oh, those late summer tomatoes

There is nothing better than a sweet tree ripened peach, a sun ripened soft and warm tomato that's just been plucked, or springy and perky greens that were harvested in the early morning hours before the sun comes up.  Just harvested produce that has sun ripened to perfection has so much life force. You can taste all the minerals and sunny goodness.

We lose those characteristics when we buy produce at the supermarket. Supermarket produce gets harvested before it ripens so it can be transported safely over long distances and is "ready" when it finally arrives at the store. That works more or less well for some produce types but not for others. Bananas and tomatoes can be harvested while still green and will keep ripening on the window sill, although they will not acquire that natural sun ripened sweetness. A hard supermarket peach or plum, on the other hand, will never get that juicily delicious sweet taste a sun ripened fruit naturally has - the peaches usually turn mealy and the plums stay sourish.

That's why it is so rewarding to buy produce locally when it is in season. So what if you can only have strawberries in June and July? The local kind tastes ten times better than the spongy clamshell strawberries that come from far away year round. In Germany there is the annual spring asparagus craze that lasts for about six weeks when the fat white stalks are ready. Here, I love the fat juicy tomatoes that are at their best in late August and early September when the sun has had enough time to deepen their color to a profound red and they almost taste as sweet as candy. Now is the time for gazpacho, the chilled Spanish soup made from superripe tomatoes (no tomato juice!), cucumbers, peppers, a little garlic, a little vinegar; bruschetta, the Italian appetizer of cubed tomatoes with a bit of basil, served on toasted slices of garlic rubbed country bread; caprese, the Italian appetizer of alternating slices of ripe tomatoes and the best mozzarella you can find, basil, some good olive oil and balsamic vinegar, or the Tex-Mex saladof leftover barbecued corn, red onions, tomatoes and lots of cilantro with a balsamic vinaigrette.

with nature, not against it

The present (waning) industrial petro-energy age, while having afforded us an enormous leap in standard of living, is also unfortunately characterized by domination and exploitation of nature, which we not only rape but also use as a dumping ground for the ensuing waste of the technologies we have developed - a win-lose situation all around. The dire consequences of this belief system are at our doorstep now. A new way of seeing ourselves is embedded and part of nature, not apart from nature. This perspective is birthing a whole new way of looking at technology. Science writer Janine Benyus calls it biomimicry and wrote a book about it. Biomimicry looks at how nature does things and then emulates it for our human applications.

A terrific example from architecture & engineering is a huge building complex in Zimbabwe whose cooling system was inspired by termites' design of their weird looking desert dens that maintain a constant 86 degrees F, even though the outside temperature may range from 30 at night to 110 in mid-day.

An example from agriculture is permaculture.  Permaculture is a man made food growing system that integrates local weather and soil conditions, native and predominantly perennial plants (that don't require tilling the soil), possible integration of animals into the system design, all in a circular wasteless process. Therefore, permaculture has no negative impact on the surrounding environment and it produces food for us.

Win-win all around!  What a great new paradigm.

no plastics for my food

I don't like to store my leftovers or homemade hummus, mayonnaise, apple sauce, or catfood in plastic containers. Plastics leach the chemicals BPA (bisphenol A), also used in the linings of canned foods, and phtalates into the foods and drinks that are stored in them. Moreover, heating or microwaving food in plastic seems to worsen the effect. Whether we are talking plastic food storage containers, or plastic water or soda bottles, it's all the same. I also try to avoid buying foods that are sold in plastic. Trader Joe's recently switched their organic peanut butter packaging from glass to plastic jars and I stopped buying it. Instead, I now buy organic peanut butter at my local supermarket that carries it in glass jars.

I also stopped buying seltzer and got a home soda making machine.  Not only do I no longer send all those plastic bottles to recycling, I also know that our own water is superior in quality and taste, as is of course the seltzer made from it (and who knows from what water source the commercial seltzer comes from).  Granted, the home seltzer bottles are made from plastic, albeit BPA free plastic (one hopes); in addition the home made seltzer is made to order and consumed immediately, while the store bought seltzer sits in a hot delivery truck in its plastic bottle for hours and perhaps days, and then on a supermarket shelf for more days, and weeks, and perhaps even months. 

