Stocking the pantry saves time and money – two non-renewable resources and drains on greening our lifestyle. With a little planning and organization, your pantry will never let you down. I recently gushed about my pantry passion in an article for Hobby Farm Home magazine, going into more detail on stocking the kitchen.

Here’s a few starter tips:

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As I’ve commented on in the past (see What is Sustainable Cuisine? - Part Two), one tenant of sustainability and sustainable cuisine is social responsibility. The problem that many of us have is motivation and the need for good examples. I know that there is no lack of causes but how can we go green by doing good?

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I’m not one to usually pile on the sarcasm when someone is down but it’s no holds barred when it comes to the cult of celebrity. Instead of seeking virtues or talents we have bought into the artificial importance being created by the media in order to promote a product, a person - or in this case a “yummo” catch phrase.

The people over at SeriousEats alerted me to the latest parody book in the genre of Is Martha Stuart Living? Run, don’t walk and get yourself a copy of Every Freaking! Day with Rachell Ray by Elizabeth Hilts, author of the popular Getting in Touch with Your Inner Bitch. This “64-page full-color parody is jam-packed with laugh out loud takes on the things that make her (in)famous, like”:

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The San Francisco-based My Farm combines the local CSA produce with landscaping and gardening skills. San Franciscans (such as one of Green Zebra owners) pay a initial installation fee (usually in the $600-$2000 range) to have a crew set up irrigation, soil content and what ever else they deem necessary to start a backyard victory garden. From that point, they install a variety of vegetables, fruits, and even edible flowers (such as borage which benefits bees). And we have to be especially nice to the fast disappearing bees. We would love to salad-up in the Green Zebra garden with Jerusalem artichokes, tree collards, escorale, tomatillos, kohlrabi, corn and radishes.

The service costs about $35 per week but depending on the yard size and the bounty it produces that amount can be less. The more food that a yard produces the less the yard owner pays for the CSA box. The fee includes landscaping, gardening and a weekly CSA box. Such a deal. In this city it costs more for just a gardener to cut a lawn.

The workers utilize permaculture principles (or permanent culture) which to us looks like a serving of practical, functional and sustainable methods.

The My Farm model has spread to Marin and the East Bay faster than wild mushrooms and may soon come to an urban jungle near you.

or

Reasons to be a Vegetarian!

As a former vegetarian, I eat a very select and small amount of meat and consider myself a conscious carnivore these days. I’m doing research for a book and i wanted to gather some facts about the environmental impact the industrialized meat production system. I’m all about creating a safe, humane, healthy and regional farming system for both veggies and animals.

After scratching the surface of the topic of industrialized meat production, I’m more convinced than ever, we will not survive if we continue (as a culture in the US) to demand and consume as much meat as we have become accustomed to. Churning out beef, pork, chicken, etc. on this scale can’t be sustainable, and I’m sure there are hundreds of great arguments about why we really don’t need to consume this much meat. I’ll leave that debate to those better qualified to cite studies and reports. I just know how I feel and what works for me. I’ve got many addictions, but thankfully meat isn’t one of them.

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]]> http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/20/green-divas-guide-to-delicious-living-6-reasons-to-be-a-conscious-carnivore/feed/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/20/a-victory-garden-planted-in-patio-pots/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/20/a-victory-garden-planted-in-patio-pots/#comments Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:33:08 +0000 Pamela Price http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/20/a-victory-garden-planted-in-patio-pots/

Guest contributor Pamela Price is the founder of Red, White & Grew, a blog devoted to “Promoting the Victory Garden Revival and other simple, earth-friendly endeavors as bipartisan, patriotic acts in an age of uncertainty.”

Vegetable gardens are making headlines this summer.

From local and regional press reports about a rise in garden-related sales in the face of the economic downturn to the Internet buzz generated by those San Francisco-bound locavores eager to see the city’s new civic center victory garden, there’s plenty to spark interest in getting one’s dirt under one’s nails.

Yet if you’ve got only a small lot or just a patio to work with, you may feel out of the loop with the home garden craze. Prepare to join in the fun: a surprising amount of fresh produce can be grown in ordinary pots and planters.

Just ask Shannon & Jason Mullet-Bowlsby of Seattle.

