Green Options

Last month, I wrote about the world’s largest leather exporter leaving the Amazon. This week there is even bigger news. The world’s largest meat exporter is leaving.

The cover of Michael Pollan’s terrific book ‘In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto’ offers the tag line “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” With the help of the country’s leading food expert I am going to elaborate on that–although if you choose to only read this far, that tag line (if acted upon) will benefit you greatly.

What to Eat
1. Eat a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, and legumes (organic and/or local is best).
2. Eat whole (not refined) foods.
3. Eat food (real food). Not too much (don’t overeat). Mostly plants (mostly plants).

What NOT to Eat
1. Don’t eat anything with more than 5 ingredients or with ingredients you can’t pronounce.
2. Don’t eat anything that won’t eventually rot (except honey).
3. Don’t eat meat–atleast, not too much (the environmental impact is alarming).

People are exposed to the fire retardants PBDEs from their furniture, electronics, and most plastic-containing household products.

But now, a new study shows that we’re getting them in our food, too. And meat-eaters are especially susceptible.

Environmental health researcher Alicia Fraser, of Boston University’s School of Public Health, warns us,

The more meat you eat, the more PBDEs you have in your serum.

If you’re not familiar with PBDEs, chances are you know of their chemical cousins: PCBs, the now-banned carcinogenic chemicals.

Eco-conscious and green consumers around the globe are increasingly aware of the carbon footprint of their food choices, but what about the water footprint?

As water becomes an increasingly scarce global resource, the focus turns toward analyzing how much water it takes to grow particular foods.  Increasing awareness of the amount of water various foods require can help consumers make educated choices for the most environmentally conscious products.

Not surprisingly many of the same attributes that make for smart environmentally friendly choices also make sense from a water consumption perspective.  Not eating meat, choosing locally grown organic foods, and growing as much produce as possible in your own backyard are also the best choices for using the least amount of water.

Where can you buy healthy fresh food in your neighborhood? Where are the grocery stores and farmer’s markets, how is the quality of food that is there, and which food options do you actually have access to? Are there nearby food banks or community gardens? Can you grow your own food? What local food choices are available to you in your community?

I took this photo in the meat section of my neighborhood grocery store earlier this week.

Think a romantic meal of beef tenderloin with a side of potatoes sounds delicious? Maybe with a nice Bordeaux?  Perhaps it does (especially if it’s grass-fed beef!), but it may decrease your chances of conception.

A new study shows that men who want to be fathers should increase their intake of fruits and veggies and decrease their consumption of fatty foods like red meat and creamy dishes.

Men who ate healthy diets not only had faster sperm, they had more sperm in their semen. It was both a quality and quantity effect.

Dr. Jaime Mendiola of the University of Murcia, Spain said of his research:

In this study, we have found that people who consume more fruits and vegetables are ingesting more anti-oxidants and this is the important point.

We saw that, among the couples with fertility problems coming to the clinic, the men with good semen quality ate more vegetables and fruit than those men with low seminal quality.

There are obviously many factors that influence fertility, and this is only one.

It’s hard to watch television, read the paper, or go online without coming across facts about global warming prevention. You may already feel like you’ve got the basics down. Some of the more interesting global warming facts may have escaped your attention, though, as they don’t get quite as much coverage. The more time you spend digging into global warming causes and effects, the more you’ll realize that climate change goes beyond some of the most catastrophic (and newsworthy) problems associated with it. Global warming will transform your life at basic levels that we’re just beginning to understand.

Global warming causes you may not have known about

You’re likely aware that many of your daily activities — driving your car, cooling and heating your home, operating electronic devices — produce greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide. You may not, however, be aware of some other major global warming causes that you encounter regularly. For instance,

• The meat on your plate: Deforestation, especially of tropical rainforests, is one of the major causes of global warming, and residents of countries such as Brazil and Costa Rica often destroy these forests to create grazing space for cattle. Choosing to eat less meat, and purchasing the meat you do eat from local sources, should be a part of your plan to lighten your own carbon footprint.
• The food and yard wastes you throw away: When you send food wastes, grass clippings, and other organic materials to the landfill, they’re much more likely to end up producing methane because they’ll decompose in an anaerobic (or oxygen-free) environment. Composting those wastes, whether by sending them to a large-scale operation, or adding them to your own compost pile or bin, will allow for oxygen-rich decomposition… which prevents methane emissions, and “closes the loop” by creating material you can use for garden and plant fertilizer.

For those of us who love a crispy slice of bacon but also care about the impact of our food choices, eating meat can be a very complex issue.  Just for starters, there’s the environmental aspects of meat production, the safety concerns with industrial processing (read this frightening article in the NYTimes about ‘anthrax sausages’) and the thorny ethical questions of animal welfare to consider. It’s a difficult question: how can we have our steak and eat it too?

My current solution? Buy locally and sustainably raised meat from farmers markets. I went to the bustling Union Square Greenmarket in New York City last weekend to explore my meat purchasing options and do some research. And by ‘research,’ I mean ‘eating.’ Here are photos and some reasons why farmers markets are a great place to get your meat fix.

“Old-fashioned dairy, the new-fashioned way!  CyClone is the first major dairy to raise a herd of clones and clone offspring.  You could say cloning is our passion - where we combine DNA with TLC.”

That is what Cyclone dairy says on their website’s mission page.

Thank goodness it’s not for real…not yet anyway.

After my family and I enjoyed several handfuls of pistachios at a get- together last weekend, I was surprised to hear yesterday about the latest food recall.

Federal food officials are warning Americans to avoid any food containing pistachios because of possible salmonella contamination.  (Just like the recent problems with peanuts.)

All of this food recalling makes a person wonder if anything is really safe to eat anymore?

At the same time as Botswana bans hunting close to its reserves and Kenya uses Maasai hunters to protect its lions, Uganda introduces commercial hunting into its Pian-Upe wildlife reserve in Uganda hoping to improve conservation.

Hunting to Conserve in Uganda

Edyau Echodu, the warden of the Uganda Wildlife Authority’s Pian-Upe wildlife reserve, introduced the hunting plan. He said that hunting would help get rid of old animals that attack human settlements, killing and injuring people and damaging crops. He acknowledged that it was also aimed at increasing earnings from tourists.