But as you can see, I’m already overloaded with info.  Do I need another food preservation book?  Not really, until I read Sharon Astyk’s latest book:  Independence Days:  A Guide to Sustainable Food Storage & Preservation, a new release from the fine folks at New Society Publishers.  Lots of books, those on my shelves included, successfully detail the “how” of food preservation, from water bath timings to prolific pickling techniques.  Independence Days freshly blends “how” with “why,” serving up a modern take on stocking up and why this plays a vital role in our future survival as a planet.

Astyk’s approach, blending practical information and big picture context with a hefty dose of personal anecdotes and essays, nurtures readers into realizing they are doing more than creating a January supper when one puts up tomatoes in July.  We’re collectively part of a larger, strategic, hands-on revolution in kitchens across America to change the way we approach food, sustainability and life.

Here’s a sampling of fresh, inspiring perspectives I harvested from Independence Days:

Read more of this story »

My kid is in pre-school. Clearly I have hit a rut with lunch box creativity when the single-least adventurous eating demographic is griping. Must be time for some inspiration. Or just more time. Packing lunches is tough, to get specifically “lunch” items, it means adding a third more cooking to your life. That said, with what passes for the average school lunch, it’s time well spent.

Jennifer McCann’s second book, Vegan Lunch Box Around the World, may offer some creative inspiration not just for vegans, but for all of us brown bagging, or reusable, BPA-free bento-ing, these days. Kids, too. The recipes are described as menus for a different country, state or region covering places as diverse as from Kansas to Morocco. Many of the recipes sound intriguing, including Stuffed Dates, Moroccan Tagine, Palak Paneer, and a Basil Salad with Lime and Curry Dressing. These are well worth exploring, especially given the large following of McCann’s award-winning blog “Vegan Lunch Box.”

Read more of this story »

But I digress.  Suffice it to say, there are naysayers who don’t want us to live well, to live with a lower carbon footprint by producing our own food.  Kimberly Willis and Rob Ludlow, co-authors of Raising Chickens for Dummies, can be counted among those that are dispelling these myths and empowering the people. 

Read more of this story »

In the 1930s, Americans still ate mostly local, seasonal food prepared in traditional fashion. That was all soon to change. The national highway system enabled goods to travel across country quickly. Refrigerators and freezers were becoming commonplace in ordinary homes. Madison Avenue found new advertising techniques to convince consumers to buy processed, packaged foods. Old traditions were dying out fast and the unique flavors of the different regions of the United States would soon find competition with the blander, more uniform flavors of chain restaurants.

The Work Projects Administration assigned writers to document local recipes and food customs from all over the United States in an effort to preserve a moment in history — as well as employ writers who would otherwise have starved during the Great Depression. The writings were to have been collected in a single volume called America Eats, but with World War II, the economy improved and writers no longer had to be dependent on the government for employment. The notes and essays sat in storage for many years. Mark Kurlansky, author of many acclaimed nonfiction books, including Cod and Salt, selected several of the writings from America Eats for the The Food of a Younger Land.

Read more of this story »

Tuesday, Tina Seelig spoke at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco about her new book “What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20“, and her words can be a great reminder of how fun (and important) being an entrepreneur is, if your motivation or energy ever diminishes.

Seelig’s first point is that problems are opportunities; bigger problems are bigger opportunities. Playing a video clip of Vinod Khosla saying something to the effect of, “No one is going to pay you to solve a small problem.” So, if you’re overwhelmed, it could be a good sign. You may have taken on a very worthwhile opportunity.

You can see other videos of speakers at the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, which Seelig heads at ecorner.Stanford.edu. A free Stanford education!

Read more of this story »

The book is a companion to help one further explore the issues raised in the documentary, Food, Inc. Starring Eric Schlosser and directed by Robert Kenner.  I haven’t yet had the opportunity to watch the documentary, but I’m near to frothing and not sure I can wait for it to hit DVD and my Netflix queue.

The companion book contains 13 essays to explore the facts behind the problems we see in the news every day, issues like hunger, human rights, tainted food and pollution.

Read more of this story »

“Jared’s nutritional advice in Clean Plates has the power to transform your individual health and our collective well-being.” Deepak Chopra, M.D., chairman and co-founder of The Chopra Centers for Wellbeing.

