Archive for the ‘Food & Dining’ Category
July 8th, 2009
GrassRoutes Guides: Off the Beaten Path Urban Eco-travel
Stumble it!
Want green travel that goes beyond LEED-certified chain hotels and flight offsets? Pick up one of the GrassRoutes guides, an urban eco-travel book series put together by Oakland resident Serena Bartlett. These guides reveal the neighborhoody green knowledge that’ll let you get around town like a long-time do-gooder member of the local eco-community.
GrassRoutes: Oakland & Berkeley, for example, clues you into Frugal Foodies, a vegetarian dining society in Berkeley that’s actually accessible to visitors who want to make new foodie friends, and Lakeside Park Gardens, where you can volunteer to help build a sensory garden for the blind. GrassRoutes: Northern California Wine Country of course details the organic wineries in the area — then also lists the many places you can pick cherries in Livermore valley and provides detailed biking directions — including best spots for breaks — to inland Sonoma county.
In its listings, GrassRoutes guides go beyond simple recycling programs and vegetarian options to look at whether a restaurant or store banks locally, is known as a pillar of the community, or employs people reentering workforce. But lest you fear GrassRoutes guides are all do-gooder and little fun, rest assured that you’ll get details on the best local lingerie shop, international grocery stores, green spas, and dive bars — a number of which boast only the faintest of greenishness yet have been awarded the little “community pillar” symbol (cheap drinks will, indeed, make the locals consider your bar indispensable).
Like most travel guides, GrassRoutes guides include a brief history of the area, transportation info, plus sections specific to pet and kid-related activities. Unlike many travel guides, GrassRoutes guides are organized not by neighborhood, but by activity. Brunch places are grouped together, for example — separately from the lunch places, dinner spots, and take-out restaurants, all of which have their own categories.
This unorthodox structure makes the guides actually seem best suited for local residents eager to explore their town — or for newcomers who’ve moved into the neighborhoods. The Oakland & Berkeley guide, for example, includes rather detailed profiles bike shops in the area, big ups welding classes offered at The Crucible, and plugs a tool lending library — information that’s not going to be particularly relevant to a visitor.
And some of the information a visitor might want is missing. The Oakland & Berkeley book’s very bare bones maps will require that you find a separate map or fancy phone to help you get around — and walking tours of neighborhoods will have to be self-concocted since none are included. The extremely brief details lodging options — ghettoized to a few pages at the very back of the book, no less — may also leave you turning to web resources to find a place to stay.
That said, the Northern California Wine Country guide’s more helpful for the average tourist, with expanded lodging info and details on bike-fueled wine tours, olive tours, docent-led winegrowing hike and more. All this means that like the quirks of these NoCal areas the guides cover, the guides too have their quirks, with everything from a short glossary of Oakland lingo (do you know what joog means) to a sociological critique of Napa valley, about which Serena writes:
I am acutely aware of the lack of diversity, the assumption that paradise can be bought, the lavishness enjoyed on the backs of unnamed others. I wriggle and struggle to find something real in this land of façades.
For this kind of personal, locally-oriented, in-depth look at discovering the real place-ness of these tourist spots, pick up a copy of GrassRoutes guides. Both the Oakland & Berkeley and the Northern California Wine Country guides cost $16.95 each; a San Francisco guide is due out next month.
Popularity: 4% [?]
June 30th, 2009
Celebrate Independence Day the Eco Way!
This weekend is the Independence Day holiday– and that means we’ll be lighting up the BBQ, consuming beverages, throwing out paper plates and generally wasting resources while we enjoy ourselves. So we’ve come up with a list of easy things you can do to lower the environmental impact of this fun, important holiday. It’s Independence Day, the Eco Way!
1. Light that BBQ with Propane. Wood and charcoal may seem like more natural fuel sources, but propane burns cleaner. You’ll have less smoke and less of a challenge keeping a fire going. Make sure that you refill or recycle your propane tank once it’s empty.
2. Use reusable plates and cups– or use recycled and/or biodegradable ones. Think of all of the millions of plastic and paper plates and cups being tossed out this weekend! It’s scary. You can really help out by either using sturdy, reusable plastic-ware and washing it after use. Or you can get compostable and biodegradable tableware that are great and will make an interesting conversation point for your event!
