Sustainable Food Blog

Sustainable Food Weekly Updates - Justmeans

2010-10-08T05:59:00.000-07:00

Sharing the Harvest Supports Sustainable Food - Ellen Sabina

In recent years efforts to share the harvest of fresh, sustainable foods with those who are otherwise unable to afford them have really taken off. All over the country, in cities and rural areas alike, communities are banding together to find ways to get fresh fruits and vegetables to neighbors in need. While such initiatives have been building for a while now, they are becoming increasingly organized, efficient, and effective.

Gleaning programs work under the idea that healthy, sustainable food shouldn't be limited to those who have enough money to pay for it, and that there really is enough out there to go around. Organized troupes of gleaners can make quick work of a field or orchard and deliver the results to local food banks, soup kitchens, schools, and nursing homes, something that a busy farmer just doesn't have time to do, but is often more than happy to contribute. Not all produce is worth selling.

Post continues: http://www.justmeans.com/Sharing-Harvest-Supports-Sustainable-Food/33803.html

US Food Security - Through Cooking Classes for Kids? - Tricia Edgar

A cooking class and food security? Cooking classes might seem to be a frou-frou addition to an upscale household. But take a closer look, and you will realize that food preparation is an essential life skill, and definitely not a frill. Those who don't cook depend on the nutritional content of takeout, pre-made and restaurant food. It's a loss of food autonomy, which is a loss of food security. Something as basic as baking bread or cooking up a fall soup is a powerful contribution to a family's ability to sustain itself in a healthy manner.

North Americans are gradually losing our ability to cook. More specifically, we're losing our ability to preserve foods, because we haven't grown up watching our parents can, freeze, ferment, and dry the harvest for the winter season. We're also losing our interest in cooking.

Post continues: http://www.justmeans.com/US-Food-Security-Through-Cooking-Classes-for-Kids/33593.html

Environmental Sustainability, Gas & Food - Keri Marion

Environmental sustainability is a balancing act. It balances nature with nurture, time and space, nutrient to erosion.

Organic food and sustainable agriculture can go hand in hand. Using sustainable practices like mulching, crop rotation and animals instead of gas-powered trucks, a farmer could literally work on an almost net-zero carbon emission. And yes, it might cost us a little more for that ear of corn, but as I'll explain, it's totally worth it.

Post continues: http://www.justmeans.com/Environmental-Sustainability-Gas-Food/33470.html

Spreading the Organic Food Gospel: Generation Organic - Ellen Sabina

Organic Valley is the largest organic food cooperative in the U.S., encompassing dairy farmers in every region of the country and partnering with major organizations such as Heifer International, the Rodale Institute, and Farm Aid. While the cooperative has come under some scrutiny given its size, it has become one of the most successful and sustainable large scale models of its kind, and make a strong case for the cooperative versus corporation. Organic Valley is also working to ensure that organic food (particularly dairy) production continues to gain strength in the coming era. The most visible and just plain fun way they're raising awareness for the future of organic food is via their Generation Organic bus tour, which is set to get rolling in just a few days

Post continues: http://www.justmeans.com/Spreading-Organic-Food-Gospel-Generation-Organic/33547.html

Spuds in Tubs: Simple and Sustainable Urban Agriculture for Schools

2010-04-30T06:40:00.000-07:00

If you have a potato, some soil, and a big plastic tub, you too can be an urban farmer. So goes the thinking behind Spuds in Tubs, a program with a completely catchy title and a very simple mission: to get children thinking about how to grow food. In one of the classrooms where I volunteer, big blue bins line the windows, adorned with the names like “Potato Crusaders.”

Spuds in tubs is beautiful in its simplicity. It is a project of BC Agriculture in the Classroom, although I am sure that echoes of this sustainable urban gardening project can be found elsewhere around the world. Teachers receive portable tubs, compost, and Warba potatoes, an early variety of potato that is ready before the children are finished school. Teachers use the plants to teach about sustainable food, but they can also use the potato plants across the curriculum. Observations can become Language Arts studies. The growth and change of a plant can work into the science curriculum. Plant growth can become a math lesson, and potatoes are certainly a lesson in multiplication.

Why Spuds in Tubs? It’s a small and sustainable program that is easy for teachers to implement. Teachers apply over the winter, receive kits in February, and the class has new potatoes by the middle of June. The program is much different from creating a large school garden, an outcome that is delightful but can involve a heavy dose of school politics. Creating an outdoor community garden on school grounds can seem like a big project, especially for overworked teachers. There is also the question of summer maintenance. Unfortunately, vegetable gardens do not really follow the school season, and planting in the spring and harvesting in the fall still leaves a long, dry summer for teachers and parents to coordinate. Urban agriculture is a healthy and beautiful thing, but it does require coordination to be sustainable.

This year, over one hundred and fifty schools are participating in the Spuds in Tubs project. Each classroom will receive five tubs with soil and with potatoes to plant. That’s nearly four thousand seed potatoes going into the ground, with a result of thousands upon thousands of little new potatoes for the children to eat. The Spuds in Tubs program is an urban agriculture program that works: it’s small, it’s simple, and it’s sustainable.

Have you been involved in classroom urban gardening? What are your simple strategies for success?

Intensive Cultivation: Sustainable Farming on a Single Urban Lot

2010-04-26T03:06:00.000-07:00

Hey, urbanites – do you grow your own food? As cities move into this century where the international basis of our food becomes less certain, people are working to relocalize our food sources. Peak oil? Reducing your carbon footprint? Sustainable food? With saving seeds and growing in urban and community gardens, no problem, right? Well, for many the reality is a lot more challenging. Yes, it is possible to grow food in a community garden, and it is possible to grow food on a deck. But the reality is that for most of the urban population, this is a small supplement to grocery store food. How can we shift from dabbling to urban and suburban food production that can make a significant contribution to our daily meals?

Like any up and coming urban activity, there are the early adopters, the superstars of urban farming. These superstars grow bushels of produce on a corner of an urban lot, or help feed the neighborhood with their abundant produce. While it takes over an acre of land to feed the average American, many people do well with much less, a fraction of an acre. These produce-growing stars include Jim Kovaleski in New Port Richey, who has covered his back and front yards (and sides too) with produce. He sells the greens he produces in his suburban yard. While the rest of us grow a few heads of drooping lettuce, how do these urban and suburban superstars do it?

You don’t need to tell an urbanite that space is at a premium in a small urban garden. This is where space-saving gardening comes in. The food forest idea comes from a permaculture background and focuses on developing a self-sustaining garden that integrates vertical layers, like fruit trees with greens growing underneath and kiwi fruit growing up the tree. Square foot gardening is an intensive rotation system that encourages people to grow just what they need, with the right quantity of plants in a single square. Trellising of larger plants like zucchini is also a feature of the square foot garden. When you’re gardening in an urban setting, viewing every space as a potential growing space is one of the keys to high yields and sustainable yields.

