Green Options

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A good friend sent me Daniel Gross’ post on Slate.com, “The Agony of the Food Snob.” The article is a bit self-deprecating, a bit of humor, and a bit of a poke to food snobs’ plight as food prices rise for all of us. At times the article points out the more stupid purchases that defy reason, and at others, it shows that none of us — save the very wealthy — is immune to the price increase.

The last line of the piece is truly a challenge to all food snobs, “We’re spending obscene amounts on food we don’t need at a time when so many others are genuinely struggling to pay for enough basic sustenance to get them through the day.”

I am not a food snob. I am also on a budget these days. Even so, I certainly enjoy the best foods of every season, and the relative abundance and the fact that I can afford to eat when so many can’t has been weighing on me. I needed to do something to help.
So, here’s how I answered the challenge.

Lovin’ Fresh is a series of recipes designed to showcase produce gathered from local farms or grown in my own garden.

Quiche is something I covet, particularly for brunch.  I personally enjoy it more when chilled, but any and all quiche is welcome to apply within (my mouth).   When my partner and I met, he was trying to go from vegetarian to vegan (a mission since abandoned due to our mutual “interest” in ice cream).  Being especially eager to prove my culinary prowess in those first few months of dating, I gave my first tofu quiche a whirl.   While I didn’t miss the eggs in the least, I did lament the absence of cheese.  So we compromised and now I have a “standard” tofu quiche recipe that I typically make with spinach.

Now, if you’re scrunching up your nose at the idea of an eggless quiche, don’t despair.  I’m sure if you have a standard quiche recipe of your own (or care to do a quick search for one), you can easily use the flavor components of this recipe with an egg base instead.

Editor’s note: Thinking about a kitchen remodel? This week, Low Impact Living takes a look at every element of kitchen use, and how you can both make the space more efficient, more livable, and more earth-friendly. This post was originally published on September 7, 2007.

You may not know it, but your kitchen is one of the biggest resource hogs in your house. You use electricity and natural gas for your appliances. You use water in your sink and dish washer. Your fridge is stocked with foods grown and transported from all over the world that require chemicals, water and fuel to be produced and transported. And then there’s the non-recyclable packaging that goes straight to a landfill.

Here is a list of things you can do in your kitchen to lower your environmental impact, and also to live in a healthier home. We have recommendations for appliances, products and new behaviors.

Any chance you are planning a kitchen remodel? We also have great recommendations for you– wonderful new materials for countertops,cabinets and floors, leads on top-rated green architects and interior designers, and more. Just scroll down if you’re focused on a remodel.

Get Green in the Kitchen

1. Use energy-saving appliances. You can greatly reduce your power and water usage and your greenhouse gas production by using Energy Star appliances. Energy Star appliances can save as much as 50% of your energy and water use, and can cut your carbon footprint by 1000+ pounds, compared to standard appliances. Click here to see Energy Star models.

2. Use compact fluorescent lighting. Compact fluorescent lights use 1/4 the energy and last up to 10 times as long as standard bulbs. And they come in versions that are dimmable, recessed-ready, and daylight spectrum–any version of light type you can think of. Each high-use bulb you replace will save up to $10 and 100 pounds of carbon dioxide per year, and they last for many years. Click here to see our wide range of CF lighting options.

3. Recycle and Re-use. Can you rinse that ziplock and use it again? Can you reuse the containers you got from take-out? And don’t get plastic bags every time you go to the store for groceries– take durable reusable sacks with you. Click here for reusable grocery bags..

Lovin’ Fresh is a series of recipes
designed to showcase produce gathered
from local farms or grown in my own garden

What’s your favorite mythological creature? Unicorns? The Loch Ness Monster?  The Yetti?  Lake Champlain’s Champ?  El Chupacabra?  Up until yesterday, I might have said the Fiddlehead, had I been asked.   Like all the previously named questionable characters, there are many pictures to prove their existence (heck, there’s even a picture on one of my sets of business cards), and yet, somehow, I’d never seen one for myself.  The curly heads rising up on slender necks from the forest floor resemble an other-worldly creature for sure.  And in the culinary world, fiddlehead ferns are almost unmatched in their elusive promises of gourmet delight, much like morels or truffles. 

Parents are often looking for a healthy alternative to the standard, sugary, preservative-filled birthday cake for their baby’s introduction to the wonderful traditions of birthdays. We’ve heard from parents looking for ways to buy an egg-free cake, to those seeking recipes for “healthy” cakes, or even whether to make/buy two cakes (one for Baby, one for adults). To answer the last question first – there is no reason to create extra work for yourself, make or buy one cake, relax and congratulate yourself for making it through the first year! Most people will be gracious guests and enjoy whatever is served. And let’s not lose sight of the real reason for the birthday cake - THE PHOTO. We do it all for the precious scrapbook shot of your cake-faced little one delighting in being the life of the party!

Here are some ideas that keep the tradition of the birthday cake treat, but add some healthy twists (you can use these ideas for any age!):

Egg-free: If your baby has not been introduced to whole eggs by their first birthday, this is probably not the occasion to give them a try. Many egg substitutes contain eggs, so to be safe, look for cake and frosting mixes labeled “vegan” which are free of all animal products. You’ll need to go to a health food store to find these products. Or jump on the Internet, Vegan Baker is one company that offers cake and frosting mixes. If baking is not for you, many urban cities also have vegan bakeries too – check the Yellow Pages or ask someone at a vegetarian restaurant.

