Keith Pille Imagine having a frosty tumbler of pale ale before you on a hot, humid day. Beer – what’s not to love? One of the most pleasant surprises about adopting a “greener” lifestyle is that it’s surprisingly easy to drink beer and be socially responsible about it. The same …
David Wallinga, M.D. Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy We live in a world where drug-resistant “superbugs” are getting meaner and more common. These superbugs used to be found almost exclusively in hospitals in the form of life-threatening infections. They are now popping up in communities among healthy children and …
Britt Carlson Homestead Chicken Farmer In 2005, my neighbor ordered twelve small, light brown and blue chicken eggs from an online auction. Each day she and her son diligently turned the eggs, with as much care as a mother hen. After 21 days, the chicks hatched from the bantam-sized eggs. …
Robert Mugaas University of Minnesota Extension Educator, Environmental Horticulture Composting is the microbial process whereby organic yard wastes are converted into to a highly desirable, organic, soil-like material. Gardeners have used compost for centuries to increase soil organic matter, improve soil physical properties, and supply some of the essential nutrients …
Elise Kyllo Self Employed Gardener and Artist If you are reading this you must be curious about Apis mellifera (Latin for bee carrying honey). Maybe you intellectually know how important bees are as pollinators and in keeping us humans fed. Maybe you are a gardener and simply love bees buzzing …
Nicholette Zeliadt PhD candidate in Environmental Health Sciences, University of Minnesota School of Public Health You’re ‘green’—you recycle, take cooler and shorter showers, turn off lights, turn down thermostats, drive less, fly less, buy less stuff. But have you considered the profound impact that your dietary choices have on the …
Sally Schakel RD, LD Home cooking today is far different from what I remember as a child. Food technology has brought us an abundance of modified ingredients and prepared foods. Food transportation systems that deliver fruits and vegetables from all over the world mean produce is “in season” year round. …
Mike Mitchelson Editor, Food Service News You’ve seen the trucks: Sysco, Reinhart, U.S. Foodservice and others, transporting food to restaurants across the country. And, yes, it’s true. Even here in the Midwest, your food travels on average from 1,200 to 1,500 miles to get to your plate, depending on which …
Andrea Yoder Harmony Valley Farm Did you ever consider what it takes to get food to your table? Many things happen in the life of your food before it ever gets to you. Do you know who is making these decisions and handling your food? More people are becoming interested …
Jenny Breen Local Chef/Educator I take great pleasure in cooking and feeding people, and I love to teach others how to use simple, delicious ingredients to find that joy. One of the deepest sources of that pleasure is knowing that the food I am using has been raised and tended …
Aaron Vehling Writer America has become the land of the unhealthy. About two-thirds of the nation is considered overweight or obese, according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Some lay blame at the hands of food conglomerates that bioengineer our food for higher profit margins. Others scapegoat our …
Liz McMann Mississippi Market Natural Foods Co-op Free Range? Cruelty Free? Natural? It’s tough to keep track of all the labels and claims on food and personal care products these days. Some labels require rigorous certifications, while others are completely meaningless! One way to get around this issue is to …
Gabriele F. Kushi, BFA, MEA, macrobiotic nutritional consultant/chef/educator The goals of macrobiotics are the realization of planetary health and happiness, world peace and human evolution. Macrobiotic, derived from the Greek word macrobios (large life), is associated worldwide with living and eating in harmony with the season. Macrobiotics embraces the 5,000-year-old …
Dan Lynch Reprinted from Camden Community News August 2009 With the census just around the corner, an inventory of just who lives where is in order—and animals come into the picture. Many of us have childhood memories of experiences with farm animals, including chickens. Most of our fowl memories are …
Beth Munnich Renewing the Countryside As consumers, every dollar we spend is effectively a vote in favor of a company’s way of doing business. Since the beginning of the organic movement, concerned consumers have voted with their dollars for foods grown without pesticides, herbicides, hormones, or antibiotics, often combining their …
Melinda Feucht Do It Green! Minnesota As food costs soar and people become more conscious about their food decisions, it’s time to rethink the way we shop for food. Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food, advises, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” This …
Jenny Breen Local Chef / Educator Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” So begins Micheal Pollan’s recent manifesto, In Defense of Food. It sounds ridiculously simple, and actually, it is. But, we have reached a place and time in our culture where we need to re-learn these simple actions …
Professor Gidon Eshel Dept. of Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago Strengthening evidence exists to prove that global warming is primarily due to rising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations from human activities. This effect makes personal voluntary choices a leading edge in the battle to preserve our threatened global habitat. While one …