Intensive cultivation requires a strong garden ecology, especially if you want to sustain this cultivation for a long period of time. Encourage bees, butterflies, birds and all sorts of bugs to come and visit the garden. Beneficial, pollinating and predator insects are important to the health of a garden. So is the garden soil. Amending the soil with kelp, compost, and other natural products will help keep it growing. Soil is the basis of the food that sustains us, and without healthy soil our gardens do not thrive.

Experimentation is also key to a sustainable urban farm. When you plant, do it in the right places and experiment to find out where those places might be. If lettuce fails in one location, pull it and begin again in another location. Instead of forcing a plant to be happy with artificial fertilizers and pesticides, allow each plant to find its niche and thrive there. Gardening will be much, much easier.

Have you gotten high yields of produce from an urban or suburban farm? How have you done it?

Celebrate a Sustainable Earth with Sustainable Food!

2010-04-22T03:54:00.000-07:00

It’s mid-April, which means spring is in full swing and Earth Day is upon us. Communities all over will be celebrating this Thursday, demonstrating their hope for and commitment to a more sustainable planet. There will be Earth Day parades and fairs and festivals, tree plantings and garden workshops. But there are many ways to acknowledge Earth Day, and I encourage you to do so regardless of whether or not you are able to participate in an organized community activity, and perhaps the best is with a celebration of sustainable, earth-friendly food.

Here are a few ideas:

In my observation, many Earth Day activities are geared towards children, with music and puppet shows and seedlings to help plant the seed of Earth consciousness in young minds. For a more sophisticated celebration, why not invite some friends over for a sustainable, seasonal dinner party? Choose local, sustainably grown and produced spring vegetables, meat, cheese, and wine or beer. This could be as casual as a potluck or finger food, but make sure your guests know why you’re sticking to strictly sustainable foods and spark some good conversation.

If you’re looking for something fun to do with the kids, arrange to take a family day trip to a local, organic farm. Pack a picnic and spend the day outside, enjoying the fresh air and the farm animals. Talk to the farmers about why they choose to farm sustainably and what being stewards of the planet means to them. You may even be able to help out on the farm and get your hands dirty!

Share Earth Day with a special someone and go on a date! Split a locally-raised, grass-fed steak and a bottle of local red wine. Tour your area vineyards or breweries, or try to catch a screening of Fresh for dinner and a movie. Turn off the electricity and serve dinner while sharing your inner thoughts on sustainable food by candlelight. Really, the options are endless.

Whatever you choose to do this Earth Day, the important thing is to focus on more Earth-conscious eating, not just that day, but every day. Make a small commitment to eat more locally, seasonally, or organically. Reconnect with the Earth through your food choices and embark on a mission to help save the planet, one bite at a time. It really does add up, and it’s pretty tasty.

Producing Sustainable Soil: Does Large-Scale Composting Work?

2010-04-19T00:56:00.000-07:00

A friend was visiting from Toronto, a large urban center in Canada. She ate an apple, then looked curiously under my counter. “Where’s your green waste recycling bucket?” she asked. By that I assumed that she meant the compost bin. We’ve experimented with several kinds of composting in our home, from backyard bins to bokashi to worm bins. Our goal is to reduce the food waste that we produce, but our ulterior motive is to create sustainable soil for the garden. It can be hard to find good organic soil for a vegetable garden, and it seems sensible to make our own.

Green waste recycling was a new concept to me, however. What she was looking for was similar to a recycling bin, a recycling bin for compost. In her city, the city government sends trucks around to pick up the yard waste, fruit and vegetable peelings, and even the Halloween pumpkins. The compost is trucked to main composting facilities where it is turned into soil. The public then buys this soil for their gardens, should they so desire.

Does this composting concept really work? Yes, the city is producing sustainable soil, but the process seems a little ridiculous. Trucks burning fossil fuels move through neighborhoods, causing air pollution. Then trucks carrying people from the suburbs head over to the local composting center and pick up a load of soil. Municipal composting can also be a large expense for cities, adding to the tax burden on already-drained citizens.

Municipal composting is convenient, but is it logical? Yes and no. Municipal composting programs do create a huge opportunity for reducing green waste, and they create soil from materials that would otherwise produce methane in landfills for years. While it makes the most sense for individuals to produce their own soil at home, composting is an activity that has a lot of barriers. It might not seem difficult to collect fruit and vegetable peels and move them into a bin, but many perceive it to be too time-consuming. There’s also a cultural barrier connected with the formation of soil: some perceive it to be dirty and smelly. Oddly enough, many people also view composting as a socially-responsible effort rather than a common sense one, since they do not use the resulting soil in a garden.

As a municipal composting program begins to move into my city, I alternately rejoice and despair. I am pleased because there have been times when I have been unable to compost, and I want an opportunity to reduce my waste. I am sad because it will become easier to throw peels into the recycling than to use them in the garden, and many people will lose a valuable way to support locally-grown food.

What do you think? Is municipal composting a good idea?

Corntainers: Sustainable Food Packaging

2010-04-12T02:33:00.000-07:00

We live for takeout. When I talk about we, I mean North American culture in particular, although many cultures around the world offer delicious takeout options. In North America, the grab and go meal is standard. Brown bag lunches? No way. For many, restaurant fair is an almost-daily occurrence. Americans eat out four to five times per week. Of course, this doesn’t mean that they have a sit-down meal. It may mean that they grab a sandwich or a salad from the nearest deli. All of this eating out has an ecological impact. The disposal of packaged takeout food is a very real environmental issue, and much of this packaging is not even recyclable.

In the eighties, the world was focused on Styrofoam. The substance was blamed for damaged to the ozone layer, the layer that protects people from the sun’s ultraviolet rays. Today, there’s been a gradual phase-out of the CFCs in this packaging, but its production still uses precious petroleum resources and produces waste. Then there was plastic. Clear plastic takeout packaging is light and flexible, washable and recyclable. But plastic is a non-renewable resource, even if it is recycled. Finally, there is paper. Paper products seem to be a logical choice for takeout. This packaging is lightweight and recyclable. However, given that they are contaminated with our oily food waste, we haven’t quite mastered a way to recycle these paper products. They’re renewable, but they’re not ideal.

Into the muddy mix of takeout packaging comes the corntainer. No, that isn’t a typo. It’s a container made out of corn. Imagine waving fields of green corn. Imagine 54,000 bottles. The Corntainer Corporation can make that many bottles from a single acre of corn. Not bad, and definitely annually renewable. Corntainers are popular at our local Whole Foods, the site of many pilgrimages for those who wish to buy sustainable. They look like plastic, so you can see the food inside. However, they compost like corn, sort of.

The sort of is the catch. Corntainers do need to be returned to the store for processing in a commercial compost. While it makes sense to save your packaging until your next takeout purchase, this does make the corntainer less convenient than other recyclable packaging options. Grab and go meals, wash and drop recycling are easier than making a special trip to the store to compost your container. Corntainers strive to be ethical and sustainable. The company was designed to reduce the use of petroleum. Although corntainers are an odd variation on the cash crop, the company does donate to organic farming associations, supporting local agriculture.

