Green Options » Turkey

Happy Thanksgiving: Turkey Facts as a Tribute to Those who Gave their Lives for our Stomachs

Daniel Hohler — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:52:21 +0000

Whether you are eating turkey or tofurkey this Thanksgiving, you cannot deny the great sacrifice that turkeys are making to fill dinner plates across the nation. I figured I would honor their sacrifice here on the eve of thanksgiving, with some fun turkey facts.

More than 45 million turkeys are eaten in the U.S. at Thanksgiving (one sixth of all turkeys sold in the U.S. each year). American per capita consumption of turkeys has soared from 8.3 pounds in 1975 to 18.5 pounds in 1997. Ten years later, the number has dropped slightly in 2007 to 17.5 pounds (more tofurkey?)

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Wireless Climate-monitoring System for Better & More Crops

Zachary Shahan — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:56:53 +0000

Turkey farmers growing greenhouse tomatoes have been using this technology since 2005. California is going to get it before the end of this year.

LA-based ClimateMinder now completely owns the Turkish company Kodalfa and it is eager to bring some of its technology to the US. This company’s “new” climate-monitoring and control system helps greenhouse farmers to monitor their crops and adjust the conditions of their greenhouses with wireless technology. This helps farmers and consumers in numerous and significant ways.

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7 Odd Food-for-Fuel Solutions

Jerry James Stone — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 02:11:08 +0000

Using food as a resource in biofuel production is one of the biggest mistakes our country could make. And while we all shake our heads at the idea of corn ethanol…what about using turkey innards? Or Mountain Dew for that matter.

Shaq Wants Your Leftover Beer and Wine for Making Ethanol

First, who ever has leftover alcohol except maybe these guys? The Shaq-backed MicroFueler is a 250-gallon tank for organic feedstock, such as waste wine and beer, that converts it into pure ethanol. It also doubles as a fuel pump and the only waste product is distilled water.

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How to Save Fruit and Vegetable Biodiversity? Just Eat It.

John Chappell — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 21:41:12 +0000

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.

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Global Wheat Crop Threatened by Rust Fungus - African Seeds May Offer Hope

Michael Ricciardi — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:45:40 +0000

You may not have heard of Ug99 yet, but, if its rapid spread continues unchecked, chances are you will not only be hearing about it, but you’ll be paying for it too. That’s because this fast-spreading strain of the fungus that causes stem rust–a seemingly unstoppable plant disease–and is now spreading around the globe and threatening to devastate the world’s wheat harvest.

One hopeful remedy may in fact lay in certain native, durum wheat species (”landraces”) found only in certain African nations–in particular, Ethiopia–which are believed to possess “slow rusting” genes. These native durum wheats are stronger (durum is Latin for “hard”) than7 other strains and originally evolved under much different environmental conditions than European and Western Hemisphere varieties. These durum landraces have most likely evolved slight gene variations as a result. These variations in gene sequences (and/or their expression in the wild), it is believed, can confer survival advantages to the plants when transplanted in a different locale.

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Students Build Hydrogen Vehicle That Gets 1,336 MPG

Jerry James Stone — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:56:29 +0000

Turkish students at Sakarya University have built a hydrogen car that gets 1,336 mpg. Well, sorta.

Called the SAHİMO, the vehicle’s current range is about 353 miles on a quarter gallon of fuel (568 kilometers on 1 liter). It travels such an obscene distance with so little fuel due to the vehicle’s uber-light weight: it weighs only 240 pounds (110 kilograms). The car’s made up of 90-percent carbon fiber.

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Turkey to Double Amount of River Water Released to Iraq from the Tigris and Euphrates

Amiel Blajchman — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 19:03:31 +0000

With a history of geopolitical tensions, last week’s announcement by President Gul that Turkey would double the amount of water released to Iraq from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, was cautiously received in Iraq on the first visit by a Turkish head of state in over 30 years.

A key Iraqi concern, Iraq and Turkey have argued over upstream vs. downstream water rights on the Tigris and Euphrates many times in the past. This announcement and state visit may well strengthen ties between these two nations, recently under strain due to on-going tensions because of Turkish military operations in northern Iraq against Kurdish separatist groups.

