Archive for the 'Green Food' Category
Mackenzie Yang, a journalist from the Columbia Spectator, hit the nail on the head: Green eating habits mean more than just broccoli.
After attending a series of workshops on food, farms and community health in New York, Yang learned some lessons that Chicagoans need to hear.
Lesson 1:
Eating organic produce translates to eating an extra serving of fruits and vegetables due to all the antioxidants and nutrients it has compared to nonorganic produce.
Lesson 2:
Vitamin content in nonorganic fruits and vegetables has decreased by 10 to 40 percent over the years.
Lesson 3:
Irradiated food—food exposed to radiation to kill off bacteria—does not have to be labeled as such, even if it’s sold in restaurants, schools, and hospitals. This is disturbing, as irradiation destroys vitamins, protein, and essential fatty acids, and produces chemicals that have been linked to DNA damage in human cells.
For more lessons and information about what Yang learned, read her article in the Columbia Spectator.
December 05 2007 | Green Lifestyle and Green Food | No Comments »
Everyone says that they want to eat local and organic and will maybe go on a “green” spree for a short time. But who really sticks to their original green game plan?
One woman and one man did - Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon.
Their book - Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally - documents the entire year-long experience.
Here’s a synposis:
Like many great adventures, the 100-mile diet began with a memorable feast. Stranded in their off-the-grid summer cottage in the Canadian wilderness with unexpected guests, Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon turned to the land around them. They caught a trout, picked mushrooms, and mulled apples from an abandoned orchard with rose hips in wine. The meal was truly satisfying; every ingredient had a story, a direct line they could trace from the soil to their forks. The experience raised a question: Was it possible to eat this way in their everyday lives?
Back in the city, they began to research the origins of the items that stocked the shelves of their local supermarket. They were shocked to discover that a typical ingredient in a North American meal travels roughly the distance between Boulder, Colorado, and New York City before it reaches the plate. Like so many people, Smith and MacKinnon were trying to live more lightly on the planet; meanwhile, their “SUV diet” was producing greenhouse gases and smog at an unparalleled rate. So they decided on an experiment: For one year they would eat only food produced within 100 miles of their Vancouver home.
It wouldn’t be easy. Stepping outside the industrial food system, Smith and MacKinnon found themselves relying on World War II era cookbooks and maverick farmers who refused to play by the rules of a global economy. What began as a struggle slowly transformed into one of the deepest pleasures of their lives. For the first time they felt connected to the people and the places that sustain them.
For Smith and MacKinnon, the 100-mile diet became a journey whose destination was, simply, home. From the satisfaction of pulling their own crop of garlic out of the earth to pitched battles over canning tomatoes, Plenty is about eating locally and thinking globally.
The authors’ food-focused experiment questions globalization, monoculture, the oil economy, environmental collapse, and the tattering threads of community. Thought-provoking and inspiring, Plenty offers more than a way of eating. In the end, it’s a new way of looking at the world.
The two authors will be speakers at the Tri State Locally Grown Conference.
Just in case you’re not sold quite yet, here’s a review:
“This very human and often humorous adventure about two people eating food grown within a short distance of their home is surprising, delightful, and even shocking. If you’ve only talked about eating locally but never given yourself definitions — especially strict ones — to follow, I assure you that your farmers’ market will never again look the same. Nothing you eat will look the same! This inspiring and enlightening book will give you plenty to chew on.” Deborah Madison, author of Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America’s Farmers’ Markets
November 30 2007 | Green Food | No Comments »
If you interested in being part of a sustainable local food system, this conference is for you.
WHO: Experts from Illinois, Iowa and Missouri (including Land Connection founder Terra Brockman) will share their research and experiences. Keynote speakers are Rich Pirog of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, and Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon, co-authors of Plenty, and originators of the 100-Mile Diet.
WHAT TO DO: Register at http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/adamsbrown/ (Click on Locally Grown Conference) Registration is $25 per person, with a lunch featuring local foods included
WHEN: Registration deadline is Nov. 21.
For more information about Terra Brockman and how she started the Land Connection in Evanston, read how she challenges Chicagoans to dig in and eat local.
November 29 2007 | Green Food and Green Events | No Comments »
Want to make your Thanksgiving a little more environmentally-friendly?