What do you think? Are corntainers the next generation of sustainable packaging, or are they a passing trend?

Sustainable Food Markets: Do Origin Labels Help People Purchase Local Organic Food?

2010-04-05T01:25:00.000-07:00

It used to be that you could go to your local food market and stroll down the aisles, surrounded by an abundance of food that hailed from all corners of the globe. You could be oblivious to the actual origins of those products, purchasing goodies from all parts of the world with great abandon. Grapes from Chile, salad mix from China, who knew, really? As of March 2009, mandatory Country of Origin labels came into effect in the US, and this was supposed to give those purchasing this food a clue as to where it hailed from.

Yet many times companies seem to be skirting the labeling requirements. You often need to read the really, really small print to discover where your fruit and vegetables have been grown. And are the organic vegetables flown in from China really all that sustainable? Is it really good food labeling if these organic vegetables are labeled California Mix, even when they hail from places far from California?

Why should we care where our food comes from? Recent interest has moved from organic everything into local food. Sustainable food purchasing is not only about low levels of pesticides, it’s also about the carbon footprint of your food: how far has your food flown or been trucked? Food can easily have a carbon footprint that outweighs the food itself. Out-of-season strawberries are a good example. For the health-conscious, it’s important to know where your food comes from because that changes what is invisible but present on your food. If you’re not buying organic, this is especially important. Food grown in other places might contain pesticides that are not permitted in your country.

For example, in the US twenty-five percent of fresh and frozen produce is imported, and half of this comes from the US’s warm neighbor, Mexico. Want fresh fruit that is out of season? Those strawberries don’t come from Washington. But there’s a quirky and unhealthy circle going on in the realm of food purchasing. The US exports pesticides to other countries. These countries spray those pesticides on their food crops. Then companies turn around and import these pesticide-laden crops to sell to consumers at US-based markets. Pesticides that might be banned in one country are exported to another, sprayed on crops, imported by companies, and ingested by unwitting residents. This is yet another reason to support local food and to buy organic. Buying organic reduces your pesticide consumption, and buying local at least ensures that you are not purchasing foods with large quantities of banned pesticides.

There’s a market for sustainable local food. Is it being served by US-based food labeling laws? While these laws are a start, companies have a long way to go before they can truly say that fruits and vegetables for sale in stores are safe and sustainable.

One Organic Chicken: Thinking Thrifty, Thinking Sustainable

2010-03-30T01:56:00.000-07:00

When I was a teenager, I became a vegetarian. I was also an avid foodie and cook. This meant that I learned how to cook as a vegetarian. When I moved into my own house, I cooked vegetarian meals. When I decided to reintegrate minimal amounts of meat into my diet, I still had no idea how to cook most meat.

To this day, I don’t know how to cook and carve a chicken. It’s a confession that shocks my British mother-in-law, but it’s a fact. My neighbors invited me over to dinner a couple of weeks ago, and they asked me to carve the chicken. I did, but it wasn’t pretty, not at all.

We purchase a limited amount of meat every week, generally one package of free range beef. I’ve had a hard time sourcing local free range and organic chickens, so we don’t eat all that much chicken. However, a conversation the other day may have steered me in the direction of a local farmer who raises chickens in an ethical and environmentally-friendly way, and I’m excited.

My beef is from far away, relatively speaking. Yes, it’s from within my province, but the province where I live is a fairly large area, and the beef is from way, way beyond any scope of 100 kilometers. There’s one local beef producer that I’d like to buy from and do upon occasion, but he requires a very large order and we really don’t want to eat and store that much meat.

The part of the conversation that excited me wasn’t necessarily about a source of chicken, however. The part that excited me was the reminder that a small chicken can feed a family for the week. You can have chicken one night, a meal with pieces of chicken another night, and then you can use the bones for soup. I like the idea of using the entire chicken. If I am going to eat meat, I want to be thrifty about it, and this is something that we don’t do in our beef consumption.

It looks like we may be entering into the world of cooking and carving whole chickens. It’s been twenty years since I learned how to cook, and it’s been a decade and a half of cooking for myself. My British mother-in-law would be pleased.

If you eat meat, do you purchase it with multiple and thrifty uses in mind?

When is a Weed Not a Weed? Sustainable and Holistic Gardening

2010-03-22T03:23:00.000-07:00

Last week I wrote about our concept of weeds. Weeds are plants that we don’t want. However, many of our weeds are quite useful plants. We may not want them in our farms and gardens, but many so-called weeds are not inherently bad. They’re just a little naughty and enjoy traipsing around where they’re not wanted.

Permaculture is a gardening concept that is about far more than gardening. It’s the idea that a gardener can create an ecological system that sustains itself, much like a forest would. Except that this ecological system is a garden. Many of those who practice permaculture approach weeds very differently than the average gardener.

In the permaculture method of gardening, you listen to your weeds. Weeds are telling you something. If your garden only grows weeds and your desired plants look sickly, those weeds are sending you a clear message. In fact, they’re being extremely useful and you should thank them. Perhaps they’re telling you that your soil is low on nutrients so that only tough plants can grow there. They might be telling you that you’re tilling the soil an awful lot and that all of the weed seeds are coming to the surface and growing with vigorous delight. They may also be telling you that the location of your garden is not ideal for the plants that you’re growing, and that your garden receives too little light, too much heat, or too much wind. Listen to the weeds. They have wisdom too.

Permaculture gardeners also work to create a diverse ecology in which weeds play only a small role. It’s not that the weeds are not in the garden, it’s just that they are surrounded by the vigorous growth of other plants. By creating a diverse garden with plant species suited to the conditions in which they grow, a gardener can develop a garden system that discourages weeds. By mulching and practicing low-till agriculture, a gardener can discourage weeds even more.

And after this, if there are still weeds, that’s all right. You use them. Use it and lose it. Permaculture’s approach towards weeds is one that I love, especially for those edibles that love to take over the garden, like borage, comfrey, dandelions, and mint. The ethic is this: plants that grow in abundance should be used in abundance. Use your dandelions and your comfrey and your borage and you will control their populations. Pick them and dig them and get angry with them, and they will spread their seeds and little pieces of themselves around the garden. Work with what’s there, and if you can’t figure out a way to use those plants that we may call invasive or weedy, look again.

The permaculture approach to weeds is much more than spray and run. It’s a holistic view of weeds that promotes the development of a healthy garden ecosystem.

Crop Mobs Lend a Helping Hand to Small Sustainable Farms

2010-03-15T05:18:00.000-07:00

A lot of us, myself included, tend to hold a romanticized vision of farming. We imagine ourselves as farmers, working the land, in harmony with nature, fill our bellies and the bellies of our communities with beautiful, fresh food. In reality, it’s one thing to garden; it’s another to farm. Running a successful and profitable farm is tough work. You have to really love it to do it, and even then it’s still hard.