3. Put out a clearly-labeled recycling bin next to the trash basket. Make it clear to people that “this is the bin for your cans, bottles, plastic cups, etc.” If you make it easy for people, they will do it. And you won’t have to sort stuff at the end of the party!
4. Use tap water rather than bottled water. We know it’s hot, and bottled water is easy, but just fill some big pitchers up with water for people. You’ll cut your plastic use in a big way.
5. Skip the at-home fireworks. Naturally something that explodes, creates lots of light and leaves a cloud of smoke also comes with pollution. Fireworks also release heavy metals like lead into the air. Leave the fireworks to the professionals.
6. If you’re planning to go to the beach, know the condition of the beach before you go. Check out Beaches911.com to learn about the health conditions of the beach, any beach closures, and also eco-smart boating tips.
7. If you are taking a road trip of any kind, make sure to maximize your gas mileage. You could either rent a hybrid if you don’t have one– or make sure your tires are well-inflated, keep the AC as low as possible, and follow these tips for how to green your road trip.
Have a safe, healthy, fun holiday!
Popularity: 7% [?]
June 17th, 2009
Cool Green Shopping Tools
If you’re like me, then you know that feeling of confusion and disappointment you sometimes feel after going shopping for a new green product. You’ve done your research to find the right item and you’ve checked online versions of a store to see that they have it, but when you get there that specific lightbulb, organic cotton t-shirt, or MSC-certified halibut on sale is nowhere to be found. In its place are ten other options that might or might not offer the same benefits you were looking for.
Fortunately, there are some great tools/services/websites that can help you sort through options as you’re standing there in the store. Some are text messaging-based services, others are simple websites easily navigable on a cell phone, and still others that use the latest iPhone apps and related technologies to make shopping decisions easy and nearly real-time. Here’s a rundown on some we’ve found to be most helpful.
Green Household Products. Good Guide is a relatively new company that aspires to provide information on the health, environmental and social impacts of common products that we use in our home. They cover over 70,000 products so far in food, personal care, toy and household products category. The best part is that these ratings and reviews are available via an iPhone app and also via SMS / text messaging. You can get information on products by searching on product categories, product names, and also on the bar code (the numbers that appear right beneath it). To use it, simply send a text message to “41411″ and then include “gguide” and whatever you’re searching on in the message body.
Example: You’re in a store comparing two green cleaning products (let’s say Seventh Generation Shower Cleaner and Tilex Fresh Shower Cleaner). Text “gguide seventh generation shower” to 41411, and you get a report back showing Seventh Gen’s Shower Cleaner overall score of 8.5 and Health, Environmental and Social scores of 8.0, 9.2 and 8.4 respectively. Text “gguide tilex shower” and you soon get an overall score of 5.4 (8.0 Health, 3.5 Environmental and 4.9 Social). The website provides much more information about what’s behind these rankings. Fast, easy and helpful!
Seafood. Seafood is a veritable minefield of sustainability choices. The global seafood industry is very poorly controlled, meaning that you can find fish in your local grocery store that should instead be on the endangered species list. Fish can also pose health risks due to the accumulation of mercury and other toxins in fish at the top of the food chain. How it’s grown can make a huge difference — the same seafood farm-raised might cause environmental problems, while the wild-caught version might be fine. And it’s highly seasonal/local, so you’re never quite sure what you’ll find in the store.
This handy one-page guide from Neil Banas (brought to my attention by Grist) lays it all out on one easy sheet, clearly showing pitfalls such as choosing between Alaskan wild salmon (nearly the best) and Atlantic farmed salmon (nearly the worst). If you don’t have room in your wallet for that, though, try out the Blue Ocean Institute’s FishPhone text messaging service. Text a message starting with “fish” followed by the name of the fish you are looking for to 30644 and receive a short report on the merits of that particular option in a few seconds. The same content is available at the URL http://fishphone.org, which is specially formatted for viewing on mobile phones.
As an example, texting “fish bluefish” (a relatively common East Coast predatory fish) to 30644 and you get the following message: “YELLOW: some environmental concerns: HEALTH ADVISORY: High mercury, PCB and pesticide contamination. “Fish salmon” returns several different messages depending on the point of origin and whether it was wild caught or farm raised.
Other Categories. We’ll post updates on other helpful services as we find them. Please feel free to bring any of your favorites to our attention!
Popularity: 3% [?]
June 14th, 2009
MLB Hits It Out of The Park By Going Green
Major League Baseball teams have been working hard these last couple of years to get better, faster, stronger and greener. In the spring of 2008, the MLB and NRDC partnered up to help major league teams become more sustainable, waste less, reduce energy use and educate their fans. The new effort is due to a number of interwoven factors, like concern for the environment, money savings, and a sense of responsibility to to their fans. Major League players and teams have hero status anyways, so it’s no surprise that many teams are proving to be excellent examples of eco-warriors.
Washington Nationals LEED Silver Stadium
Popularity: 6% [?]
June 13th, 2009
Economic Downturn Presents Opportunity to Get Fit While Being Green
“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” — Rahm Emanuel
Given our current economic and environmental challenges it might be difficult to appreciate all of the hidden opportunities that are present, but identify and capitalize on them we should.
One such opportunity is to make use of more time and less money by making a critical and financially savvy investment—in your health. While the stock and real estate markets are as tempestuous as Alec Baldwin, your health is one investment that offers considerable dividends—and it’s probably greener than any other investment you can make.
Even if you have insurance (or have insurance at the moment), even the best plan doesn’t pay for everything. And chronic illnesses that are often lifestyle-related such as diabetes or high blood pressure demand out of pocket expenditures that can amount to tens of thousands of dollars.
According to the American Heart Association, around 250,000 deaths annually in the U.S. are due to a lack of regular physical activity. And if death doesn’t scare you, perhaps the cost of being unhealthy or becoming chronically ill does. For example, 2002 per capita medical costs totaled $13,243 for people with diabetes. (http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/26/3/917.full)
Additional Health Affairs studies showed that between 1987 and 2002, “…a person with hypertension added $1,600 to annual spending and diabetes added $3,600. In patients with coronary heart disease, hypertension added an additional $1,900 and diabetes added $3,300.” And this doesn’t even count the cost in loss productivity and wages, which can also be considerable. Being sick can cost more annually than a fabulous African safari, and I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be seeing galloping giraffes on the savanna than not-so-garrulous nurses at my bedside pricking me with needles.
Increasing your level of fitness can yield considerable returns, whether you embark on an ambitious fitness plan or simply start walking more and driving less. If you’re thinking that you don’t have the money to join a health club, how about walking or riding a bike? The incidence of heart disease and other ailments is much lower in car-free Venice. Experts believe it’s no mere coincidence that residents of this ancient, watery city can’t drive their cars to dinner or the grocery store. They’ve got to walk up and down stairs and bridges to go anywhere.
Via small steps (pardon the pun), you can gradually alter your lifestyle, improve your fitness and reduce your carbon imprint. Taking the stairs at the office instead of the elevator, walking instead of driving to conduct errands, using a backpack and biking when doing light grocery shopping or biking to work don’t represent major lifestyle changes but can have an eventual positive affect in all of these areas.
In my family, a post-dinner stroll around the neighborhood is a long-standing tradition. Particularly after a holiday meal, such a jaunt helps digest a meal, lower blood pressure, and burn calories. And done regularly, a walk can offer a sort of therapy that CNN or the slickest flat screen TV can’t begin to offer.
Of course, there’s a green angle to taking care of yourself. Hospitals are notorious energy hogs, and medical waste is sometimes toxic and nearly always hazardous. In addition, all of those medicines we ingest are turning up in our lakes, rivers, oceans and water supplies, creating five-legged frogs and tainted drinking water.
Finally, improving our nutrition is one of the best things we can do for ourselves. Eating less meat which is often expensive, anyway, and maybe even growing some of our own herbs and vegetables offer a chance to eat better, get a little exercise, grow something locally and reduce our carbon output by purchasing fewer foods that have to travel a great distance.
Scads of studies show that people that avoid becoming overweight and engage in regular exercise have fewer health issues later in life. While investing in gold, the stock market or bonds comes with risk and uncertainty, investing in your health and fitness comes with little risk and great reward. So this recession, look for a silver lining and consider making an investment which is likely to have long term financial and ecological payoffs—improving your health.
Popularity: 3% [?]
