Food & Travel

Seafood Delight

scleaver — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:16:42 -0400

For those of us who love a good sushi dinner or fried seafood platter, sustainable fishing is high on the list of sustainable farming practices to watch. Over at the Chocolate & Zucchini blog, fish were a hot topic this week. Apparently, because of overfishing, unsustainable fishing, overconsumption, and pollution, some fish species (including those that we like to eat) may be extinct by 2050.

How to address this?

Chocolate & Zucchini suggests becoming a more informed consumer—pick up a pocket seafood guide that you can refer to next time you sit down to dinner or stand in front of the fish counter. Here’s a regional guide from The Monterey Bay Aquarium.

I like the services from the Blue Ocean Institute. Find your favorite species to see sustainability and health concerns, or download a fish guide.

When you are shopping or dining out, don’t be afraid to ask questions, like, is this farmed? How was it caught? Where did this come from?

And, of course, the number one defense is a good offense, become better informed: Read more RiverWired posts about seafood and the environment: Sustainable seafood gained traction earlier this year, The Monterey Bay Aquarium is working to address seafood sustainability, and, earlier this year, Salmon were in trouble.

Photo from The Sydney Morning Herald about a wholesale fish market.

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.

The Little Things

scleaver — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:11:09 -0400

Here’s your weekend essay question: what would you do to take one small step to help change the food system?

As you mull that over, here are some suggestions from the Slow Food Nation blog:

1. Host an Eat-In or pot-luck with purpose where people bring dishes using locally prepared foods. Read our tips for planning a green pot luck.

2. Stop buying bottled water. More on bottled water, how to reduce your use of it, and other clean water options here and here.

3. Eat mostly unpackaged, local food for a week, Michael Pollen style—you don’t have to be all or nothing (you can incorporate organic sugar that’s brought in from, say, Michigan, if you live in Texas, or decide to include other products that might have to travel, like coffee or chocolate, that you can’t live without). With harvest time winding down and yummy things like apples and squash still on the shelves, it’s the last push for locavorism before winter sets in and it becomes more difficult to find local food. Read about how one eater handled it at the Slow Food Nation blog.

Photo from The Food Network article about how to cook with pumpkins.

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.

New Site For Foodie Shoppers

scleaver — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Heading into the holiday season (I know it seems early, but the holidays are just around the corner) check out the new web site for foodies: Regional Best, sells “local foods that make America great” with artisanal products from around the country.

Cheese is the first artisanal food that comes to mind, but Regional Best also sells meat, seafood, soups, granola and nuts, baking mixes, oils and vinegars, coffee, and more. Search for your foods by region: Midwest, west, southwest, south, mid-Atlantic, and northeast.

Among the featured items right now: Seabeef Alaskan Salmon, New England fiddle cake mix, and premium blueberry syrup.

Photo from Regional Best.

Energy-Efficient Freezers Help You Store Organic, Local Food All Year Round

jplatt — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 10:13:49 -0400

We're off to a big organic food festival this weekend, and plan on coming home with a trunk full of local fruits and vegetables -- more than we can eat any time soon, but enough to keep us in good, local eats all winter long.

But before we can do that, we need to buy a new freezer. Our goal for this week is to pick up a dedicated unit (not a fridge-freezer combo), preferably a chest freezer like the one illustrated here.

Chest freezers, which have a lid on the top of of the unit rather than on the side, are 10% to 25% more efficient than upright freezers, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

According to the ACEEE, the most energy-efficient chest freezers on the market today at the Whirlpool EH151FXR (around $425) and the DC-powered SunDanzer (around $1,000).

The ENERGY STAR program offers several tips for buying energy-effienct fridges and freezers. (ENERGY STAR also recently upgraded its criteria for refrigerators, so the newest models are even more efficient than they were just six months ago.)

I don't recommend picking up a freezer unless you're going to stock enough food to fill it. But if you live in a area like me (coastal Maine) where the winters and long and local food is hard to come by, then a freezer could end up being your best friend.

A Real Hamburger Helper

scleaver — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 09:54:55 -0400

Figuring out your food miles will get easier by October.

As the Chicago Tribune reported, starting September 30, a new federal law will require meat labels that show the country of origin on beef, pork, chicken, lamb, as well as fruits, veggies, and some nuts.

Country of Origin Labels (also known as COOL) will tell you whether the animal was raised in the U.S. or another country so you can identify food that comes from countries with safety concerns, or so you can keep your food dollars in the U.S. But, some labels may be more complicated than you realize: ground beef labels may have more than one country listed, because the process to make a hamburger requires meat from more than one country.

As COOL starts up, some (the USDA, the Consumers Union) are against the law either because it doesn’t cover enough (the Consumers Union) or because they think consumers will know too much and are concerned about cost (the USDA). We’ll see how the COOL labels play out, but in the meantime, how much information do you want on your meat label?

Photo from the Dvorak Uncensored blog.

