Food and Drink
Kanon Organic Vodka
A hot new introduction from a 400 year old distillery, Kanon Organic Vodka originates from the Gripsholm Distillery in Sweden. Dating back to 1580, this old world distillery with royal history was the largest distillery in Sweden supplying its foundry workers with high quality spirits from locally grown organic wheat. High quality organic vodka offerings from Europe are ever increasing with very little competition from state-side distilleries.
It is not just history which sets Kanon Organic Vodka apart from other organic liquor, it is also the unique organic process avoiding an ‘over-distilled’ vodka, providing a clean distinctive natural flavor without the typical vodka burn. I found it quite appealing on the rocks as well as paired with a mixer.
Going beyond just organic, the Gripsholm Distillery is run on wind and hydro power with all by-products being renewed. Even the Kanon bottle is made from 60% recycled glass giving it another bump on the eco-friendly scale. Locally produced organic wheat cuts down on transportation costs, and supports the local farmers.
What Foods to Buy Organic
I’m preparing to get married in September, and I’ve been working super hard to keep my diet healthy, while still saving money for the wedding. Even if you’re not getting married soon, you’re still probably on a budget with the way the economy is right now, and buying organic food can start to add up when your budget is tight. While it is always a better idea to eat organic food, I realize that sometimes it’s not always an option. After consulting the Environmental Working Group’s lists, and other environmental groups, I’ve compiled a list of fruits and veggies to go organic with, or to bypass if the budget won’t allow. A good rule of thumb is to consider the thickness of the skin. Melons of any type have thick skins and so pesticides have a harder time getting in. Peaches, berries, and other soft skinned fruit however eat the pesticides up like water, and tend to be highest on the pesticide scale.
Don’t forget meats, dairy, and eggs too. While they are sometimes hard to find in organic depending on where you live, they are very important to buy organic, sometimes more important than fruits and vegetables. There are so many pesticides and toxins in what animals are eating, let alone the products themselves.
Foods aren’t the only things that you should be seeking the natural approach for either. If you suffer from allergies or other health issues, environmental toxins may be to blame. It’s a good idea to buy almost anything in your bedroom, organically. You spend (hopefully) 8 hours out of every 24, sleeping in your bedroom. That’s a third of your day, and that doesn’t include other activities that you might do in your bedroom, such as work, or reading! Switching to an organic mattress or pillows might make all the difference in the world.
Fair Trade Tea Tasting: Zhena’s Gypsy Tea
I wake up in the morning pretty groggy, and the shower’s enough to keep me awake for a few minutes after I step out but like much of America, I need something more than water to keep me going through the day. I’d like to think it’s not true, but I probably am a caffeine-addict with my own alternative to a five dollar cup of coffee every morning – I kick start my day with tea.
I like to think though that I’m not a simple addict, but instead, a tea-connoisseur (ah, the semantics of denial) and have always gone out of my way to drink teas that appeal to me instead of simply getting a regular morning caffeine fix. Generally, this comes in the form of a single-estate tea I’ve either randomly picked up doing groceries – or when I’m particularly feeling curious, over the Internet.
Courtesy of Zhena's Gypsy Tea
I’ve also, less occasionally, dabbled my hand in flavored teas, where the interest isn’t so much in preserving the unique taste of tea from a particular estate but instead in the actual additional flavoring. Although it would be a break from routine, a sampler tin of 16 tea-bags (of four different flavors) caught my eye when I had to pick up a few groceries last week. What particularly perked my attention wasn’t the variety of flavors, or the colorful nature of the stacked tins, but the catchwords with which this tea were labeled: “fair trade” and “organic”. As I turned it over to the other-side, I also found that the tea was kosher. I couldn’t really place my finger on the relevance of the ‘kosher’ tag though as I always thought that such a label would only be applicable to products in some way derived from animals and they haven’t started putting bacon in tea just yet. “Meh”, I thought, “I’ll give em a try.”
Crayon Health Bars
There are many fantastic and interesting inventions out there, with new ones happening every day. (Even paper chips!). One that really caught my eye is a remarkable idea for a health bar – a crayon. Luxirare (a combination of Rare and Luxury) is a weekly, elegant, webzine that focuses on portraying the beauty of fashion and food. The webzine concentrates on one item at a time and spends a lot of time towards executing the creation and presentation of that item. In this case, Luxirare has created crayon health bars, and captured the attention of many.
Luxirare created the crayons out of colorful foods, all listed on the back of the box, and many of the ingredients are very healthy and an appealing change from normal fruits and vegetables. The yellow crayon, for instance, includes processed corn, nuts, yellow Fruity Pebbles, dried bananas and bee pollen (which is super healthy). Luxirare separated many different types of foods in small containers and captured the creation process and end result in many striking photos. › Continue reading
Fun At The Eco-Chic Expo
I hope many of you had a chance to visit the Eco-Chic Expo yesterday at the Ravenna-Eckstein Community Center that Rachel posted about last week. Featuring many different local sustainable living companies, the expo was definitely a great and interactive way to spend a few hours. The expo featured a lot of companies all excited to share their products and websites with the public at this free event. Here are some businesses and events that really caught my eye!
Full Circle Farm is an organic farm that grows and sources organic fruits and vegetables and deliver right to your door! Located just outside of Carnation, the 400 acre farm grows over 200 varieties of produce and 50 crops in order to provide a large variety for their customers. They also partner with other local farms in order to provide more options for delivery baskets. The baskets of food are fully customizable, with flexible order size and frequency and as an added bonus, you know exactly where your food is coming from. To sign up for a delivery subscription or learn more about Full Circle Farm visit their website or call 866-EAT-WELL.