Which is why most farmers will never turn down a helping hand, and why those of us who are dreamy farmer wannabes, should offer one. There are lots of opportunities to do this, and it can be as simple and as informal as walking down to your local farm and pulling up some weeds. But there are also more organized ways of helping farmers farm, and they’re a bit more impactful.

Recently, National Public Radio and, subsequently, the New York Times, both featured a story on crop mobs. Crop mobs are usually composed of aspiring farmers, food activists, and community members who, with the assistance of blogs and Facebook, coordinate their efforts and “mob” a local farm. The mob descends upon the farm full of energy and with the intention of putting a big dent in the farm owner’s to-do list. Plant some trees? Lay a fence? Clear a field? Repair the barn? All of that is easily accomplished in a matter of hours by a group of 20 or more eager, and often knowledgeable, helpers. Crop mobs have been likened to a modern version of the barn raising, and the recent national exposure has incited similar organized movements all over the U.S.

If you can’t hook up with a crop mob in your area, you can still be a big help on your local farm. Becoming a CSA member at a nearby farm is a big help in and of itself because the money you pay at the beginning of the season enables the farmer to buy seeds and supplies. But at many farms you can also participate in CSA member work days, when community members who have a share are encouraged to come out to the farm and dig in and experience the work that goes in to the bag of food they receive each week. Many farms also offer work shares, for which the shareholder agrees to work a certain number of hours each week in exchange for a bag of seasonal veggies.

If you are really serious about learning more about farming, or just want to be a more integrated part of your favorite local farm, you might consider doing a farm apprenticeship. And apprenticeship is usually a full-time, full-season commitment that benefits both the farmer and the apprentice. The farmer gets an extra hand and the apprentice gains knowledge about all aspects of the farm. Apprenticeships usually provide a small stipend, or room and board, plus all the veggies you can eat.

Whichever way you are able to help, I encourage you to become more invested in your local farms, and to really get your hands dirty, in order to better appreciate all the hard work your farmers are putting in to providing their communities with good food.

What’s in a Weed? Pesticides and Rethinking Methods of Gardening

2010-03-15T05:13:00.000-07:00

It’s nearly spring, and quite soon I will have many little weeds flourishing in my garden.

Some of my weeds will have cheery, fuzzy yellow faces. They will grow vigorously on my lawn if I let them. Their flowers are sweet and good for wine and fritters, their leaves are edible in salads, and their roots have healing properties. I’m talking about the dandelion, the beloved and despised weed that grows in our gardens.

What is a weed, and why do we dislike them so much? In essence, a weed is an unwanted plant. A rose can be a weed if you are attempting to grow corn. We tend to be rather brutal towards weeds. They assault our sensibilities, challenge our dominion over our gardens, and call for intense scrutiny followed up with a chemical assault. They aren’t necessarily dangerous, and they are often useful. Weeds are simply not useful in the way that we want them to be. They’re not the right plant, meaning the one that we planted.

Some weeds are plants that we plant, but they love it so much that they will eagerly invite themselves to stay everywhere in the garden. Mint, borage, and comfrey are a few of these. They’re ultimately useful, but boy, do they spread. Luckily, they can also ingratiate me into their good graces with their usefulness in teas, in salads, and in healing. I do watch where I place plants like these, because sometimes they outgrow their welcome. However, I like the permaculture concept of how to deal with overly useful plants: eat them, use them, use more of them until they are under control.

I’m not saying that there is no such thing as a weed. I am especially concerned about weeds when they move into areas that are not under intensive human control. Species like purple loosestrife bother me because they dominate wetlands. Many invasive species are notoriously hard to remove because they reproduce through vegetative reproduction. Often, the only option seems to be the use of pesticides. But the use of pesticides in our wetlands and on our crops scares me more than weeds do, because I know that pesticides wreak damage that is far beyond what I can see.

Plants are easy to see. They remind us easily about what we do and do not want in our gardens. On the other hand, pesticides are not so easy to see. At least their effects are not all that visible. They come in handy packages, are applied and then move into the soil, air, and water. They kill off soil life, embed themselves in the groundwater, and move into the food chains of animals, both wildlife and farm animals.

What’s in a weed? Our desire to control, particularly through chemical means.

Next week I’ll explore gardening and farming methods that see weeds a little differently.

What is a weed to you?

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn…and Edinburgh…and All Over!: The Rise of Sustainable Urban Orchards

2010-03-09T02:39:00.001-08:00

There’s a kind of vertical farming bearing fruit in cities all over the world, and it’s a little more grounded than proposals for skyscraper greenhouses. I’m talking about the original vertical farm: the urban orchard. Many cities strive to incorporate green space and trees, and orchards provide a one-two punch when it comes to greening-up urban environments.

Over the past 20 years or so, urban orchards have been cropping up in empty lots, schoolyards, parks, and public sidewalks. Like urban gardens, urban orchards create an edible landscape and promote community. In successful scenarios, urban orchard organizations provide the plants and the expertise to local community-based organizations that eventually manage the fruit and nut trees. This passing of the baton is a sustainable model, extending knowledge of growing and maintaining fruit trees while drawing diverse groups of people to a shared purpose and sense of ownership.

Some of the most successful examples of urban orchards are within the U.S., in cities like Boston, L.A., Austin, and Philadelphia. But this is really a global trend. The success of a recent apple orchard pilot project in a low-income neighborhood in Edinburgh, Scotland has inspired the development of similar orchards throughout the city. An urban orchard project in Southern Australia manifests as a patchwork of households that each manage a few fruit trees in limited yard space and swap fruits through a cooperative. But orchards can also be part of a school garden project, providing cafeterias with fresh, ultra-local apples or peaches or whatever else happens to be native to or productive in a given region.

Orchards can help round out all kinds of urban food security and other community needs. I really can’t think of one reason why we shouldn’t opt to plant fruit and nut bearing trees and shrubs in public spaces, and I think all those rooftop bees that are so eager to pollinate would agree!

I Never Saw a Purple Cow: The Precautionary Principle and Transgenic GMO Foods

2010-03-08T11:09:00.000-08:00

I am leery of genetically modified foods. Yes, I realize that GMO foods may have properties that allow them to resist diseases, thereby reducing the use of pesticides. I also realize that some of them may be engineered to survive during drought, heat, or other severe weather. Perhaps they deter pests. Yet they also deter me. I think that the attributes that are inherent in genetically-modified crops are also present in heritage breeds of seeds. These heritage seeds are adaptive to their environment, and long after those who discovered the heritage seed stain are gone, these seeds will continue to adapt or perish.

Not so with genetically-modified seeds. These seeds are designed to be a commodity, and they are designed to have constant human improvements, input, and modifications. People are meddling, adding, and subtracting. Without those people, will genetically-modified crops be vigorous and adaptive? I think not.

