Green Options

As some of my colleagues and I wondered Friday (with less people) then Saturday (bobbed and weaved through the packed crowds) through the San Francisco Green Festival 2009 and we put aside any thoughts of the outside the green world bubble with the economic woes, with so many downtrodden uncreative businesses sticking to the old game plan. Here we viewed, tasted and discussed fresh innovative and mostly sustainable ideas.

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Terri Bly, president of The Nature of Beauty, reviews Sweet Riot, a mission-focused, women-owned company dedicated to providing the most delicious chocolate in the world through environmentally-responsible and ethical business practices.

“Whoever consumes this chocolate will manifest optimal health and functioning at physical, emotional and mental levels, and in particular will enjoy an increased sense of energy, vigor and well-being for the benefit of all beings.”

Above is the intention fused into Intentional Chocolate. We are all familiar with the power of positive intention, yet did you realize it could be infused into chocolate? The blessing of food with an intention has been practiced for thousands of years within spiritual traditions and sacred ceremonies which place a certain positive form of energy into the food that is then offered for consumption.

Dr. Dean Radin, PhD, Senior Scientist at The Institute of Noetic Sciences and author of Entangled Minds and The Conscious Universe shares:

“The mood-enhancing effects of the focused intentions embedded in Intentional Chocolate were successfully demonstrated in a statistically significant, double-blind, placebo-controlled experiment, and published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.”

The concept is good - a completely sustainable Formula 3 race car. But the products used, well, that may be another story. The race car is made from woven flax and carrot pulp as well as recycled carbon fibre and recycled resin. In addition it uses biodiesel made from chocolate and animal fats and is lubricated with plant oils. Hungry anyone?

According to EPSRC funded researcher Dr. Kerry Kirwan with the University of Warwick, the car is not just environmentally friendly, but also fast boasting a top speed of 135 mph and can go 0-60 mph in 2.5 seconds. Oh, and did I mention it’s turbo charged to give it more torque?

Using food as a resource in biofuel production is one of the biggest mistakes our country could make. And while we all shake our heads at the idea of corn ethanol…what about using turkey innards? Or Mountain Dew for that matter.

Shaq Wants Your Leftover Beer and Wine for Making Ethanol

First, who ever has leftover alcohol except maybe these guys? The Shaq-backed MicroFueler is a 250-gallon tank for organic feedstock, such as waste wine and beer, that converts it into pure ethanol. It also doubles as a fuel pump and the only waste product is distilled water.

Summer is my favorite season.  It’s the time of year for sunset barbecues and dinners on the patio, and for strings of tiny Italian lights and flickering Moroccan lanterns. Summer plays the beautiful hostess of longer days and breezy nights, polka-dotted sundresses, and peals of joyful laughter coming from children playing in the backyard.

There’s no better time than summer to indulge in a sliver of chocolate cake, so rich in contrast to the simplicity of the gingham tablecloth and the mason jars overflowing with wildflowers.   This cake is made without using wheat, corn, or dairy ingredients, yet it is unmistakably, deliciously, chocolate.

My kids love to make muffins, and one of their favorite vegan recipes is for chocolate chip muffins. We like to put a special dash of bran on the bottom and a dash of coconut on top for an extra treat.  If you’ve never tried chocolate chips in a muffin, you will be pleasantly surprised!  These muffins are quick and easy to make, but be warned:  they will be eaten up quickly!

[Creative Commons photo by nicubunu]
From the land involved to the waste produced, conventional dairy production has a huge environmental impact. Not only is conventional dairy not great for the planet, it’s not so great for you. You can do yourself and your body a favor but cutting back on or cutting out the dairy in your diet.

Whenever folks learn that I don’t eat dairy products, there are certain questions they seem to always ask. One of the most common is:

But don’t you miss chocolate?

The assumption is that chocolate has to contain milk, and that’s just not true at all. What makes chocolate….chocolate…is cocoa butter which despite its name is a plant ingredient. There are tons of companies making great dark chocolate that is 100% vegan and 100% delicious! Finding vegan chocolate is as easy as taking the time to do a bit of label-reading. While you might not be able to just grab a Hershey bar, you don’t have to live a chocolate-free existence, either. Here are just a few tasty options:

A team of British designers have created a new racing car made entirely of vegetables and powered by … chocolate.

The car, named the ecoF3, has a steering wheel made of carrots, a body made of potatoes and a seat made of soybeans. The team, from World First Racing, hope that environmentally-friendly technology used in their car will be adopted by Formula 1 teams such as McLaren and world champions Ferrari.

Raw nuts are a healthy addition to any diet, and in my house we go through them almost faster than we can buy them.  They’re a great snack on their own, added to recipes, or turned into milk.

Every week after I’ve make homemade nut milk (our favorites are almond or Brazil nut) I’m left with nut pulp I’ve strained out of the milk mixture.

This pulp (which by the way can be frozen for later use) is great when dried and ground into nut flour, or used in recipes like the raw truffles my family enjoys so much.

This recipe is quick, easy, healthy, and delicious!

Cadbury’s, the firm which makes Diary Milk, Britain’s highest-selling chocolate has said that it wants the bar to be Fairtrade certified by the autumn of this year.