Organic Nation Checks Out Yale’s Winter Greenhouse

Winter may be closing in on us, but that doesn’t mean that we have to stop growing our own food, even for those who live in the cold Northeast. The OrganicNation.tv team talked to Yale Sustainable Food Project director Melina Shannon-DiPietro about the project’s unheated greenhouse, which continues producing tasty winter greens well into the coldest time of the year.

Winter Harvest at Yale’s Greenhouse from OrganicNation on Vimeo.

Want to know more about the Yale Sustainable Food Project? Check out Organic Nation’s other video from their visit to the one-acre organic farm founded by Alice Waters and members of the Yale faculty in 2001. Or, visit Yale.edu/SustainableFood.

Link [Organic Nation] + [Yale]

OrganicNation.tv Interviews Curtis Ellis, Producer of King Corn

The OrganicNation team’s kickoff tour was a great success, and they got plenty of awesome video footage as well as lots of great photos documenting the trip. OrganicNation.tv is an exploration of the American sustainable food landscape focusing on the people, places and products that are shaping a new green economy and lifestyle.

At the Organic Summit in Stevenson, Washington, the Organic Nation team – including EarthFirst’s own Dorothee Royal-Hedinger – got a chance to speak with Curtis Ellis, the producer of ‘King Corn’, about his new film entitled ‘Big River’.

Interview with Curtis Ellis of “King Corn” from OrganicNation on Vimeo.

Check out the OrganicNation.tv website – there are more videos, a blog and even a community map that helps you find resources in your neighborhood and across the country. Stay tuned for more updates!

Who’s Who in Green: Sara Snow

You probably already know Sara Snow’s face from her Discovery Health television show, Get Fresh with Sara Snow. But Snow is far from just a television host – she’s a green living expert and passionate advocate for sustainable food and she has made it her life goal to share her knowledge about healthy and natural living.

Snow grew up in a progressive household in the country outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan, with parents who immersed her and her siblings into the world of food and natural living early on.  Her father, Tim Redmond, is co-founder of Eden Foods. Snow spent many of her days communing with nature, helping her parents cook healthy meals and taking part in local theatrical productions. Snow went on to get her degrees in theater performance and telecommunications, and worked briefly as a television producer and later as a reporter.

In 2005, Snow came up with the idea for a lifestyle television series that focuses on the things she learned growing up – composting, recycling, gardening, natural cleaning and eating organically. Soon after, she struck a deal with Discovery Communications and began work on “Living Fresh”, her first show, which is credited as being the first series about natural living on the air. In 2006, Snow got her second show, “Get Fresh with Sara Snow”, in which she travels the country in search of companies that offer green, natural products and services and helps people find ways to go green in their own lives.

Snow visited her fellow ‘Who’s Who in Green’ honorees, the Dervaes Family, at the Path to Freedom Urban Homestead on an episode of Get Fresh with Sara Snow.

Sara Snow is also an advisory board member at Planet Green and is on the board of directors for the Organic Center, a non-profit organization that advocates for organic products. Snow appears regularly on CNN in a segment called “Living Green with Sara Snow” and has a column at Treehugger entitled “Green Eyes On…”. Snow released a DVD with Gaiam called “Growing Green Babies” and her first book, Fresh Living: The Essential Room-by-Room Guide to a Greener, Healthier Family and Home was released just last week.

In a 2008 article at Treehugger, Snow discussed her pleasure at gaining a reputation as an ‘eco warrior’ and what it means to her to be honored with an award by the Natural Products Leadership Gathering:

These men and women have been working day and night since their awakening (some describe it as a smack to the head, though the yogis of the bunch call it their third-eye opening) to improve our planet and our food supply for future generations. And it’s because of the things that they chose to do that I have something to do!

So it was with emotion beyond my imagination that I accepted an award from this very group at the Leadership Gathering, which honors four individuals or companies each year. Most times, the awards go to people who have been fighting the fight with decided dedication and focus for years. One award goes to someone from the so-called second generation, and this year, it was me. I was honored as the Rising Star of the current generation, working diligently to crescendo the message of green and natural living.

Check out Eco Chick’s write-up of Sara Snow’s new book and grab yourself a copy at Amazon.com.

Watch a Food Forest Grow In One Year

Check out this cool time-lapse video of a backyard garden in its first year. The owners of the plot dug up their concrete pool and grass lawn to create an abundant “food forest“.

Feeling inspired? Visit http://www.happyearth.com.au for more information about this sustainable living project.