Sraddha Helfrich University Of Minnesota Medical Student What do carpets, meat, paint, household cleaners, perfumes, cigarette smoke, building materials, milk and traffic fumes have in common? They all contain toxic compounds that could be making you and your family sick. Environmental Illness (EI) is a term for diseases caused by …
TJ Semanchin Peace Coffee After petroleum, coffee is the most heavily-traded commodity in the world. In most cases this fact spells Big Business, Big Money and Big Estate Farms. Yet millions of coffee growers – small family farms – continue to struggle for a decent life in the face of …
Patricia Cumbie Editor of The Mix If you live in Minnesota you are in co-op country. Cooperatives of all sizes, within an array of sectors, thrive here, including housing, insurance, electricity and farming. A cooperative business belongs to the people who use it – people who have organized to provide …
Eva Lewandowski Recently I was enjoying some dried organic apricots, when I noticed that the package stated that the fruit appeared somewhat brown in color because it did not contain any dyes or other ingredients to preserve color. Indeed, the apricots were a somewhat dull orange-brown color, rather than the lurid orange that …
Katrina Edenfeld Do It Green! Minnesota Home-packed lunches can be fun, healthy, and green, with very little time or money required. I calculated that my child’s lunch, including organic fruit, required less than five minutes on average and $1.00 per day last year-compared to over $2.25 for school lunch. Try …
Gil Schwartz Compassionate Action for Animals Campaign Coordinator Interested in exploring veganism or vegetarianism? There has never been a better time for environmentalists to go veggie with so many compelling ethical, ecological, and health reasons for eating lower on the food chain. Recently the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization …
Olivia Bailey St. Olaf College A liberal arts education implies many things; given our unchecked American consumerism and boom in obesity, students seek to understand the question of our human relationship to the earth. St. Olaf College of Northfield, Minnesota, assigns its students a responsibility for stewardship of the land, …
Sara Grochowski Do It Green! Minnesota What ever happened to stepping outside for a “breath of fresh air?” It is often said that the air inside a home could be more toxic than outside. However, it seems our environment is becoming contaminated, and scientists continually are finding links to the …
Eli Effinger-Weintraub Do It Green! Minnesota Nothing tastes better on a hot summer day than a crisp, cool salad. Before you toss up that salad, consider where the lettuce and other fruits and vegetables on your summer plates come from. If it’s like most conventional produce in this country, it …
Since moving away from home and subsequently being forced to become more self-sufficient, one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced is how to eat healthy with a limited budget. The following is a bit about how I changed my diet for the better both for myself and for the environment. …
Jennette Turner Natural Foods Educator The choices that we make about food — where to buy it, from whom, what to buy — matter. Here in the US, we vote with our dollars by buying or not buying. And what and whom we choose to support makes a big difference, …
Jane Grimsbo Jewett Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture, University of Minnesota (www.misa.umn.edu) Preserving fresh vegetables and fruits at home is a great way to save money and create a healthy diet for your family. Good quality fruits and vegetables, canned or frozen shortly after picking, retain nutrients and good flavor. …
Liz McMann Mississippi Market Co-op Eating locally isn’t just a fad diet or a trend. On the contrary, global, mega-farm sourcing for nearly all of our foods is a relatively new practice. It wasn’t long ago that citrus, coffee and avocados were treats to be savored rather than kitchen staples. …
Ellen Telander Winsted Organics Farm My husband and I decided years ago that we did not want to wake up one day and wonder “what if?” We did our research and planned for our escape to a small farm in western Minnesota. Neither one of us farmed, but we always …
Ellen Telander Winsted Organics Farm I’m beginning to realize that I titled this series incorrectly. Not only does it remind me of a notorious TV show with a blond, rich girl (Of which I am neither) it also somehow implies that this life is simple. Well, it’s not meant to …
Ellen Telander Winsted Organics Farm I call this year “I’m so glad I own a farm” year. We’ve all noticed the price increases of food and gas. I’ve been asking other farmers to learn the scoop. My buddy, Steve Nowak, an organic farmer that grows wheat and barley, says it’s …
Ellen Telander Winsted Organics Farm I LOVE FALL! It’s the time to harvest hay, can your precious goods from your hard working garden and getting the goat meat in the freezer. Canning is a process, if done correctly, to preserve food for a year or more on a shelf without …
Ellen Telander Winsted Organics Farm There are so many new things on the farm this year, and I can only talk about a few for this article. I call this year “Reduce my workload please!” I am trying to make time for more play in my farm life. I sold …
