Green Options

My bookshelves creak with the weight of my amassed food preservation resource collection.  As we grow over 70 percent of our food needs on our Wisconsin farm and B&B, Inn Serendipity, the how-to behind stocking up has always been area of personal, passionate research.

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:

In 2006 I attended a BIO meeting in Toronto focused on the new bio-based economy.  Oil had just risen to $70/barrel and it was a time when environmental NGOs, biotech companies and even oil companies seemed to be on the “same page” in terms of their enthusiasm for moving to plant-based feedstocks as the perfect alternative to oil dependency.  With the very obvious international security costs of the oil economy, and what were then thought to be unimaginable energy costs, it was a remarkable sort of celebration event for all the alternative energy and materials folks who has suffered under the decades of cheap oil.  As much as I was happy to see such “multi-stakeholder” agreement, I was sad because anyone with an agricultural perspective could see a train-wreck coming.

People were making presentations about cool second generation innovations like “Cellulosic” ethanol from sources like switchgrass or Miscanthus and also about ethanol alternatives like butanol.  People were talking about bio-materials for even things like the auto industry.  However; the side conversations were about the huge boom underway in the corn ethanol industry.  Orders for stainless steel tanks were back-logged two years.  What had started as a local, farmer-cooperative funded industry had become a venture capital frenzy.  I could see that long before the promise of “second generation” biofuels could be realized, corn ethanol would get to be big enough that it would end up fracturing the amazing consensus about the bio-economy that was functioning at that conference. 

Around 1300 c.e. the Yao and Zhuang people of Guangdong Province in Southern China faced a serious problem.  In the Longsheng area there was a growing population, but their mountainous surroundings gave them very little land that could be used for farming.  They needed more food and so they turned to technology for the solution.  What they did was to terrace their mountainsides even up to slopes of 45%. I’m sure that the method was perfected over the 400 years of building.  What they were able to do is still an impressive example of civil engineering, even today.  Using stones and mud they built terrace walls that stand firm even with the torrential downpours that are common in the area.  They used bamboo piping to distribute water to each paddy - some so narrow that they only have room for two rows of rice.  This production system has remained productive for centuries when many other contemporary farming societies around the world simply depleted one area and moved on to the next.  These terraces are called Longji, or the ”Dragon’s Spine” and they now extend over 66 square kilometers.  They are both beautiful and inspiring.

Just in case you were thinking about indulging in some sweet treats today, I would like to offer you the option to take the healthier road. Sometimes it can take a visual aid to open your eyes and force you to take a cold hard look at what you are actually putting in your body or feeding to your family. Luckily, Sugar Stacks has put together an array of photos for us.  Unluckily, there are many items on their website that a lot of folks may consume on any given day, slowly causing their body to deteriorate without even realizing it.

Each food item is paired with the actual amount of sugar it contains stacked up in pretty little cubes. Each cube equals a teaspoon of sugar. Since they do not differentiate between different kinds of sugar, its important to know that natural sugars found in fruit and vegetables will be metabolized differently then the sugar found in a can coke or your favorite Frappachino. In my article on Natural Sweeteners, I explain that not all sweeteners are created equal. When it comes to refined sweeteners like white table sugar, high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners like NutraSweet and Splenda, there are many side effects and health risks to take into consideration.

It’s time to face reality. It’s time to ask your self, what have I been putting in my body? Would I ever just eat the nearly 10 cubes of sugar that are the soda I just drank?  Can I make a smarter choice then this? You may have seen these before, but in my opinion, if you are still eating and drinking these items on a regular basis, you can never see them too much. For even more photos go to Sugarstacks.com.

Going Meatless on Mondays doesn’t have to mean deprivation of all your favorite foods. By making some simple changes to recipes, you can easily swap out the animal products for vegan options. Here is a simple veganized muffin recipe, so you can start your Meatless Monday off with delicious, healthy, energizing and decadent baked good.

Tibetan Goji Berries are regarded in Tibet as the “Fruit of Longevity and Well Being”. Goji berries have been traditionally regarded as a food that offers your body longevity, strength-building, and sexual potency. Goji’s are a complete protein source and a low calorie snack that strengthens your immune system, increases energy and helps to curb cravings. It has one of the highest antioxidant contents in all food, which helps to fight free radicals, keeping you young and vibrant. Goji’s contain 18 amino acids, vitamin C, beta-carotene, 20 rare trace minerals, vitamin B1, B2 and B6 and vitamin E.

In honor of this Meatless Monday, let’s boost our energy, keep ourselves looking and feeling young and chow down on some delicious vegan, anti-aging muffins.

The chart above shows the historical average yields for wheat and corn in the US.  Note that until the 1930s the relative yields of the crops were similar and were not changing.  After that time yields of both crops began to rise steadily, but corn yields have grown at a much faster pace.  What explains this difference?

There are several interacting factors behind this, and they work together to create the “orphan” status of wheat as a crop.  Corn is a hybrid crop which enhances its yield and the ease of increasing its yield through breeding.  Wheat is harder to hybridize so it isn’t practical except for extremely high yielding wheat areas like Northern Europe.  Instead, US wheat is largely a “saved seed crop” meaning that the grower can simply save back some of the grain and replant it rather than needing to buy new hybrid seed each year.  That system is workable, particularly if the grower periodically buys some “certified seed” to have a purer stand and to take advantage of breeding improvements.  The down-side of a “saved seed crop” is that there is not a very big private seed industry to invest in the crop.  Most of the breeding is done by University and USDA breeder supported by tax dollars and there is a small private industry as well.  As I said in the previous post, these breeders have done a remarkable job with the resources they have, but in an increasingly ag-unaware society, that support is never generous.

As the dog days of summer come to an end, a 3 course, no cooking required meal sounds pretty good to me. Turn that stove off, shut down the oven, choose to go meatless this Monday and cool off with this appetizer, main course and dessert.

A polar bear is the perfect example of “Charismatic Megafauna” - the kind of animal whose image can easily be used to generate sympathy.  I care about polar bears as much as anyone, but I’m a little concerned about how images of animals like this are being used to promote Climate Change awareness and to fund-raise for environmental organizations. If we are going to make the personal life-style changes, the new business strategies, and the public policy decisions to counter this threat, we need to do it with a clear-eyed understanding of what is at stake.  The “faces” we should be thinking about are those of starving people in poor nations.

According to the folks over at Eat This Not That, there are certain nutrients you should try to eat every day for optimum health. In case you needed a few more reasons to cut back on overly processed and animal based foods, all of the nutrients just happen to be found in natural plant based sources. Not only will you be helping your body by following these guidelines, but by choosing to eat a diet rich in plant based foods, you’ll be lowing your carbon footprint and saving the environment at the same time. It doesn’t get much better then that. Here’s a list of my top 5 of the recommended plant based foods, along with the nutrients they provide for your body and easy ways to start incorporating them into your diet today.

How do you save dying species of agriculturally valuable plants and animals?  The answer may be as simple as what’s on your dinner plate.

A recent article outlined the “eat ‘em to save ‘em” method of biodiversity protection.  Simply put, rare varieties of plants and animals can be saved if consumers demand them.  Asking your grocer, chef, or farmers market vendor about heirloom and endangered varieties is a great way to demonstrate that the demand exists for these diverse crops.

There has been a lot of talk lately about how many servings of fish is too much and which fish are the best to eat. With concerns like mercury poisoning, eating farm-raised fish or wild fish, genetic engineering and over fishing, it’s important to consider certain things when choosing your next fish dinner or sushi roll.

Doctors and health professionals in general recommend fish because of the high dose of Omega 3’s fatty acids a serving supplies you with. A 6-ounce serving of fish can provide a day’s worth of high quality protein for adults. Eating fish once a week should not cause any concern for most people. For those fish eaters who partake in multiple servings of fish a week, especially children and pregnant women, the main concern can become mercury poisoning. Eating too much mercury-ridden fish can cause certain health problems including impairment in memory and behavior, tingling in the hands, feet, and lips, as well as causing possible damage to the heart and immune system. Aside from the mercury concern, we now have a number of different fish species that are soon to become extinct due to over fishing, or are being caught using environmentally destructive methods. There are some very simple rules to follow to be certain you are not getting a side dish of mercury or hurting the environment with your fish entree.