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Water Not the Only Weapon Used on Water Forum Protesters

Alex Felsinger — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 01:16:04 +0000

While my post earlier this week about police spraying water cannons at World Water Forum protesters was intended to point out the irony, the truth is that the situation in Turkey was out of control, with unprovoked police attacks on peaceful protesters.

In addition to water cannons, police in riot gear fired rubber bullets and tear gas into a crowd, arresting 17 Turkish activists and forcing international activists to leave. The group peacefully gathered outside the official forum for the “People’s Forum” formed to oppose the “commercialization of water.”

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Turkey Deports Two Activists for Protesting World Water Forum

Alex Felsinger — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 22:25:04 +0000

Two peaceful protestors with the environmental nonprofit International Rivers were deported from Turkey today after revealing a banner reading “No Risky Dams” just before the conference was set to begin.

The forum, held every three years, discusses global challenges and solutions to the water crisis. International Rivers advocates alternatives to large dams, which flood large areas, block the flow of rivers, and displace people and animals.

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Is This Some Sick Sport? Video Shows Dogs Attacking Captive Wolf in Turkey

Alex Felsinger — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 23:34:03 +0000

This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post.

Warning: Video contains disturbing content.

This video is very hard to make out (and all online Turkish-to-English translations don’t yield much more insight), but this appears as if a small town in Turkey gathered together to encourage their dogs to attack and kill a captive wolf. Please comment if you have any idea what is going on.

360,000 Tons of Watermelon Spoil Every Year in the U.S.

Almost 40% of all watermelons grown here in the U.S. never make it to market due to imperfections, bad spots, or for being oddly shaped (um, haven’t these farmers seen the square ones). But waste not, want not. The watermelon juice could actually be used to produce ethanol.

Truck Runs on 100% Recycled Coffee Grounds

The truck above is powered by a wood gas generator, except it runs fully on coffee grounds. The Cafe Racer is a 1975 GMC pickup that essentially burns used coffee to create a combustible gas. The gas is filtered on its way to the engine. I hope it’s fair trade coffee.

The Innards of 45 Million Turkeys Turned in to Fuel

On Thanksgiving–which is just around the corner–Americans will gobble down over 45 million turkeys. But we don’t eat the whole turkey so slaughterhouses are left with rotting heads, feet and all those innards. So a factory farm in Carthage, Missouri is turning all that waste into fuel using a thermal conversion process from Changing World Technologies.

Guy Builds Engine that Runs on Mountain Dew

Inventor Paul Patone has created the GEET (Global Environmental Energy Technology) Fuel Processor. A mod that allows you to run your car on about 80% water. Or possibly, just a nice cold Tab. He prefers Mountain Dew.

5,000 Miles Traveled Using 80,000 Chocolate Bars

A chocolate powered Ford Iveco Cargo lorry traveled for almost an entire month through France, Spain, Morocco, Mauritania and all the way to Timbuktu and doing so while facing the unforgiving Saharan Desert. The whole trip took about 80,000 chocolate bars.

Farm Saves More Than $700K Using Onion Juice for Energy

Gills Onions has saved a whopping $700K off their electricity bill by using onion juice to power most everything on the farm. They saved an additional $400K just on disposal costs alone. Using an anaerobic digester, they convert onion waste into biogas which is then conditioned and finally turned into methane.

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How To Get The Kids Involved in Helping You Create a Green Thanksgiving

Reenita Malhotra — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 05:38:03 +0000

There are plenty of ways in which you can get the kids involved in helping you with your Green Thanksgiving plans. I sent mine off to the park with instructions to collect whatever would look great on the table. Watch this video to see what they came up with.

This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post.

360,000 Tons of Watermelon Spoil Every Year in the U.S.

