Entries tagged with 'environment'
Page 1 of 5
Duck parts. [Photograph: Chichi Wang] According to chef and food activist Dan Barber, we don't know a lot of things. We don't know where our meat comes from, we don't know what the animal we're eating ate, and we sure don't know how to get behind the stove and take control of what we put in our mouths. In this article in The Nation, Barber writes about the "protein paradox," or the huge waste of edible animal parts such as liver, kidney, and tripe. Barber really wants us to like, or learn to like, organ meat—the bits and bobs typically saved for hot dogs, sausage links, and yes, dog food. He hopes that people will eat meat modestly, and...
Continue reading »
Whole Foods shopping bag carrying the usual fennel, radishes, and gun. Wait what? [wsj.com] The Wall Street Journal is a little skeptical of reusable shopping bags. Just about every chain store seems to have their own custom-made tote, but which is the most functional? Stylish? And made of something you can't pronounce? The piece compares five of the biggest contenders: Whole Foods (features a tree design by Sheryl Crow), Ralphs (made of polypropylene), Target (too Target red-colored), 7-Eleven ("as chic as a Big Gulp"), Trader Joe's (if you're into acid-hued prints), and Dean & Deluca ("all style, no substance"). Related 75 Things You Can Compost, But Thought You Couldn't Serious Green: Plastic-Less Ways to Transport Your Lunch Does Your...
Continue reading »
Paper towel rolls, dryer lint, stale crackers, sticky notes, latex balloons, feathers, and more can go in your compost bin. For more, check out Planet Green's list of 75 Things You Can Compost, But Thought You Couldn't. [via The Kitchn]...
Continue reading »
Paul McCartney is pushing for Meat Free Monday, a U.K.-based initiative encouraging people to reduce meat consumption to slow climate change, according to The Guardian. The goal is to persuade people that going veggie once a week—they've picked Mondays—will reduce greenhouse gas emissions from livestock, among the most serious contributors to global warming. According to Meat Free Monday's website, "The UK's Food Climate Research Network suggests that farm to fork is responsible for between 20 to 30 percent of global green house gas emissions. Livestock production is responsible for around half of these emissions." Linda McCartney Foods is showing its support by sharing a meatless recipe every Monday, starting yesterday with a vegetarian bolognese sauce. Other rock stars on board...
Continue reading »
©iStockphoto.com/spinetta In New Hampshire, the discarded shells from cocoa beans used to make chocolate for Lindt Lindor truffles may soon be used to create electricity. Engineers at Public Service of New Hampshire, the state's largest electric utility, began testing the husks earlier this month, the Economist reported: The shells, which have a thermal value similar to that of wood, will be mixed with the coal in a 1-to-33 ratio. An important part of the test was to see whether the power company’s coal-grinding machinery could also grind cocoa-bean shells to the required talcum-like powdery fineness; the machinery performed admirably. Unfortunately, there were no large-scale enticing food smells associated with the test. [via teenagefoodie]...
Continue reading »
Good magazine has a water-use "Transparency," a chart that graphically illustrates how much average water is used for various activities and how to reduce it. As we become more and more aware that we may be using water at an unsustainable pace, the idea of water footprints—the amount of water an individual uses—is becoming more common. Water footprints can be hard to calculate, depending on how far up the chain of production you go, since everything you eat and buy used some water to produce. According to the chart, beef represents one of the most intensive uses of water. [via Doobybrain.com]...
Continue reading »
Boxed Water is Better is a boxed water company/art project/philanthropic project that developed from the idea of "creating a new bottled water brand that is kinder to the environment and gives back a bit." The containers are composed 90 percent of trees, and 20 percent of profits are donated to water and forestation organizations. Boxed Water is available in select stores in Michigan. [via BuzzFeed]...
Continue reading »
Photograph from cobalt123 on Flickr Going almost vegetarian, while allowing a few specks of meat here and there into the diet, is good for Mother Nature. That makes our Meat Lite contributors Joy Manning and Tara Mataraza Desmond, who focus on delicious almost meatless recipes, model environmentalists. A piece in Audubon Magazine explains that daily meat consumption per capita should drop from about 12 ounces in America to 3.1 ounces to protect the climate. That's about the size of a deck of cards, explains U.S. News and World Report. Where do your loyalties lie—meat, the earth, or both?...
Continue reading »
On Fridays, Deb Harkness of Good Wine Under $20 drops by with Serious Grape. This week, she rethinks how we should make, package, and ship wine. Photograph from brewrat on Flickr Picture yourself walking into your favorite market. You've got your reusable grocery bags and a few wine bottles with screw caps. You do your shopping, you head to the wine section before checking out, and a nice person in the wine section takes your wine bottles. He or she either fills them with wine or cleans them and gives you replacements, filling the new bottles with wine and screwing on the cap. In a time when everyone is thinking about alternative packaging and the environment, why isn't anyone talking...
Continue reading »
The country hopes to encourage its citizens to buy products that are more environmentally friendly....
Continue reading »