World Wildlife Fund offers some easy steps to make your celebration more sustainable:
1) Purchase locally grown, seasonal produce in the bulk bin. Locally produced products require less gasoline to ship to market — and usually taste fresher too. Local seasonal produce can include root crops such as potatoes, turnips, beets, rutabaga, parsnips, salsify, pumpkins and squash. Use bitter greens and hardy vegetables that are available in the fall, such as collards, kale and Brussels sprouts. They’re good for you and good for the planet. Look for them in the bulk bin to cut down on individual packaging waste.
2) Buy organic foods — turkeys, produce such as apples, celery, and many of the traditional Thanksgiving dinner trimmings are now available in organic version, usually better for the environment as they reduce the use of pesticides.
3) Shop online or order by phone and save the gas you’d burn driving from store to store. It saves the planet from exhaust emissions, which add to global warming.
4) Look for natural materials such as pinecones, dried leaves, Osage oranges, and other natural materials from your own backyard to make your holiday centerpiece.
5) Serve tap water instead of bottled at your holiday table and cut down on plastic bottles which will need to be discarded.
6) Purchase ingredients with a minimal amount of packaging around them. Cardboard and plastic packaging just ends up in the waste basket.
7) Serve wine sealed with a cork not a plastic stopper. Cork extraction is one of the most environmentally friendly harvesting methods, and cork production provides a sustainable livelihood for people in many parts of the world.
Although Thanksgiving is supposed to be a feast, don’t prepare more food than will be eaten. American’s throw out nearly 40 percent of their food. This year, encourage guests to clean their plates.
9) Remember — leftovers are half the fun! Find new and interesting ways to serve leftovers.
10) Share food with those that have less and invite people for Thanksgiving that don’t have anywhere else to go. Sustainable societies are built on sustainable agriculture and food systems but also sustainable communities — be part of one.
With these tips, the holidays can no longer be an excuse to flush your green lifestyle down the toilet.
November 20 2007 | Green Lifestyle and Green Food | No Comments »
People across the nation are steadily becoming more interested in finding ways to buy local and organic produce. This week Chicago’s first permanent, year-round urban farm could make supporting local farmers a little easier.
Who: Growing Home, Alderman Toni Foulkes and Teamwork Englewood
What: Groundbreaking for Chicago’s First Permanent, Year-Round Urban Farm
When: Wednesday, November 14, 9:00 am
Where: Wood Street Urban Farm, 5814 S. Wood St., Chicago
Growing Home is a six-year old certified organic agricultural business with a social mission of providing transitional employment for homeless and low-income adults. Program participants are difficult-to-employ people, most of whom have criminal backgrounds.
The Wood Street Urban Farm is the third site for Growing Home, which also operates a 10-acre farm 75 miles southwest of Chicago at Marseilles, Illinois and a half-acre urban farm on the south side.
The new farm is a part of the larger Quality of Life Plan for the Englewood community, which calls for developing an Urban Agriculture District in Englewood that will lead to healthy and sustainable living among neighborhood residents.
According to the Growing Home website, the U.S. organic sector is expected to grow from $13 billion in 2003 to over $25 billion in 2007. However, less than 3 percent of organic produce available in Chicago is grown locally.
November 13 2007 | Green Trends and Green Lifestyle and Green Food and Green Farming and Green Events | No Comments »
For some people, going green revolves around food. Supporting sustainability and putting healthy, organic and local options on the table is often easier said than done.
Two Chicagoans are taking matters into their own hands and opening a gluten-free, vegan and organic restaurant in November. Pull up a chair and listen to the baker and executive chef discuss the logic behind taking eating green to a whole new level.
For further background, read the post in October about the Balanced Kitchen or the article on Medill Reports.
Listen to the audio interview.
Quicktime Audio Interview
Or read the following transcript.
1. So what is your name?
B: My name is Elizabeth Bell Elper, but you can call me Betty.
2. And how are you involved in the restaurant?
B: I am the baker and the owner.
3. And what’s your name?
Z: Zachary Bello, and I am the executive chef here.
4. So tell me, for people who don’t know anything about the restaurant, what’s the basic premise behind the development – or the restaurant?
B: Well we are the Balanced Kitchen, and we’re 100 percent vegan and gluten-free. And we’re just, you know, trying…
Z: That really is the focus – being gluten-free and vegan and green and natural.
B: Yeah, that’s the focus. As long as everything is that, we’re all right with it. We are also trying to be very local. With the food that we use and with the amount of business we want to do, we don’t want this, a lot of gluten-free business is distance. There are not very many local, gluten-free businesses. So that’s what we’re trying to do.