Liz McMann Mississippi Market Natural Foods Co-op It isn’t easy to balance a commitment to local, organic and natural foods with a tight grocery budget. Americans have become accustomed to cheap food, rather than food that is a good value, meaning rich in nutrients, beneficial to the environment and supportive …
Patty Brands St. Paul Farmers’ Market Where is the next best place to get “fresh” produce besides your own garden? The Farmers’ Markets, of course! This is where growers sell directly to the consumer and take great pride in their products. With over 100 markets in Minnesota to choose from, …
Ami Voeltz Do It Green! Minnesota Eat locally. Buy organic. Support sustainable agriculture. Some of us hear these terms all the time. It used to be ‘buy organic’, end of story. Now, we are having conversations about supporting local farmers (even if they are not growing organic) and seeking farms …
Gabriele F. Kushi, BFA, MEA, CHC, AADP Board certified Holistic Health Practitioner, macrobiotic nutritional consultant, cooking teacher, and director of Kushi’s Kitchen The goals of macrobiotics are the realization of planetary health and happiness, world peace and human evolution. Macrobiotic, derived from the Greek word macrobios (large life), is associated …
Jennifer Hawkins Graduate student at the University of Minnesota “Take two of these and call me in the morning” is an adage we have all heard dozens of times. Meanwhile, drug and pharmaceutical advertisements promoting their new “wonder drugs” clutter the pages of our reading material. Listening to the quiet …
Jessie Houlihan Environmental Consultant for CVDT Counsulting As an environmental professional and concerned global citizen, many of my goals center on reducing my impact and living lightly on the earth. I try to reduce the amount of waste I produce, and I recycle as much as I can. I make …
John Barobs Blue Sky Guide As the green movement flourishes, so does the green retail sector. Stop by to visit some of the new green businesses throughout the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota to find some new, hip and green goods, carbon saving devices for your home, new modes of …
Erika Rood Do It Green! Minnesota EGGS Figuring out how to replace eggs in any recipe can be tricky. Basically, eggs function as leavening, binding, and thickening agents. In some recipes, eggs perform all three functions, like quick breads, but all recipes need the moisture from the eggs. Don’t be …
Sara Grochowski Do It Green! Minnesota Since the 1970s, the increase of multi-national food companies has increased the size of not only farms but the overall food system. During this same time period, a slow and steady movement of small farms began selling a variety of products to local communities, …
Steven L. Hopp Americans put almost as much fossil fuel into our refrigerators as our cars. We’re consuming about 400 gallons of oil a year per citizen-about 17% of our nation’s energy use-for agriculture, a close second to our vehicular use. Tractors, combines, harvesters, irrigation, sprayers, tillers, balers, and other …
Eric Haugee Capitol Brew-haha (capitolbrewhaha.blogspot.com) Like every other food and beverage category, organic beer has exploded onto the market, more than doubling in the past few years. Similar to the craft brewery revolution in the 1980s, breweries on the coasts paved the path for organic beer, and now even Anheuser-Busch …
Joel T. Helfrich Do It Green! Minnesota According to Roots & Fruits Cooperative Produce, “Organically-grown food is produced without the use of synthetic pesticides and/or fertilizers.” No wonder more Americans purchase organic food each year! The organic movement is indeed large and growing. Michael Pollan, author of Botany of Desire, …
Jen Ortendahl Do It Green! Minnesota As Americans have realized the health and environmental benefits of eating food without pesticides, organic food has increasingly made its way into more homes and schools. Organic foods sales have increased 17 to 21% since 1997. Various campuses at the University of Minnesota are …
Kerrie Saunders MS, LLP, PhD VegNews Magazine Have you ever wondered if your produce is truly organic? The information below will help you to read and understand the organic labeling system. There are three main coding systems you’ll find in your local grocery store: The 12-digit Universal Product Codes (UPC), …
Compiled from REDUCE.ORG and DOITGREEN.ORG. Pack a No Waste Lunch A ‘no-waste lunch’ is a meal that does not end up in the trash. You can buy food items in bulk, then put them in reusable containers to carry to school or work. Packing your food in reusables is typically …
Jennifer Harmening Urban Gardener Urban chicken laws vary from city to city in Minnesota. Recent laws have made it easier for residents to raise backyard chickens in the Twin Cities and many neighbors are taking advantage of the opportunity for fresh eggs and a closer connection to their food supply. …
Jenny Breen Local Chef/Educator Eating lower on the food chain is one of the best ways to reduce the environmental impact of your food choices. Try these recipes: CARROT CASHEW PATE 1 cup cashews 3 cups chopped, steamed carrots (½ cup water reserved) 2 cloves garlic ½ tablespoon miso paste …
Nick Murray Zoo School of Environmental Studies Estimates are that one fourth of all food produced for human consumption goes to waste. This wasted food costs $31 billion annually. The restaurant business, one of the fastest growing industries in the world, is a major contributor to food waste. There are …
