Author name: Kelli Best-Oliver

A former high school teacher, I'm currently a part-time writer/full-time doctoral student at the University of St. Thomas in the Twin Cities, studying leadership in education from a critical pedagogy perspective along with public policy. On the green side, I'm interested in local food and agriculture (Iowa girl, born and raised), sustainability education, DIY projects, and grassroots activism. I'm slowly turning my South City, St Louis home into an urban farmstead. On the hoping-to-be-greener side, I love reading, yoga, soccer, music, backpacking, knitting, pop culture and trivia, my Tuesday Night Dinner Club, traveling, Guitar Hero, dive bars, and sitting on front porches with my husband and a cold beer. I came to Green Options via a post on Sustainablog,working the St Louis angle to get Jeff to let me in. I have a personal blog chronicling (what else?) life in South St. Louis. Follow me on Twitter!

Forget Hershey’s: Three Tips for Better Chocolate

Hershey’s, in an attempt to counter rising food costs, has replaced the cocoa butter in many of its candies with vegetable oil, effectively changing their product from “milk chocolate” to “chocolate candy”.  Cocoa butter is the ingredient that gives milk chocolate it’s creamy mouthfeel, and it will be noticably absent from Whachamacalits, Mr. Goodbars, Milk …

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Six Cookbooks For A Better-Eating Kitchen

Word on the street is that as the economy worsens, cookbook sales rise.  Isn’t that American?  Wouldn’t one think that cookbook check-outs at the library might go up instead?  Perhaps it has.  Chosen method of procurement aside, I’m not begrudging you the investment in a superior culinary tome–I spent too much time looking at one …

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Five Fall Foods That Will Boost Your Health (And Meal Ideas, Too)

>> Welcome Readers! Did you know that Green Options has 15 sites? If you like this post, please subscribe for our main RSS feed or the Green Options Newsletter! [social_buttons] When the summer heat breaks and the first cool days arrive, I feel melancholy, because it means the end of our local farmers market is …

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Eating On $1 A Day: Couple Lives Food Experiment

I am totally fascinated and intrigued by lifestyle projects–you know, when someone radically changes their lifestyle for a set amount of time to make a point about something we might take for granted.  I loved Morgan Spurlock’s Super-Size Me and 30 Days.  I obsessively read No-Impact Man.  Now, Kerri and Chris, two social justice teachers …

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Whole Foods Agrees To Increase Pay For Tomato Workers

Whole Foods, following in the footsteps of Taco Bell, Burger King, and McDonalds, agreed this week to become the first grocery chain to improve working conditions and pay for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), tomato workers from Florida.  Whole Foods will pay an extra penny per pound of tomatoes, and will work in conjunction …

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