saved briquette pieces make good fixings to start the next barbecue.

The fixins’: Instead of meat, grill tasty vegetable skewers. Healthier for you and the planet! Corn on the cob can be grilled in its husk if you first soak it in water. This eliminates the need for aluminum foil.

The cleanup: Bring reusable utensils and then take them away with you. If you do use disposable plates, utensils, and cups, use ones made from cornstarch or other biodegradable materials. Then take them home and compost them.  Put leftovers in reusable containers and take them home to eat later.  Recycle everything recyclable. Properly dispose of all litter. Clean your grill promptly, using warm water and baking soda, before the burned food hardens and you are tempted to use harsh chemical cleaners.

Afterwards, relax and enjoy food and energy independence!


Food packaging

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  • Posted on June 25, 2012
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A few months ago I wrote about edible food packaging, which, if it becomes feasible, would be one interesting way to tackle the astounding waste of natural resources (trees, petroleum, aluminum, energy) caused by food packaging. According to  As You Sow, an organization devoted to leading corporations toward sustainability, “At least 43 million tons of plastic, glass, metal, and paper packaging—much of it with market value—is landfilled or burned in the U.S. each year. Packaging waste is also the biggest component of ocean litter that harms marine life and pollutes our oceans.”

 

 

 

 

Before I get to today’s news, here are some things you can do right now about packaging waste, that I wrote about here:

✓ Buy products with the least packaging: Fresh, local, in season. Be willing to buy produce that is perfectly good, though it might not look perfect.

✓ Buy products in bulk or large containers, not tiny serving sizes.

✓ Use concentrates (juices, cleansers), which require less packaging.

✓ When buying a few small items, ask the clerk not to put them in a bag.

✓ Reuse and recycle the packaging you can’t avoid.

✓ Bring your own cloth bags. Many grocery and drug chains sell them, as do online retailers. Some stores give you a small rebate for bringing your own bags.

✓ Eat your package. Buy ice cream in cones, not plastic cups.

Extended producer responsibility (EPR) is a new movement, complete with its own acronym, challenging manufacturers to create more earth-friendly products and to take responsibility for their remains after consumers (that’s you and me!) have used them. So far this mostly pertains to large appliances. In the food world, of course, recycling is the currently most usable technique.

And, of course, if you go for apples and bananas, you can always eat your packaging!


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