Inert materials, such as glass, stainless steel, aluminum or porcelain are safest for food storage. Glass works best, though, because it is see-through. I save wide-mouth glass jars (they are more practical than the narrow-mouth ones) in all sizes from peanut butter, salsa, pickles and such,  and reuse them to store food. I also use Pyrex glass bowls with plastic lids (the lids don't touch the food) for leftovers.

Play it safe, play it glass.

the whole kit and caboodle

Two recent articles made me aware of a truer meaning of sustainable agriculture and where we need to go next in our farm-to-table awareness.

The first one was about the enormous waste in the EU (and likely in the US as well) created by discarding produce that doesn't look perfect even though it is in good condition and tastes just like its more conformist looking counterparts. A young Portuguese woman started a produce cooperative named Fruta Feia or Ugly Fruit to market and sell such imperfect produce at 20%-30% less.

The other article was from chef Dan Barber on widening the premise of sustainable agriculture and including in our food choices also those crops that are typically used as cover crops to replenish the soil.  Soybeans, kidney beans or cowpeas (used as animal feed) are typical nitrogen replenishers for the soil. But Barber was talking about a much more sophisticated and complex crop rotation that is needed to keep the soil fertile and full of minerals, which guarantees not only superior taste but also mineral and trace element rich foods (less supplements you'll need to take). Such other crops might include rye, barley, or buckwheat, all little used in this country because less marketed and less known.

Sustainability, in agriculture and elsewhere, is about a wasteless circular process, in which all "waste" becomes a reusable base component for the next process in the circle, thereby eliminating the idea of "waste" altogether.  A sustainable farm would not buy outside fertilizer, seeds, and pest management products, instead using the farm animal manure for fertilizer, using crop rotation, crop variety and inter-planting as main pest control techniques, and saving its seeds from one year to the next.  Being able to sell its cover crops in addition to its "main crops" makes the farm more  viable and eliminates further waste.

The whole idea behind truly sustainable agriculture is to embrace every part of the agricultural process, the whole kit and caboodle, whether it's the little used rye (here in the US at least), the funny looking strawberries, the carrots with a nose or legs, or the lesser known fava beans (I made a fava bean hummus the other day that was as delicious and tasty as a chickpea hummus).

Happy Earth Day

Today, I am wishing you a "happy" Earth Day with the caveat that our worldwide window to tackle climate change is beginning to close.  A few days ago I read something about 15 years.  If we don't achieve a definite downward curve on carbon emissions within that time frame our lives will change drastically, and not for the better. We can't keep shrugging our shoulders and putting the onus on "the government," because "the government" gets its nudge from all of us.   Things change when true pressure is exerted on "the government" from all of us.  Change comes from within, moves from the bottom up and out, and government is a reflection of us.

Why am I saying all of this?  Because the onus for drastic change is on each one of us! Now!  Don't throw your arms up in despair at the enormity of our challenges.  Instead, make a conscious effort to embrace what needs to be done by fully accepting our environmental calamity and committing to make a difference.

So, what can you do?  Here are lots of ideas, and the more of them you incorporate into your life the better for all of us.

Recycle and compost your kitchen scraps, plant a garden, buy an energy efficient vehicle (or at least consolidate your trips, or car pool), insulate your home to the max. and consider installing new tight windows, read all you can about climate change and the environment in general, buy local,  bring your own bags to the supermarket (no more plastic bags!  there is a plastic swirl in the Pacific Ocean the size of Texas!!! and plastic does not, I repeat, does not disintegrate in hundreds and hundreds of years),  drink well water and forego buying water in plastic bottles (and who knows what leaches into that water from the plastic anyhow),  read all you can about industrial food production, then make a drastic change in where and what you buy to feed your family,  install solar panels on your home (30% incentive state tax credit until 2015), consider a geothermal heating/air-conditioning system  (after tax credits, cost is similar to a conventional system and you'll be off fossil fuels), switch your electric supplier to one who provides 100% electric from renewable sources, eat less meat (it's better for you anyways), spread the word to other people and inspire them to make a difference, most of all - inform yourself and become aware.

