Filed under: Clean, Farmer's Market, Food, Green, Health, Movies, Nature
As much as I love and often refer to Food Inc. it was a really heavy movie; all the things I had already suspected were not only confirmed but the stories and images, though not as gruesome I had anticipated, had resonated in a strong way. I was mad and angry and I sort of carried it with me for a while; it wasn’t a terrible thing, just not the kind of feeling I want to handle often.
On the flip side of Food Inc. there’s a new, seemingly more joyful and uplifting movie that’s out called Fresh. My awesome co-worker passed it along yesterday and I’m already trying to see if I can get into a screening next week. I can’t find much more info than what’s listed on their site, but it looks as if it’s been making the rounds at small screenings here and there (since 2009!). It would be great to see it go nation-wide.
My favorite farmer Joel Salatin is back from Food Inc. too!
Early girl and heirloom tomatoes, canned. Bam!
I did it! I dove head-first into canning this past weekend. I sort of half expected that I’d have to write the blog equivalent of a retraction, but happily there’ll be none of that today…and I am freakin’ ecstatic! There were no tears, but plenty of sweat and blood if you count the tomato seeds stuck to the arm (and maybe even a few stuck in the hair). While it was great fun it was a lot of work; I’m getting ready for bed right at this moment. I need a weekend from my weekend, so while I recuperate I’ll share my finished product above.
Hope you all had a great weekend. Monday’s already over, dare I say this week is going to fly by?
The second annual SF Street Food Festival was this past Saturday, and as promised we stopped by to sample some small bites from some of the city’s most popular restaurants and street food vendors. We had a really nice time. The weather was a little gloomy but it was a nice way to spend a lazy Saturday morning. Since we got there early (around 11:30) we were able to stroll around without too much hassle from the crowds.
After about an hour it got a little crazy and it became really hard to navigate through the lines. Fortunately by that time we’d had our fill of snacks, so we hit the road and went up the street to Beretta for a relaxing lunch. It was fitting because Beretta had one of our favorite snacks and drinks.
Here’s a peek at our what we got into at the festival:
Beretta – Spicy marinara pork slider and ginger, lime soda
So good. Tender and flavorful slider with the most amazing soda ever. I’m so inspired to start making my own summer spritzers now.
Flour & Water – sausage and white beans, melon proscuitto salad
Surprisingly Flour & Water had a nice little menu. Definitely what I would consider one of the city’s most overrated restaurants, they did step out with a nice housemand sausage and melon salad.
Hapa Ramen
This was our first stop to try to warm up a bit. It was a nice broth with some tender pieces of pork but the noodles were not great.
La Mar – ceviche
Clean and nice!
Hill of up-country Sri Lanka by dinusha123
Sometimes I have to search for images like this to remind myself that there are still places in the world that we haven’t managed to destroy yet.
[image via the world we live in]
My quest for living a clean life goes far beyond organic produce and filtered (plastic-free) water, and dives deep into the products I use in my daily skin and hair care routine. Think about it…how many health and beauty products do you use in a single day? Shampoo, cream rinse, soap, astringent, lotion, and that’s all before the make-up goes on.
Well, the fact of the matter is that make-up ingredients are not regulated, and the most accessible products for skin and hair contain an endless list of toxins:
“The average woman exposes herself to 167 different chemicals on her face and body during her daily beauty regime.”
“300 contaminants have been detected in the umbilical cord blood of newborns.”
These are just two of the facts that are featured in this quick and infinitely important message about health and beauty products and their effects on women, men, and babies. Please, if you do one thing today, watch this quick video to get an idea of what we’re all up against. Like the latest movement for food industry reform, this is another industry that is putting their product and dollar before the health of consumers.
Yes, it’s overwhemling, but for everyone and especially for us women of child-bearing age, it is essential for us to take charge of what we put in our bodies and on our skin and hair. We can change how these companies formulate their products.
Organic products DO help, you just have to make sure that the product you’re buying is actually what is says it is. It takes more work to figure it out, but that’s where the EWG’s Skin Deep Cosmetics Database is an essential tool for the arsenal. All of my make-up, shampoos, toothpastes, and lotions have a rating of 4 or below. If you do two things today, please poke around the database and learn a bit more about what you’re using at home.
