Green Options

If you’re a Whole Foods shopper who occasionally peruses the market’s free pamphlets and brochures, you might know a thing or two about the dangers of irradiated food–at least, that’s where I learned about it. We hear a lot of talk about harmful ingredients: dyes, preservatives, trans fats, and HFCS, for instance, but little is mentioned about this equally harmful process that can alter the molecular composition of the food you eat, damaging valuable vitamins, minerals, and enzymes, all in the name of making said food safer.

During irradiation, food is exposed to ionizing radiation in an effort to destroy microorganisms, viruses, bacteria, or insects that could be dangerous if consumed by people. In addition to sanitizing our food, irradiation can also be used to prevent sprouting, delay ripening, or increase juice yield–in other words, messing with a fruit or vegetable’s natural life process or progression. How exactly does irradiation achieve all these things? By damaging the DNA of the food in question, basically stunting any growth.

Considering how much time and effort is spent attempting to halt or reverse DNA damage to our own cells, then, it’s ironic that more attention isn’t paid to the process of food irradiation. We’re constantly told to eat more fruits and vegetables because they contain antioxidants, the things that fight free radicals (which are responsible for oxidation and thus, cell damage!) However, the vast majority of produce in this country is irradiated, therefore containing the very stuff we try so desperately to avoid!

Pretty strange, huh? Behind the jump, there’s a bunch more reasons why you should avoid irradiated food.

I am not a big fan of pasteurized milk, even organic. It just seems like milk flavored water with much of the nutrition and all of the enzymes being killed during the pasteurization process. For several years now we have opted to buy raw milk or make homemade almond milk instead. Both are much healthier and easier on the stomach. Conventional milk is not an option for me in fact as the moment I drink I get dehibilitating stomach aches. To me this means I just shouldn’t be drinking it.

Making almond milk is incredibly easy once you get your system down and my kids think it is incredibly delicious. They will drink it straight, add it to cereal, or use it to make chocolate milk or banana milk smoothies. Since I use raw organic almonds, I get to rest easy knowing that their milk, or “mylk” as many refer to it, is healthier for their little bodies and healthier for the planet. Nuts are an essential fuel for the body too. To make it I just follow these simple steps:

After a $90 million shot in the arm from oil giant BP back in August, second generation cellulosic ethanol pioneer Verenium has started production of ethanol from non-food sources such as wood chips, grass straw, and trash at their Jennings Louisiana demonstration plant (PDF). This is the first such plant to begin operation in the US.

As most of the first generation corn ethanol world has started to exit stage left in a loud and raucous way, the pioneers of second generation cellulosic ethanol — what I like to call “celluline” — have been quietly conducting dress rehearsals for their grand entrance.

And now the world of cellulosic ethanol has an honest-to-goodness demonstration plant to prove that it works. The plant will produce 1.4 million gallons of ethanol a year. Although it’s not at the commercial scale yet (60+ MGY), this represents a huge leap forward for second generation ethanol, which to this point has been full of promises but lacking on deliverables.

Researchers at the University of Florida are reporting that the enzymes in the guts of termites could provide a powerful tool for making ethanol from non-food woody plants.

In an upcoming review paper, professor Michael Scharf details how termites — which cause hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to houses in the US alone each year — might actually prove useful for something that most people could never have envisioned.

Through millions of years of evolution, termites have filled a niche in the animal world that takes precise chemical coordination between the digestive enzymes and microbes in their guts to turn the wood that they eat into sugars which can then be used to “fuel” the termite.

It is this seemingly easy transformation of wood into sugar in the termite guts that holds the promise for future ethanol production, because, once you have the sugar, it’s easy to make ethanol through fermentation.

It seems that BP is trying to make up for lost time — the worldwide oil giant has invested $90 million in cellulosic ethanol company, Verenium. This is BP’s first foray into the world of cellulosic ethanol (ethanol derived from non-food crops), and man is it a gigantic one.

The money will be distributed to Verenium over the next 18 months, with a likelihood of further investment and cooperation beyond that point. Under the agreement, BP will have broad access to Verenium’s research, production facilities, and technology.

Although relatively late to the fray, BP thinks this investment gives them the “most advanced technology for transforming [cellulosic material] to biofuels,” as Sue Ellerbusch, president of BP Biofuels North America said.

Verenium claims to have the edge in cellulosic ethanol production through genetic engineering of the microbes required to turn the cellulosic material (switchgrass, wood chips, sugarcane bagasse, miscanthus) into ethanol.