organic

From The Bog To The Table

scleaver — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:41:41 -0500

It’s Thanksgiving, and that means its cranberry time! What holiday meal isn’t complete without a splash of red cranberry sauce? But, cranberries are more than just colorful, they’re also good for you.

We all know about cranberry’s power when it comes to preventing UTIs. According to OrganicAuthority.com, cranberries are a major source of antioxidants, and phytonutrients that protect against cancer, heart disease, and more. A study from the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, found that compounds in cranberries were toxic to a variety of cancer cells, from breast cancer to leukemia cells.

So, you want to incorporate these prize-fighting fruits into your holiday meal? Make sure your cranberry sauce is chemical free by buying organic cranberries from Cranberry Hill Farm in Massachusetts (or find a local organic cranberry blogger by using the Local Harvest tool on the River Wired Home Page).

Get any and all cranberry recipes from Ocean Spray. Here’s an easy cranberry sauce recipe. Epicurious.com has cranberry recipes for the advanced cook. And, here are cranberry bread recipes to help you use up the cranberries that don’t make it onto your Thanksgiving table.

Photo from VegPod.com.

Green Your Happy Hour

scleaver — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Gust Organics restaurant in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village is now the world’s first 100% USDA Certified organic bar.

Among their sustainable practices: recycling, using wind energy and only wind energy to power the restaurant, solar lighting, biodegradable containers that are printed using soy ink, energy efficient and water conservation equipment, green cleaning practices, and a restaurant building that’s built using recycled woods. The servers wear organic uniforms, and you’ll have organic flowers at your table.

The menu (Buenos Aires style steak, homemade turkey meatballs, spinach fettucini) looks delicious, and now there’s a fully organic bar to go with it. Eaten at Gust Organics? What was the experience like?

If you’re not in New York, find a green restaurant near you and learn more at The Green Restaurant Association.

Photo from YumSugar and Gust Organics.

Eco-Friendly Baby Gifts

scleaver — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0500

With all the discussion about BPAs in baby’s bottles and dangerous levels of chemicals in toys, expect to see an abundance of organic and natural presents for the younger set this year. So, to start the season off right, here are some adorable, organic, and healthy toys and snuggly items for the infants on your list.

Baby Earth has organic clothes, onesies, and other organic cloth products, including the adorable Bunny blanket friends from Under the Nile Organics.

Really Natural recommends the Sassy Cuddle Dolls from Sassy. The dolls are made with bright, textured fabrics, and scented with lavender to stimulate the sense of smell and calm them.

Organic Baby Wearhouse sells bedding, clothing, toys, and bibs like the sustainable bamboo tie bib and the super-adorable organic orange giraffe rattle.

Photo from the Organic Baby Wearhouse.

The Economics of Organics

scleaver — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:49:07 -0500

After months of bad financial news, it comes as no surprise, the economy is making us second-guess every purchase we make, from a new car to a loaf of bread. As Alternet.org reported, The Nielsen Company found that organic food sales increased only 4 percent in the month that ended in early October, compared to a 20 percent growth in previous years. In the current economy, any growth could be considered good, but such a dramatic drop shows just how much impact the economy has on food purchasing. And, considering that organics cost at least 50 percent more than conventional foods (according to Alternet.org), it’s no wonder that they’re the first to go when we start pinching pennies.

If you’re still buying organics, take heart. That price increase is for good reason:

Organic food is more expensive to produce because farmers have to spend more time growing it without fertilizers and pesticides.
When you buy organics, you’re often supporting small farmers that don’t have the cost-saving benefits of growing food using economies of scale.
Right now, more people want to buy organics, so demand is greater than supply, which drives prices up.
Organics don’t benefit from farm subsidies. When you calculate how much you spend on a conventional batch of produce, factor in tax dollars that go back to farmers in the form of subsidies and the cost difference will definitely shrink.

But, you don’t need to give up on organics just yet. Here are Alternet’s suggestions for buying organic during tough economic times:

1. There are certain fruits and veggies that are best bought organic. Here’s the complete list from Delicious Organics.

2. Join a co-op, you’ll put in a few hours of volunteer time each week and will save on food expenses. Use this Co-op Directory to find one near you.

3. Shop around to find the best prices and buy local when you can.

4. And, of course, grow your own. Here’s how to grow herbs on a windowsill.

Photo from TreeHugger.com.

Halloween Candy Round-Up

scleaver — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:36:27 -0400

This Halloween, you can hand out the dreaded popcorn balls, my favorite Mary Jane Peanut Butter Kisses, or any combination of mini-candy bars, tiny bag of M&Ms, or an assortment of sugar-loaded candy corn. Or, you can go green.

To get you started, here are some candy suggestions from The Green Guide.

And some more delicious options:

Organic Yummy Earth lollipops and hard candy.

Mini chocolate squares or chocolate “bug bites” from Endangered Species Chocolates (10 percent of the profits go to support “species, habitat, and humanity”).

And, The Natural Candy Store has every type of candy, from caramels to licorice to jelly beans, and promises “all the fun without the funny stuff.”

And, to educate your little ghosts and goblins, check out fair trade chocolate bars and bags with the “Fair Trade Ghost” at The Global Exchange store.

What are you passing out this Halloween eve?

Photo from Good Without Gluten.