My skin has never looked or felt better than the last few years that I’ve switched to organic and chemical-free products, while also taking my vitamins (all 9 of them!). I can’t believe the first picture I post of myself will be first thing in the morning without make-up, but my point is that you cannot buy healthy skin in a jar that promises fewer wrinkles or blemishes. It comes from so much more work and research, but ultimately from a clean lifestyle that anyone can have with some practice. Please, please know what your feeding your body!
I love my Baggu grocery bags. They’re completely functional (they hold a ton of stuff), durable (holds 50 lbs.), and most fun of all they’re gorgeous. I’ve mentioned before that when I first started bringing my own grocery bags I needed a bit of an incentive to remember them each time. I found these Baggu’s, in their rainbow of colors and knew that I’d almost never be able to leave them behind. Come on, a fashion statement while shopping…fun, right? Well, it worked; I rarely ever forget my bags and I always get lots of compliments on them.
Aside from my rainbow of grocery bags, I also have a small collection of their mesh produce bags, which I ADORE! They’re a light nylon mesh that comes in small or large sizes, so they’re the perfect accessory for farmer’s market or grocery store shopping. I just throw a few in my grocery bag and I’m off to the market. They’re especially useful at the market with the loose produce like brussel sprouts or baby potatoes.
I’m going to get a bit catty here, but it drives me crazy when I see people grabbing plastic produce bags and throwing two lemons or an onion in. I’m sorry dear friend, but where do you think that plastic ends up at the end of the day? There’s absolutely no reason to house any of your produce in a plastic bag. I say go bag-less, or grab a set of these wonderful produce bags!
Visit Baggu online and check out they’re wonderful line of reusable bags.
Grocery bag: $8.00 each / 3, 4, or 5 bags $7.50 each / 6 or more $6.50 each
Small produce bag: $3.00 each
Large produce bag: $4.00 each
Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Another one of my childhood heroes celebrates an anniversary today. A decorated French Naval officer, co-developer of the “aqua-lung,” the grandfather of underwater exploration, and a true conservationist, Jacques-Yves Cousteau would turn 100 today!
Joyeux anniversaire le Commandant Cousteau!
His Rights for Future Generations campaign is something very dear to my heart; it’s because of his work that I am so passionate about clean water and working to save our oceans from pollution. My heart is heavy recalling the day of his passing in 1997, but it’s most heavy knowing that on this day, in this year, we are fighting to save our oceans on a bigger scale than ever before.
I’ve been following his grandson Philippe Cousteau as he is leading cleaning efforts in the Gulf of Mexico (he was the first diver to enter the polluted water). Please visit his blog and his non-profit EarthEcho to see how you can help clean up the gulf, but also to see how the Cousteau legacy is still alive and well.
P.S. – Check out Google’s homepage today to see another great logo tribute.
This was too good not to share. Topos Graphics and Sarah Riegelmann got together to create this magnet as part of a personal anti-SUV guerilla campaign. Ha! Love it.
[via the always awesome swiss-miss]
I’m not a coffee girl, but oh how I wish I was; just the smell of freshly roasted coffee beans makes me feel warm and cozy, and if I could wear it as a fragrance I totally would. Coming from the land of Starbucks you’d think I’d be a pro, but somehow, my love affair stops there as I just haven’t ever been able to drink a full cup of it.
If there was any place where I could be schooled on the delicacies of a proper cuppa joe it would be at Bluebottle Coffee Company – artisanal microroasters of organic, pesticide-free, shade-grown, coffee beans that are off to you within 48 hours of roasting. I love everything about this place, and I wish I could camp out at the Mint Plaza location everyday. I’m officially on a mission to earn some coffee badges.
One thing that could help me along with my coffee training is the Affogato, a generous scoop of ice cream with a shot of espresso for drowning the ice cream with. (I don’t want to offend true coffee connoisseurs and loyal fans of Bluebottle, but I’ve got to start somewhere.) Oh my gosh, there are no words….
