29 posts tagged “environment”

Official Earth Hour 2009 video. Earth Hour is on March 28th, 2009 at 8:30pm. More at http://www.earthhour.org

Support Earth Hour by making your own video and adding it to our Earth Hour Global group here:
http://www.youtube.com/group/earthhourglobal

Earth Hour images can be downloaded and shared from our flickr photostream, including Shepard Fairey Vote Earth artwork: http://www.flickr.com/photos/earthhour_global/

I am always looking for ways to help the environment. Today I found an easy way to opt out of catalogs. I'd started saving what I receive a few weeks ago and was able to get off of 10 mailings lists. Best of all? It's free (and I am all about free).

According to the local stations, we've hit a record high of 83 86 88 degrees today. Yeah, Fall is not here yet. We're still in shorts and sandals (except for those of us who are still at work).

The high tomorrow? 54 degrees. Apparently winter arrives tomorrow.

Now, I'd be remiss for dumping all that information on you without providing some extra resources . . .

Use Local Harvest to find farmers' markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area, where you can buy produce, grass-fed meats, and many other goodies.

Use the Eat Well Guide to find food in your neighborhood and when you travel that is healthful, humane, better for the environment, and that supports family farmers.

There are many different food labels that contain information about how food was grown or processed. However, some labels can be misleading. Visit Farm Aid to find examples of labels to look for, ask questions about and what to avoid.

The confusion with sustainable agriculture is that the definition is more a philosophy or way of life than a strict set of rules, and farmers can interpret the meaning differently See the Sustainable Table Dictionary to learn more.

Order or download a Vegetarian Starter Kit. Learn more about being a vegan. Use the Vegetarian Pyramid to plan your meals.

And take time to learn more about how a vegetarian diet can help change the environment.

Many people become vegetarian overnight, while others make the change gradually. Do what works best for you.

1. Begin by “vegging up” meals you already eat, like spaghetti with tomato sauce, soups, and salads, and by replacing the meat in favorite recipes, like lasagna, stir-fries, and chili, with beans or textured vegetable protein (TVP). Replace the beef in burritos with beans or grilled veggies. Bake stuffed peppers filled with rice pilaf or couscous (a type of quick-cooking pasta). Top baked potatoes with margarine, soy “bacon bits,” or salsa. Use crumbled tofu instead of ricotta cheese in manicotti and lasagna. Use crumbled veggie burgers instead of ground beef.

2. Check natural-food stores for instant soups and main-dish convenience items, as well as regular supermarkets. Many canned soup flavors that you’re probably already used to are vegetarian, like black bean, minestrone, tomato, and vegetable. Flavored rice mixes can be made into an entrée just by adding a can of beans. Experiment with vegetarian baked beans and refried beans (don’t forget to check for lard!) and different kinds of pasta. Order pizza without the cheese but loaded with vegetable toppings, like peppers, mushrooms, or even artichokes!

3. Try meat impostors—veggie burgers, "ham," "hot dogs," and "turkey" made out of soy and other meatless ingredients. They taste close enough to the real thing to fool any die-hard carnivore, although you might want to try several different brands before you decide which one is your favorite.

4. Visit your local healthfood stores to find the best variety of vegetarian foods. Don’t be shy—you’ll find row after row of wonderful products that you never knew existed: microwave entrées with pasta and sauces, imitation-meat products that can be used in your favorite recipes or on their own, and soy-based “cheeses,” “mayonnaise,” “sour cream,” and “milk.”

5. Explore the many vegetarian foods that have been popular in other countries for many years, like hummus (a tangy spread made from chickpeas), vegetable curries, falafel (a spicy mix of beans that can be made into patties and ”meatballs”), tempeh (a popular, high-protein meat substitute), seitan (a flavorful food made from wheat that can be sliced, marinated, cubed, fried, or baked), and a host of other vegetarian items. You’ll even find desserts, cookies, candies, and snacks that satisfy your sweet tooth without the fat and cholesterol found in animal products.

6. Make a habit of reading labels to make sure you’re buying products that are healthy and humane. Crackers may contain lard (pig fat), rice mixes may contain chicken fat, and other products include animal ingredients you’ll want to avoid, like gelatin (from animal skin, hooves, and bones). You’ll soon learn which brands are “safe,” and checking labels will become second nature.