Don't be surprised that none of this is for free. However, you have a choice of making these investments now on your own terms (consider them an insurance premium for environmental health), or shortly being forced by environmental circumstances into a very ugly reality that money and technology will no longer be able to improve.

If you love your planet make it a happy Earth Day by making a difference for yourself and your children and grand-children.

eat less meat!

How preposterous of me to tell you so?  Not.  Surprisingly, this is a huge environmental issue that goes way beyond the potentially ethical question of killing (they call it harvesting now, to make it sound more harmless) a living being and eating it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a vegetarian.  However, in the Western industrialized world meat consumption has skyrocketed from eating meat once a week or so to just under 200lbs/person/year in the US since the advent of cheap meat!  This enormous meat consumption in combination with the rise in world population and the increasing numbers of people able to afford the cheap meat has become a recipe for disaster.

The environmental calamity arises from "cheap" and "too much."  Why?  Because the CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) that these poor animals are raised in are among the biggest greenhouse gas emitters on this planet - generating about 18% (!!!) of greenhouse gases.  In addition, the huge amounts of animal waste leach antibiotics into our ground water.  And to top it off, the conditions under which these sorry souls are being raised, then killed and processed are so horrendous that it is literally unbelievable (read Jonathan Safran Foer because you must know).

There is nothing necessarily wrong with eating meat per se.  As a matter of fact, especially during childhood and adolescence animal protein helps to grow the brain.   But like with anything balance is the key and industrialized nations have become meat addicted.   Food researcher and author Marion Nestlé has advocated eating meat in condiment quantities.

How can we help?  First and foremost by resisting to buy cheap supermarket meat, which comes from CAFOs.  Instead, buy your meat at or from a local farm where the animals have been raised sustainably.  Yes, it will cost more.  But we ought to consume much less of it!

It's in the quality, not the quantity.

You may also want to revisit a series of three posts on meat eating.

how big is your garbage can?

Actually, I should ask "How big is your recycling can?"  I am hoping your recycling can is bigger than your garbage can.  If so, you are on the right track.  If not, there is a lot you can do to reverse that. It is insane how much household waste we generate (and which has to be disposed of somehow).  In 2012 in the US we produced close to 251 million tons of garbage or 4.38 pounds per person per day!!!  That is 17.52 pounds per day for a family of four, or almost 6400 pounds per year!!!!  Holy mackerel.  And consider this:  household garbage only accounts for about 2% of all garbage generated, since there is also industrial, construction and commercial garbage.

No wonder we are collectively beginning to wake up to the need to generate less garbage, recycle more, consume less, make smaller packaging, and compost more.

At our house we have the smallest garbage can available, a 35 gallon can, while our recycling can is huge, it takes 95 gallons.  I am a fervent recycler, as well as bottle (to the store to get my 5 cents back) and egg carton (I get my eggs from a farm) and plastic bag returner (to the supermarket collection bin for all sorts of plastic bags I somehow ended up with).  And even though I have temporarily stopped composting, we usually only generate about one full garbage bag (made of recyclable plastic) per week (sometimes two) for our family of four (and about half of that is produce and other compostable stuff).  Everything else gets recycled.

Moreover, recycling services are for free (or rather paid through your taxes), while you pay for your garbage pick-up by can size directly out of your pocket - the smaller your garbage can the less you pay.   And if you have a garden and can compost you'll end up with even less garbage.

So you can do something good for the environment and save money on top of that (although this goes beyond the mere money question since we pay a huge environmental price for every bit of irresponsibility).  Also refer to an earlier blog post about what else you can do.

lightbulb 101

As the traditional pear shaped incandescent lightbulbs are being phased out altogether (2009 in Europe, 2014 in this country), LED lights are pushing in and will eventually eclipse even fluorescents, compact and otherwise.