See How One Family Raises 6,000 pounds of Food and 350 Veggie Varieties on One-Tenth of an Acre

scleaver — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400

If you want to look at your garden and feel like an underachiever, check out the upcoming documentary, HomeGrown about the Dervaes family in Pasadena, CA. The Dervaeses run an organic farm and are able to produce 6,000 pounds of food, more than 350 different types of veggies, herbs, berries, and fruits on just 3,900 square feet, or less than one-tenth of an acre. This year they're hoping to increase that yield to 10,000 pounds.

As The Ethicurean reported, HomeGrown is screening at Lincoln Center in New York City on November 3 as part of the Green Screens series. Or, if you’re in St. Louis, check out the film at the St. Louis International Film Festival on November 16.

Learn more about the Dervaes family and their farm at their web site: Path to Freedom

Photo from The Ethicurean.

Green Your Sweet Tooth

scleaver — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Hershey’s is “milk chocolate” no more; now it’s “chocolate candy” instead, because the company replaced the cocoa butter with vegetable oil in an attempt to reduce costs. But, as Eat. Drink. Better. reported, Hershey’s has never been the best at providing fair trade (not to mention green) chocolate anyway. So, with sweet tooth holidays from Halloween to Christmas approaching, here’s how to satisfy your chocolate fix and keep it environmentally friendly:

Eat organic: Organic chocolate is grown and harvested using eco-friendly methods and sustainable agriculture, as well as rBGH hormone free milk.

Look for fair trade labels: low wages, child slavery, and unsafe working conditions are a problem in the cacao industry, a fair trade label ensures that your delicious snack was harvested by farmers who were paid fairly and had safe working conditions. Learn more about that fair trade chocolate campaign at The Global Exchange.

Organic and fair trade chocolates are on shelves everywhere from Target to Whole Foods.

Go for artisan chocolates: Instead of going national, buy local or regional chocolates.

Looking for organic, fair trade, artisan on the web?

Try Coco Zen, Earth's Sweet Pleasures, or Dagoba Organic Chocolate for organic chocolate products. Equal Exchange for fair trade products. And, Theo Chocolate for organic, fair-trade and bean-to-bar.

Photo from Dagoba Organics.

Good Green Brews

scleaver — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:34:16 -0400

As summer winds to an end, the remaining evenings offer a few final days to enjoy a good beer garden. As you head off to your local microbrewery, look for an organic label on the front of your next bottle.

The main thing that separates organic craft brews from the pack, according to SlashFood, isn't necessarily the ingredients, but organic cleansers that are used to clean the brewing equipment. Apparently, ingredients aren't as much of a concern with organic beers because microbrews and craft beers are known for using good, quality ingredients anyway. But some beers are touting an organic label:

SlashFood found Four+ Brewing’s hoppy Wildfire Extra Pale Ale from Salt Lake City.

Peak Organic Beer out of Portland, ME sells a pale ale, brown nut ale, amber ale, and a maple oat ale that sounds especially delicious.

And, Wolaver's in Middlebury, VT sells ales and stout, including a pumpkin ale to lead us into fall.

As the microbrew trend continues into the winter months, what’s your favorite organic microbrew? Do you think there's much of a difference between your average craft beer and a good organic brew?

Photo from Wolaver's Brews.

Sustainable Happy Hour

scleaver — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:01:39 -0400

I had an organic beer the other day and it was delicious, but after a hard week, let’s face it, sometimes you want something a little harder. Enter Eat. Drink. Better’s review of organic vodkas, and not a moment too soon! Here are the four organic, sustainable vodkas highlighted:

Vodka 360 The World’s First Eco-Luxury Vodka is “four times distilled, five times filtered.” The recycled glass bottles come with caps that you can mail back to the factory to be reused. Recommended for use with mixers.

Square One Organic Vodka is made from organically grown American rye and the byproduct ends up as food for cows at nearby dairy farms.

Vodka 14, The Height of Purity, is made in Colorado, 80 proof, distilled with Deep Rock water.

Prairie Organic Vodka is a corn vodka, after the vodka’s made the leftover corn is used as energy to run the factory. Apparently, corn-based vodka has more apple, pear, and melon tones with more creaminess than a rye distilled vodka.

How to drink vodka? Freeze the bottle overnight, let the vodka warm slightly before swirling and tasting. For more tips visit Vodkaphiles.com. And, for specific taste and flavor advice, see the Eat. Drink. Better. eco-vodka blog post. Cheers!

Photo from DK Images.

Help Cut Emissions In Half

scleaver — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 09:47:34 -0400

You, consumer, are the best way to reduce energy emissions caused by food production. Science Daily reported recently that 19 percent of the energy we use is used to produce and supply food—most of this energy comes from non-renewable sources (no surprise there). But, according to a study by David Pimentel and colleagues at Cornell University in New York, we could reduce fossil fuel use by 50 percent by changing what we eat.

Here are ways to reduce energy with the added bonus of reducing processed foods in your diet and improving your health:

Eat less. Right now the average American eats 1,200 to 1,500 calories more than recommended and those calories come from foods that take energy to produce—more meat and processed foods than vegetables and potatoes.
Eat organic. If farmers used traditional, organic farming methods, with fewer pesticides, and more crop rotations and cover crops, we’d improve energy efficiency on the supply-end.
Eat raw: Eating fewer processed foods could also add to fuel savings, as Science Daily put it, “the most dramatic reduction in energy used for food processing would come about if consumers reduced their demand for highly processed foods” from lighting the processing plants to transportation.

All this energy-friendly eating will boost your health too, need more reasons to eat organic: here they are.

(Originally taken from Fit Sugar.)

Photo from McVitamins.com.