Who says the pantry has to be a catch-all black hole for prolonging that shelf life? That’s what high school lockers are for!

It’s time to take stock in our most commonly used household storage nook, and make it as inviting as a vintage general store (with a modern green twist, of course).

Open pantries offer easy access for the organic gardener and cook, but also should look tidy since they are exposed to your visitors. Mine is en route to the powder room. Yep, that’s country life.

I find it’s easy to arrange a cool display of dry goods, serving dishes and other odds and ends containing them in boxes, baskets and jars. Not an organizer? Just read Catherine Pond’s The Pantry, chronicling the history of keeping every can and tin in its place.

I have staged many pantries of  homes, finding prospective buyers are sold on nicely organized utility spaces, especially when they also reflect some style with a pop of color, especially red. Yes, panache even extends to the shelves of rice and cereal.

Here are some ideas for ordering and celebrating your own healthy green pantry:

First, sort by category: If you haven’t done so already, clean and designate shelves for categories, i.e. stack tea and cereal boxes side by side on one shelf, canned goods on another, bulk items like rice, pasta and beans on another. Make sure the opened items remaining in original packages are well sealed to preserve them. I use painter’s tape to reseal cardboard boxes to keep items fresh.

Reuse glass mason jars: Mason jars from pasta sauce, jams and other goods are great to reuse for storing and displaying dry goods from quinoa and baking ingredients to various herbs and spices. I love reusing an array of food jars in my pantry because they look cool and help extend the shelf life of the dry goods.

Reuse plastic take-out containers: If you are stuck with plastic, spare the landfill and clean out some of the small containers to store items. Below, they work well when reused for cake decorating sprinkles and beans.

Store packaged items in boxes: You can recycle your old shoe or gift boxes or locate eco-friendly storage to place on the shelves along with the jars and cans. Boxes, especially those with fun patterns from the Container Store and other organizing outlets, add flair even when the cupboard is bare.

Canisters add flavor: Mix in canisters (an easy second hand store or garage sale find) to hold organic flour, raw sugar, baking soda and other items you use for baking those healthy treats every day after work (yeah, right). I have a collection of canisters given as gifts or found in various towns. I love how they look in an open pantry, especially red ones like these from Amazon. These are also great for animal kibble which you might want to buy in bulk to avoid the large paper bags.

Stackers for shelving help you squeeze more in and add depth: Locate metal stacking shelves, like this one from Oraganizeit, to lift and separate cans and other packages. These work really well in both small and large pantry nooks.

Baskets add charm and warmth: Good natural fiber storage, like these water hyacinth nesting baskets from Cultural Elements, work well for onions, potatoes and other perishables, especially in an enclosed pantry. These fresh foods tend to last best in darkness and under wraps. Baskets are great for all loose food items and add that creature comfort organic appeal.

Design tip: Remember, even if your pantry consists of one cupboard in your apartment kitchen, you can still make it look fun and appealing – you might even hang cups on hooks inside.

For me and many of you, ordering clutter reduces stress. When I don’t have to spend an hour searching for taco mix, I don’t scream as much on taco night. Can a neat pantry save on therapy? Try it and see.

Images: The Book Depository, Container Store, Stevie Rocco, La Fattina, Container Store, la fattina, Organizit

Kaiser Permanente is prescribing big doses of sustainability in the sixth season of its $50 million Thrive ad campaign.

Two new ads – Emerald Cities and Connected – reinforce the health care provider’s commitment to the planet by dramatically reducing paper use – no small task for an industry long married to countless charts and forms. For most of us, being ordered to “Fill this out” is as rote as, “Hop on the scale,” and just as painful.

The Emerald pitch describes how Kaiser is allowing patients access to their own medical data via Kaiser Permanente HealthConnect, the world’s largest civilian electronic health record.

Not just a handy core tool for patients, the online system is apparently saving thousands of trees annually. And, as of September 2009, Kaiser estimates its members completed six million doctor’s visits without using one gallon of gasoline. Guess they got the help they were seeking by going online.

“We will be entirely paperless by 2010 and these ads illustrate how we are doing our part in some way to help the environment,” I’m told by Lisa Ryan, Director of National Advertising at Kaiser. “Having a healthy environment creates a healthy community that helps individuals thrive.”

In these appealing ads, actress Allison Janney, the KP spokeswoman since 2004, drives home the point in her now familiar, smooth-as-a-surgical-glove delivery:

“By putting an end to paper medical records, we have ushered health into the digital age.”

To paraphrase the tagline: I think that I shall never see, a 62-page medical report as lovely as a tree.

“Our ode to trees talks to the fact that when you have online capabilities and a way to connect, it  does eliminate the need to drive to a facility or to an office visit,” says Ryan.

The Connected spot highlights the convenience of securely e-mailing your doctor, checking your medical records, reviewing test results and booking appointments online. This spares not just trees but the stress of being forced to listen to bad “music” after being placed on hold the second your doctor’s receptionist answer the line.

Kaiser clinicians are digitally connected to each other, which ultimately helps them stay connected to  members. The closing line of the ad summarizes, “At Kaiser Permanente, we believe that if knowledge is power, shared knowledge is even more powerful.”

Personally, I have struggled to attain the elusive power of shared knowledge while advocating for loved ones at hospitals where overworked, impatient doctors seemed agitated when pressed for too much info. Getting them to return phone calls was even harder. Then again, my family doesn’t use Kaiser. Maybe their doctors are more generous.

“Our primary care physicians are at center of who we are and we have great accessibility in person, on the phone and email,” says Ryan. “Ive had great experience with my own doc whom I have spoken to on the phone and through email. All of our new alternative ways to reach out and stay connected really help.”

I was glad to see the green connection extends to its Thrive website, which give readers tips on being “thriving communities” by buying locally-grown food, using fewer shopping bags, making their own cleaning supplies and avoiding exposure to chemicals in the home.

Ryan told me all of this effort, including the ad campaign, has been an extension of proven sustainability practices at Kaiser’s newly-built facilities, such as centers in Modesto and Santa Clara, using solar panels, pavement treatments to recycle run off water and friendly denim material in the walls as green insulation.

“The advertising is a great bridge between the sustainability message and the innovation of who we are,” Ryan  says. “It was a huge undertaking to go digital and to retrain the care staff, but it all speaks to our overall concern with the health of individuals and the community. ”

Prior to the green thrust, Kaiser treated us to daily ads on prevention, reminding our unhealthy nation that the more we exercise, eat well and get screened for diseases, the less we will have to spend on health care.

I think the ads resonate with the radio-listening masses facing poor health along with a poor health care system that has yet to be reformed.

With $50 million invested in the message, let’s hope Kaiser proves to be one of the needed cures.

Images: Kaiser Permanente, Wiki

Lucky 3P writer Jen Boynton says of her recent dinner with Levi’s and a gaggle of writers: “The Levi Strauss folks came across as down to earth and honest. We talked about the sweatshop labor that plagued their press coverage in years past and how it started the company on the road to sustainability: first socially, with safe working conditions and fair labor practices, and now environmentally, rolling out EPA wastewater standards for all their international factories, life cycle analysis and energy reduction plans.”

Sounds to me like Levi’s is getting the environmental spirit.

By their partnering with Goodwill to promote “A Care Tag for Our Planet,” Levi’s new initiative aims to put billions of pounds of unwanted clothing to good use instead of into landfills. How? By using a new Levi’s tag and launching a campaign to encourage the owners of Levis to donate their jeans to Goodwill when they are done.

Goodwill can then resell to Levi’s fanatics as well as those who need affordable clothing, and provide job training programs to at-risk populations.

According to the Goodwill site, beginning in January 2010, the Levi’s® brand will be the first major retailer to include messaging on product care tags that encourages people to donate their unwanted clothing.

This is Goodwill’s first partnership designed to increase the lifecycle of clothing and textiles to address the approximately 23.8 billion pounds that end up in U.S. landfills each year.

A simple tag? Is that all it takes? We’ll see and we’ll hope.

Bianca and Michael Alexander, founders of Vert Couture, had their work cut out for them this past Sunday hosting Chicago’s first ever green fashion show. But with an already established track record in the sustainable field, the couple pulled it off with flying shades of green.

The husband and wife team, who recently migrated from California, have made the windy city more interesting with Conscious Living TV and Soul of Green. So producing Chicago’s debut sustainable design show was just another step in their progression towards sustainable.

Michael Alexander says he and his wife have a serious passion (bordering on addiction) for fabulous fashion that’s created consciously and sustainably. Vert Couture is their way of sharing this passion with the public.

“Seeing and meeting so many talented and committed eco-designers in our new home of Chicago, we wanted to support them by providing a platform to show the world their talent. We felt we could best serve them and the sustainability movement by producing arguably the hottest show of fashion week.”

Bianca and Michael Alexander, founders of the Vert Couture eco-fashion show

Chicago’s conscious community, including Fashion Focus Chicago and the Chicago Fashion Foundation, helped sponsor the show where Mountains of the Moon, Vaute Couture, Bryant McLemore Smith, Frei Designs and students from the International School of Design and Technology featured the best of their Spring 2010 collections.

Melissa Baswell, designer of Mountains of the Moon, says the show has strengthened the connection between Chicago’s eco-designers.

“Annie Novotny of Frei Designs and I decided that we’re not stopping with Vert Couture. We want to organize monthly gatherings with some of our fellow Chicago eco-designers to brainstorm and help each other out.”

Melissa Baswell of Mountains of the Moon takes a stroll down the runway at Vert Couture

Baswell says that unlike traditional shows she’s been a part of, more factors were involved in Chicago since the show was produced as green as possible (the event was carbon neutral, featured organic and vegan drinks and hors d’oeuvres, had green sponsors, eco-friendly printed materials, and of course, sustainable designers).

“There were a variety of designers and a wide array of pieces shown. It was put together as a fashion show first and foremost, but it also educated people on the importance of sustainability, and included much more than just the runway show.”

Annie Novotny, founder of Frei Designs, says that being part of Vert Couture is just what designers have to do right now.

“It turns some people off, promoting yourself as an eco-designer. But it’s my choice to produce ethically. It’s never been a cool thing to do. So whether people are educated or not, whether or not they know about issues of waste and sustainability, I’m going to be part of something like this simply because it’s important,” says Novotny.

Sustainable designer Lara Miller didn’t show her line at Vert Couture, but did show during Fashion Focus at Macy’s Designers of Chicago last Thursday evening. Her line is carried in the Chicago Designer Shop at Macy’s on State street.

Lara Miller Spring 2010, at Fashion Focus (Photo by Michele Wayman)

Miller says that Chicago is getting more competitive with the other major fashion cities in the U.S., but thinks that Chicago, in general, is just different.

“We’re providing a different view, a different market and allowing our designers to grow while reaching out to other markets. I think that Chicago designers have a unique perspective on fashion and on the industry. We’re incredibly hard workers, we understand who we sell to, and first and foremost we’re good people who support each other and our garment manufacturers here in the city.

Not all of our businesses are about creating a stir or a groundbreaking trend. We’re about quality, individuality, and our customers. We each have our own individual message and brand identity. And I think that we’re all showing something different and creating trends in our own ways, some more than others, but the trends to me don’t matter as much as creating beautiful quality work that pleases our customers. Because while we’re designers at the end of the day, we’re also entrepreneurs, which means that we want to make our customers happy.”

Chicago and Vert Couture have certainly made me happy.

FarmVille is the green place to be for city folk reaping the rewards of rural relationships and cooperation through good, clean social gaming.

The hugely popular farming sim has my friends and family bragging on Facebook about a season of planting cash crops, helping neighbors grow lettuce instead of lawns and finding new homes for lost little duckies. It quacks me up!

The strategy of the Zynga grainchild: The user is given the chance to start their own farm, build it out and move up in levels.

After they have plowed the land and their crops are ripe for picking, they harvest the food and sell it for cash to buy new crops. Other ways to get money include helping friends with their farms or sending free gifts to friends, such as trees and farm animals.

“This is a good game because it’s not superficial where you are going out and buying clothes or houses like in other virtual games,” says my 13-year-old daughter, an avid fan who set up a farm for her 10-year-old sister in recent weeks planting eggplants, soybeans and strawberries. “You’re building crops and helping neighbors with their crops and in the coming years, it will really come down to that.”

My teen, now at level 7,  finds FarmVille lets her and her Facebook friends associate a fun game with something not product-based, and that it helps train her generation to think green.

That’s the main reason an employer in Minneapolis, Minn. set up a real organic farm as a playground and work perk for his employees. His concept is a hit as the Haberman public relations team clocks time hoeing and raking after hours.

You don’t get points with your boss for playing FarmVille so my cousin, Alan Finkelstein, plays in his spare time when he’s off work. He’s at the top of the heap with an impressive level 31. He’s a god in his neck of the woods. You don’t get to level 31 without logging some serious computer time.

“Okay, FarmVille police, I was forced to play, they kidnapped me and made me play,” Alan jests, defending his highly-coveted acreage. “I do notice more things in the world that are related to farms than I used to prior to playing.”

Alan says he gave it a go when a friend was playing and really loved it. He finds the game makes him more aware of things associated with farming and holds a “zen quality” for the L.A. journalist, husband and Facebook fanatic.

“I like to strategize, collect, plan, design, steal other folk’s designs, send gifts to friends, receive gifts from friends, and having to be patient in growing my own farm,” he says. “My cousins say to me, ‘Dude, your farm is amazing and thanks for sending me the horses’ and it’s nice to have that interaction.”

Del Monte should only have such interaction. This sim is clearly a brand of socialism Americans can get behind.

According to Virtual Worlds News, FarmVille has gained over 1 million new players per week since its June 19 launch, and currently boasts more than 11 million daily active users.

Apparently, that’s the total achieved by lead designer Mark Skaggs over his entire career with Electronic Arts where he designed other strategy games such as Command & Conquer and The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth. He says FarmVille will probably break records, largely because he’s keeping it fresh.

“One of the really fun and successful features we added is what we call the ‘Lonely Cow’ feature,” Skaggs told VWN. “You can help find it a home, then somebody claims it. You’ll get a brown cow instead of the white cow you had before. Then you milk the brown cow and you get chocolate milk! That’s a ‘moment of delight,’ totally unexpected but cool.”

We once felt that same moment of delight when competitors landed on those high-priced blue properties we monopolized – Park Place and Boardwalk – and had to fork over big bucks for encountering our big, red hotels.

I much prefer a society that works together to land big red barns, sustainable crops and organic chocolate milk. As my wise daughter said, it will really come down to that.

Main Image: Sabrina.dent

Hot time, late summer in the city!

Except for those dreaded Friday nights when all that’s on your buff arm is your reusable canvas shopping bag.

Lumbering home from your hood’s green grocer, you pass that trendy Indian bistro and spy handsome couples in the window on double dates. They’re nursing ginormous chalices of red wine and laughing up a storm, eyes tearing from the tandoori and terribly clever banter. You feel resentful. You like red wine, too.

Take heart, neo nester. It’s commendable to eat in and save money. But hey, don’t do it alone, silly! Invite your cheap friends over Saturday night and play frugal gourmet as a unit.

For seven tips, I went to the source, Executive Chef Annie Somerville of the celebrated Greens Restaurant of San Francisco.

Greens is owned by the San Francisco Zen Center and Somerville teaches classes throughout the year at its Green Gulch organic farm. She has earned an international reputation for her imaginative approach to elegantly composed and simple vegetarian cooking, and is the author Everyday Greens (Simon & Schuster, 2003).

Here’s her greenprint for wearing your own chef’s hat and becoming the coolest home-buddy in town.

Annie’s Guide to Planning and Entertaining at Home in August:

1. Sustain your energy.

Don’t overextend yourself. You are having friends over so make sure it is fun for you, too.

2.The shopping is part of the deal.

It should begin at the farmers’ market and you should enjoy the entire experience as you plan your evening.

3. Shop at your local farmers’ market.

There is so much great seasonal produce right now at the farmers’ market, so cook up some great dishes using these fresh choices. I know it sounds cliche, but the most fun thing to do is grilling, which is great when you are running behind.

Appetizers: Stone fruit is good now, like peaches and nectarines. We are brushing a little olive oil on them and grilling them lightly, then drizzling lightly with local honey and serving on watercress, or any greens. Add a nice cheese like fromage blanc or a fresh white goat cheese. You can also shave cheese over the fruit. For figs, which are coming in now and will last quite late into the season, I use a big, aged balsamic or golden vinegar to create a reduction, and serve with goat cheese.

Entree: You could make a rustic, savory tartlet filled with eggplant, peppers and  grilled onions. You can grill those ingredients or roast them. You could also do corn which is so good now, making a tart filled with corn, chilies, onions, cheddar and cilantro. A simple dish is rounds of eggplants with big slices of peppers, onions and summer squash, all roasted separately. Make a gratin, layering in a baking dish with some cheese and big, torn up leaves of basil. Sprinkle Parmesan and crunchy delicious bread crumbs over the top. Put it in the oven, bake and serve. Delicious! The best of summer.

Side dish: Another thing we are doing as a side dish is using rosemary skewers, leaving a few sprigs on the tops, and grilling fingerling potatoes, wedges of squash and torpedo onions. You can put a big cherry tomato on them. The sprigs are fun and taste good.

Salad: Make a big green salad adding quinoa, parsley, tomatoes, olive oil and lemon. This is always a refreshing salad people dig into.

3. Invite your guests to help cook.

If things aren’t coming together as quickly as you like, ask friends to step in. They love to get involved and it actually puts them at ease, socially. Hand  someone a pair of tongs and say, “Hey, can you flip these onions?” I taught an outdoor cooking workshop at Tassajara and got everyone involved. It gets people engaged in a real way.

4. Make it informal and family style.

Anytime I can eat outdoors I do, and the more relaxed the better, and that is my rule for restaurants, too. I don’t feel like I’m a captive inside. I like the idea of everyone sitting down to a long, informal picnic table with big platters of food and good wine. Maybe you can set up a second table for a buffet if you need to. The more informality the better to make people feel at ease. These days everything is so structured and people need to relax and have a good time.

5. Opt for light, refreshing drinks.

A fresh iced mint tea is always good or  lemon verbena spritzer with lemonade and mineral water and sprigs of  verbena from the garden. On a warm night, a beautiful rose is ideal. I also like Spanish wines and Sauvignon Blancs on a warm summer night.

6. Use beeswax candles for ambiance.

Candles for sure, they are fun. Sometimes I resort to any ones I have. I have just been given beautiful beeswax candles from the farmers’ market people who produce honey for us, Snyder’s Farm. They are at the Tuesday farmers’ market at the SF Ferry Building.

7. Extend the simplicity to the dessert.

It’s always nice to offer coffee and tea and can be great to have a wonderful dessert wine, really simple. I love fruit crisps and cobblers. Short cakes also are easy to do. But if you can’t bake, just make a simple sundae with delicious vanilla ice cream and an assortment of berries. You can mash them and make a sauce. Or serve some good cookies and berries. A cluster of grapes is even good or melons and a cheese plate (light fresh goat, a cow’s milk cheese and  a sheep milk cheese, with toasted walnuts and almonds). Add a pretty platter with toasted bread.

* These days, Annie is “keeping her nose to the grindstone at Greens” but come the start of the year, you can visit her at the Chef’s Holiday Series at the Ahwanee Hotel in Yosemite.

Images: mccun934, Marilynn Taylor

It’s increasingly difficult to decide what to eat these days. Between factory farming, overfishing, mercury contamination, and issues with soy production, it’s frustrating to figure out how to feed your body in a way that will keep it healthy, without hurting the planet.

It’s a given that we should all be eating lots of fresh, organic, responsibly-produced fruits and vegetables, that we should stay away from processed food and fast food, and that we should eat a varied, balanced diet with healthy fats and sufficient protein. The protein is where the equation gets sticky and we start to see a wide diversity of opinion.

Not all experts agree on how much protein a body needs. One thing is certain, though – most meat-eating Americans get more than enough protein. A typical steak or burger is 6 to 8 ounces, and that’s just one meal. Most experts say a body needs only 1.75-2.5 ounces of protein per day.

When trying to get enough protein, vegetarians have it a little tougher, but a balanced and varied diet can ensure plenty of protein easily enough. A cup of yogurt contains about 12 grams or .43 ounces of protein, 2 eggs, about the same. A half-cup of nuts will get you around a quarter of an ounce of protein or less. Beans weigh in similarly to nuts. A half-cup of tofu will provide almost 3/4 of an ounce of protein. If you’re a vegetarian, you should try to eat something that contains protein at every meal and combine grains and vegetables with nuts and beans. For vegans, it’s not impossible to get all the protein you need from combinations of legumes, nuts, grains and vegetables.

To learn out how much protein you need, here is a handy calculator to figure out protein requirements by body weight.

I don’t think there are hard and fast rules, though. Every body is different and you should listen to yours. Heed your cravings (as long as they are healthy ones). Pay attention to how your body, mood, and energy level responds to the foods you eat. If you’re bodybuilding, working out a lot, or pregnant, you’ll probably need more protein. And keep in mind that our bodies change over time. Some people can be vegan or vegetarian for life and be healthy, full of energy and fully satisfied. Others find that they feel well for a few years and then desire meat again, noticing that they feel better when they eat it. Remember, we evolved as omnivores and there’s no one healthy diet right for everyone.

Once you’ve figured out how much protein to eat, what type of protein should you eat? Here’s a run-down with pros and cons of each one, as well as tips for making sure you get enough protein if you don’t eat animal products.

Meat from Ruminant Animals: This includes beef, lamb and goat.

CAFOs (or concentrated animal feeding operations) are a real problem for the environment and the animals that live in them. Runaway waste problems, air pollution and non-therapeutic use of antibiotics (and the resultant strains of superbugs), are just a few of the problems. The solution would seem to be to avoid factory-farmed meat in favor of grass-fed and grass-finished meat from smaller farms. There is evidence that such meat is healthier (containing higher levels of Omega-3s and micronutrients), it certainly tastes better, and most people feel better eating it. But, for the environment, eaters should know that ruminant animals emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas; and that meat production is inherently inefficient because it takes many pounds of plant matter to produce one pound of meat.

While the above is true, farms that combine livestock and vegetable crops can be nourishing to the environment because the animal waste provides fertilizer for the crops that feed both animals and people, reducing the need for petroleum based fertilizers. Also, pastured animals raised responsibly on land that is well suited for livestock can help sequester carbon.

The problem is one of scale and cost. Animals raised this way cannot be raised in large quantities and as quickly as the mass market requires, which raises the cost of meat. I think that proper portioning can take care of this problem. If I only need 2 ounces of protein a day, it’s conceivable that maybe only 2-6 ounces a week might come from a ruminant animal. Not only can I easily afford that much meat, but I’m lowering my impact on the environment by eating a proper portion. (While being fully aware that plenty of people in this country do not even have this luxury, but that’s another post.)

Pork:

Pork production comes with all the same factory-farming issues of ruminant animal production. Pigs are raised in very crowded and cruel conditions and hog farms are a huge source of waste. Pigs are slightly better for the environment strictly from a global warming standpoint because they are not ruminant animals.  My advice for meat eaters is to eat all meat, including pork and poultry, very sparingly and to only buy from small-scale, responsible producers who don’t administer antibiotics, use gestation crates, or crop tails. Pastured pork, like pastured beef, lamb, or goat, is best.