Read more of this story »

For most people, the beginning of summer is marked simply by Memorial Day weekend. I, on the other hand, need something more: Ice cream. More specifically, a scoop of ice cream in a sugar cone on a warm, sunny day. Being vegan, I wasn’t super interested in the ice cream run my family took to the local Dairy Bar over the holiday weekend, but that’s OK, because as of today, I can make my own ice cream. The Vegan Scoop: 150 Recipes for Dairy-Free Ice Cream That Tastes Better Than the “Real Thing” is finally available!

Read more of this story »

The book covers many of the current issues like food choices, food miles, food labels and sustainable seafood choices. It also ventures into some new territory with information on reducing packaging waste, greenest kitchen tools, kitchen waste and how to store foods to get the longest life from them.

Read more of this story »

Earth Day takes place this April 22nd.

As a green leader or entrepreneur, the day begs the question, what will you be doing?

In a mad public relations world that anchors on events as a tangible “touch point” in lieu of diving into the messier (and harder to track or control) world of ‘awareness’, Earth Day is one of many symbols (i.e. polar bears) we use when speaking to some of the starker and concrete practices of the planet’s ecological anxieties.

Read more of this story »

Noted fiction author Barbara Kingsolver takes a non-fiction tact in her most recent book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and documents her family move to a farm in rural Appalachia and attempt to grow all their own food for an entire year.  The book touches on issues ranging from food sustainability, food networks, and how the food choices of just one family can impact the local food system.

Kingsolver attempts to document the attempt to eat completely local food for an entire year, and does it in a collaborative effort with her family.  One of the unique features of the book is the inclusion of her spouse and children in the writing process.  In each chapter, her husband Steven Hopp adds poignant commentary about social and environmental issues in short diary entries, and her teenage daughter Camille integrates personal anecdotes, canning ideas and seasonal produce recipes.  Having each family member (with the exception of her grade school daughter) contribute to the writing process gives the book a more intimate, personal feel and it demonstrates the cohesiveness of their family as they strive toward their common goal.

Read more of this story »

Be Gorgeously Green with author Sophie Uliano and learn how to go lean and green with her new book: the Gorgeously Green Diet: Save Money and the Planet.

Uliano knows that the best way to help our beautiful planet earth is to better care for our food choices. Her book offers hundreds of ecolicious recipes and ways to stay on a budget and save money, while eating green.

Sophie’s first book made the New York Times Bestseller list and she keeps us updated on new developments via her blog. Right now she is offering coupons for pre-orders of her new book.

Read more of this story »

Yipee!

Finally, there’s a book for moms who are looking to go green that doesn’t make them feel like a failure. I’ve always been pretty green. It was recent that I realized that a lot of my peers don’t think about sustainable living. I’d just assumed that everyone went through the same processes that I did.

What I didn’t realize is that a lot of women (especially parents) felt like they had to do everything. By “everything” I mean everything from green cleaning products to the diva cup to growing their own food, and by being made to feel like a perennial failure, many parents are unwilling to attempt any part of a sustainable life, for fear of being mocked.

Read more of this story »

The authors, Robert Brunner (once a product designer for Apple and now a principal in the design firm Pentagram) and Stewart Emery (author of “Success Built to Last” and a leader in the Human Potential Movement) did not just rely on their own experience, but also relate numerous case studies about what other companies have done right in developing design-driven (and customer needs focused) organizations.

As you can see on the authors’ site, they are not just talking about package design and logos. The briefest synopsis of the book is, “We’re talking about design as a total concept—not just about how a product looks, but how the product operates, how it sounds, and how it feels. Also included in this idea of design is the quality of your purchase experience, of what happens when you actually open up the box, how you start to feel, and what all this communicates to you. And of course, there is the chain of events through which you became aware of the product. This is part of the design connection too—what all those touch points mean to you as a customer.”

One point I particularly liked is, “If you have your own brand-driven approach to design, others can’t really take this from you. People can try to copy it, but they they become merely derivative. If you do a good job at it, you have something that becomes a very strong and defensible strategy… when a customer purchases your product or pays for your service, they feel they have joined something.”

Read more of this story »

But while colorful photos of expertly-arranged super foods may be appealing and even inspiring, the relentless demands and limitations of everyday life often call for something more practical.  It is moments like this when recipes from the classic More-with-Less Cookbook, in its 47th printing, never fail to impress.