Regardless of how “green” we consider ourselves, we’re all concerned about the quality of the food we put on our own plates and serve to our families. Tonight, the Sundance Channel’s The Green explores the world of food, from farm to plate. It’s award-winning series Big Ideas for a Small Planet profiles a large food processor, a wine-maker, and a New Mexico high school student who are all doing their part to reject industrial-scale agriculture, and the bland, homogeneous food it produces. Following that, Sundance presents the documentary All In This Tea from directors Les Blank (Burden of Dreams) and Gina Leibrecht.

You swap out your light bulbs for energy-efficient ones, keep your house as chilled as a meat locker in winter, bicycle to work, eat little meat and drive a hybrid — yet nagging at you is this thought: Do my small actions make a difference? Author Michael Pollan says they do.

In last week’s Sunday New York Times Magazine (4.20.08), Pollan wrote a provocative essay, “Why Bother? Looking for a few good reasons to go green.” In it, he wrestles with those lurking questions about our everyday choices to stave off global warming. Some excerpts:

Let’s say I do bother, big time. I turn my life upside-down…, but what would be the point when I know full well that halfway around the world there lives my evil twin, some carbon-footprint doppelgänger in Shanghai or Chongqing who has just bought his first car (Chinese car ownership is where ours was back in 1918), is eager to swallow every bite of meat I forswear and who’s positively itching to replace every last pound of CO2 I’m struggling no longer to emit. So what exactly would I have to show for all my trouble?

He looks at the reasons we find for not doing anything: “There are so many stories we can tell ourselves to justify doing nothing,” he writes.

And yet, he resoundingly concludes that those little things are worth the bother.

Lovin’ Fresh is a series of recipes
designed to showcase produce gathered
from local farms or grown in my own garden.

I tip my hat to the plate in the picture below - without it I likely wouldn’t have made cake with sweet little Purple Haze and Kinko carrots, making the best carrot cake ever thanks to the intense natural flavors of the farm fresh carrots grated right before I tossed them in the batter. I give the plate credit because looking at it sitting empty on my counter made me think of cake. With young carrots being one of the early birds to show up in the farmers market in spring, carrot cake makes a perfect seasonal dessert that a clever eater can justify as getting his or her daily dose of vitamin C.

Carrot cake’s nothing new or exciting for me, but I’ve usually “cheated” in the past by using the bagged shredded carrots from the supermarket since I’m a little lazy and usually pressed for time. I’ll not make that mistake again. If you haven’t tried getting local carrots to put in your cake, you’d be well advised to do so. The other key, of course, is the freshness of your spices. People, if you’re aren’t grating your own nutmeg by now, get yourself a microplane and see what you’re missing!

We’re pleased to publish the first of a new weekly feature at Ecoscraps: Peter Menice and Brad Gilchrist’s “Shades of Green” comic strip. Peter’s an editorial cartoonist for the Hull Times, and Brad is the current co-creator of “Nancy,” and worked with Jim Henson on “The Muppets” comic strip. You can find more of their work together at The Green House.

Following, organized by region, are the top international environmental news for during the week of April 20 - 27. See an archive of top international environmental news here.

Asia

Working the land the natural way: Organic farming in China

It’s been almost four years since the project was launched, and of the nine households who have tried organic farming, only four are still at it. The others decided it just wasn’t worth it. Organic farming requires much more labor, the yield can be half or less of that of conventional farming, and besides, hardly anyone in Chengdu is eating organic. Our stock broker-turned-farmer estimates their customer base to be only 0.01% of Chengdu’s population.

Anlong farmer Gao Shengjian believes there’s a link between the use of pesticides and fertilizers on farms and the growing incidences of various diseases among the rural population.

Source: Crossroads China. Vote for this article in social media: StumbleUpon.

China down to 12 days worth of coal

China only has enough coal for 12 days of consumption, three days less than a month ago, state media reported Wednesday, sounding the alarm bells over the nation’s most important source of energy.

This week and the one before it, I have covered various aspects of the global food crisis and focussed especially on the predicament of the world’s poor as food prices spiral, and the likely contributors to the problem of inadequate food supply vis-a-vis the cost of basic foodstuff.

On April 12, we looked at how starvation and anger were driving millions to protest in the streets demanding government action. But social unrest can only be avoided when the hungry are assured of plentiful availability of their staples at prices they can afford.

We looked at perspectives on the crisis in 19 Myths and Facts on Global Food Crisis on April 21 and compared experiences of a protester in Damascus, Syria and a stay-at-home mother in Cairo, Egypt. We also quoted several world leaders and experts on biofuels, now being mentioned widely in connection with the diversion of traditional food crops to produce “cleaner” fuel.

Lastly, on April 23, we journeyed together through 12 World’s Largest Biofuel Plants, most of them in the US. Today, to cap this week’s insights on the global food crisis, I present (some of) the figures behind the whole story: