Image source:
Amazing Grass
Recently I sampled several Superfood products from
Amazing Grass. Superfood - those green, vitamin-packed food and drinks that look like someone just cut a swatch out of your front lawn, juiced it and served it up to you in a glass. Amazing Grass now offers several handy nutrition bars and mixes to blend in drinks, all claiming to give lots of health benefits with few or no downsides. This holiday season I sat around with a few family members (eco-friendly and not-so-eco-friendly alike) and sampled the items. This is what we had to say:...
Luckily, Christmas dinner is already over in Scandinavia (celebrated most often on the 24th) so those of us required to take a portion of stinky, slimy lutefisk, a dried and soaked cod, are safely past our obligations at the buffet-like
Christmas table.
The lutefisk ritual is just one of many cod-based traditions. In Sweden torsk, as cod is called, is one of the most popular white fishes, and it shows up in a multitude of traditional dishes, stews and soups (and the ever popular
fish stick). It is also nearly fished to extinction in the Baltic Sea and the body of water between Denmark and Sweden known as Kattegat. So it is a bit schizophrenic that at the same time that the Danes and Swedes have been hard at work establishing a no-fishing zone for local cod to help them survive, EU ministers are pointedly ignoring international scientific advice on how much fishing is sustainable....
Wilbur the turkey
Meet Wilbur, the luckiest turkey in England, perhaps the world. He was raised, along with 49 other friends and family, on a pick-your-own turkey farm. His goal in life: to be eaten on Christmas Day. But alas, or should we say, happily, that was not to be. Customers rejected him: "underweight" they said, a "misshapen" body, no tail feathers, he has a limp. Others complained that he looked too sad and bedraggled.
So Wilbur has the last laugh. His owner is keeping him as a pet. Henceforth and forever more he will roam free on the farm and spend the rest of his days happily and peacefully. As his new best friend said: "Wilbur will become one of the family. He might be an ugly old thing, but we think he is lovely." Merry Christmas One and All.
The Telegraph...
Pesticides have been found in half the foods eaten by Europeans, with six of the most dangerous consistently in the top ten measured. But the battle to act against the risks of pesticides pits productivity, reductions in disease vectors, and other benefits against the difficult to prove risks of developing cancer or the hypothesis that sharp declines in bee populations can be attributed, at least in part, to pesticide contamination in the environment.
Now, spurred on by a political commitment to the precautionary principle, German green representative Hiltrud Breyer has stewarded a proposal for a directive on sustainable pesticides through the compromise process to an outcome that will phase out 22 pesticide ingredients....
We cover the thriving green gingerbread architecture scene, where architects still can find work, the ingredients and the mortgages aren't toxic and meltdowns are expected if you carelessly leave your work outside. We also show the occasional un-treehugger entries:
NOT: If you are not
moving toward vegetarianism yet, you will be after contemplating Linda Duffy's "Low Carb" Gingerbread House. She asks "who says a gingerbread house has to include gingerbread?" and uses Slim Jim and cheese walls, jerky strip roofing and holds it all together with a delectable mortar made from cream cheese, a quarter cup of palm oil and a package of onion soup mix. No wonder newspapers in Denver are dying, if this is what their columnists eat.
Denver Examiner via
Geekologie
...
Image source: Burger Lounge
The
Burger Lounge, which opened in 2006, now has 3 locations across San Diego offering organic and healthy burger alternatives for one of the healthiest, if not greenest, of cities. Created by Dean Loring and Mike Gilligan, the two see the Lounge as a "bridge between bloated corporate "fast food" culture and the "less is more, quality is everything" approach. Oh, and did we mention they make fresh cupcakes? ...
Credit: Danny Williams
Some might say if you have a
hangover, you might already be green (not the environmental kind of green, ahem). But if you want to cure that throbbing headache from
last night’s Christmas party or holiday get-together, take a few suggestions from TreeHugger’s list of the
top green hangover remedies. Because if you are going to be green in the face, you might as well be green all the way. ‘Tis the season…...
photo: Blue Avocado
I know what you're thinking: same old, same old. But actually this line of reusable bags is making it harder and harder to come up the "I forgot my bag" excuse....
Photo credit: Kelly Rossiter
We titled this series
On Moving Toward Vegetarianism because it is aimed at people who are thinking about vegetarianism, but aren't quite there yet. I know that there are many of you out there who are long-term committed vegetarians, but I also know that there are vegetarians out there who eat meat in secret. And then there are those of you who openly identify yourselves as flexitarian....
The debate between real or artificial is not a new one when it comes to
Christmas trees. You may have spent time around the dinner table debating this holiday topic with your family. It seems that those debates may be over, as the Canadians at
Ellipsos reconfirm that the natural Christmas tree has lower impacts on the environment than the artificial tree.
Their
results conclude that a natural tree will generate 3.1 kg of greenhouse gases whereas the artificial tree will produce 8.1 kg per year. The natural tree is the best option even despite the annual trips to find it. Perhaps the most interesting part lies in the discussion of
offsetting those carbon emissions....
TreeHugger loves exposing myths. We have written about energy myths, wind turbine myths and global danger ones. Now here are a few health myths that may surprise you.
l.
Wear a Hat to Keep in the Heat
Everyone knows that you wear a hat in winter to keep in the body heat. Right? Wrong. A new study reported in the
British Medical Journal claims that keeping one part of the body covered has just as much effect as covering any other. So when it is cold outside, wrap up, but wearing a hat won't make a big difference.
2.
Sugar Makes Children Hyper-Active
There is a common belief that parents should cut back on the sugar for the children because it makes them hyper-active. This seems to be a figment of parents' imagination--the study says that tests show that there is no difference in the behaviour of those children that had sugar and those that didn't. This includes sugar from candy, chocolate and natural sources. ...