Truck Runs on 100% Recycled Coffee Grounds

The Innards of 45 Million Turkeys Turned in to Fuel

Guy Builds Engine that Runs on Mountain Dew

5,000 Miles Traveled Using 80,000 Chocolate Bars

Farm Saves More Than $700K Using Onion Juice for Energy

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You Can’t Have A Kosher Turkey This Thanksgiving!

mcmilker — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:26:02 +0000

Are you looking for a Kosher turkey this year?

Many interested in organic food are, since Kosher Turkeys are required by Jewish law to be slaughtered in a particular fashion designed to be humane. Sarah Palin’sTurkey video has just increased awareness of the issue this year!

They are also often organic by default, that is raised without pesticides, growth hormones, etc…. and, of course, are considered exceptionally tasty.

I heard this story on NPR’s Marketplace this morning..”There’s a shortage of kosher turkey and beef thanks to the closing of supplier Agriprocessors, which had provided much of the country’s kosher meat…” and immediately wondered how our Thanksgiving would turn out since, the friends with whom we hope to share the holiday meal swear by these birds.

Agriprocessors halted production earlier this week and then closed its doors. The company that supplies an estimated 40% of the country’s kosher turkeys has found it self in well, if not the oven, in hot water!

Agriprocessors was the site of a May immigration raid in which 389 workers were arrested. Plant managers later were charged with violating child labor laws, wage and hour regulations and safety rules.

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What to Drink with Your Turkey?

Stuart Stein — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 02:00:12 +0000

One of the biggest headaches when entertaining, especially during Thanksgiving, is deciding what beverages to serve with dinner. As Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg (authors of What to Drink with What You Eat) wrote in the Washington Post,

The prospect of choosing a bottle that will please all of your guests and complement all of your dishes can perplex the most confident holiday host.

Even avid wine lovers can be struck with a temporary case of oenophobia — fear of wine — around Thanksgiving. The prospect of choosing a bottle that will please all of your guests and complement all of your dishes can perplex the most confident holiday host.

So what do you do? BYBO is one answer. Another is to let me help you choose a few bottles to uncork without breaking the bank or cashing in that IRA.

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The Perfect Turkey

Stuart Stein — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:00:26 +0000

This may sound egotistical but I know a LOT more than you do about cooking a turkey.

Allow me to explain…

Back in 1999, when I was teaching at the California Culinary Academy, I was involved in both the cooking and the tasting of the San Francisco Chronicle Food section’s Turkey Challenge. Over a two week period, we cooked 28 turkeys to find the best method of producing a plump, juicy and flavorful bird.

We brined some turkeys and left some uncovered overnight in the refrigerator. We roasted some, barbecued others, deep fried one and even smoked another. We cooked some breast up and some breast down. Some we basted and some not, some were covered in the oven and some not. Some were stuffed and some not. We cooked turkeys at an oven temperature varying between 325º to 450ºF. Are you getting the picture?

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Thrifty Thursdays: Plan Ahead to Make Leftover Turkey Recipes

Robin Shreeves — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:19:40 +0000

Thanksgiving is only two weeks away. I always host the holiday at my house, and I always cook a turkey that is far larger than our needs for our feast. Why? I want the leftovers. Since cooking a turkey is time consuming, not too many of us do it outside of our holiday dinners. By planning ahead by buying a really big turkey, I can have enough leftovers to make some of my family’s favorite dishes in the weeks after Thanksgiving without having to take the time to cook another turkey.

What do I do with the leftovers? My husband’s favorite is the Thanksgiving Leftover Sandwich. Most people have their own variation of the sandwich, but our combination is cold turkey, cranberry sauce, and stuffing on toasted white bread slathered with mayonnaise. My husband introduced me to this when we were dating, and although it sounded unappetizing at first, I was quickly converted.

Another of my favorite leftover turkey dishes is to make my turkey pot pie filling, but instead of putting it into a pie crust, I serve it over biscuits.

Here’s my recipe for Turkey Pot Pie over Biscuits:

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Speaking of Politics, Let’s Talk About Turkeys…

Derek Markham — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 06:32:40 +0000

There’s a lot of strutting and posturing going on right now, which makes me think of turkeys…

For a serious foodie, it’s never too early to start planning Thanksgiving dinner.

