Archive for the ‘Food & Dining’ Category
June 4th, 2009
Get Ready for Sustainable Summer Fun!
Stumble it!
Happy June everyone! We’re eager for summer to arrive– aren’t you? There are many things we can all do to ensure that we have a fun, eco-friendly summer. Read on and get that barbeque apron at the ready!
What You Need to Know Before You Mow
As the grass grows longer, we get the mower ready to go to work. You will probably be shocked to learn that gas mowers are MAJOR environmental offenders. According to the California Air Resources Board, lawn mower engines contribute 93 times more smog-forming emissions than do cars on a gallon-for-gallon basis. The pollution from a year’s use of an average gas-powered lawnmower is equivalent to the pollution from driving a car 86,000 miles. YES, it’s that bad. And some chainsaws and trimmers are even worse.
So please consider ditching your gas mower and getting either a battery powered or push mower. This Brill Luxus 38 push mower gets great ratings for usability and effectiveness. And there are some great cordless electrical mowers here, too.
Don’t Be an Enviro-Hog at the BBQ
When we have a summer BBQ, most of us generate a pretty impressive amount of waste. You can cut down on the trash going to the land fill in several easy ways. First, make sure to put out two trash cans: one for the food junk and one for recyclable glass & cans. As you know, if you don’t have a separate can, people will dump all of their cans and bottles right in with the other trash. If you don’t have a second can, then put out a cardboard box and write RECYCLE on it. Then you can toss the whole box in the recycling bin after the party!
Next, don’t use traditional paper plates and plastic utensils. Get yourself some compostable and biodegradable alternatives. These are just as functional as the plastic/paper kind but will decompose over time. Or if you don’t want to go that far, look for paper plates and napkins made out of recycled materials.
And what about the left-over veggies, salad and buns? You know where those go–right into your handy composter, to make healthy mulch for the garden.
Be Water-Wise this Summer
Don’t forget that water is one of our most valuable natural resources. In the Western US this summer we’ll be facing a fierce drought, given what little rainfall we’ve had so far this year. Please be sure to conserve water by 1) watering only in the early morning when the sun and evaporation are lower and 2) adjusting your sprinklers so that they only water your yard and not your driveway or street.
With all of the outdoor recreation and beach trips, showering can increase over the summer. Save as much as 40% of your water and energy per shower with this new Delta Fluidics showerhead that offers low-flow efficiency and high-flow comfort.
Cool It with a Ceiling Fan
Energy Star ceiling fans are much more efficient than air conditioners and can cool your house by a few degrees or more. Run a ceiling fan instead of AC whenever you can, and even if you do run AC, run it at a higher temp and use the ceiling fan to recirculate the cool air. See our selection of Energy Star ceiling fans here.
Kids at Loose Ends? Here is a Great Game!
Get the Bioviva board game and teach your kids about our global environment. This award-winning game will help instill in your kids, and yourself, an interest in learning more about nature and our planet. Multiple choice question cards cover topics such as solar systems, plant/animal behavior, evolution, and environmental protection. Kids earn eco-points by correctly answering questions, with the winner being the first player to collect the required eco-points for the locations listed on his or her destination card. Find the Bioviva game here.
Don’t Put Toxins on Your Family’s Skin - Sunscreen and Insect Repellant
Standard insect repellants contain chemicals that not only repel bugs but also are toxic to humans. And sunscreens also often contain harmful chemicals. Protect your family with toxin-free insect repellant and healthy sunscreens.
We hope you all have a wonderful summer! Keep your mind on relaxing– and protecting the Earth at the same time.
Popularity: 5% [?]
May 21st, 2009
Hurray for New CSA in LA! Local, Organic Produce
We’ve written many times in the past about CSAs– Community Supported Agricultural cooperatives. These are programs where community members support local farms by ordering their local produce in bulk. You can find hundreds of CSAs across the country at Local Harvest.
Well I had bemoaned for a long while the absence of a CSA in central Los Angeles. Can you imagine!? A city this big!? There were places to the North and South and, yes, they would deliver– but at a pretty steep price. Now there is a new CSA that is dishing out delicious fruits and veggies right at Fairfax High School at Fairfax and Melrose. Hurray! I went today and got a glorious bag bursting with grapefruit, oranges, peaches, cherries, spinach, cilantro, onions, broccoli, asparagus, tomatoes, and more. All for $25– take that Whole Foods! I am in organic food heaven.
The mastermind behind this new CSA is Sara Marie Paul, who is a dyed-in-the-wool organic vegan. You can get your order in to her by each Wednesday at 7PM but emailing here: Sara [@] CSACalifornia.org. (Also check out the CSA California website here.) Then you can pick up your food at Fairfax High on Thursday between 2-4PM. A portion of proceeds also benefit the development of the Fairfax High School Garden Project!
Popularity: 4% [?]
May 5th, 2009
Make It a Green Mother’s Day!
Mother’s Day is this Sunday–why not celebrate your mom in eco-style? Spring has sprung and there is no better way to fete your fabulous mama than with some thoughtful green treats.