Chicken and Turkey:

Oh, the styrofoam chicken breast. Large-scale chicken and turkey production is problematic for some of the same reasons as above-though slightly better from an environmental standpoint. Poultry converts feed into edible tissue faster and more efficiently than large livestock, requiring fewer resources to produce. Also, chickens and turkeys are not ruminants so they don’t emit methane. When buying, know that free-range is a term that can mean next to nothing, as it simply requires the birds have “access” to the outdoors. Look for fully pasture-raised poultry, which can usually only be found directly from local farmers, or through a CSA, meat buying club, or farmers’ market.

Dairy Products:

Dairy products come from animals, so if you care how those animals were raised, you should buy certified organic dairy from animals raised on pasture. Go easy though, because dairy animals emit methane, so  you don’t get an environmental pass for eating dairy instead of meat. And if you eat dairy but not meat for reasons of animal cruelty you need to know that dairy animals are often treated no better than animals raised for meat and they don’t get to retire to Florida, if you get my meaning.

Eggs:

Eggs are a great and economical source of protein and super versatile and easy to cook. I buy pastured eggs, which can cost anywhere from $6-$8 a dozen. That might sound expensive, but good quality eggs provide a lot of nutritional bang for the buck. Conscientious vegetarians should know that eggs carry the same cruelty baggage as dairy products. I like to buy the big stewing chickens from a farmer at my market who slaughters his spent, pasture raised laying hens and sells them frozen. They’re not too expensive and I can make great soup with them. It makes me feel better than thinking about those poor chickens being ground up for animal feed or fertilizer.

Fish:

We’re told by medical professionals to eat more fish for the heart-healthy Omega-3s it contains, but the whole subject of fish is like opening up a can of worms. Instead, I suggest opening up a can of sardines. Seriously, they’re eco-friendly because they’re low on the food chain, abundant, and don’t result in by-catch or harm to the ocean floor. They’re also chock-full of those coveted Omega-3s. To see how truly delicious they can be, try them fresh if they’re available in your local area. They can be daunting to clean, but here are some instructions I wrote for my personal blog. Some fishmongers will even clean them for you. In addition to the problems of overfishing and aquaculture, many fish that are higher on the food chain are known to contain high levels of contaminants that can be harmful to your health. Plenty has been written here on EcoSalon about eating seafood sustainably (see here, here, and here.)

Soy:

Plenty of vegetarians think that eating soy instead of meat makes their environmental footprint smaller. This is not necessarily true. Depending on how or where it’s done, soy production can be very hard on both the environment and the people in soy-producing countries. And there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that soy products (especially highly processed soy products) are not as healthy as we’ve been told. I treat soy the way I treat meat. I eat it once in a while in small quantities and stay away from highly-processed soy products. Fermented soy products like miso and tempeh are healthiest.

Combining vegetarian forms of protein:

Some people think that animal products are the only foods that contain a full complement of amino acids to provide the body with complete protein requirements. It used to be widely recommended that vegetarians and vegans practice careful food combining at each meal to ensure proper protein requirements. This view has largely gone by the wayside with most experts recommending that vegetarians and vegans eat a wide variety of different fruits, vegetables, legumes, grains, nuts and seeds every day for optimum health.  Here’s an article that summarizes the basics on amino acids and tells which foods provide complementary proteins.

All of this is an extremely long way of saying what Michael Pollan so famously summarized in very few words: “Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.” I’d just add don’t worry so much about the quantity or type of the protein you eat as you do its quality and how it was produced.

Images: fotoosvanrobin, [puamelia], fotoosvanrobin, Tambako the Jaguar, Pink Sherbet, the trial, norwichnuts, steffenz

The collapse of the economy has had a curious effect on our culture. Shuttered chain stores and denuded neighborhoods have made us realize how unstable and unsustainable a society predicated on constant growth and fueled by the twin demon drugs of easy credit and cheap consumer goods can be. When the Circuit Cities go away and the lesser Starbucks close, we realize we didn’t really need them anyway.

All over the country, people are reconnecting with their communities, saving money, working cooperatively, bartering and living a less consumption-dominated life. People are realizing the joy of self-sufficiency and the beauty of taking care of one another instead of just ourselves. There are so many payoffs to living this way. It’s cheaper, it’s more meaningful and it’s easier on the planet.

The evidence of this movement is everywhere:

There’s the Slow Money Movement, which promotes an economy based on preservation and restoration rather than extraction and consumption.

Community gardens are on the rise. A National Gardening Association study indicates about one million American households have community garden plots and an additional five million say they would like to acquire one. The rise in community gardens has sparked a move by US Representative Jay Inslee of Washington State to propose a community garden grant proposal from the USDA. August has just been named Community Gardening Awareness Month. There are free farmstands, foraging movements and community canning projects springing up all over the country.

And this movement isn’t just about food. There’s the Buy Handmade Pledge, Really Really Free Exchanges, online bartering groups, DIY Bike Kitchens in San Francisco, Bozeman, Sacramento and LA, community acupuncture networks all over the country and even events that simply aim to take back public space such as Park(ing) Days and San Francisco’s Sunday Streets program.

At the same time, corporations are doing their market research and finding out what people care about right now, and they’re trying to get in on the action.

According to a Hartman Group Survey from 2008, 52% of consumers polled said it was important for them to buy local goods whenever possible. The report also found that the desire for “local” products wasn’t just about freshness but also about a return to simplicity, handcrafted production and the ability to match a product with a place or face.

Another survey shows an alarming lack of trust in corporations. A survey this year by IBM found that fewer than 20% of adult grocery shoppers indicate that they trust food companies to develop and sell food products that are safe and healthy. It’s no wonder people are starting to take matters into their own hands.

I suppose you can’t blame the corporations for trying to muscle in on the action. They wouldn’t be very successful companies if they didn’t. But a look at some of the latest marketing campaigns leaves me scratching my head. Corporate efforts at co-opting this movement are often clumsy at best. I wonder if they’re as off-putting to others as they are to me.

1.  My “favorite” recent action was by Starbucks.

After putting its less well-capitalized and often more quirkily authentic brethren out of business, sucking the soul out of the neighborhood coffee house, and commoditizing coffee to the point where consumers couldn’t see the difference between a $4.00 latte at Starbucks and a $2.00 latte from McDonalds, Starbucks was hurting. The company’s latest strategy involves “Unbranding” a few select stores by taking away the Starbuck’s look and logo and instead naming the stores after the neighborhoods that surround them. They are also sending spotters into independently owned shops and copying the look and feel, as well as sourcing the décor items locally. If it works, they’ll roll it out all over the country. Oh Goody. This one makes me want to choke on my home-brewed, fair trade, organic blend.

2. Another good one that got a lot more media attention was Lay’s Chips local campaign.

According to the company website, the campaign is meant to put a spotlight on potato farmers from California, Florida, Maine, Michigan and Texas that grow potatoes used in Lay’s Potato Chips. The theme line is “Happiness is Simple,” designed to “uniquely celebrate the brand, its place in Americana and role in bringing people together for life’s simple pleasures.” The campaign highlighted the simplicity of Lay’s Classic Potato Chips in a day and age where consumers are looking to keep things less complex. I don’t know if this would fly if the campaign showed the complicated machinery that harvests, transports, processes, packages and distributes the potatoes that makes those chips. I’ve got a simple idea: buy some potatoes from your local farmers’ market and roast them in olive oil at 400 degrees until brown and crisp. Save a few, cut them, dry them and stick them in the ground. Mound the dirt up around them. A few months later, you can dig up your own potatoes. I can tell you from experience that this works.

3. Then there’s the Eat Real, Eat Local campaign Hellman’s mayonnaise rolled out in Canada.

The campaign touts the fact that the eggs and canola oil used in the mayonnaise come from Canada. That’s all well and good, but it’s a processed food made from commodity crops, in factories, in a very very large country called Canada by a multinational company that also owns Lipton, Knorr, and personal care products Dove, Lux, and let’s not forget everyone’s favorite petroleum-based moisturizer, Vaseline. Come on.

4. Barnes & Noble has put together a video blog featuring “local booksellers” from all over the country.

Barnes and Noble Booksellers. Because as the site says, “All Bookselling is Local.” Really? I don’t think so. I’m all for promoting reading, but it would be nice if communities had the choice to shop at bookstores owned by people who live in their communities, spend money in their communities, feature local authors from that community and stock books of local interest. Now that’s local bookselling.

5. Whole Foods, Interloper?

Whole Foods has long touted its sales of local produce and the chain does do more than most of its competitors to support local farms. But it does something else that I find too slick by half. When it opens a new store in a new community, the store designers add touches of local color through themed displays, historical photos of the town or area, and murals.  Though it’s nice if they do hire local artists to create materials and I’m sure they sometimes do, and it no doubt makes for a pleasant shopping experience for the locals, to me it feels like a disingenuous way of establishing itself as part of the community and as an entity that has a history in the town, when it really isn’t and doesn’t.

6. Shop the local…box store.

Speaking of national chains masquerading as local stores, here’s a great article that details how shopping centers all over the country are rolling out “shop local” campaigns even though the stores in the shopping center are anything but local. Think Lowe’s, Wal-Mart, Target and other big boxes.

7. Localwashing

While we’re on the subject of Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart and other chains are increasingly highlighting locally-grown produce with big, hit-you-over-the head signage. But as this article details, much of the produce the signs highlight is anything but local, prompting a new word to be coined this spring: local washing.

All of these examples, like the fashion industry’s co-option of hip hop style, and the record companies’ mass marketing and replication of any fresh voice that comes along, are just part of living in a capitalist society. It can feel crushing sometimes. Looked at positively, it keeps us nimble, creative and active, in an effort to stay one step ahead of the marketers. Because once people get a taste of what it’s like to have something conceived of, built and shared among individuals – once we start to feel like humans, not just consumers – there’s no going back. It’s what keeps us innovative and what may ultimately save us.

Images: Ben Cumming, ginnerobot, grilled cheese, That Other Paper, elliottcable, fab4chiky

Now that you know all about the Top 10 Green iPhone Apps, here are some creative ways to be eco-friendly with your iPhone.

Instead of writing down your grocery list and wasting paper, record a voice memo.

Look up directions to a vegan restaurant and treat one of your pals to her first taste of tofu.

Shoot a short how-to video of an eco-friendly project and post it on the web.

Take a photo of Mother Nature’s handiwork and share it with your family.

E-mail these 10 Simple Steps to Sustainability to your friends.

Use the compass to navigate on a hike.

Check the weekly weather forecast and pick a sunny day to clean up litter at your local park.

Use the calculator to determine your carbon footprint.

Find a farmers market near you by searching Local Harvest online.

Call your friends and tell them about EcoSalon, of course!

Image: Yutaka Tsutano

As someone who lives and breathes food politics, agricultural sustainability and food justice on a daily basis, even I was surprised by some of the things I saw in this film. Food Inc. explosively details exactly how the food system serves the profit motives of just a few mega corporations, while failing to serve eaters, our health, the environment and the animals and workers trapped in the system.

In interviews, the filmmaker has said that he didn’t set out to make such a one-sided film but that the industries he profiled – Tyson, Monsanto, Smithfield, et al – wouldn’t agree to be interviewed or shown in the film. I don’t blame them. The information gathered from hidden cameras and interviews with brave individuals who don’t have a whole lot left to lose presents facts so damning and so incredible, it’s impossible to dispute them.

Anyone who agreed to talk on camera for this movie risked being sued. The mother who lost her young son to E. coli cannot say what she herself eats due to the risk of being sued for libel under the “veggie libel laws.”

Of all the food documentaries I’ve seen and food system exposés I’ve read, this film did a wonderful job of showing the human side of the injustices in our food system. Not just the environmental degradation or the lack of food safety, but the grinding human (and animal) oppression inherent in the system.

I was quite literally sick at the rampant and systemic injustices unleashed on farmers, farmworkers, animals, the environment and eaters as just a routine part of business-as-usual in the food industry.

If enough people see this film it could have the same impact that Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle had on the meat packing industry in the early part of the 20th century. I think there should be a campaign encouraging everyone who cares about food to take at least one person who doesn’t care about food to see this film: co-workers, mothers, fathers, friends and lovers…because if everyone sees it, nobody will stand for business-as-usual any longer.

In addition to the mother who lost her son due to tainted ground beef, the film profiles a variety of people, like ordinary working class citizens who would like to eat better than fast food, but cannot afford to; poultry house workers who toil under horrifying conditions and are utterly powerless (the industry recruits and buses workers from within Mexico); and farmers under contract to large corporations who have no say in how they run their businesses or treat their animals and who don’t even make a living wage.

A Tyson chicken farmer agreed to go on camera. She had her contract pulled because she refused to upgrade her chicken houses according to company specifications that would have prevented any light or air from getting into her already crowded, fetid and utterly nightmarish chicken houses. Chicken farmers make an average of only $18,000 a year as contract farmers for Tyson Corporation. If the chickens and the farmers are treated so poorly, can you imagine what the mostly undocumented immigrant processors are subjected to?

Then there’s the man who runs a seed cleaning business (which used to be common practice back when farmers saved seeds). Monsanto sued him. His crime? By cleaning seeds, he’s “encouraging farmers to violate Monsanto patents”.

Nevermind that these farmers are the last holdouts not using Monsanto’s seeds, and should have every right to clean and save the seeds they use. Scaring the hell out of any last resisters is this company’s way of ensuring complete and total ownership of the seed market. When the seed cleaner was sued, he lost most of his customers because they became fearful of being sued themselves. The man had only three acres of land to his name. He finally settled with Monsanto, rather than fight and risk losing what little he had.

There are many more stories like this, as well as enough examples of a different way of doing things, that you will leave the theater thinking more carefully about what you are actually buying when you buy food and inspired to support some of the mavericks out there who are doing it right.

At the end of the film, one farmer says that if the people start demanding better food, the farmers will step up and provide it. In fact, farmers would love to do so. Without the consumer’s support, the risk to farmers for switching to a healthier paradigm is too great. If farmers know they can make a living doing the right thing, they will. This is the one essentially hopeful fact about this film. We do have the power to change the system. It’s as simple as refusing to buy what the system is selling. Don’t know how? The film offers several easy ways to start as the credits roll. They’re also linked here.

Image: Senor Codo