Image:
Cargill
Stevia Hits the Big Time
The low-calorie sweetener hailed as "natural" is coming to a grocery store shelf near you. Coke will start delivering
stevia-sweetened Odwalla Mojito Mambo and Odwalla Pomegranate Strawberry nationwide this week and plans to introduce Sprite Green in New York and Chicago before the end of the year. Pepsi is expected to follow with SoBe Lifewater in three flavors (black and blue berry, Fuji apple pear and yumberry pomegranate) as well as a 50% reduced calorie orange juice, Trop50. Both use Cargill's Stevia Sweetener, branded
Truvia.
The news is heating up the financial markets: will the natural low-cal sweetener sweeten profits as well? But what interests us is the safety of the new ingredient. The FDA is expected to give stevia-derived sweeteners the status of
generally recognized as safe (known as GRAS in the industry), but is GRAS the same as SAFE? ...
While the city of Louisville has been known for many things over the years, citizens of an area consisting of various chemical plants and commonly referred to as Rubbertown have put up with strange odors, burning eyes and fears that their every breath might contribute to asthma, cancer or other illnesses.
But that began to change about a decade ago, after a minister from the predominantly African-American neighborhoods around Rubbertown organized protests, demanding aggressive government action to clean up the toxic air and reduce the chemical emissions from factories.
...
Citing the example of Washington University in St. Louis, students at Penn State are pressing administration to enact a total ban on the sale of plastic water bottles on campus. And doing it in a somewhat humorous way like gathering to sing parodies of Christmas carols with lyrics like “December’s hotter than J. Lo,” and “O Scorching Night” to the tune of the more traditionally acclaimed “O Holy Night”.
But the question is; will it work?
...
Planet Ark/Reuters has a nice piece out of Havana about how urban gardens are filling a key void in
food production after three hurricanes wiped out 30 percent of the country's farm crops. In Cuba, urban gardens have proliferated in vacant lots, alongside parking lots, in the suburbs and on city rooftops, taking up some 35,000 hectares (86,000 acres). Most gardens sell their produce directly to the community and, because the economic embargo restricts agricultural input imports, grow their crops
organically.
"Urban agriculture is going to play a key role in guaranteeing the feeding of the people much more quickly than the traditional farms," Richard Haep, Cuba coordinator for German aid group
Welthungerhilfe, which has supported urban garden projects since 1994, told Planet Ark....
"People at all times," Shuken Kiyoshi, 56-year-old head priest of the Zuikoji Temple in Osaka, Japan says, "are plagued by desires, unable to cast off their passions. But a chance encounter can transform the nature of these desires of ours. Especially now, when values are so confused, I wanted to provide a space where everyone could come to seek his or her own light."
Mr Kiyoshi found an original way of doing that: he opened a bar. This caught the attention of Asahi.com, the website of one of the largest newspapers in Japan. I like how the article manages to mix details about how the economy is hurting people, with how we all are trying to deal with the major changes going on around us: "Before, I was never satisfied. I always wanted more. I changed companies over and over, until at last I began to feel that the way I was living was all wrong." ...
The New York Times' annual list of the
Year in Ideas and
GOOD sorted out some of the "potentially transformative" from the less world-changing (a chair that grows crystals on its surface in water anyone?) Nikhil's picks:
- the Brickley engine, a flattened version of the ol’ internal combustion that may lead to fuel efficiency increases of 20 percent
- capital insurance, where third parties insure banks so the government doesn’t have to
- fast-food zoning, a one-year moratorium in opening new fast food restaurants in Los Angeles County
...
A new study by David Bassett of the University of Tennessee and John Pucher of Rutgers University found that gee, if you drive more and cycle or walk less, you tend to be fatter. They are
quoted in Wired:
"Countries with the highest levels of active transportation generally had the lowest obesity rates," Bassett and Pucher conclude in the study published in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health. "Walking and bicycling are far more common in European countries than in the United States, Australia and Canada. Active transportation is inversely related to obesity in these countries."
There might be other factors, though; TreeHugger has looked at a few of them over the years. ...
Running a co-op got one family in a run-in with the law. Photo Manna Storehouse web site.
Food cooperatives come in all shapes and sizes - from the corner health food store jointly owned and operated by its members - to buying clubs that aggregate purchases of specialty products in order to decrease costs. Co-ops have vastly contributed to
'eat local' movements. You don't expect them to have law enforcement descending en mass one winter morning to serve a search warrant for suspected business license violations.
That's what happened to Manna Storehouse, however. Family run out of a home in LaGrange, Ohio, Manna states on its web site that it is a food co-op (the family also raises sheep) with 60 members that together buy everything from Amy's Organic Strawberry Toaster Pops to organic pastured chickens. On December 1 Manna got an unexpected visit from local law enforcement. Uncorroborated reports have Manna's family of owners being held at gunpoint for several hours while a "SWAT" team served a search warrant, proceeded to turn the house upside down, and left with computers, cell phones and several thousands of dollars in food. According to newspaper reports in
The Cleveland Plain Dealer, however, the raid consisted of "four deputies" conducting a search over three to four hours, searching for evidence the family is running a retail food establishment without proper licensing....
photo: 1-800-Flowers
After I learned the eco-issues behind the cut flower industry I was never able to look at a dozen roses the same again. No longer was it a symbol of a sweet loving gesture, but rather, the sign of often pesticide laden blooms and an enlarged carbon footprint. However, 1-800-Flowers has introduced Fair Trade flower bouquets. A step in the right direction? You be the judge.
...
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