5. For someone who has no idea what gluten is, how would you describe it?
B: Gluten is a protein that is found in wheat, barley, malt, rye, kaput, spelt.
6. And, so what would you say are some of the things to avoid for the normal human being if they have celiac disease or gluten intolerance?
B: Things to avoid? Anything that has those products in it. Well the obvious is bread, pasta – no traditional bread and pasta. But there are so many things that have gluten in them. Like soy sauce, which is horrible. But you can have tamari, which is good. But wheat-free tamari. And most baked goods – and also with vegan – I mean there are lots of things that you can’t eat. But it’s not really about what you can’t eat. You’re only really cutting out a few things from your diet. There are so many more things that you can eat. And I don’t know, I mean – I like to learn about new foods and explore things. And I feel like as a vegan and someone who does have a slightly restricted diet, you have to want to explore. To be excited about it.
Z: Yeah, to keep the excitement and then especially as a chef and a vegan now, who relies on protein and meat – for their flavor – I mean that’s where they get the bulk of their flavor. And they’re sort of very reliant on that product, and so as a vegan chef, now I have to explore bringing more flavors from the vegetables. You know, I have to incorporate flavor in different ways.
B: You have to be more inventive.
Z: Yeah, I’ve really had to push myself very hard to – not necessarily be experimental – because that’s very easy to just go out and try things. As a chef, I would eat anything. But to cook without those things, which are the moneymakers for chefs, has been a real challenge. It’s been a lot of fun.
7. Is Chicago progressive in the sense that more people – I mean do you think more people are turning to a gluten-free diet and that’s why they’re demanding restaurants like this?
B: There’s a slightly more – I mean especially gluten-free is growing a lot.
Z: There’s a huge awareness because diagnosis is becoming an important thing, especially for gluten intolerance and celiac.
B: And just the word gluten is out there.
Z: Yeah, and also all the people who are living a healthy lifestyle are learning about what gluten does to their body and knowing that it’s not good for their body – and deciding to cut it out because they want to be healthy.
B: And I mean a lot of people are more interested in the environment. The average person is becoming more interested because of popularized movies but it gets them excited.
November 09 2007 | Green Places and Green Lifestyle and Green Food | No Comments »
People with celiac disease or those who just like to try new foods, can enjoy an evening of gluten-free food with a well-known blogger, Gluten-Free Girl.
Celiac disease, an inherited autoimmune disorder, may have been the best thing to happen to Shauna James Ahern.
Once she was diagnosed and forced to change her lifestyle and how she ate, she found love for seasonal foods, scratch cooking, living life with no regrets – and a man.
Ahern shares her journey in her debut book, “Gluten-Free Girl: How I Found the Food That Loves Me Back…And How You Can Too” (Wiley, 288 pages, $24.95), which hit shelves Oct. 12 , timed appropriately to coincide with Celiac Awareness Month and a cross-country book tour.
She will be in Evanston for a book signing at BooCoo Cafe & Cultural Center on Nov. 1 from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m.
The Balanced Kitchen, the gluten-free, vegan restaurant mentioned in the post on October 29, will cater the event. All of the snacks will be organic, gluten-free and vegan.
October 31 2007 | Green Food and Green Events | No Comments »
Eating out is often not an option for people with certain food allergies. Between gluten, dairy, trans-fats and excess calories-typical menus are like minefields to those with limited diets.
The Balanced Kitchen serves food without limits for those looking to eat out and enjoy a gluten-free, vegan and organic lifestyle under one roof.
About one in 133 Americans suffer from celiac disease, which is an auto-immune disease that prevents people from processing a protein in wheat, barley and rye. Switching to a gluten-free diet is the only treatment for celiac sufferers.
“There’s a huge push for awareness and education about food allergens if you’re a chef to make these things that are usually off limits available and accessible,” said Zachary Bello, executive chef for The Balanced Kitchen. “As a chef, you’re already in the business to please the public. To please the public now, you need to know these needs.”
Bello assures customers that the restaurant is 100 percent gluten-free and 100 vegan. So nothing on this menu is off limits.
In addition, the resaurant, which plans to open in November at 6263 N. McCormick Road, has been LEED-certified and aims to incorporate as many eco-frindly practices as possible.
October 30 2007 | Green Places and Green Food | No Comments »