Just from a lifespan perspective the difference is staggering.  Conventional incandescents last about 1,200 hours (about half a year at an average conservative use of 6 hours per day), halogens 2,000, compact fluorescents about 8,000 hours (about 3.5 years), linear fluorescents about 20,000 hours (about 9 years), while LED lightbulbs last a whopping 50,000 hours (yep, that's 23 years!!!!!).

halogen

Yes, LED lightbulbs cost a lot more, at least right now.  But that's an initial investment that pays in the long run and drastically reduces your electric bill and maintenance costs.  On top of that LEDs use only about 1/10th of the electricity of that old lightbulb and 1/2 of that of a CFC (compact fluorescent), so the light output of a 50W incandescent can be replicated with an 8W LED - see comparison chart - and they are less toxic for the environment.

compact fluorescent

That's what an investment is - a higher upfront cost for a later gain.  When we buy organic food or grassfed or pastured meat we make an investment into the health of our body via the higher upfront cost of the healthier meat.  Same with LED lightbulbs, we make an investment into a lower electric bill and a reduced lightbulb replacement cost (and ultimately a reduction on fossil fuel consumption).

Imagine not having to change a lightbulb for another two decades?

bring your own bags

I have never liked the ubiquitous plastic shopping bags the supermarkets and other big box stores almost force on you.  They fly around parking lots on a windy day and end up in shrubs and trees as well as in our oceans (have you heard of the Pacific trash vortex?  what a mess!).  And even though I save those few I do inevitably end up with in my kitchen cabinet with the other recyclables I mostly have no use for them. People have become more aware in recent years for sure, what with all those bags made from recycled plastic bottles you can get at every supermarket (but they don't wash well).  In Europe it has always been customary to bring your own shopping bag, net or basket.  In more recent times plastic shopping bags, at least in Germany, have become so expensive to buy (they don't hand them out for free over there) that it has drastically curtailed the use of them.  California may soon become the first state in this country to ban this environmental scourge, as the NY Times reported a few days ago.

some of my bags

I use machine washable canvas shopping bags of which I bought a whole bunch many years ago, as well as a really neat bottle carrying bag (it fits nine bottles).  I usually have a few in my car, just in case.  Traditional woven shopping baskets are no longer very practical because they are bulky and you can't fit a lot into them.  Mesh shopping bags, on the other hand, fold up so small you can always carry one in your bag for unforeseen purchases.

We begin to become environmentally aware in baby steps.  This is one way to start.

locavorism

Perhaps you have heard about the term locavorism, buying your groceries from within a 50 miles radius of where you live and in season in order to cut down on your carbon footprint (another one of those "green" terms).   Buying produce locally is a challenge when you live where the growing season stops for several months (more on that in Barbara Kingsolver's delectable book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle). What I have been able to buy locally year round for years now are honey, eggs, milk and meat.  So many people in our area are keeping chickens that I am able to buy my eggs from a friend down the road and a nearby farm.

DSC00179

Same for honey (when we are not keeping bees, which is a whole other story).  I get it in 5lb jars from a local beekeeper, who processes it minimally.  With all the well publicized bee problems his bees have remained healthy without much interference and "bee management."  We use a lot of honey as a substitute for sugar - in the hot chocolate I make for the kids in the morning, in cooking and baking, also drizzled over yogurt, pancakes, fruit salad or ice cream. 

Our raw milk comes from one of the two approved farms in our county.  Several families have gotten together and we take turns picking the milk up each week for the group.

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Finally, the meat - I buy almost all our meat in bulk from two local farmers and keep it in our large chest freezer in the basement. 

Bulk purchases require different storage strategies than weekly small scale supermarket shopping - you need pantry and freezer space.  It also requires a cash outlay.  In addition, I had to learn to plan ahead.  My chicken farmer for example asks me in the spring how many chickens I want to pick up in June to last me through the summer, and they ask me in June how many I would like in September to last me through the spring.  With regard to the milk I drop my empty jars off each week for the following week's order, so I have to plan a week ahead for the family's milk needs (it doesn't always work out if I decide to make ice cream or panna cotta or something else that requires lots of milk).

Something to consider.  Also look at a previous post on bulk produce shopping.