First off, how about buying NOTHING for your mom and instead spending some special time together? You don’t need to consume anything to give a special gift. Take her on a nature hike– or to an arboretum or a museum. Or you could pack a picnic and take a bike ride. Or if your mom is a culture-vulture like mine, you can take her to a play.
Or how about a spa visit? What woman doesn’t love that? None that I know! Spa Index offers a list of eco-friendly and socially responsible spas. Many offer overnight accommodations or you can enjoy a simple afternoon of pampering. Spaaahh! And if you can’t afford a spa treatment, how about getting some nice scented oil and giving your mom a massage at home? You can follow it up with some lovely herbal tea. Eco and economical!
Flowers are a common Mother’s Day gift– but cut flowers only last a week or less, and end up in the trash. How about replacing flowers with a potted plant like an orchid or bamboo? These will continue to give your mom joy and a green boost throughout the year. Check out the amazing array of plants available from Monrovia.
If you had something more practical in mind, a set of our favorite reusable shopping bags from Olive Smart Bags may be just the thing for your green mom. Everyone needs more than one reusable bag when they go to the store, but who wants to carry six bulky totes? The Olive Smart Sack is small enough to fit in the cup holder of your car - never to be forgotten. In the Sack, are 6 colorful reusable bags each holding 20% more than a plastic bag.
Or if you want to pamper your mom with some lovely products, how about a glorious gift basket from Lula Organics? Lula Organics’ baskets contain products that were carefully selected because of their promise to strive for a healthier, more sustainable planet. Ingredients are natural and organic, paraben free, laureth sulphate free and free of synthetic scents and colors. Their baskets are all recyclable or reusable containers and they use biodegradable cellophane and cornstarch peanuts. What’s not to love?
Popularity: 3% [?]
April 30th, 2009
Restaurants Offer a New Kind of (Greener) Bottled Water
When Americans dine out we typically want to have a special experience, indulging in food and drink that we wouldn’t enjoy at home. We’ll order a pricey bottle of a mighty cab that we might never buy at the wine store or we might order a chocolate soufflé knowing full well that we’ll never make such a dessert in our own kitchen.
And so it makes sense that many of us find the concept of purified—instead of bottled water—difficult to swallow.
While a growing number of restaurants across the country are beginning to serve purified water, eschewing the bottled stuff that eats up massive amounts of fossil fuel getting here from exotic spots such as Italy or Fiji, many Americans continue to be hoodwinked by the perceived status and purity of bottled water, oftentimes leaving facts and the health of the environment to swirl down the drain.
In Chicago, green restaurateur Shawn McClain and his trio of restaurants, including Green Zebra and its exquisite vegetarian dishes and Spring’s evolved fare, stopped stocking bottled water and began offering Natura, an Italian based water purification system. While Natura’s process improves the flavor and purity of water, many diners scoff at paying extra for H20 that doesn’t come in a disposable bottle—regardless of whether it tastes any better or is more pure.
But the fact is that the purifier and others like it often creates water that’s more pure and refreshing than that found in a sealed bottle. Natura’s system involves active carbon filters and a UV radiation chamber which remove bacteria and eliminates impurities and offers the final refreshing dose of water in a dishwasher safe, reusable bottle. In essence, diners get the look and feel of bottled water without the environmental cost. And there’s plenty of research sprinkled across the Internet that shows that tap water bests many bottled waters when it comes to flavor and quality—even New York City tap water.
It’s a given that our bottled water habit is wreaking environmental devastation. Walk along a city street—or a beach nearly anywhere—and you’re likely to see an improperly disposed bottle of water washing ashore. And the bottle you’re likely to see is merely one of billions per year that we Americans empty and toss aside in a year.
Worldwide some 2.7 million tons of plastic are used to bottle water each year, and much of this ends up in landfills, sluicing along inland waterways, rolling across intersections or bobbing in the Texas-sized island of misfit plastic waste bobbing in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Ordering locally produced and purified water makes perfect green sense. In fact, if we’re more serious about addressing the critical environmental issues raised by our consumption of bottled water, we would be willing to pay extra for such water, much as we do for organic produce.
Ordering purified water in restaurants is a good first step toward breaking the bottled water habit, demonstrating that it’s neither trendy nor smart to order bottled water.
Popularity: 4% [?]
April 29th, 2009
The Last Straw for Bottled Water?
We certainly hope so! We’ve written before about the horrible environmental impact of bottled water– and now we’re glad to see that new health evidence may further help people decide to chuck their bottled water habits.
Did you know that Americans send over 35 billion water bottles a year to landfills? And it takes about 1.5 million barrels of oil to make those bottles, so it is an environmental double whammy. (By the way that’s enough oil to fuel 100,000 cars for a year!)
Now on to the health bit. New research coming out of Germany shows that PET plastics (the clear plastic most often used to make water bottles) may also harbor hormone-disrupting chemicals that leach into the water. According to Discovery News, it seems that some as-yet unidentified chemicals in these plastics can interfere with estrogen and other reproductive hormones, just as the infamous plasticizers BPAand phthalates do. Read the full article here.
Make the switch! Tap water is where it’s at! And get a stainless steel bottle to take it with you.
Popularity: 3% [?]