The Organic vs. Intensive Farming Debate

As consumers cut back on spending this year, will higher-priced organic foods look less appealing? In case you’re starting to hesitate in the grocery aisle, here’s a little refresher course on why organics are not only better for our bodies but also for our environment.

According to IFOAM,

organic agriculture:

• enhances soil structures
• conserves water
• mitigates climate change
• ensures sustained biodiversity

conventional agriculture:

• employs harmful inorganic fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides
• increases the suffocation of aquatic plants and animals due to rapid growth of algae
• spreads toxic dosages of herbicides and insecticides up the food chain to humans

Who’s Who in Green: Bryant Terry, Eco-Chef

Bryant Terry is an eco chef, food justice activist, co-author of the book Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen and author of the forthcoming Vegan Soul Kitchen (VSK): Fresh, Healthy, and Creative African-American Cuisine (Da Capo/Perseus March 2009). Terry has been working toward building a more just and sustainable food system for the past 8 years, using cooking as a tool to illuminate the intersections between poverty, structural racism, and food insecurity.

Terry founded b-healthy! (Build Healthy Eating and Lifestyles to Help Youth) in 2002, a program created to raise awareness about food justice issues that inspires and empowers youth to get involved in creating a more just and sustainable food system.  Terry’s motivation was simple: he felt like people living in poor communities, where high quality, fresh food isn’t always readily available, get the short end of the stick. Since then he has become one of the most important voices speaking out for the rights of poor communities to have access to healthy, sustainable food.

He’s also a fellow at the Food and Society Policy Fellows Program, which “provides fellowships to professionals in food and agriculture from across North America, enabling them to use mass media channels to inform and shape the public agenda, in alignment with the goals of creating sustainable food systems that promote good health, vibrant communities, environmental stewardship, worker justice, and accessibility by all.”

Terry has been honored with many awards for his work, including the inaugural Natural Gourmet Institute Award for Excellence in Health-Supportive Food Education. He was honored as one of 7×7’s ‘Hot 20 under 40’, and has frequently contributed essays and recipes to online and print outlets like Food and Wine, The New York Times Magazine, Vibe, Domino and Gourmet.  He’s also made many national television and radio appearances including serving as host on The Endless Feast, a 13-episode public television series that explored the connection between the earth and the food on our plates.

The blog Eat.Drink.Better asked Terry what he thought could be done to change the perception of local food as “elitist”, and make healthy and sustainable local food available to everyone:

I don’t necessarily think that the local foods movement is elitist, I simply think that communities are self-interested.  In order to ensure that historically-excluded communities have access to grub members of those communities need to ask/cajole/pressure/demand that existing institutions in the communities (i.e., places of worship, community-based organizations, and the like) take the lead in creating locally-driven and community owned food systems.

In addition to people, many of these institutions have financial capital, land, and other resources.  By creating community gardens, rooftop gardens, urban farms, Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs), value added businesses, food buying clubs, food coops, local restaurants, and independently owned grocery stores, these institutions would not only address food injustice but also spur economic development, community beautification, youth empowerment, and a host of actions that would strengthen marginalized communities.

We all can ask/cajole/pressure/demand our elected officials to reform our Farm Bill so that it restores fairness to America’s food and farm policy; improves access to healthy, affordable foods in low-income and underserved communities; and expands market opportunities for small and mid-sized farms.

If you’re ever looking for some delicious, healthy recipes, be sure to check out Terry’s blog posts at Eco-Soul Food on TheRoot.com, which features mouthwatering photos of his culinary creations like Cajun-Creole-Spiced Frittata.

Bryant Terry’s Green Score: 28,582

Real Food Challenge: Uniting Students for Just and Sustainable Food

College students across the nation are coming together to demand ‘real food’ – local, organic, fair trade food via college farms, farm-to-cafeteria programs and other initiatives.  The Real Food Challenge loosely defines ‘real food’ as a holistic term they’re using to bring together a lot of different ideas people have about just and sustainable food. Since colleges and universities spend more than $4 billion on food every year, college students have the ability to directly influence a significant portion of the national food system.

From Real Food Challenge:

People are increasingly waking up to the need for change. The situation is dire, as environmental degradation, corporate consolidation, homogenization, and alienation become the hallmarks of our food system. The momentum for change is growing; consumers are demanding more real food, activists from across the country are linking up, and the buzz is growing all around. On hundreds of college campuses all around the country, the momentum has become a budding movement.

This movement, however, lacks common goals, a common framework, and a collective voice. Nor is this movement as diverse and widespread as it should be. If we move strategically and effectively, we can capitalize on the growing energy and bring the many elements of the campus food movement into collaboration, working towards a unified goal of more socially and environmentally conscious food.

