A new decade brings new opportunities and challenges. The interaction between diet and health received significant attention during “The Aughts.” What will we do during this next decade to respond to the call for action for a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle? This is the fourth in a continuing series highlighting 10 ways you can help this year.
Knowing that the obesity epidemic in the United States has some scientists predicting that for the first time in history American children will live shorter lives than their parents, my wish for the next decade is to see First Lady Michelle Obama, President Barack Obama and his administration succeed in their mission to ensure that every American child has access to healthy and affordable food. A recent gathering of Obama Administration officials invited to discuss their efforts to improve America’s food system left me hopeful that my wish will come true.
Courtesy: White House Blog
Last month in D.C. Kathleen Merrigan, Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, Dora Hughes, Counselor to the Secretary of Health, and Sam Kass, White House assistant chef and Food Initiative Coordinator for the First Lady each shared their goals for the next year during an event for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Food and Community Program. Surprisingly it wasn’t their words that left me so inspired; rather it was the words of 10-year-old David Martinez-Ruiz. Kass shared with the audience a letter that the D.C. elementary school student had presented to the First Lady following his class visit to the White House Garden.
One of the things that I want to say about being at the White House was how gentle the feeling was. It felt surprisingly natural to be there. We planted on a warm day. The sun was out and there was a little breeze. The grass was beautiful and green. The people made us feel good. I liked the way the staff person who helped me was very gentle with the worms we found. I think about the garden as being gentle: gentle with nature, gentle to your body, and gentle with each other. Read More >
A new decade brings new opportunities and challenges. The interaction between diet and health received significant attention during “The Aughts.” What will we do during this next decade to respond to the call for action for a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle? This is the third in a continuing series highlighting 10 ways you can help this year.
This new year, make it your resolution to put your home on a carbon diet. We did it a few years ago, and have reaped many rewards. Since March of 2006, a corn-burning stove has occupied one corner of our living room. It’s a nice thing to cozy up to on a cold winter’s eve, but the stove is more than just a nice aesthetic addition to our home, it’s also our main source of heat. Beyond that, it provides economic benefits to our family and region, and environmental benefits to everyone.
Our corn stove looks a lot like this one
Meanwhile, the oil furnace in our basement has become our backup heating system, used sparingly, such as when the temperatures dip well below freezing and the stove needs a little help heating the house. Our oil use has been so sparing that we went three years between oil deliveries – which was very confusing to the company that delivers our heating oil. That company would call us periodically wondering why we hadn’t needed a delivery in so long. After all, in those years B.C. (before corn) we would fill our oil tank a few times per heating season. Read More >
A new decade brings new opportunities and challenges. The interaction between diet and health received significant attention during “The Aughts.” What will we do during this next decade to respond to the call for action for a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle? This is the second in a continuing series highlighting 10 ways you can help this year.
After visiting our Saturday Baltimore, MD farmer’s market teeming with local produce, I know that seasonal supply is not a problem. America is still very much an agrarian country; I can measure my degrees of urbanity in “minutes-traveled-before-seeing-a-cow.” How then can we create demand for fresh, local foods in the most pedestrian food venues like grocery stores, food carts, and chain restaurants? On an individual level, this year I resolve to do something different… and ASK where my food comes from. As a borderline introvert, I often have trouble asking. I am irrationally worried about the shrugs, stares, or bland responses.
I’ll gather my courage and ask my grocer, fishmonger, baker, street vendor, or restaurateur about where their food comes from. If the answer doesn’t sit well, I’ll ask if the well-traveled food can be replaced or exchanged with local, seasonal ingredients. I’ll be as specific as possible—if I have a hankering for local, seasonal arugula, I’ll let the world know!
I’ll ask the waiter or cook about the region and country of origin of seafood. There is a big difference in terms of sustainability if your salmon is farmed or wild-caught, domestic or imported, and you can’t tell by tasting it. The more one learns about sustainable foods, the more informed ones questions can be. Read More >
Citing “drug residue” problems in shipments from U.S. pork producers, Russia has now banned imports of most pork produced in the United States by gradually disqualifying all but a handful of production plants, according to U.S. industry and government officials interviewed by Dow Jones newswires (see earlier article).
As of yesterday, Russia has now banned pork produced in 20 slaughterhouses owned by such companies as Smithfield Foods, Hatfield Quality Meats, Pork King Packing and Tyson Foods, the wire service says, citing a list maintained by USDA. Seven more pork-processing facilities have been disqualified in less than a month, effectively eliminating the remaining U.S. facilities that can export to Russia, the number five market for U.S. pork. Read More >