The Cups I See Everywhere
Beverage cups at Mariner’s baseball games, parfait cups at the University of Washington, and cold or hot coffee cups, everywhere I turn the Cedar Grove Composting label seems to be there as well. Now it’s become a fun game to point out every label I see.
Cedar Grove is a leading organic recycling company in the Pacific Northwest which started way back in 1938. They even proudly state that Cedar Grove Composting has grown to become the largest single dedicated yard waste composting facility in the United States. They provide 100% natural soil amendments, soil blends, and mulches. Also, the cups I’ve been seeing everywhere are 100% compostable and will break down into quality compost. Cedar Grove also provides recycled paper sandwich bags, cutlery, straws, and cold or hot food containers. On July 1st, Seattle will require that all single-use service ware be either recyclable or compostable. Cedar Grove is assisting this movement 100% and will make it easier to save money on waste costs going to a landfill and protect the environment by enriching the soil with nutrients from food and service-ware waste.
Slim Chips Are Not The Answer
Today as I was hanging out with my boyfriend goes “Remember when eating paper was okay, because you were a kid, and you also ate paste?” (Hmm… No honey, actually I don’t.) “I found flavored paper chips online today”. What? Yes, that’s right: paper, as food. And I’m not talking about the “McDonalds is made out of paper” scenario. The intent of this item is really to market paper, to be eaten, as paper. It’s a little different from the Sunchips biodegradable bag approach.
Brought to you by HAF®
, of Hafsteinn Juliusson, comes Slim Chips. Hafsteinn Juliusson is most well known for their growing jewelry, which features rings and necklaces with live moss as the focal point. I’ll admit that I love the rings. They’re the right blend of nature and fashion for me. However, the chips, I just can’t get behind.
Peppermint, Blueberry, and Sweet Potato. I’m not really sure who decided on the three flavors they would develop, but those are them, The flavors, at least, are organic. According to their website, Slim Chips contain no calories, and “instead of getting fat you can now eat paper with different flavors”. I have to say I really think this is not a habit we want to cultivate in our children, or anyone for that matter. Typically paper is made from a combination of chemicals and pulp. › Continue reading
Take a Peek at Emeril Green
As a long-time fan of The Food Network, I was really excited to hear about Emeril Green. Featured on the Planet Green Network. Chef Emeril Lagasse explores the world of eco-friendly, delicious cooking and shares every tip he can find with his audience.
Shopping at Whole Foods Market, Emeril is asked about real life culinary challenges by real people. In each episode, Emeril creates easy recipes in order to find healthy, organic solutions to the challenges presented to him. He answers questions such as what foods to eat if you have digestion issues, which fruits and vegetables are known for their cancer fighting capability, and how to have an eco-friendly fiesta. This is a great show to watch if you enjoy educating yourself about shopping and cooking green as well as gaining everyday tips to enhance your lifestyle and well being.
The Big Business of Organic Foods
Who owns your favorite organic food label? Think most organic products and companies are independent- think again. Odwalla = Coca-Cola; Green and Blacks Chocolate = Cadbury; Cascadian Farms = General Mills. The list goes on and on. In fact, if you see it at a chain grocery store, your favorite organic or natural foods product is probably owned by a big corporation. See the graphic below for your favorite organic brand and their parent company.
It is the natural progression of business. In 2005, US organics accounted for 2.6% of the food market, growing at a rate of 17-20% a year resulting in a $52 billion industry in 2008.
The plus side
- Organic food is easy to find, is plentiful and the costs are reasonable.
- The food is predictable in quality, flavor and taste. Often smaller producers have a smaller production line and work in small batches with less strict ingredient or quality controls. While this can add to the uniqueness, it occasionally can produce unexpected results.
- It can expand the organic market, adding and converting farmers and updating practices to the mainstream.
The Green Card
If you are a coffee lover like me, receiving or giving a coffee gift card will put an instant smile on your face. With the new Conservation International Starbucks Gift Card, you get a little something more to smile about. From March 9th to December 31st, 2010, every time the CI card is used, Starbucks will donate five cents to Conservation International in order to help with their efforts to decrease deforestation and continue to find solutions to climate change. Starbucks Coffee has teamed up with Conservation International for more than 10 years in order to improve ethical sourcing of coffee and fight the global climate change that threatens the growth of coffee beans.
Peter Seligmann, Chairman and CEO of CI states that “the alliance between Starbucks and Conservation International is an important step in reducing emissions from deforestation, which accounts for 20 percent of all the carbon released into the atmosphere – double the world’s cars, trucks, and trains combined. Our partnership engages one of the great corporations, their customers and coffee farmers in this battle against climate change. By stepping up this partnership we have aligned our existing work and success to address the most pressing issue of our time.” For details about › Continue reading
Food as an Environmental Issue
http://www.flickr.com/photos/foxypar4/ / CC BY 2.0
While thinking about and writing my posts on natural groceries and organic delivery services, it came to my attention that the concept of food is not inherently an environmental issue in the minds of many people. I’ve got to admit that this kind of blew me away. To me, food is so essentially an environmental issue that to not think of it that way is to ignore huge aspects and linkages within environmentalism. Think of the vegetarian and vegan movements. Think of organics. Think of sustainable agriculture and waste reduction and prevention. The environment and all its issues are like a giant spider web, and right there in the middle, where all the threads intersect, is food.
When people think of being green, of acting environmentally responsible, they think of recycling, of using reusable shopping bags and water bottles. They might even go so far as to think of using public transit or even riding a bike to work. Let’s be honest, a lot of people just think politics and then tune out. When people think about food, they think of what they like to eat, what their family likes to eat, the price of the food, and maybe even what’s healthy.
But there is so much more to it than that. Let’s break it down. › Continue reading