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]]> http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/20/a-victory-garden-planted-in-patio-pots/feed/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/15/mooove-away-from-the-rbgh-monsanto/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/15/mooove-away-from-the-rbgh-monsanto/#comments Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:45:03 +0000 Beth Bader http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/15/mooove-away-from-the-rbgh-monsanto/ Monsanto announced on August 6 it will sell off its controversial genetically engineered animal drug, recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH). Organic Consumers Association helped organize an email campaign against the drug for the last several years, generating over a quarter of a million emails and petition signatures against the use ofr rBGH. Historically, Monsanto also made Agent Orange, PCBs, and herbicides that produced dioxin as a byproduct. The chemical production side of the company was spun off and rebranded as Solutia

Not one to be deterred either, Organic Consumer Association will continue with their “Millions Against Monsanto” campaign, this time petitioning for the labeling and safety testing of genetically-modified foods.

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]]> http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/15/mooove-away-from-the-rbgh-monsanto/feed/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/11/my-local-food-a-csa-share-and-farmers-market-meal/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/11/my-local-food-a-csa-share-and-farmers-market-meal/#comments Mon, 11 Aug 2008 05:01:45 +0000 Derek Markham http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/11/my-local-food-a-csa-share-and-farmers-market-meal/

It’s a great time of year for eating fresh and local, and I’ve been having lots of fun in the kitchen with the produce from our CSA share and Farmers Market shopping. Getting greens into your diet is easy with this one-pot meal. It was a hit at my house, and the only thing that wasn’t local was the oil.

I hope you enjoy it.

A CSA Share Stir-Fry

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]]> http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/11/my-local-food-a-csa-share-and-farmers-market-meal/feed/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/08/albacore-the-other-white-meat/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/08/albacore-the-other-white-meat/#comments Fri, 08 Aug 2008 06:00:37 +0000 Stuart Stein http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/08/albacore-the-other-white-meat/ To misquote Elmer Fund, ” It’s Tuna Season!”

Pacific Albacore tuna season started a bit late this year but is now in full swing, running from July through September. In case you didn’t realize it, Albacore, IS NOT its overfished and mercury-laden tuna cousins. It is troll or pole-and-line caught, endorsed as a “best choice” by Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch and certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council.

Albacore tuna (Thunnus alalunga), also called Tombo tuna, is a medium-size tuna found in temperate, subtropical and tropical oceans. Albacore tuna live longer and grow more slowly than other tunas. Most Albacore is sold as high-priced “white meat” canned tuna on supermarket shelves. Fresh Albacore has whitish-pink flesh, fairly soft texture and a mild, leaner flavor compared to other tuna species. I do not recommend Atlantic Albacore because it has been substantially overfished, but Albacore populations have remained abundant and sustainable in the Pacific.

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]]> http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/08/albacore-the-other-white-meat/feed/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/05/whole-foods-tries-to-shed-whole-paycheck-image/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/05/whole-foods-tries-to-shed-whole-paycheck-image/#comments Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:07:18 +0000 Kelli Best-Oliver http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/05/whole-foods-tries-to-shed-whole-paycheck-image/ I’ve got a love-hate relationship with Whole Foods. On one hand, I like having organic products of all kinds available for my kitchen. I love their cheese counter (being a cheesemonger is my fantasy dream job!) and the specialty products I can find there that I can’t find anywhere else. On the other hand, it’s always crowded, and it’s always pricey. I really can’t afford to buy everything I need there, particularly their conventional produce. If I’m buying conventional apples from across the country, I’d rather not pay an arm and a leg for them.

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]]> http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/05/whole-foods-tries-to-shed-whole-paycheck-image/feed/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/04/gmos-and-the-fruit-sticker-8-is-not-great-9-is-fine/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/04/gmos-and-the-fruit-sticker-8-is-not-great-9-is-fine/#comments Mon, 04 Aug 2008 21:56:13 +0000 Joe Mohr http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/04/gmos-and-the-fruit-sticker-8-is-not-great-9-is-fine/

All of the European Union nations, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand and many other countries require the mandatory labeling of foods that contain genetically modified ingredients–the U.S. does not.

As a result, food manufacturers in all those countries choose to use non-genetically engineered ingredients–the U.S. did not.

However, there is atleast one way to tell whether or not the fruit you eat is a GMO (Genetically Modified Organism)–the sticker. Yes, those colorful stickers we proudly wore on our shirts as kids actually serve a purpose–but you need to know how to decipher their code.

Don’t worry, it’s easy.

Got a pencil?

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]]> http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/04/gmos-and-the-fruit-sticker-8-is-not-great-9-is-fine/feed/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/02/raw-milk-how-to-set-up-a-herdshare-and-how-to-evaluate-your-dairy-farmers-herdshare-program/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/02/raw-milk-how-to-set-up-a-herdshare-and-how-to-evaluate-your-dairy-farmers-herdshare-program/#comments Sat, 02 Aug 2008 09:37:26 +0000 Valerie Taylor http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/02/raw-milk-how-to-set-up-a-herdshare-and-how-to-evaluate-your-dairy-farmers-herdshare-program/ One of the more delicious ways to eat locally is to drink local milk. For most of us, this means raw (unpasteurized) milk. Unfortunately, raw milk is illegal to buy or sell in many U.S. states.

But often there’s a way around it: A herdshare program. Drinking raw milk from a cow you own is not illegal. When a milk drinker joins a herdshare, he’s buying a part of a cow — usually 1/25th of a cow — and paying each month a fee for that partial-cow’s board and care.

I own 3/25ths of a cow (a Jersey named Cinnamon), which I purchased from a local dairy farmer for $50 per share. (If I ever decide to sell my shares, the farmer will buy them back from me for the same price I paid.) Each month, I pay my farmer $22 per share for my portion of the costs of Cinnamon’s care, and each week I drive out to the farm (in Ohio, it’s illegal for my farmer to deliver my milk to me) and pick up 3 gallons of beautiful whole unpasteurized milk. It works out to $5.08 per gallon, which just a few months ago might have seemed like a lot to pay for milk. It was worth it to me because I wanted to buy my milk from a local farmer raising cows on pasture without rBGH — cows living the way cows are supposed to live — and in my area that means raw milk. It’s worth it to others because they want raw milk in particular.

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]]> http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/08/02/raw-milk-how-to-set-up-a-herdshare-and-how-to-evaluate-your-dairy-farmers-herdshare-program/feed/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/07/30/green-divas-guide-to-delicious-living-5-reasons-to-buy-organic-food/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/07/30/green-divas-guide-to-delicious-living-5-reasons-to-buy-organic-food/#comments Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:57:53 +0000 Megan McWilliams http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/07/30/green-divas-guide-to-delicious-living-5-reasons-to-buy-organic-food/   CORE TRUTHS
A Book Review

Have you ever been challenged by someone about why to buy organic produce? If you’re like me, you can rattle off some good solid answers pretty quickly, but when they demand scientific reasoning you might not be able to cite research studies so readily.

The Organic Center has done this homework for us!

Their mission statement reads, ‘To generate credible, peer reviewed scientific information and communicate the verifiable benefits of organic farming and products to society.’

And they’ve done an excellent job of it so far. This non-profit was founded in 2002 by leaders in the organic food industry. Among their extremely impressive list of Board Members is Dr. Andrew Weil. I would encourage you to go and see this list of power-house organic industry experts and scientists.

Listed high among its goals, is to disseminate information and promote awareness and understanding to the general public about the benefits of organic agriculture.

One of the ways in which they’re achieving this goal is through Core Truths: Serving up the Science Behind Organic Agriculture. It is based on a compilation of research and is boiled down to some simple and easy-to-understand (or convey as it were) facts.

Here are 5 ’core truths’ or reasons to buy organic foods:

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]]> http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/07/30/green-divas-guide-to-delicious-living-5-reasons-to-buy-organic-food/feed/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/07/29/killer-canning/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/07/29/killer-canning/#comments Tue, 29 Jul 2008 08:44:56 +0000 Valerie Taylor http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/07/29/killer-canning/ Home canning is all the rage. Eating locally is in, and doing so year-round pretty much requires some kind of food preservation. No one’s freezer space is unlimited, and home canning is a great way to preserve the harvest. It seems every food blogger is canning and offering recipes for the foods she’s canned.

Unfortunately I’m seeing a large number of unsafe canning recipes posted on various food, recipe, and local eating blogs, and we aren’t talking about just the kind of unsafe canning that gives you a few days of gastrointestinal misery. We’re talking serious neurotoxins, botulism, paralysis, and death.

Here are a few key bits of knowledge, useful whether you’re canning yourself or are the recipient of a home-canned gift.

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]]> http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/07/29/killer-canning/feed/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/07/18/sustainable-aquaculture/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/07/18/sustainable-aquaculture/#comments Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:00:19 +0000 Stuart Stein http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/07/18/sustainable-aquaculture/ When my publisher and literary agent were speaking with various people about providing an endorsement for my cookbook, The Sustainable Kitchen, I received an interesting response from an older 70’s/80’s television chef. His note said he would be happy to endorse my book but only if we changed our view on sustainable seafood and aquaculture. His position was seafood, in general, is a high-protein, low-fat food. For health reasons, people need to eat more seafood in order to increase their intake of omega-3 fatty acids (the good fat) and reduce their intake of omega-6 fatty acids (the bad fat). Now, I am not one to contradict a celebrity, of course they must be right, but seems a bit short sighted to me.

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]]> http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/07/18/sustainable-aquaculture/feed/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/07/16/whats-in-a-name-part-two/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/07/16/whats-in-a-name-part-two/#comments Wed, 16 Jul 2008 07:00:59 +0000 Stuart Stein http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/07/16/whats-in-a-name-part-two/ What Has Food Become?

“Food in America is cheap and abundant, yet the vast majority of it is diminished in terms of flavor and nutrition, anonymous and mysterious after being shipped thousands of miles and passing through inscrutable supply chains, and controlled by multinational corporations. In our system of globalized food commodities, convenience replaces quality and a connection to the source of our food. Most of us know almost nothing about how our food is grown or produced, where it comes from, and what health value it really has. It is food as pure corporate commodity. We all deserve much better than that.”

- Sandor Ellix Katz, author of The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved: Inside America’s Underground Food Movements

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]]> http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/07/16/whats-in-a-name-part-two/feed/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/07/14/what-is-sustainable-cuisine-part-one/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/07/14/what-is-sustainable-cuisine-part-one/#comments Mon, 14 Jul 2008 07:00:31 +0000 Stuart Stein http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/07/14/what-is-sustainable-cuisine-part-one/ Green is the new black!

So much has been written yet so much is misunderstood. Everything from culinary publications, to monthly magazines, to daily newspapers, to blogs are hoping on the Green Cuisine bandwagon. I’m not saying this bad and not saying this is good. I am saying that in general, the more people that are exposed to sustainable, eco-friendly, green cuisine (or whatever you what to call it), is good.

Not knowing what it means, too many labels, confusing names, so called “experts” and even worse, “Green Washing“, is bad.

Ok, so what is Sustainable Cuisine? What does it mean to be sustainable? My definition of sustainability is “a way of growing, shipping, processing preparing and eating foodstuff that doesn’t deplete the natural systems that create that product.”

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The area in front of San Francisco’s city hall doesn’t exactly represent lush farmland but that doesn’t prevent it from being a viable SF food source. For the first time since 1943,
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Slow Food Nation founder Alice Waters and more than 100 volunteers planted the first edible garden in the City’s Civic Center. This victory garden, which takes its name from from 20th Century wartime efforts, helps to address food shortages
by encouraging citizens to plant gardens on public and private land.

Victory gardens continue to spring up in and around the City as food prices continue to rise and food sustainability becomes more of an issue. This Civic Center venture found its funding through various organizations including Slow Food Nation, CMG Landscape Architecture, City Slicker Farms, The Presidio Native Plant Nursery, Alemany Farms, Friends of the Urban Forest, Ploughshares Nursery, Urban Permaculture Guild, Coevolution Institute and many others.

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Saw an article in the New York Times that got my attention this morning - Cutting Out the Middlemen, Shoppers Buy Slices of Farms by Susan Saulny - that inspired me to do a little shout out in support of CSA(Community Supported Agriculture). Of course, the concept isn’t so new to many of us who have been at this sustainable lifestyle thing for a while, but I realize there are a lot of folks just learning about some of this - yeah!

Over 20 years ago (when I was about 12 - not really, but I hate to seem so old!), I lived in the Berkshire mountains of western Massachusetts, which was an enclave of progressive, sustainability folks. I became president of one of the largest most comprehensive store-front food coops in New England, Berkshire Co-Op Market. We were plugged into some great local organic farmers and I was fortunate to be part of one of the early CSA groups.

It felt great to support our local organic farmers, who at that time, were struggling - there were no supermarket chains buying organic produce back then!

Find out more about CSAs and how you can find one near you!

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I am all about buying local and in particular, I am a big supporter of local farmers. I’ve always seen Wal-Mart as the antithesis of my beliefs in creating a more regionally economically sustainable culture.

When a press release came through from Wal-Mart announcing their commitment to increase their use of local farmers to provide fresh produce, I was skeptical.

However, in doing a little research for this post, I visited the Wal-Mart website and found that they have an entire section devoted to sustainability. Okay. That is good. You can see that they are going to great lengths to at least appear to be implementing more sustainable activities across the board. But one could argue that these are all either cost-saving measures or done to be SC or Sustainable Correct, which is important to their marketing and PR efforts.

This cynical view of things aside, one could also argue that anything Wal-Mart implements on a corporate level will have a pretty big impact on whatever local economies they might otherwise be harming.

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