New York Times food writer Mark Bittman talks about what is wrong with the American diet and how it is wrecking the environment. Basically he says we eat too much meat, junk food, fast food, and don’t eat enough fresh food at home. He briefly discusses the history of how we got here and what we can do to get back on track. He also talks about how the current model of food production is poisoning the planet and wasteful.
It is interesting to think about the past when food was just food and people didn’t worry about carbs, low fat, sugar free and the population was much healthier. Basically advertising has tricked us into thinking the wrong kinds food are what we should be eating to be healthy. This has turned Americans into malnourished fat people.

Check out this article: Less waste, more taste: maximize your produce, to learn more about some great places to get fresh organic produce and how to store it properly. I’d also recommend the docurama: King Corn, which explores our current model of corn production and how it is causing a malnourished, unhealthy population.

With ever growing fuel prices on the minds of many Americans we look for alternatives. Now even some of our alternatives are causing trouble with the food market (making biofuels made from waste veggie oil so much more important). Whatever the reason - high fuel costs, increased demand for food crops for fuel leading to lower supply, increased demand from economic development in previously poor nations, poor growing seasons - food costs are rising and much of the world has already reached crisis level. All of this cost and crisis draws attention to our own waste. We are cutting back on driving to save fuel, just as we should be more mindful about buying only what we will actually eat and taking good care of it to keep it from spoiling.

Many of us have the best of intentions. We don’t have money to throw away. You would not purchase food just to throw it away but that is exactly what happens to a lot of us, isn’t it? You load up your cart with delicious fresh looking fruits and veggies but by the end of the week you’ve only made it through half of them and the rest are already rotting. It is not just you and I, my dear reader! It is not even just our wasteful American culture. It is a problem across the globe.

This image is from a campaign in Brazil to raise awareness and decrease waste. Artist Mihail Aleksandrov designed this handout, please click on the image for a larger version.

So, we know there is a problem with keeping the produce we buy.. we know eating more fruits and veggies as opposed to meat and dairy is more environmentally friendly.. we know eating more fruits and veggies is better for our health… we know we are just wasting money and perfectly good food this way.. so what do we do? How do we save money on food and help it last longer? There are a couple of strategies here:

1. Buy locally grown produce
2. Start a garden
3. Buy less more often
4. Store your produce properly and strategically

1. Buy local: Buying locally grown produce will not only support your local economy and farmers, it will also save you money. With the huge cost of fuel transporting produce across continents is not practical and will be reflected in the price of the food. Buying local eliminates that cost and allows you to get fresher fruits and veg that will in turn last longer when properly stored. Also, by buying local you are saving the environment from all of that extra pollution that would have incurred during transport. Double whammy! Here are some local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) groups that will provide locally grown/organic produce as well as some farmer’s markets in the Phoenix area.

• Crooked Sky Farms: local organic produce with several pick up locations in the Valley
• Downtown Phoenix Public Market - Local produce, and other goods by various local vendors.
• Tolmachoff Farms - Glendale, pick your own produce.
• Tucson Community Supported Agriculture.
• Agua Linda Community Supported Agriculture.
• Flagstaff Community Supported Agriculture.
• Prescott College Community Supported Agriculture.

2. Start a Garden: I know you may think this is not practical for most of us and that nothing will grow in the desert but you are wrong. With the proper techniques you can grow all kinds of great stuff here. Even with limited space or poor soil you can make a great container garden. We will be doing some more posts here once we get our garden going. We do not have green thumbs by any means but it can and will be done! Now is not the best time to start a garden but you could start getting your soil in shape and at least start dreaming, take a class or two from the Urban Farm and get some organic seeds. Growing your own produce allows you to eat it when you feel like it, you can cut lettuce off as you need it for tonight’s salad and it will continue to grow. There is nothing better than a home grown organic tomato and you can just pick them at their peak. You can harvest a couple of onions, beets, turnips, etc as needed and they will be the freshest and most affordable you can get!

3. Buy less more often: We are all busy people but making time for an extra grocery trip during the week can mean the difference between wasting 1/3 of what you buy and making good use of it. Try making a menu for the week and plot out what you need on your grocery list. If you can break that into two or more trips (assuming you do not live a great distance from the grocer) and make your second trip once you have used up your first batch of goodies it just makes sense that you will have fresh produce more often and less chance for waste.

4. Store your produce properly and strategically: As plants decay they give off ethylene gas. Some more than others, and some are sensitive to it (which is why if you have an unripe avocado you can place it in a paper bag with an apple and it will quickly ripen). With that in mind you should only store certain fruit and veg together, some is better suited to the fridge while others are best left on the counter, some in a cool dry pantry while herbs and asparagus are best stored like fresh cut flowers, just snip the ends and put them in some water in a glass. Here is a helpful chart put together by Liza Barnes, Health Educator and Stepfanie Romine, Staff Writer for SparkPeople.com

Use this coded key along with the chart below:

• Store unwashed and in a single layer
  
• Store unwashed and in a plastic bag
  
• Store in a paper bag
  
• *Ethylene producers (keep away from other fruits and vegetables)

Click here for an easy to print PDF version of this table.

The Center Bistro
21 East 6th Street, Suite 114
Tempe, AZ 85281 • 480.491.5591
- Hours of Operation -
Sun-Thurs 11am-10pm
Fri-Sat 11am-Midnight

Increasingly in the downtown Tempe area surrounding the ASU campus the charm of small local restaurants and businesses is being wiped away for a more corporate, polished, and I would argue, cold and unwelcoming feel. I have walked past The Center many times with its great location near my preferred parking garage and Borders. I ignorantly dismissed it as another new kid on the block taking up space in the area that used to be home to some of my favorite little mom and pop places now replaced by chains. Don’t let its new brick exterior and chain store neighbors fool you, this place is locally owned, has all the charm of its local predecessors with some artsy-polish and serves Earth-friendly organic dishes.

We decided to go there on a whim, wanting to try something new and environmentally friendly. Not knowing what to expect and seeing their prices were moderately steep we got gussied up and headed to Tempe. Their menu is vegan/vegetarian friendly allowing for substitutions of tofu for any of the meat dishes. They specialize in beautiful salads and sandwiches, vegan desserts and some darn good smoothies! As we were seated we were each greeted with a shot of their strawberry-peach-mango smoothie, or ‘Karmic Colada.’ It was so great we ordered a full sized version along with the banana-blueberry-spirulina. The banana one was far sweeter and I liked knowing I was getting all of the nutrition from the spirulina but while it was really yummy I preferred the strawberry. I was so impressed with their smoothies I will make a point of returning just for them.

Even their drinks are organic! I had some organic iced green tea that was quite good while James had an organic pear cider. They had a small but good looking selection of teas I would like to try at some point, including a spiced chai (both green and black), mint, breakfast black, and a couple of good looking greens. They also had fresh lemonade, Mexican coffee, and a wide variety of organic beers and wines.

Our meal started with the baked organic coconut tofu and blackened organic tempeh tower. Not only was this sculpturesque creation beautiful, it was delicious, nutritious and environmentally sound! Reminiscent of Jamaican jerk-spices with a twist of grapefruit-yuzu, this kicked off our special occasion with style and taste. Next up was the main meal… after smoothies and protein packed appetizer we were pretty full but the incredible presentation and scent was more than enough to lure us into gluttony.

Their miso soup is vegan and fantastic. Not too “fishy” from the vitamin-packed sea weed but just right. The salad, with its fresh baby greens, artfully spiraled carrots and sprouts in an amazing ginger-soy dressing was too good to be true!

I ordered the organic wild mushrooms sandwich with spring lettuce, fresh dill, organic olive oil and garlic, vegan cream cheese and power green pesto. The dill made this baby something really special, subtle so it didn’t knock your socks off but it acted as the perfect unexpected flavor that made me think for just a moment - what is it that is so great about this?! Dill!!

James substituted tofu in place of beef on the free range organic roast beef sandwich with fresh organic beets, organic spring lettuce, house mayo, a drizzle of balsamic vinegar reduction, with Mainland Farms white cheddar. Who would think to put beets on a sandwich? It looked amazing and James was very pleased with his choice. Aron, James’ brother, ordered the salmon sandwich, wild salmon filet with organic heirloom tomatoes, daikon radish shreds and horseradish black sesame aioli. He was also quite pleased. 3 for 3!

As if we were not stuffed enough…. they have organic vegan cheesecake!! Now how often do you have this option? It would be a sin to deny such an amazing treat, right? It was, just as all of their dishes, beautifully presented and tasty as could be with a lighter texture than a conventional cheesecake. They also had other vegan dessert options so I will certainly be back for.

What makes The Center a green place to go? They are mostly organic, so what? When we eat organic foods not only are we avoiding ingesting the potentially harmful pesticides and herbicides that go into conventional crops, we are supporting sustainable agricultural practices. Organic farming promotes better treatment of the soils which means they will be healthy and supportive of tomorrow’s crops for our kids and theirs. It is also important that they have a focus on vegan options. The meat and dairy industries, particularly from the factory farming practices due to their highly concentrated population of critters, contribute a huge amount of methane (a green house gas) not to mention the requirement for huge amounts of water, land, and crops to feed them (and the water and land required for those crops!) and the fuel to truck them, living and dead, across the country. (Click here to read “Rethinking the Meat Guzler” from the NY Times for more info) There are controversies around soy at the moment regarding rain forest being cleared for lucrative soy crops, however, those are being resolved and the U.S. is the number one producer of soy.

I can’t say enough about the Center. The artwork was beautiful, the food was fantastic, and the service was amazing. I will be back soon and encourage anyone wanting to support a local green restaurant to head over there as soon as you have the chance!

[The Center Cafe/Bistro]

More about the environmental costs of bottle water from Tucson’s KUAT 6. Follow the link to see the video.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bunna Coffee Tea & Market

7520 S. Rural Rd. Suite 12
Tempe, AZ. 85283
BunnaCoffee.com

Hopefully this will be the first of many reviews on AzSustainably of local restaurants that are trying to do their part to be ‘green.’ Although eating at home is probably the best way to eat ‘green’ (assuming you eat fresh and/or can get a hold of locally grown produce and you are not a tremendously wasteful person in the way you cook, etc) but eating out is fun! It is one of our main recreations (just ask our expanding waist lines and our thinning wallets). Finding a new and unique restaurant, coffee shop, or tea house just makes our day. What makes it even more exciting is when you can find all three in one shop and to top it all off they are independently owned and actually care about making a positive difference in the environment!

Besides being absolutely delicious, their wide variety of coffee and tea is organically grown and fair trade. We found Bunna on the Local First AZ website, saw what they were all about and convinced our friends Tori and Josh to meet us there. The brunch that they offer every weekend from 7am-2pm is made from as many locally grown and organic ingredients as possible and it was fantastic!! By purchasing their fresh produce locally they are avoiding the toll on the environment of transporting from across the globe as well as the energy and packaging that goes into frozen foods. Also, by going organic they are preserving the soils for future healthy agriculture along with avoiding all sorts of crazy pesticides and herbicides you would not want to be eating.

The atmosphere was relaxed and welcoming with cool artwork on the walls by local artists and a talented guitarist and singer playing. The seating was comfortable and the front counter was inviting, not at all pretentious as some cafes can be. It was not too loud to have great conversation and I can’t wait to go back again. They even have free wi-fi so if I need a place to get some work done online this is going to be the first place I head to.

I had the bowl of granola with strawberries and soy milk. They were extremely generous with the berries as most places really skimp on that and they are the best part! It was very tasty. I also had the jasmine green tea. I am a bit of a tea snob and with such a large variety of organic teas it was difficult to decide but I do adore good jasmine green tea. Tori ordered the White Peony tea and it was very tasty as well. I lucked out, again they were very generous with the tea. I loved that they had various sizes of mugs rather than paper, plastic or goodness forbid styrofoam cups. I had a large mug and there so many leaves in my bag I had four refills of hot water and it was still the perfect strength! James and Josh both expressed that the coffee was quite good, as well.

The boys, ironically, ordered the smallest portions with breakfast sandwiches that came on English muffins. They looked really yummy but for the price I would say try something else if you are coming with a big appetite. Tori had the veggie sandwich #2 and gave it two thumbs up. They have a ‘green’ outlook, amazing coffees and teas, good vegetarian options and everything was yummy. We would certainly return on a week day for some nearly guilt-free (in so far as it is organic and free-trade) teas and coffees and on the weekends for brunch. Go Bunna!