However, the thing that concerns me the most about genetic modification of our crops is not the creation of a need for intervention. It’s cross-species genetic modification. I’m quite please to let my beans meet other beans, get along, and make new beans that are both a little similar to and a little different from their parents. But how about a bean that falls in love with a potato or a strawberry in the lab and is engineered to make little bean babies, with a little gene of potato or strawberry added?

Some argue that genetic modification is just changing the way plants grow and thrive, just like creating a new plant or animal variety through breeding. These transgenic organisms are something that could never be achieved in nature or through selective breeding of plants. Yes, people have created new varieties of plants for many years by breeding for desired characteristics. And yes, some of these plants are weird: think of all of the oddball squash plants that you can create simply by cross-pollination. They’re still squash, though.

Transgenic crops have the potential for changing the landscape of plants and animals, and quickly. When it comes to environmental change, I am all in favor of the precautionary principle. Do we know how these crops and animals might change ecosystems? Do we know how the human body will respond to these plants and animals over time? No.

Would I be in favor of a transgenic crop that could replenish deserts, grow easily-accessible non-carbon fuel, or cure cancer? Perhaps. But I would also be cautious. The conditions that created the climate and health crises today were ones of uncontrolled enthusiasm for technologies and chemicals. While change can be transformative, it can transform in ways that we do not foresee. At every juncture, we must pause and consider: caution is required.

Protect Farmland, Protect Sustainable Food

2010-03-03T03:43:00.000-08:00

There’s no wiggle room here: farmers need farmland. I know, that’s not strictly true. Creative urban and vertical gardeners have proven that you don’t really need that much land to grow fresh vegetables. Nevertheless by and large the fact remains that farmers need access to land. This is a global issue. It is happening in the US just as it is happening in Mali or Nicaragua. And, not surprisingly, the people that often get squeezed off the land to make way for big development projects are small, traditional farmers. The loss of traditional and productive farmland is a multifaceted issue and can have disastrous affects on the environment as well as on communities and entire countries.

In many parts of the world, traditional small farmers use sustainable agricultural practices. They work with the land, and have developed farming techniques that are tailored to their specific environment. They don’t use heavy-duty pesticides or synthetic fertilizers. Farmers are stewards of the land, a role that is often lost on land developers and big agriculture. Well-managed farmland helps preserve watersheds, control flooding, and protects groundwater, in addition to providing space for wildlife. Farmers work within the confines of preexisting natural systems and rows of plants are much better for the health for the health of the land than rows of houses or pavement.

The loss of farmland is also very disruptive to community health and structure. Not only does it mean the loss of local food sources, but it also means a loss of livelihood. In many places, farming is a way of life, rooted deeply in place and culture. The inability to maintain a traditional way of life is devastating for many communities. In the U.S., small farms play an important role in communities, though perhaps not as entirely vital as they do in more traditional farming areas around the world. Nevertheless, productive farmland means local jobs and businesses, and may also provide a place for recreation and educational activities.

The preservation of farmland for small farmers ought to be a priority for our local and national governments, as small sustainable farms are an important piece of food security, an increasingly worrisome issue. Many non-profit organizations recognize the importance of preserving land for farming and are devoted to protecting traditional, productive farmland all over the world. Farmland trusts or other types of land trusts often help new or expanding farmers to secure land as long as they comply with sustainable stewardship practices. Organizations with political voice and influence, like the international powerhouse La Via Campesina spread awareness about land loss and work towards change on the policy level. We need to reclaim land for farming, and specifically for farming that is healthy and sustainable for our land and our communities.

Eating Like Our Ancestors: Fresh, Raw and Sustainable Food

2010-03-03T03:26:00.000-08:00

As we grunt along, happily enjoying our dinners, we all sound a little Paleolithic at times. The Paleolithic Diet is a raw food diet that has been growing in popularity. The idea behind the Paleo Diet is remarkably similar to that espoused in The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” Add the word “raw” to that sentence, and you have the diet that many of our ancestors might have eaten: fresh leaves and berries gathered from the bushes, nuts and seeds, complemented by preserved or foraged roots and animal products when we could get them.

People are omnivores. In some places in the world, like the Arctic, these omnivores have historically eaten a lot of raw meat. In other parts of the world, humans have eaten a diet that occasionally involved a lot of raw or dried meat. However, in general the human diet has relied on fresh, raw vegetables and fruit in the seasons when food is plentiful, accompanied by fresh or smoked meat and eggs when they were available. Some cultures also had systems of farming to grow grain crops in abundance, and some nomadic and herding people had animals that they would use for milk as well.

Eating like our ancestors means that we cook very little and preserve using root cellars, fermentation, and processes like yogurt-making that involve very small amounts of heat to process food. This keeps the micronutrients intact and the fiber still present in the food. Cooking like a caveman involves eating foods that are processed as little as possible. While people have always processed items like manioc into edibility, in most cases it is easiest to eat foods as they come. Eating fresh berries, leaves, and the occasional raw egg or milk product is part of the Paleolithic diet.

Is the Paleolithic Diet a sensible one for the body? Eating whole, unprocessed foods and living foods like sprouts is certainly a sensible nutritional choice. The Paleolithic Diet also reduces the amount of grains and animal products that many people eat. In wealthy countries where grains and animal products are found in cheap abundance, many people eat far too many carbohydrates that are often fried in processed animal or vegetable oils.

Is the Paleolithic Diet a sustainable one for the earth? It may reduce the consumption of animal products. Raw eggs, raw dairy, and raw meat may be less palatable or available to some and may become a smaller part of the diet. The focus on unprocessed, unpackaged, and uncooked fruits and vegetables is certainly a lower-impact choice. However, for northerners eating raw and vegetarian in the winter time, finding local food can be challenging, since many fresh fruits and vegetables are flown in from far away. Like other raw food diets, the Paleolithic Diet is a concept that holds the promise of increasing fruit and vegetable consumption, but it can be a hard sell in these days of packaged and processed foods.

Consuming Raw Milk: Illegal and Toxic, or Healthy and Sustainable Food?

2010-02-22T02:52:00.000-08:00

They’re sitting in the corner, whispering about milk. That’s dangerous stuff, milk. It’s raw, it’s off-white, it’s from cows. Is raw milk dangerous, or is it one of the most healthy and sustainable foods to consume?

I must confess to drinking raw milk from time to time. I don’t buy any myself, but friends buy it. Raw milk tastes good, and I haven’t had any health problems. Recently, there was a rally in my city to support a local raw milk dairy that many of my friends frequent. Officially, it is a cow share and not a dairy, since raw milk is not legal where I live. Unofficially, the business provides a steady supply of milk and yogurt to many people who believe in the worth of raw milk, ferried through a network that is underground yet visible if you know where to look and who to ask.