Try these easy substitutes!

Instead of ...

Butter: Sauté in water, wine, or vegetable broth, use lemon as a dressing, and cook with vegetable margarines and oils.

Ice Cream: Try frozen desserts like Tofutti, Soy Delicious, fruit sorbets, and ices. You’ll never want to go back to the cholesterol and fat of ice cream.

Milk: Try chocolate, vanilla, and plain soy milk, rice milk, and almond milk. Excellent for cooking, on cereal, in coffee and hot chocolate—use them any way you’d use milk. Available in lowfat varieties, too.

Hamburger: There are a wide variety of vegetarian hamburgers. For “hamburger meat” as an ingredient, substitute crumbled veggie burgers in recipes for chili, “meat loaf,” and tacos.

Cheese: Check health food stores for soy cheese, which is great on pizza and sandwiches, as well as in sauces. You can also make a great creamy “cheese” sauce using nutritional yeast flakes.

Eggs: Use commercial egg replacers (made mainly from potato starch) in baked goods. For breakfast, scramble tofu with onions, mushrooms, mustard, turmeric, and soy sauce.

Jello: Look for agar-agar (made without boiling cows’ hooves and pigs’ skin), or try Hain’s Super Fruits, a vegan gelatin that comes in four fruit flavors.

Book it!

You’ll find a wide range of vegan cookbooks at your local bookstore or library. There are books for people who don’t like to spend more than 10 minutes preparing dinner, and there are books for gourmet chefs.

source: VegCooking

Can vegetarian eating supply your body with enough nutrients?

The answer is yes. Both vegetarian and nonvegetarian eating styles can be healthful. The bottom line depends on your food choices over time. Studies show a positive link between vegetarian eating and health.

In general, heart disease, high blood pressure, adult-onset diabetes, obesity and some forms of cancer tend to develop less often among vegetarians than nonvegetarians.

In a joint statement, published in the June issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada say:

It is the position of the ADA and DC that appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.

The statement reaffirms and updates ADA’s position on vegetarian diets. It details the most current science regarding key nutrients and how to obtain them through a vegetarian diet. Numerous health benefits are also cited such as lower intakes of saturated fat and cholesterol and higher intakes of carbohydrates, fiber, magnesium, potassium, folate and antioxidants such as vitamins C and E.

“Vegetarians have been reported to have healthier body weight than non-vegetarians, as well as lower rates of death from heart disease, lower blood cholesterol levels and lower rates of high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and prostate and colon cancer,” says registered dietitian and ADA spokesperson Cynthia Sass. 
 
“Planning a healthy vegetarian diet doesn’t need to be complicated, but steps should be taken to ensure the diet is nutrient-dense,” Sass says. “Just as with a meat-based diet, the key to ensuring the body meets all its nutritional needs is to choose a wide variety of foods.”

What is a Vegetarian?

Vegetarian. Eats grains, pulses, nuts, seeds, vegetables and fruits with or without the use of dairy products and eggs. A vegetarian does not eat any meat, poultry, game, fish, shellfish or crustacea, or slaughter by-products.

Lacto-ovo-vegetarian. Eats both dairy products and eggs. This is the most common type of vegetarian diet.

Lacto-vegetarian. Eats dairy products but not eggs.

Vegan. Does not eat dairy products, eggs, or any other animal product. 

source: American Dietetic Association

If you want to know more about sustainable food but aren’t sure where to begin, start with these three Easy Steps. Simply educate yourself on the issues so you can ask the right questions in order to take action to eat healthier. In other words—Educate, Ask, Act.

Step 1

Educate

What is sustainability?

When a process is sustainable, it can be maintained indefinitely. Sustainable food production can be maintained indefinitely because sustainable farmers do not take more resources to produce food than they give back. A reliance on renewable resources—as well as on symbiotic relationships with nature and the surrounding community—means that these farms do not damage the environment, are humane for workers and animals, provide a fair wage to the farmer, and support and enhance rural life.

Because sustainable farmers see nature as an ally rather an obstacle, they are able to produce more wholesome food while using less fossil fuels (thus lessening the impact on global warming), and without using any synthetic pesticides, artificial hormones, or antibiotics.

What is factory farming?