Erika Rood Do It Green! Minnesota Scott Jurek, Murray Rose, Tony Gonzalez, Carl Lewis, Paavo Nurmi, Prince Fielder, Brendan Brazier, and Pat Neshek. What do these elite athletes have in common? They are committed to reducing their carbon footprint through their diet. They eat plant-based diets and maintain professional and/or …
Liz McMann Mississippi Market Co-op In a country where rivers of high fructose corn syrup flow through our food system and the food recalls never seem to stop, something really miraculous is happening. In the shadows of genetically modified corn fields and pre-made frozen peanut butter sandwiches, people are starting …
After harvesting veggies from our gardening earlier this week, I peeked in my bag and thought, wow, it’s like a picture perfect rainbow – bet it tastes just as good. This thought then led me to think, it’s like you can ”Taste the rainbow”… mmmm. Sure, maybe I borrowed the …
Alyson Ostenaa Owner, Ecopolitan restaurant I first heard about raw foods two years ago from a friend. He had attended dinner parties in Colorado that served entire meals of fresh, raw, vegan foods. He told me about delicious appetizers, entrees, sauces, salads and desserts prepared without cooking. The chef used …
Brad Redlin Director, Agriculture Program, Izaak Walton League of America The entire area of the United States, including Hawaii and Alaska, totals nearly 2.3 billion acres. Land used for agricultural purposes constitutes a 52 percent majority of that total. That is reason enough why the federal Farm Bill, as much …
Jessica Houlihan Do It Green! Magazine When natural foods and green products were first created, a select niche market of consumers bought them. Due to increased public awareness and the resulting rise of demand for these products, more companies are choosing to create organic foods or adapt some of their …
Do It Green! Minnesota Parts excerpted from www.reduce.org “The less we take with us into the mountains, deserts, forests or waters, the more their spirit informs and enlivens us. We should be as reliant on our wits as much as possible and on “things” as little as possible. This means …
Do It Green! Minnesota Cook vegan at home. This is a pretty easy task with a wide variety of tasty vegan recipes available over the internet such as vegweb.com and the spread of vegan cookbooks, such as Veganomicon, available at most bookstores. Start with fast and easy vegan foods. This …
Do It Green! Minnesota According to the Organic Consumers Association website, these foods retain the highest levels of harmful pesticide residue when grown conventionally. Strawberries Bell Peppers Spinach Cherries (grown in the U.S.) Peaches Cantaloupe (grown in Mexico) Celery Apples Apricots Green Beans
VegNews Magazine AustinWhy? Veg oasis in the land of cowboy boots, beef and hunting. Don’t miss: Casa de Luz for scrumptious vegan macrobiotic fare. Washington DCWhy? Home of advocacy powerhouses including HSUS, Compassion Over Killing and FARM. Don’t miss: Java Green for a bowl of steaming noodle soup and a …
Kristine Volovsek Compassionate Action 4 Animals Adapted from Vegan Cooking on a Shoestring Budget, By Lylee Heart From grocery stores and dumpsters, to foraging and volunteering, there are many ways to get free, cheap and healthy food in the Twin Cities. The options are as limitless and expansive as your own …
Jennifer Harmening Since the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Organic Program went into effect in October 2002, organic foods have become available at an increasing number of locations, and more people are intentionally choosing to buy, grow, and eat organic foods. Why? Weighing your food options today isn’t just about …
Sally Schakel RD, LD Nearly every packaged food must be labeled with information about its nutrient and ingredient content. The food label can become your source of information for choosing foods that fit your health and lifestyle needs. Nutrition facts The % Daily Value on a food label shows how …
Alena Hyams and Jeff Bartlett Do It Green! Minnesota Among the signs of progress we’ve seen in Minnesota in recent years, one of the bright spots is surely the greening of our vibrant restaurant scene. New choices allow us to eat low on the food chain and support responsible restaurants …
Unny Nambudiripad, Kara Fancy and Ami Voeltz Veganism is a lifestyle which avoids using animals for food, clothing, or other purposes. Vegans try to minimize suffering and cruelty by not purchasing products that are derived from animals. Vegetarians do not eat meat, fish, or poultry. Vegans, in addition to being …
Jerusha Klemperer Slow Food USA People often ask us, “What do you sell? Is it about cooking slowly? Oh wait; – it’s the opposite of Fast Food! … Right?” Sort of. Slow Food is hard to explain in a nutshell, and with good reason: it is a complex concept, intertwined …
Do It Green! Minnesota Here is a short list of our favorites: Brasa, Minneapolis Common Roots Café, Minneapolis Ecopolitan, Minneapolis: Sara says, “When I really want to indulge, I invite friends for some wine and raw food at Ecopolitan…divine.” Emily’s Lebanese Deli, Minneapolis: Mike says, “I love the home recipe …
Kristin Thiel Do It Green! Magazine I grew up in urban suburbia, where food is known as that stuff that appears to sprout wrapped in plastic right on grocery store shelves. Interestingly, because this is how urbanites so often find their food, it makes the occasional encounter in the wild …
Jill Grunewald Holistic Nutrition Coach There was a time in the not too distant past when choosing what to eat was simple. It entailed a jaunt to the garden or orchard and harvesting what was in season or venturing to the cellar for canned green beans or peaches. Meats were …