We have shown that we have the passion, drive and wherewithal to make real change. Thousands of students are already working to create a more just and sustainable food system, and have demonstrated a commitment to the highest ideals of environmental sustainability and social justice.

Dozens of schools are already participating, including sustainability leaders like College of the Atlantic, Dartmouth College, Evergreen State College, Middlebury College, NYU and Warren Wilson College. Check out the list, and if your school isn’t on it, the Real Food Challenge website has all the details on how you can get involved.  The website also includes resources like a 10-step ‘Guide to Launch’, action ideas and downloadable posters.

This is a fantastic way for college students to exercise their power to make the world the way they want it to be. Why settle for pesticide-laden, mass-produced junk when you can demand better, and get it? This is a really well-organized campaign, and it’ll undoubtedly do a world of good in changing the way college students think of food.

Link [Real Food Challenge]

Will Allen is officially a GENIUS

This year, urban farmer Will Allen was named a MacArthur Fellow. Informally known as the “genius award”, the Fellowship is a $500,000, no-strings-attached grant for individuals who have shown exceptional creativity in their work and promise to do more. As the CEO of Growing Power, Will Allen has been working  to support community food systems from the local to international level.

From their website:

Growing Power transforms communities by supporting people from diverse backgrounds and the environments in which they live through the development of Community Food Systems.  These systems provide high-quality, safe, healthy, affordable food for all residents in the community.

Keep up the great work Will!

Organic to Go Brings Green Fast Food to the Masses

When you’re on the road or grabbing a quick bite for lunch during the workday and want to eat healthy and organic, you don’t have many options. I must admit that, in times of desperation, I’ve stopped for a veggie burger at Burger King, which isn’t even all that healthy. The lack of fresh, healthy food that’s cheap and portable is a problem for many people on the go. Luckily for people in California and the Seattle area, they’re about to get plenty of it from new company Organic to Go, which aims to take the Whole Foods prepared-food concept out of grocery stores and into cafes where people can sit down to a fast and healthy meal.

From The Washington Post:

The average lunch customer is probably different from a decade ago, when standard fast-food fare would have done just fine. People who eat meals out increasingly want more nutritious food.

“People are realizing that it’s more important what they are eating,” said Nicolas Jammet, co-owner of Sweetgreen. “Concepts like Organic to Go and us bring it down to the everyday level. I think it’s good that people are starting to eat better. There is a lot of room for these kinds of concepts, and we welcome them because it expands overall interest.”

Burrito chain Chipotle was perhaps the first big quick-service food outlet to catch on in the mainstream by using natural foods. The company is the country’s largest restaurant buyer of naturally raised meats. The sour cream thrown onto burritos is free of synthetic growth hormones. “They are setting the bar very high,” Killifer said.

Green fast food is rad. Please, let this catch on nationwide. McDonalds is never going to go away, but that doesn’t mean we have to give them our business.

Link [The Washington Post]

Caterers Puzzled by Democratic National Convention’s Eco-Menu

Organizers of the Democratic National Convention, to be held in Denver, Colorado, have local caterers stumped. The Denver 2008 Host Committee has asked for things that these folks have never heard of before, and they’re not quite sure how to handle it.

The Denver Post has it:

Fried foods are forbidden at the committee’s 22 or so events, as is liquid served in individual plastic containers. Plates must be reusable, like china, recyclable or compostable. The food should be local, organic or both.

And caterers must provide foods in “at least three of the following five colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white,” garnishes not included, according to a Request for Proposals, or RFP, distributed last week.

“Blue could be a challenge,” joked Ed Janos, owner of Cook’s Fresh Market in Denver. “All I can think of are blueberries.”

Caterers praise the committee and the city for their green ambitions, but some say they’re baffled by parts of the RFP.

“I think it’s a great idea for our community and our environment. The question is, how practical is it?” asks Nick Agro, the owner of Whirled Peas Catering in Commerce City. “We all want to source locally, but we’re in Colorado. The growing season is short. It’s dry here. And I question the feasibility of that.”

The Host Committee also asked for a sustainably grown, naturally dyed red hemp carpet to be rolled out from the street to the front door, 90 white soy pillar candles scented with essential oils, 25 cases of Kabbalah water, 17 vases of organic white lilies, and 5 large crystal goblets filled with only purple organic candy. It also stated that no one was to look Nancy Pelosi in the eye at any time. Those democrats, the’yre such divas.

Link [Denver Post]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons