When you are out at the Farmer’s Market, get to know your farmer.  Ask pointed questions, find out if they have an open door policy (can you tour anytime), are they certified organic or do they go beyond organic (beyond organic is a philosophy that USDA organic isn’t enough).   If you are a meat eater, find local farmers and arrange direct meat purchase (our plan is every 3 months because we have decent storage space).  Some meats we find locally: tuna (which we can ourselves), bison, chicken, beef.  Prices average $3.00-$4.00/lb, so this also encourages us to use less meat.  For our family of 7 + 3 daycare kiddos, we have meat packaged in 1 lb sizes to ensure we don’t get meat crazy. :)  You can probably find local eggs at the farmers market, this usually saves you money and supports small, local farms.

Here are some tips to help you navigate healthier, local eating.

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Sometimes the bain of parents who learn that their kids are spending their lunch money on junk food from mobile food vendors, the business concept is a simple one to go green with. 

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Concerned about how sustainable the fish is that you’re eating for dinner? Do you think that the farm raised option is always the best choice for seafood?

There are varieties of fish that have fewer chemicals or are from highly managed wild populations that are more sustainable than others.  To make the selection of fish easier, the Monterrey Bay Aquarium (ironically an organization dedicated to protecting the same creatures it’s helping you decide to eat) has developed a website that details dozens of different varieties of fish, mussels, and shrimp and states which is the best environmental choice, which is the best alternative, and which ones to avoid.

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But for Montana State University students, this seemingly implausible scenario is the real deal.  Last month at the launch of the spring semester, MSU unveiled the brand-new Sustainable Food and Bioenergy Systems undergraduate degree program.

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My local community garden, the Noyo Come-Unity Garden, is a very busy place in the summer. Each family plot is blooming with a variety of veggies and greens, and since each garden is different we are all able to trade with each other. Along the edge of our community garden are community beds, where we grow all kinds of veggies to feed the hungry in our area as well as flowers and beneficial herbs. We have donated pounds and pounds of fresh organic veggies to the local food bank and homeless shelter. Community gardens are a great way to help and grow your community!

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Returning to 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in our Earth’s atmosphere is the level that most of the world’s scientific community agrees as the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. When industrial revolution began, it was 275 parts per million. Today, we’re far above that at 385 parts per million and continuing to rise at an accelerating pace, often contributing to the extreme weather, shrinking glaciers and numerous other effects of climate change familiar to more and more of us.

View this stunning 350.org video animation on YouTube, created by the innovative Free Range Studios, designed to reach out to the world to foster the coming together of global community to address this challenge — and hold our political leaders accountable to provide the policies that encourage the changes we must all make as citizens and green business owners.

For most ecopreneurs, addressing climate change is at the core of our triple bottom line approach to operating our green business, putting into practice ways to mitigate climate change, be it in how we use or over-produce energy from renewable energy sources like the wind and sun, serve up organic or pasture-raised cuisine from a sustainable food system, focus on a more bio-regional or local economy, and cultivate relationships with their conserving customers. Many paddle a kayak with a community of like-minded ecopreneurs, rather than try staying afloat on the Titanic dependent on increasingly expensive fossil fuels while trying to dodge melting glaciers.

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I am irritated by the debate, by well-meaning food folks, about whether eating local food is really a good way to reduce the impact of your food choices on carbon emissions. This debate suggests a phony choice - if food miles matter, then nothing else does. Nothing could be further from the truth.

“Food miles” are a measure of the distance food travels from farm to plate. As far as I know, this concept caught fire after a 2003 study came out from the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture comparing food miles traveled by local produce in Iowa and conventional produce within the U.S. The study found that the non-local produce had traveled an average of 1500 miles,

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March begs for a dash of newness and, in the spirit of greening our lives and recycling, there’s no better food for fodder (literally) than revisiting the things we see everyday, probing for a nugget of inspiration. From dusting off old cookbooks (I’m amazed at how I can always rekindle an old favorite I haven’t made in a while from our B&B cookbook, Edible Earth: Savoring the Good Life with Vegetarian Recipes from Inn Serendipity) to foraging to the back of the pantry and finding that jar of grape leaves in brine (foodie impulse buy?), there’s a good shot of ideas nearby.

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