Garden of Eatin’: Is Sustainable Food Hard to Get?

Archive for the ‘home’ Category

Garden of Eatin’: Is Sustainable Food Hard to Get?

Organic, locally produced, in season…or on sale? Without much time to mull over this age-old sustainability question in the produce aisle, each item you toss in the cart can seem like its own leap of faith.

Sure, many of us want to eat planet-friendly food, but figuring out just what that means can be its own challenge. Compounding the dilemma is the notion that sustainable inevitably costs more. A recent NPR-Thomson Reuters poll revealed that the majority of Americans who prefer to eat organic over non-organic cite price as the main deterrent.

But does eating sustainable produce have to be hard and/or break the bank? Nope, says Barbara Willard, an environmental studies professor at Chicago’s DePaul University. Before we get to why she thinks that’s one of the biggest EcoMyths around, let’s talk about what makes a fruit or veggie sustainable in the first place. (more…)

Power Play: Are Your Electronics Drawing Power When They’re Off?

It may seem like a no-brainer: You turn off your TV, your iPod player, your phone charger, and they’re done using electricity, right? Nope. Turns out, plenty of products still suck power even when they’re not on.

Standby loss, more popularly known as vampire power or phantom load, accounts for a surprisingly large chunk of the average home and office’s electricity bill. Several sources, including the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), suggest that it can constitute as much as 10 percent of residential energy use.

In other words, most of us are basically throwing money out the window—just by making the reasonable assumption that when something is off, it’s actually off. (more…)

Food for Thought: Is Organic Produce Overrated?

Hint: Avoiding pesticides, not improving nutrition, is the big reason to go organic.

Like comfort food? Welcome to the fall harvest, ground zero for American food tradition. Visions of gourd-laden tables, steaming pots of soup, and fresh-baked apple pie are already dancing in our collective heads. So in celebration of the national treasure that is our produce supply, let’s take a moment to reflect…on the organic question.

You may have about a recent Stanford study of the health benefits of organic food. One of the research team’s conclusions was that there’s a lack of “strong evidence that organic foods are significantly more nutritious than conventional foods.” Studies like this raise important questions about why organic matters.

The thing is, going organic isn’t really about fortifying nutrition anyway (an apple is an apple and all that)—it’s about keeping pesticides off our lands and out of our bodies.

Here’s a little about why it’s still important to give organic peas (and other produce) a chance. (more…)

The (Sea)food Network: Tuning In to the Wild Vs. Farmed Debate

EcoMyth: Wild Seafood Is Better Than Farmed

What does the word “wild” mean to you? To us, it conjures up visions of salivating grizzly bears, gun-slinging outlaws, untamed facial hair…that sort of thing. But it can also evoke a fuzzy feeling of natural goodness—pesticide-free lands, clear skies, and clean water teeming with silvery fish.

Problem is, wild isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be—at least not when it comes to seafood. And like the ocean itself, the question of buying farmed versus wild seafood can be tough to navigate…unless you’ve got a Shedd Aquarium pro on your side. So let’s dive in (pun intended, per usual)! (more…)

The Bright Stuff: Keeping Your Cool in the Lightbulb Aisle

EcoMyth: It Takes a Village to Choose a Lightbulb

These days, walking into the lightbulb section at the home goods store is like entering an alternate dimension, one filled with strange futuristic shapes and a head-reeling supply of options. How do you navigate the extreme selection without mental overload? Let us, ahem, light the way to bulb decision-making 101, so you can choose lightbulbs that’ll save you money and help you protect mama earth while you’re at it.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the U.S. uses about 20 percent of the world’s energy. And of that, 40 percent goes to lighting, heating, and cooling our buildings…which would all be fine and dandy if we weren’t so reliant on the dinosaur that is the incandescent lightbulb.

Back in Thomas Edison’s day, the incandescent shtick was pretty great. But now, 130-plus years later, it’s frankly no wonder these guys are showing their age. When you consider how frequently we update our other technologies (iPhones are on what version now?), it does seem safe to assume that by now better technologies might exist. Ones that don’t use 90 percent of the electricity they consume to produce heat (which is why they’re hot when you touch them) and only ten percent to do what they’re supposed to do: light up.

And indeed we have. (more…)

Fake Trees Are the Eco-Friendly Choice, Myth or Truth?

To be real or not to be real? That is the age-old Christmas tree question.

Well, okay, “age-old” might be a bit extreme, considering that the modern take on artificial Christmas trees didn’t hit the stage until the 1930s, when the clever folks at the Addis Brush Company used toilet brush bristles to create the modern artificial tree.

But for many, the question is just as much of a head-scratcher as ever. While experts are saying real trees win out in the green department, there are arguments on both sides—and strong opinions on this topic are not unusual. (more…)

Does an Apple a Day Still Keep the Doctor Away?

With apple season in full force, and dreams of cider, pie and other fall favorites dancing in our heads, we wanted to know: is the crunchy fruit still a healthy pick? In this era of pesticides, does “an apple a day” still keep the doctor away?

Some argue no, at least when it comes to apples not grown organically. The Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit that works to protect public health and the environment, ranks the apple number one in its 2011 Dirty Dozen list—the aka, never-eat-these-items-when-they’re-not-organic-or-else list.

And this list is based in science, not public opinion. EWG came up with the rankings after analyzing results from 51,000 USDA and FDA tests between 2000 and 2009. According to the study, 92 percent of apples tested contained two or more pesticide residues—after being washed. And as a category, apples were treated with 56 kinds of pesticides—far more than most produce. So what? Well, many lab studies point to the health risks of too much pesticide exposure. Even the U.S. EPA says pesticides can cause problems such as birth defects, nerve damage, and cancer.

All in all, it’s a pretty doom and gloom sort of outlook for the non-organic apple. So we thought, no big deal, let’s just buy locally grown, organic apples. Buying local means we save fossil fuels used in transport, and buying organic means we’re supporting biodiversity and public health by keeping toxic pesticides out of our bodies and our soil. Right? (more…)

EcoMyths

Archive for the ‘home’ Category