Deciding what kind of turkey to serve is a key piece in that plan.

Here’s a quick guide to your turkey choices, and even a home-delivered organic turkey dinner option…

Read more of this story »

Turkey in August?

Stuart Stein — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 10:00:06 +0000

Too early to be thinking about Thanksgiving? I don’t think so. It’s heirloom turkey time. Order now before you miss out.

Factory farms have been producing most of the meat, poultry, eggs and dairy products in the United States for decades. Although the food is cheap and convenient, this method can create a host of problems, including the loss of small family farms, pollution and animal stress.

Numerous varieties of livestock—Bourbon Red turkeys as well as Red Wattle pigs, Tunis sheep and Barred Plymouth Rock chickens—are endangered and disappearing from our farms and more importantly, from our dinner tables. What’s a localist like myself supposed to do?

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Green Options » Turkey

Happy Thanksgiving: Turkey Facts as a Tribute to Those who Gave their Lives for our Stomachs

Wireless Climate-monitoring System for Better & More Crops

Turkey farmers growing greenhouse tomatoes have been using this technology since 2005. California is going to get it before the end of this year.

7 Odd Food-for-Fuel Solutions

Using food as a resource in biofuel production is one of the biggest mistakes our country could make. And while we all shake our heads at the idea of corn ethanol…what about using turkey innards? Or Mountain Dew for that matter.

How to Save Fruit and Vegetable Biodiversity? Just Eat It.

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.

Global Wheat Crop Threatened by Rust Fungus - African Seeds May Offer Hope

Students Build Hydrogen Vehicle That Gets 1,336 MPG

Turkey to Double Amount of River Water Released to Iraq from the Tigris and Euphrates

With a history of geopolitical tensions, last week’s announcement by President Gul that Turkey would double the amount of water released to Iraq from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, was cautiously received in Iraq on the first visit by a Turkish head of state in over 30 years.

Water Not the Only Weapon Used on Water Forum Protesters

Turkey Deports Two Activists for Protesting World Water Forum

Two peaceful protestors with the environmental nonprofit International Rivers were deported from Turkey today after revealing a banner reading “No Risky Dams” just before the conference was set to begin.

Is This Some Sick Sport? Video Shows Dogs Attacking Captive Wolf in Turkey

Warning: Video contains disturbing content.

Like this article? Follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook.

Top 7 Posts About Ideas for a Green Thanksgiving

With the Thanksgiving Holiday just a few days away, you are probably focusing on how to have a green Thanksgiving. I have enjoyed reading tips and ideas from around the Green Options network and the blogosphere. Here are some of my favorite green Thanksgiving posts:

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How To Get The Kids Involved in Helping You Create a Green Thanksgiving

There are plenty of ways in which you can get the kids involved in helping you with your Green Thanksgiving plans. I sent mine off to the park with instructions to collect whatever would look great on the table. Watch this video to see what they came up with.

Like this article? Follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook.

You Can’t Have A Kosher Turkey This Thanksgiving!

Are you looking for a Kosher turkey this year?

Many interested in organic food are, since Kosher Turkeys are required by Jewish law to be slaughtered in a particular fashion designed to be humane. Sarah Palin’sTurkey video has just increased awareness of the issue this year!

They are also often organic by default, that is raised without pesticides, growth hormones, etc…. and, of course, are considered exceptionally tasty.

Agriprocessors was the site of a May immigration raid in which 389 workers were arrested. Plant managers later were charged with violating child labor laws, wage and hour regulations and safety rules.

What to Drink with Your Turkey?

The Perfect Turkey

Thrifty Thursdays: Plan Ahead to Make Leftover Turkey Recipes

Speaking of Politics, Let’s Talk About Turkeys…

There’s a lot of strutting and posturing going on right now, which makes me think of turkeys…

For a serious foodie, it’s never too early to start planning Thanksgiving dinner.

Deciding what kind of turkey to serve is a key piece in that plan.

Here’s a quick guide to your turkey choices, and even a home-delivered organic turkey dinner option…

Turkey in August?