It was really big, so it’s perfect for sharing. I can’t wait to go back for an afternoon date so we can share this and sit by the window for some people-watching. I LOVE people watching, especially when it’s over something this good.
So, even though it may take a bit of time for me to appreciate all of the wonderful drinks they offer at Bluebottle, I’ll be be here every chance I get to pick up a bag as a gift or for an afternoon snack with visitors. This is an amazing company and I love what they do: not only are they experts at their craft, but they’ve truly infused environmentally-conscious practices into every aspect of their business. Check this out:
- All our coffees are certified organic, sustainable, and shade grown. We make occasional exceptions for beautiful shade-grown coffees grown responsibly without pesticides but not yet certified organic.
- We use cellophane-lined bags instead of plastic or polypropylene-lined. Cellophane is made from wood cellulose, so it is 100% biodegradable. Because of the slight porosity, cellophane is not used by roasters who are worried about shelf life, but because our coffee does not sit on store shelves for long periods, we can use this material with no trade-off in quality. Once the metal tie is removed from our bags, they are recyclable or compostable.
- We use food-safe stainless steel bins to mix our blends instead of the plastic bins which are standard in the industry. Your beans literally never touch plastic or aluminum from the time they are packed into burlap sacks at the country of origin to the time they are poured into your grinder.
- We compost coffee bean chaff (a waste product of the roasting process) and pay extra for paper (compostable) half gallon milk jugs, rather than plastic gallon milk jugs.
- All test batches, expired batches, or batches that do not meet our requirements are composted or donated to local food banks
- All inks we use are soy-based. All papers (except for our coffee bags – we’re still looking for cellophane-lined recycled paper bags) have post-consumer recycled content of 50% or greater, and are unbleached. All cleaning products are greenest non-toxic products we can find, and all appliances are the most energy-efficient on the market.
- All customer communications are done over the internet whenever possible.
They’re official!
[Thanks Ed for taking the Affogato pics. Still have stage fright with the camera.]
[Thanks Brian for leading the way.]
National Geographic and photographer Joel Sartore present RARE: Portraits of America’s Endangered Species, the result of a three year investigation on the nation’s disappearing plants and animals. For over 2o years Sartore’s been photographing for National Geographic, focusing on endangered species and land issues, so this book promises to be amazing!
Have you seen the Planet Earth episode where the polar bear swims endlessly searching for food? I was a wreck at the end, but it reaffirmed why I choose to live as clean as possible. See the list that Joel has compiled below to help each of us make a positive impact. Oh, and by the way, if you’re still using chemicals to treat your lawn you should be slapped! (I’ll end it at that, although I could go on.)
Threatened – Polar Bear
NOW EXTINCT - Bryn, the Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit
Threatened – Bog turtle
Want to know what you can do to help? Here are a few simple, concrete action steps that you can take to help save endangered species.
1. Be an informed citizen. Learn what the environmental issues are in your town, state, nation and even globally.
2. Reduce, reuse, and recycle whatever goods you buy. Try to leave the smallest ecological footprint that you can each day.
3. Drive a more fuel-efficient vehicle. Better yet, take public transportation or ride a bike once in awhile. If everyone did their part, there would be no need for us to drill in the last wild places left on Earth, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
4. Don’t use chemicals on your lawn. They end up polluting the soil and water. And think twice before turning your sprinklers on. It’s a waste of water, something that is becoming scarcer every year. You’ll save time, money, and prevent pollution because you won’t have to mow nearly as often. Around the U.S., many citizens have planted native vegetation instead of bluegrass, resulting in a minimal need for water and care.
5. Support groups that are trying to do the right thing such as The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International and the World Wildlife Fund. Locally, the Conservation Alliance of the Great Plains does good work, supporting education and advocacy here in the Heartland. Joel Sartore is a founding member of this group.
6. Vote. We citizens tend to get the government we deserve. We elect politicians to represent our interests. Only when the majority of voters respect and care about nature will we begin to see the political changes needed to start saving the earth.
Threatened – Atlantic loggerhead turtle
Endangered – Hibiscus flower
- All images via Joel Sartore. Please visit his site to see more beautiful photos!
- Buy the book here.