Read more of this story »

1. Sustainable practices are proving to make business sense—but ethics also have to play a role. We all know that sustainable business, is good business. For example, a recent Aberdeen Group study of green practices among retailers found that green mandates were “essential cost control and customer service practices.” On average, best-in-class retailers achieved a 20% decrease in energy costs, an 8% decrease in their overall logistics and transport costs, and a 5% decrease in merchandise costs through their green initiatives. But, Schendler says, ROI is not enough:

“Ethics have to play a role…an economic pitch in a vacuum may not make sense to managers if there’s no context, no broader environmental mission within the company.”

His point is that it may be easier to “sell” sustainability when you start by getting everyone at the table to agree/admit that businesses have a responsibility to help protect the environment.

2. Do a sexy project. Schendler’s advice is to start the greening process with things that you will find fun to implement. Things that interest you. Things that are sexy. This will get everyone engaged.

Read more of this story »

 I decided to go big with the event.  Host it at a nightclub.  Provide hors d’ouvres.  Co-host with a non-profit group and raise money for them during the evening as well.  Solicit over $2,000 worth of gift certificates to raffle away.  Send out invitations to over 2,000 people. 

In other words, we were ready for success. 

Read more of this story »

75 Green Businesses You Can Start to Make Money and Make a Difference

by Glenn Croston, Ph.D

This book is a nice complement to Ecopreneuring by John Ivanko and Lisa Kivirist, in that while the latter is a lifestyle book, i.e., what would it be like to be a social entrepreneur, this book cuts to the chase and describes, as its title says, 75 different green business opportunities that people can start.  It gives a relative scale on how much capital may be required, and how long it may take to get started for each kind of business.

The potential market for this book is huge.  As described in the preface, “77% of Americans are concerned about the environment and feel it is urgent to get involved and make a difference.”  Add this sentiment to the powerful entrepreneurial spirit in this country, and the center of your Venn Diagram becomes a large and potentially powerful group. 

Croston describes opportunities as diverse as sugarcane ethanol production to

Read more of this story »

Ecopreneuring:  Putting People and Planets Before Profit, by John Ivanko and Lisa Kivirist. 

“One of the biggest ironies of our growth model is that we’re coming to relize that it has failed to make our society particularly satisfied–indeed, the number of americans who say they’re very happy with their lives was higher in 1956 than it is today, though the standard of living has trebled over that half century.”
Bill McKibben, in the Foreword. 

In Ecopreneuring, Ivanko (a writer for Ecopreneurist) and Kivirist give us an inside view of what it’s like to be a social entrepreneur.  There are frequent interviews with other social entrepreneurs, as well as an in-depth look at the Inn Serendipity (Ivanko and Kivirist’s green bed & breakfast), as models of social entrepreneurship lifestyles and business models. 

If you’re wondering who these social entrepreneurs are, how they operate, how they think, and what their values and lifestyles are, this book demystifies it all–and replaces the conventional American Dream along the way. 

Read more of this story »

In Small Is Possible: Life in a Local Economy, Estill chronicles the failures and victories of an ongoing movement for sustainability and local resiliency in Chatham County, located in the piedmont region of North Carolina. Estill is a legitimate source on the subject: he co-founded Piedmont Biofuels, a biodiesel co-op that went from backyard operation into an industrial plant in a few short years. He has recorded his adventures with biodiesel and other sustainable businesses in his first book, Biodiesel Power, as well as in local newspaper columns and on his own Energy Blog.

The Daniels of Chatham County

The characters in Estill’s world are both entertaining and endearing. Many of them show a flinty defiance, positioning themselves as courageous Daniels against the Goliaths of corporate greed and globalization. Just as important, they are also innovators and risk-takers. The author often leads the charge with business incubators, co-housing experiments, agricultural experiments, and college loan schemes that keep money in town.

Keeping track of this book’s huge cast of characters is not easy. It doesn’t make for smooth reading, but it does illustrate Estill’s intimate knowledge of his neighbors and the gains he’s made to foster interdependent networks of sustainable enterprise. “Good ‘economic development’ is little more than an effective Rolodex,” he writes, thereby dispelling the mystery. What Estill calls “Hometown Security” is possible. Theory can become practice.

Readers interested in academic arguments for local economies can find other books on the subject, but if they want a compelling story about noble attempts to walk the talk, Small Is Possible delivers.

Image Credit: The Abundance Foundation