Factory farming takes a mechanized approach to agriculture, based on the assumption that raising more animals in smaller spaces is more efficient than letting them live and graze naturally, and is therefore more profitable. What this assumption ignores are the problems created when the realities of living creatures—what they eat, how they behave, how much waste they create—are at odds with the industrial systems created to maximize their production.

But factory farms don’t just ignore the problems created by intensive animal confinement, they have found ways to foist those problems onto society. Rather than responsibly manage animal waste, take measures to prevent air pollution and soil contamination, or keep their animals clean and healthy, these large scale farms take short cuts and receive government subsidies, forcing taxpayers to pay for their problems.

If factory farms were forced to pay for these costs rather than taxpayers, the system would no longer be seen as profitable. Consumers are already starting to notice this and are turning to organic and sustainable food instead.

What are the most important issues?

Growth hormones and rBGH. Both natural and synthetic hormones are regularly administered to factory farmed beef cattle to make them grow faster. rBGH is a genetically engineered hormone that increases dairy cows’ milk production, but also threatens their health. Studies have shown that hormones added to meat and dairy products may have negative effects on human health.

Antibiotics. The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that 84% of all antimicrobials used in the United States are given to farm animals, to compensate for filthy conditions as well as to promote growth. Increasingly, traditional antibiotics (which are a type of antimicrobial) are losing their effectiveness in the battle against infectious diseases because of antibiotic overuse, which creates resistant bacteria.

Mad cow disease is a brain-wasting disease that is spread among cows through factory farm feeding practices. Humans can contract the disease by eating infected meat. There is no cure and the disease is always fatal.

Genetic engineering (GE) is the process of transferring specific traits, or genes, from one organism into a different plant or animal. Much concern has been raised over the inadequate testing of the effects of genetic engineering on humans and the environment. And once released into the environment, these genetically engineered organisms cannot be cleaned up or recalled.

Step 2

Ask

Ask questions. It is your right as a consumer to know how the food you eat was produced. Use Sustainable Table’s "Questions to Ask" and come equipped to the farm, store or restaurant to really find out about what you’re eating.

Step 3

Act

Visit the Eat Well Guide. Finding farms, stores and restaurants in your area that serve sustainable meat and dairy is the first step to incorporating this food into your diet. The Eat Well Guide lists over 9,000 sustainable farms, stores, restaurants, bed & breakfasts, and online outlets by zip code, making it easy for someone new to sustainability to take the first step.

If changing your whole diet sounds intimidating, take it one step at a time. Decide on a type of meat, dairy product, or even fruit or vegetable that you will start buying organically or sustainably. Once you get comfortable with that, pick another food.

Know your farmer. The only real way to know what’s in your food is to talk to the person who grew it. There are many ways, even for urban dwellers, to start buying directly from local farms, either through farmers markets or community supported agriculture groups.

Use The Meatrix rBGH-free list to find dairy products in your area that came from cows that were not injected with this artificial growth hormone.

Get involved. This is an exciting movement that’s sweeping across the country—and planet! Invite your friends and neighbors over for sustainable dinners, start a sustainable book club or plant a garden.

source: Sustainable Table

1. Health. According to New York Times bestselling author Jo Robinson, grass-fed beef has two to six times more omega-3s than factory farmed, grain-fed meat. Omega-3 is a "good" fat that helps our cardiovascular system, our brain function and may help prevent cancer.

The concept of sustainability also involves eating local, which means buying food from a farm as close to you as possible. This cuts down on the length of time between when the food is harvested or processed and when you eat it. After being harvested, food begins to lose nutrients, so the less time between the farm and your dinner plate, the more nutritious the food is for you.

source: Sustainable Table 

OK, so you just can't live without your beef. There are ways to help the environment and still keep meat in your diet.

"Sustainable agriculture" is a way of raising food that is healthy for consumers and animals, does not harm the environment, is humane for workers, respects animals, provides a fair wage to the farmer, and supports and enhances rural communities.

By using farming techniques such as crop rotation, conservation tillage, raising animals on pasture and natural fertilization, sustainable farmers produce food without having a negative effect on the environment. Instead of harming soil, air and water, sustainable farms actually enhance and preserve the land so that future generations can continue to use it for food production.

source: The Sustainable Table