Published on June 23rd, 2008
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Lovin’ Fresh is a series of recipes designed to showcase produce gathered from local farms or grown in my own garden.
“Hot. So very hot.” These words, or some variation of them, echo through my head at least a dozen times a day now that summer is officially here. Interspersed among them are a sundry of other fleeting thoughts, most prevalent among them being, “Is it lunchtime yet?” You see, laboring as I do outside so much of the day in my horticulture work, I tend to quickly get a little parched and hungry. Concocting refreshing icy beverages has become a priority.
This desperation for refreshment brings us to a truly revitalizing Lavender Lemon Soda that is the ideal remedy for a sweaty brow. It is downright cleansing with its effervescent flavors. I have been intrigued by herbal sodas since last summer when I had one at a local café, but I surprised even myself with how tasty this particular combination turned out to be.
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Published on June 19th, 2008
Americans drink 400 million cups of coffee each day, which contributes to the coffee bean’s status as the second most globally traded product after petroleum. Now, a recent report from the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid has found that regular coffee intake can actually prevent heart disease in women. Coffee is a much needed cash crop in many countries with few other exports such as Ethiopia, Guatemala and Papua New Guinea, but the industry has also been plagued by reports of worker abuse and corporate rip offs. Rainforest and other endangered species habitat is often cleared for coffee plantation, making it an environmentally dicey purchase, as well.
So how do we get our morning cup without a side of guilt? How to decipher real world impact from a multitude of coffee labels after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on March 27th, 2008
Willie Nelson and wife Annie are joining the campaign to help dairy cows, who are all too often living in extremely in-humane conditions. They are working with the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) to help bring awareness to the plight of these animals and work to end the harmful practices used by industrial dairy farms, such as the Mendes Ranch in California. You can join in by going to the Free Baby Mendes website - read more about the issue, sign the petition, share it with friends.
The Nelson’s on sustainable biodiesel:
I had the privilege of interviewing both Willie & Annie last Fall while they were in NY for Farm Aid. They hosted a rockin’ event at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square to benefit Annie’s Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance.
Check out the interview with Willie & Annie Nelson and see what Woody Harrelson, Daryl Hannah and others had to say about sustainability.
Published on March 18th, 2008
Beautiful green and brown eggs are dwarfed by the huge goose eggs. Some farms also offer duck eggs for interested buyers.
Want some of the most beautifully colored eggs this Easter, but don’t have time to dye them? No problem, you can get eggs in all colors from soft, warm brown to light sage, blue-green and olive or even pink. The best part? The chickens do all the work.
Different breeds of chickens produce different egg colors. This shell color is a result of pigments that are secreted by the hen and deposited on the eggshell’s outer layers during formation in the chicken’s oviduct. Brown eggs are from the pigment protoporphyrin, a breakdown product of hemoglobin. Blue and green hues are caused by the pigment oocyanin, a by-product of bile formation.
I was a bit skeptical of some of the information I found from the Egg Nutrition Center. The Center reported that the color of the eggs a chicken lays is related to the species of the chicken and the color of the chicken’s earlobes. Chickens have earlobes? (Tips on buying eggs and what the labels mean after the jump). Read the rest of this entry »
Published on March 6th, 2008
I guess Thursday is Bad Cow Day. Sorry cows! I love your sweet, cud-chewing faces, but your owners have issues!
According to the Humane Society, 17% of the U.S. beef supply comes from spent dairy cows. These cows no longer produce financially viable quantities of milk and are sold at steep discount to slaughterhouses. In fact, prices for dairy cows can be as little as one-tenth the price of a well-fed beef steer on the meat market. This partially has to do with net meat gain: the dairy cow is bred for optimum lactation, not muscle mass. The price differential also has to do with condition: the dairy cows tend to be older and more feeble, depleted of calcium and afflicted with a multitude of bacterial infections, the result of sedentary, unifunctional lives. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on March 5th, 2008
Um. Look I don’t want to be an alarmist or anything. But. Um.
See, I’ve got kids? And, see…they’re kind of…energetic enough? I mean really, truly. Spend five seconds in my house and you will see: they are doing just fine bouncing off the walls of their own accord. So, I’ll thank the world for not encouraging them to bounce off the ceiling, as well.
Oh, but I can‘t thank the world, because apparently the world is instead choosing to fill them with caffeine when I’m not around.
As this great article from Metroactive explains, “these days, constraints on caffeine consumption for kids and young teens are nonexistent. Kids are having caffeine early and often.” It’s not just in their drinks, apparently. Candy bars? Increasingly filled with the stuff.
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