Posted by Ed Levine, April 9, 2008 at 11:30 AM
With all the chatter about sustainable agriculture even making it to the front page of the New York Times, it's easy to forget that the whole notion of sustainability is all about farmers making short and long-term economic decisions. Given the fragility of the income stream of most non agribusiness farms, it's no wonder that some farmers are willing to trade in the price supports they receive to conserve land for the greater upside potential of planting viable crops on that same acreage during a time of rising food prices.
Posted by Amanda Clarke, February 28, 2008 at 2:00 PM
In the last few years, with demand for environmentally friendly, natural materials on the rise, much attention has been paid in this regard to bamboo. Making its way into evermore applications—especially in the kitchen—bamboo has been used in cutting boards, countertops, serving ware, disposable tableware and flatware, and much more. But while it is a beautiful, sustainable, durable and versatile substance, we need not live by bamboo alone, particularly when there’s cork.
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Posted by Ed Levine, January 20, 2008 at 11:00 AM
As we noted earlier on Serious Eats, a London chef is opening a fish and chips shop selling only sustainably caught seafood. A basket of fish and chips is going to cost about $20. This reminded me of the age-old question facing all of us: Are we willing to pay more for food that is sustainably grown, raised, or caught?
Food in the U.S. is still, relatively speaking, incredibly cheap, mostly because of a combination of government policy and the laws of supply and demand. Our food supply is created too efficiently. So people who can pay more should. And I don't think it's an either-or proposition. We produce enough food in this country to feed every man, woman, and child in it. That we don't is downright shameful.
British restaurateur Tom Aikens is working on a sustainable fish and chips shop in London: "He has consulted half a dozen environmental groups to decide 'which fish I shouldn’t be using' and to make sure the rest are sustainably fished. He will get most of his fish from 30 British fishermen whose practices he has studied." A typical basket of fish and chips will cost £10 (about US$20).
Posted by Ed Levine, July 30, 2007 at 7:32 AM
In my heart I would like to be a locavore purist, eating food grown or raised within a 500-mile radius of my house. When I read about Broadway East, a restaurant opening this fall in New York City that is going to serve three locavore squares a day, I applauded. I believe in local food, slow food, and every other kind of "food" movement that supports local farmers and sustainable agriculture. I pledge allegiance to Alice Waters every day. But what's a localist to do when the cherries taste better from Washington, 3,000 miles away from where this local yokel calls home?
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Posted by Robyn Lee, June 26, 2007 at 3:00 PM
Although carbon emissions, water use, and waste stream are probably rampant in NYC, there's actually a place within the city where food is being grown without any of those elements. This place is on the Science Barge, a sustainable urban farm created by New York Sun Works that is powered by solar, wind, and biofuels, and irrigated by rainwater and purified riverwater. The farm uses recirculating greenhouse hydroponics to grow lettuce, cucumbers, and peppers. Why should New Yorkers care about the farm?
Unless we become a more sustainable city, we can expect prices for food and energy to continue to rise, we can expect traffic congestion and air pollution to get worse, and we will have to deal with more and more garbage traveling through our streets.
Their goal is to design the growing systems for rooftops since, "Studies suggest there could be enough rooftop space in New York City to grow all of our fresh vegetables." Green-filled rooftops would certainly look nicer than the mostly blank ones we have now.
You may currently visit the barge an Pier 84 in Hudson River Park, at the west end of 44th Street. The barge moves to different locations throughout the year, so check the schedule to make sure you don't miss it.
Posted by Alaina Browne, June 20, 2007 at 3:40 PM
Salon.com interviews Charles Clover, author of The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat on "the scourge of overfishing, disgraceful restaurants, and yes, sustainable McDonald's." It's worth reading in its entirety, but a few choice quotes:
On whether consumers should continue to eat fish:
I didn't say in my book, "Don't eat fish." I say, "Don't eat certain fish, don't eat endangered fish." If a fish takes 20 years to double its population, that's a long time. If it takes 30 years before it breeds, don't touch it. But if you eat something that's fast reproducing and not overfished, you should be all right. And there's quite a lot of those species out there. You can eat a hell of a lot of shellfish, a huge amount of mussels and oysters, and your deep-water scallops, with a clear conscience. You can have a really nice fish stew, it's not a problem. But why eat endangered fish? And the slow-reproducing ones are probably going to have mercury in them anyway, so it's a win-win.
On the sustainability of McDonald's Filet-O-Fish:
...McDonald's is sustainable because it is a big company and needs continuity of supply, but isn't that arguably a definition of sustainability?
Buying Alaskan pollock as McDonald's does is not a bad practice -- except that they don't seek to advertise their MSC [Marine Stewardship Council] connection, which might mean they would have to pay for the logo. Gambling you can make your fortune before you run out of exotic fish is an individual decision and one Nobu shares with many restaurateurs from Asia.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch is a great reource for information on sustainable seafood. Their Seafood Watch guides contain the latest information on sustainable seafood choices available in different regions of the U.S. and are available in a handy printable, pocket-size formats.
Posted by Lia Bulaong, April 26, 2007 at 4:45 PM
If I didn't tell you these colorful, beautiful bags were meant to carry your groceries, would you ever think it? Designed in Australia (and made in China), the Envirosax are meant to replace the 500 or so plastic bags that each one of us uses once and then throws away every year. $33 for a set of five bags, each of which is lightweight but strong enough to carry the contents of two supermarket shopping bags, and they roll up into a pouch you can keep in your glove compartment. I buy groceries in small amounts but frequently, like a good New Yorker, so maybe I'll buy a set, keep two bags rolled up in the bottom of my bag and make presents of the three left. They're awfully pretty and I can't imagine my friends wouldn't appreciate them.
They're currently on pre-order at Delight.com, as their first shipment sold out in under two hours, but they expect to have them back in stock at the end of May; use the code "Shelterrific" at check-out and you get 20% off. Alternately you can buy the bags straight from Envirosax, they've got a lovely black-and-white set that I really like too, but shipping from Australia can be pricey and takes two weeks to get to you; they do list brick and mortar retailers of their products in the States. [via not martha]
Posted by Lia Bulaong, March 21, 2007 at 12:21 PM
The SF Chronicle's Carol Ness reports on one of the area's newest trends: "At a small but growing number of sustainably inclined Bay Area restaurants, bottled water has become as much of an outcast as farmed salmon and out-of-season tomatoes. Instead of bottled water, diners now are served free carafes of -- gasp! -- tap water. It's filtered and comes still or sparkling, fizzed up by a soda-fountain-style carbonating machine."
Incanto's been serving tap for years but Chez Panisse used to go through 24,000 bottles of Italian water, an ironic choice for a pioneer of sustainability to make. They investigated using locally made sparkling waters but found them too carbonated to go with their food; eventually they purchased a $400 carbonator. The size of a toaster, it was "delivered last week, and installation involved little more than hooking into the reverse-osmosis charcoal filtering system already in use, and running a plastic line from the carbonator to a tap at the bar."