What’s the concern about raw milk? Well, since raw milk has not been pasteurized there are worries that it may contain e. coli bacteria that cause disease. Governments post warnings about the dangers of raw milk. Our local petting farm milks their dairy cows by hand and must toss out the milk that those cows produce. Food-borne illnesses can be nasty things, damaging your liver and your gut and leading to all sorts of public health problems. Health departments prefer to avoid these diseases and have set standards in place to make food safer. However, some people feel that these standards interfere with public choice, in this case the choice to choose a superior and healthy food product.

Those who advocate drinking raw milk say that pasteurization kills off the living milk. Milk has antibodies in it, albeit antibodies for baby cows. Raw milk advocates say that the milk boosts their immune systems. The Weston A. Price Foundation is one of the biggest raw milk advocates, saying that drinking raw milk means that the nutrients in the milk are more available to the human body and can truly build and rebuild bones and teeth, bone structures that may be in a state of disrepair from the standard American diet. Raw milk advocates are willing to bet that healthy cows from a clean farm will produce milk whose health benefits outweigh the possible risks.

Is raw milk a public health hazard, or is it an immensely beneficial substance that we are ignoring out of fear? I have no firm answers. Like all decisions that go against the grain, it’s a matter of weighing the risks in your own mind. I suspect that it could be both, depending on the circumstances. While I happily drink raw milk upon occasion, thoughts about making it a regular part of my diet are swayed by concerns about safety. Mostly, though, the dilemmas in my mind are moved aside by the fact that I am too lazy to head to a milk drop-off point every week to pick up my share. And so it goes: we drink water and eat raw cheese instead, legal and lazy as can be.

Top Food Films

2010-02-22T02:35:00.000-08:00

Food-focused films have made it big over the past few years. Riveting food documentaries have taken America by storm, riding on the coattails of books and reaching a wider audience. But hiding in the shadow of feature film productions are some very exciting documentaries that explore smaller, less mainstream sides of food and agriculture today.

Eric Schlosser’s primary film, Fast Food Nation, which was made several years after his book of the same title, was along with the hit Supersize Me foundational in beginning the food dialogue through film. These films both appeared on the big screen in the earlier 2000s and were really effective in stripping the fast food industry bare, and revealing the myriad of health and agricultural detriments brought about by fast food.

King Corn, put together by two recent college graduates who attempt to grow an acre of America’s most popular and most tragic crop, extends the story presented in Supersize me and Fast Food Nation, exploring fast and processed food through its main ingredient: corn. This revelation was first really presented to the national audience in Michael Pollan’s infamous book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, but becomes somewhat more poignant when put to the test in front of the camera.

The latest, and perhaps the film that has made the biggest splash thus far, Food Inc., combines the forces of food prophets Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser as they expose the realities of our food system. This is a must-see for everyone, but packaged in a way that appeals to the popular audience. If you’ve already been reading and learning about sustainable food, then you’ve probably heard a lot of what is presented in Food Inc., but it’s a great introduction to the basic problems that exist within our food system for those who are not yet aware of the situation.

Chances are you’ve heard of or seen some of these films, but there are numerous and insightful films that examine smaller sections and stories about food and farming. The one that I am most excited to see is The Greenhorns, a documentary featuring new sustainable farmers all over the U.S. who are swept up in the revival of farming and producing real food. The film is presented by a small non-profit of the same name and aims to promote and inspire young famers.

Focusing on a vibrant urban farming community, The Garden delves in to the story of the South Central Farmers in Los Angeles and their fight to protect the fourteen-acre garden that is the lifeblood of their community. Although the documentary was appropriately nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary, it hasn’t been nationally distributed.

More and more Web documentaries about food are cropping up. They are usually low budget but very much on the pulse of real, grassroots issues in sustainable food and agriculture. The best one I’ve seen lately is Fair Food: From Farm to Table. The film is a short, 3-part dissection of the development of fair and sustainable agriculture. The filmmaker, who is also the head of the California Institute for Rural Studies, presents the story from the perspectives of the farm workers, farmers, and the advocates, which adds up to a well rounded story.

As the silver screen hits have demonstrated, film has become a really effective way to expose and explore food and agricultural systems. Keep your eyes peeled for screenings and new documentaries!

Spreading the Love: Creating a Buying Club for Local Produce

2010-02-14T23:56:00.000-08:00

You’re a student, or perhaps you’re on a limited income. You might be a parent of small children. If you know that you want to buy organic, sustainable and local produce but you’re put off by the cost of such an endeavor, where can you begin? You can start by investigating the possibility of sharing the cost by buying in bulk.

Imagine that you are a farmer. You have a crop that produces several thousand pounds a day of fruit or vegetables. If farmers sell all of this produce at the farm gate, they sell it bit by bit, piece by piece. It can take a long time and a lot of negotiation to sell all of that produce, but some farmers like the interaction this gives them with the neighbors and the lack of coordination required to open a farm gate stand.

However, those who make a large investment in a crop stand to lose a lot of money and time if that crop doesn’t sell. Farmers start to move into the farmers’ markets and seek larger markets that will move more produce more quickly, but still in a local manner. For the producers of a time-sensitive product, nothing is more important than moving this produce into the hands of the consumer quickly.

A buying club can be a blessing for farmers. A buying club is what you get when you gather buyers together to order a large amount of produce at a time. This can occur every day, every week, every month, or just once a year. I coordinate an annual buying club for blueberries. I connect with our blueberry farmer, put in an order, and take orders from friends and neighbours. All together, we order just over a thousand pounds of blueberries every year. These blueberries go to freezers and smoothies and pies across our city.

As a buying club, you need to act a bit like a store. You need to be organized. It’s not the farmer’s responsibility to decide how much of what sort of produce you want to order. Create a system to track orders and be prepared for orders to change over time. Develop a cap or a maximum order of produce for the buying club, and work to meet this cap. You need to follow through and follow up with the farmer to ensure that everything is going smoothly and that the order will be ready on time. Logistics can be challenging, but arranging transportation, payment methods, and drop off and pick up locations and times are all parts of hosting a buying club. As the organizer of a buying club, you also need to be willing to be flexible. Last summer, the weather was so hot in our part of the country that the berry-pickers were unable to pick for several days, and it was touch and go as to whether we were going to get our order.

Hosting a buying club is a very worthwhile experience that will connect you with local farmers who sell healthy local produce. While the organizing aspect is not for everyone, the nutritional rewards and the community-building aspect of a buying club is worth it.

War on Childhood Obesity: A Fated Fight?

2010-02-14T23:34:00.000-08:00

I know you’ve heard this already. Childhood obesity is a major problem in the U.S. The statistics are heart-stopping: one in every three children is overweight or obese, and one third of all the children born in the U.S. in 2000 or later will eventually deal with diabetes, not to mention the myriad of other diseases related to poor diet and lack of exercise. And even though every one reading this might be aware of these statistics or at least have seen the obesity epidemic headline splashed on newsstands and running across the bottom of the news channel for a the past few years, it remains a huge issue. Countless local initiatives and various children’s advocacy groups have been toiling against childhood obesity and yet the national numbers remain frighteningly steady. Enter Michelle Obama and her newly launched Let’s Move public policy campaign. Could the First Lady’s enthusiasm be just what the country needs to actually get moving on this issue?

Let’s Move seems like a really great plan, and it was certainly encouraging and inspiring this past week. It is comprehensive, addressing the issue from every angle. Not only does Let’s Move target school food, and food labeling, but it reaches deeper to acknowledge some of the roots of the problem, like the existence of food deserts and the need for better nutrition education for parents. This holistic approach is promising, especially when coupled with a community-oriented, taking the needs of specific areas into account and coordinating the efforts of government, education, community organizations, health, athletics, and business sectors. The cost of obesity and poor nutrition, after all, benefits almost no one, with the exception, perhaps, of health insurance companies.

The scope of this initiative is vast, so much so that it may seem a little too ambitious. On the other hand, some critics have denounced it as not addressing the real foundation of our food system, and thereby the foundation of obesity in America. The fact remains that as long as our nation’s heavily subsidized agriculture system is largely focused on producing cheap, basically unhealthy foods. The cream of the crop, and perhaps most detrimental to our food, as pointed out by Michael Pollan, is high fructose corn syrup. Corn is also the fuel behind cheap factory farmed meat, and shows up in almost everything we eat.

Is it possible to truly reform the way our children eat in the U.S. when our agricultural system is still so astray? Is it reasonable to expect that an effective nationwide effort can be made to put more healthy, whole, organic fruits and vegetables in schools while the government still so strongly supports the production of cheap, unhealthy food?

Sustainably Sweet: Top 5 Sustainable Sweeteners

2010-02-07T23:17:00.000-08:00

Sugar is in everything. We are practically addicted to it. But cane sugar is not always the most sustainable choice. However there are some exciting new (and not so new) forms of sugar out there to satisfy your sweet tooth while living sustainably.

Here’s the list:

Local Honey. If you want to be eating the most sustainable sweetener ever, get a beehive! A colony of bees can whip up a whole lot of honey collecting pollen from the flowers in your neighborhood. It’s hard to beat that! If you buy local honey, try to buy raw, unprocessed honey to get the best flavor and higher levels of antioxidants.
Pure Maple Syrup. This one is only applicable if you happen to live in a geographic area that produces maple syrup or have some maple sugar trees nearby. The process of boiling down maple sap into maple syrup is time consuming (and sticky) but the results are an environmentally friendly and hopefully local sugar source.
Sugar Beets. Sugar beets are easy to grow and very sweet. To extract the sugar, cut up the beets and boil in water until the consistency is that of a syrup. Let the syrup cool and evaporate leaving the beet sugar ready for use.
Stevia. This sweet herb has been used for centuries by native tribes in Brazil and Paraguay as a sweetener but is only just becoming popular here. There is particular interest in stevia because it is not actually a sugar and contains zero calories. But rest assured, it is all-natural. If you buy stevia, make sure the plants have been grown using organic and sustainable farming methods. You can also try to grow stevia in your own garden and use the leaves to sweeten your tea and coffee.
Coconut Palm Sugar. Coconut palm sugar is relegated to tropical climes, but the Food and Agriculture Organization has recognized palm sugar as the most sustainable sugar, due to the fact that coconut palms produce up to 75 percent more sugar per acre than sugar cane, and uses far fewer resources and inputs. Traditionally, coconut palms grow in areas like Indonesia and are an important part of the agro-ecosystem, needing little water and helping to restore soil quality.

If you do buy cane sugar, or any other sweetener, make sure it’s certified organic and as local as possible.

Growing Power: Sustainable Food Meets Community Development

2010-02-07T23:08:00.000-08:00

How can you grow community agriculture? We went for a walk in the forest yesterday with some friends who are members of the same community supported agriculture share that we are. They’re not going to get a share this year, mostly because it’s hard to cook with novel vegetables when time is pressing. In my opinion, one of the greatest barriers to local, sustainable cooking is our need for knowledge. We need to get to know kale, chard, and celery root, but who has the time, really? And if we don’t have the time, where do the vegetables go? To the compost, unfortunately.

I’ve long yearned for a sustainable food resource center, one that brings together gardening and cooking and community development. One of the founders of such a center is visiting our city in a couple of months. Will Allen is coming to our city. He’s a former basketball player turned farmer, and he’s created an amazing community food center called Growing Power.

Imagine that you’ve removed your local supermarket. Instead, you replace it with bee hives, goats, and a whole host of plants at all stages of development. There are composters of all types, and a store even sells compost to those who want to use it in their own gardens. You run seed-saving classes, cooking classes, and other programs out of the space as well. The whole building is powered by sustainable energy, and it not only provides a place where people can be employed and volunteer, it also shapes food policy. In fact, the center also helps distribute value-added products for a network of local farmers. People in rural areas get marketing assistance and a ready-made network, and people in urban areas who didn’t have access to land or the knowledge to farm it grow that knowledge. It’s like a library that focuses on food literacy, and it’s close by, right in your neighborhood.

I hope that we’re growing such a center in our community, too. There’s talk of an urban farm that will be a mere twenty minutes by bus from where I live, right in the center of the suburbs. If the farm vision is realized, it will be a thriving vegetable-producing endeavor that sells produce to local residents. Local people will also be able to visit the farm and learn how to grow produce. If we can add some bees, some chickens, and some cooking classes, we might have our own version of a community food center just around the corner.

To the Rescue! Food Recovery Programs mean Greater Food Security for Thousands

2010-02-01T12:01:00.000-08:00

I’m not sure we realize how much perfectly good food goes to waste everyday, in a world where so many are hungry and food security is a major issue. In the U.S., it is estimated that almost 30% of our food winds up in the landfill and we produce about twice the amount of food that is needed per person. The statistics are pretty shocking, which is why it is so exciting to hear about the growing number of food rescue programs working to reduce food waste, and feed people in the process.

Food rescue isn’t the same as dumpster diving. It simply means recovering food that is on its way to the dumpster, mostly from supermarkets and restaurants. The food is totally edible, but is no longer sellable, usually just past its sell-by date. As an incentive for participation, grocery stores and other businesses that are interested in donating food to rescue programs are eligible for tax benefits and are protected from liability lawsuits. It’s a win-win situation.

Farms can also give food to recovery programs. Farms will often allow volunteers to glean their fields after the harvest or pick up produce that is slightly bruised or didn’t sell at the market. Gleaning can be particularly worthwhile, as much produce is simply left in the field to be plowed under and make way for the next crop. Many food rescue programs are also beginning to “rescue” prepared food from institutions such as hospitals and hotels. The programs deliver the leftover meals to soup kitchens and other hunger-fighting projects for immediate consumption.

All rescued food plays a huge part in helping hunger organizations stay stocked and able to help those who are in need of immediate help. Refrigerated trucks zip from grocery store to restaurant to corporate kitchens all over a given city, and deliver the resulting rescued food to homeless shelters, food pantries, and soup kitchens. Like many non-profits, food rescue programs are often underfunded. Financial donations can help them continue to serve and grow. This is especially true considering today’s economic climate, which has meant that funds have been cut and more people than ever are in need of food.

Food rescue provides an inspiring model of redistribution and challenges the way we think about waste. What else can we do to turn what we cast off as unusable excess into something that fills an immediate need for many people?

But I Don’t Want to Be a Farmer: Sustainable Food Jobs

2010-02-01T11:48:00.000-08:00

So you love food. Great! You love sustainable, organic food. Wonderful! Do you want to grow it? No? You love sustainable food, but you don’t want to be a farmer. That’s just fine. There are plenty of career paths that revolve around sustainable food. Here are a few to consider.

Your job can help create communities that foster sustainable food. Perhaps you’re an urban planner, or perhaps you’re an advocate for developing community gardens. You might coordinate a local farmers’ market, providing people with valuable space and time to sell what they have produced. If organization is more of your forte than growing the food, that’s excellent. Those who produce the food are often too busy to throw their heart and soul into creating these communities, and you can be their advocate, whether that’s in government, as a business, or as part of a nonprofit endeavor.

If you have gardening skills and love to connect with people, but you don’t want to grow food for a living, then teaching and mentoring others in the garden field might be your place in the world of sustainable food. A horticulture program, a community organization with education programs, or even a local garden center all provide avenues to teach others how to become more self-sufficient and grow some of their own food.

You can also work on the infrastructure that supports farming. Perhaps you help distribute the food through a buying club, or you might help transport it to markets. You might test soil or provide soil remediation services. You could be a carpenter and create miniature garden boxes where people can grow food. Or you could work in a kitchen or open a restaurant, providing locally-grown meals to those who are eager to embrace local food and who just love good food.

Creating sustainable food systems is not only about farming. We do not all need to be rural farmers or even urban farmers, generating farms on the downtown rooftops. Not everyone is interested in growing food, but we all need to eat it. The relocalization of food systems means that local jobs need to happen to support these food systems, and you can be part of that, even if your thumb is browner than brown and you can’t grow a tomato to save your life.

Sustainable Pet Food: How Can Your Pet Eat Green?

2010-01-25T00:59:00.001-08:00

We love our pets. But what are we feeding them? While we might be feeding our human family organic, local, and sustainable food, the quality and the origins are the food that we feed our pets often leaves something to be desired. Pet food is food, and when we talk about sustainable food we want to consider the diets of all members of our family, including the non-human ones. In the US alone, there are more than 61 million pet dogs. That’s million, folks. That’s a lot of pet chow.

Now, there are a number of ways to green your pet’s eating. There’s even the hard-core option of seeking vegan-friendly foods for your carnivorous pets, an action that attracts a lot of controversy on both sides of the fence. If Fido and Fluffy are going to be carnivores, though, what can you do to make their impact less profound?

Even before we touch on what’s in the food, think about the packaging that your pet’s food comes in. Is it sustainable? If you’re using many miniature cans of cat food or very small packages of non-recyclable cat treats, it might be worth looking at bulk options. Even buying pet food in larger cans makes a difference. Make sure that you choose packaging that is recyclable, if at all possible.

Many people swear by homemade or raw food diets for their pets. When you’re feeding a pet raw or homemade food, it’s possible to look into all sorts of local, sustainable, and ethically-raised sources of meat. While you may not end up feeding your pet the prime cuts, you’ll know that the pet food you’re feeding your pets is raised in the same way as the rest of your food. You’ll also be supporting a local farmer and using up some of the less-choice cuts of meat.

If you’re looking at commercial pet foods, look for foods that incorporate organic and ethically-raised sources of meat. Many pet foods incorporate the leftovers from human foods like fish into the creation of food for pets. Now, it’s good to use the leftovers, but if the industry itself is depleting the oceans or damaging air and water, are its byproducts still sustainable?

Pets are very much an industry, with marketing and branding just like food for people. Yet for some reason, the pet food industry has avoided much of the push for sustainable food. Next time you visit the store to pick up some dinner, think about the origins and the packaging of what’s in the pet food aisle, just as you think about it in the other sections of the store.

Glass Half Full: Sustainable Wine

2010-01-24T23:09:00.000-08:00

All wines are not created equal, and as with most things, some are far more sustainably produced than others. I think we tend to imagine wine arriving at our table from some idyllic little vineyard in Italy or France. The truth, however, is that like almost any agricultural endeavor, viticulture has gone industrial and many giant vineyards depend heavily on the use of pesticides and herbicides to keep their vines productive. When choosing a sustainable wine, it is important to not only consider whether or not the wine is organic and if chemicals have been used in the growing period, but the rest of the production process as well. Every part of the system, from where the grapes are grown to the packaging and everything in between, affects the sustainability of the product.

Organic is important. However many organic wines have developed a bad rap for taste because by USDA standards wine cannot be considered organic if any sulfites are added. Sulfites, although not the best additive for us to ingest, play an important role in the preservation of the wine, and therefore the taste, and have been used as a stabilizer in wine for centuries. While it is of utmost importance that grapes are grown organically, it is perhaps less important is low amounts of sulfites have been added.

While searching for wines made with organically grown grapes is great, as many of us know, organic does not necessarily equate to sustainable. Though you might have to do a little research, choosing wine that comes from vineyards that practice sustainable or biodynamic agriculture is ideal. Even better is if the winery relies on renewable energy for the wine production, like solar or wind power, and conserves and reuses water. A few of well known wine-producing areas such as California, Oregon, are adopting localized, third-party certification standards that vineyards must meet to be officially labeled Òsustainable.Ó These standards are based on a variety of factors, ranging from energy efficiency to local ecosystem preservation. The energy and resources put into bottling, labeling, and distribution should also be considered.

There are a few wineries and vineyards that really stand out as aiming to be as sustainable as possible. Perhaps the largest is Paducci, which is part of a larger wine operation in Mendocino, California. Paducci is completely carbon neutral, using both solar and wind power as well as biodiesel-powered tractors and are committed to organic farming and pest control. FrogÕs Leap of Napa Valley practices organic and dry farming techniques, conserving water and working with the local environment. They are also on their way to becoming LEEDS certified and use 100% solar energy. The Òtetra prismaÓ multi-layered, collapsible containers that French Rabbit ÒbottlesÓ its wine in are less traditional but much more environmentally friendly than glass, which is very heavy to ship. It is good to note, however, that tetrapak containers are not yet widely recycled in the US as they are in Europe.

While these wineries are certainly stellar, I can't help but put in a plug for all of the small wineries that are popping up everywhere. Local wines from small vineyards are often conscious practitioners of sustainable viticulture and in tune with the local environment. A huge benefit of drinking local wine is that the wine doesnÕt travel far to get to your glass. Scope out the vineyards in your area, and you just may find a local version of that idyllic, family-run vineyard of your imagination.