What's For Dinner?

scleaver — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 13:24:03 -0400

At the start of this year, the FDA declared that the meat and milk from cloned cows was safe. Last week, as Gourmet.com reported, they admitted that it was “’theoretically possible’ that the meat from the offspring of cloned cattle was already in the food supply.”

This is still unproven because there’s no requirement that cloned beef, or meat from cloned animals’ offspring, be labeled, nor is there any monitoring of where, when, or how the offspring of said cloned cattle are used and sold. Indeed, according to Gourmet's Politics of the Plate, thousands of bioengineered cows and their offspring may be in the general cow population, just waiting to be slaughtered and sent to our plates.

In their defense, USDA spokesperson Bruce Knight told reporters that so few cloned cows had been slaughtered that its “highly unlikely” that any of us have eaten cloned cow. But, is “highly unlikely” a risk that you want to take when it comes to your next burger?

Photo from the Leigh Valley Live blog.

The Man Burns Green

Marcus — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 11:15:03 -0400

Last week, I had the privilege of making my second excursion into the Nevada desert for Burning Man 2008. Situated two hours east of Reno, Burning Man is a weeklong arts, music, and cultural festival, and takes place in a temporary community known as Black Rock City that’s erected exclusively for the week of the “Burn.” The desert is peppered with dozens and dozens of dazzling art installations from some of the world’s most incredible designers, and custom designed “mutant vehicles” cruise through the desert night, lights flashing and music playing, to create a truly unique and dazzling landscape. The 2008 theme was “The American Dream,” which made for some very thought-provoking—and critical—pieces that dealt with a variety of aspects of our nation. In a word, it was awesome.

This year marked the largest turnout ever for the event, which was started by a handful of San Franciscans some fifteen or so years ago, and has blossomed into a desert pilgrimage that over 50,000 people embark on each year. It’s also the world’s largest Leave No Trace event, a staggering accomplishment when you consider the scope of how large Burning Man actually is.

As someone who’s attended Burning Man, it’s quite easy to understand the commitment the festival makes to maintain the natural environment that serves as the event’s venue. The Playa, as the desert is affectionately referred to by Burners, is treated with reverence and care. First off, there are no garbage receptacles at Burning Man. Burners are expected to take out whatever trash they bring in, and leaving MOOP (Matter Out Of Place) on the Playa is considered a serious faux pas. Second, each person is required to bring in all their own food and water, and take it all with them when they pack up and leave when the week is over. Finally, each camp is required to have containers to collect “gray water”—that is, any water that’s been used for cooking, teeth brushing, washing, etc—to avoid dumping any tainted water directly onto the desert surface. While there are port-a-potties that are fairly well maintained, showers are out of the question (unless you bring your own—and some people certainly do), so most Burners settle into a shower-less, sand-encrusted existence, where considering yourself “clean” is only a baby-wipe to the armpits away. Comforts are relative in the Black Rock Desert.

Surprisingly, though, once you settle into the Burning Man lifestyle, it’s relatively easy to adjust, and the lack of dependence on modern societal comforts is actually quite refreshing. It’s exhilarating to be completely off-the-grid, and it’s something I would recommend everyone try, if even for a short while.

On top of the environmental challenges campers face, Burning Man’s parent company, Black Rock City LLC, is also committed to ensuring that the Burn has the lowest environmental impact possible. In 2006, they issued an environmental mission statement outlining their ongoing commitment to the earth, and in 2007 the theme of the Burn was “The Green Man” to further highlight the importance of successfully carrying out an environmentally responsible Burning Man. Black Rock City LLC also plants trees and purchases carbon credits to help offset the emissions generated by the thousands of cars and RVs that journey to the desert each summer.

Having attended Burning Man for two years now, I think the thing that most impresses me about the event’s commitment to the environment is how genuine it is. People actually care about the space they’re inhabiting, from the campers, to the artists, to the event organizers themselves. It’s an incredibly refreshing feeling to be a part of such a positive community, and it’s something that I’d highly recommend. Hope to see you there.

Getting To The Core

scleaver — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:22:19 -0400

News flash: this year has been a bad one for Michigan’s apples. Spring frosts and summer hail storms wrecked havoc on apples, with a potential loss of 20 percent or more, and we haven’t even gotten through the fall harvest.

The Chicago Tribune reported that apple farmers have used tactics like sonic waves that break up hail in the atmosphere (but only larger hail, small hail doesn’t get destroyed) and are diversifying crops to decrease their personal risk. Even so, this year there will be no Northern Spry apples out of Michigan (fear not, Gala, Golden Delicious, Gingergold, Paula Red, MacIntosh, and more will still be on shelves), and apple pricse are going to go up.

The plus side: stormy weather means lots of moisture, which produces larger apples. And, a hail ding doesn’t affect the taste of the apple. So, as you head out to load up on apples this fall, remember that your apples don’t have to be perfect, especially if they end up covered in caramel and nuts anyway.

Photo from Fruit Acres Farm Market & U-Pick Sweet Cherries, Peaches & Apples in Michigan.