Meatless Monday: Green Beans from China

It’s common knowledge that many consumer products come from China — shirts and shoes, furniture casters and computers, tools and party favors … but GREEN BEANS???

I had grabbed a bag of Nature’s Promise Organic Frozen Green Beans without giving it a second thought. Days later, when I happened to read the small print on the bag before tearing it open, I was very surprised to learn that these beans are “A PRODUCT OF CHINA. Quality guaranteed or your money back. CERTIFIED ORGANIC BY ORGANIC CROP IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONAL.”

You know those petitions you are always asked to sign? Change.org recently released a tool which makes it easy for anyone to create an online petition of their very own. I decided to give it a spin with a petition asking the Stop & Shop chain of supermarkets to stop using produce grown in China in their Nature's Promise line. In the petition I go on to say, “It makes no sense to be purchasing green beans from a half a world away. For reasons of food safety and security, as well as to lower the carbon footprint for transportation costs, American farmers should be the ones growing the majority of produce Americans consume.” 

My widget appears below!

Change.org|Start an Online Petition »

I do hope you will sign it. (Getting there is easy, just click on the image above.) And, if you do, please send the link to the petition (or better, yet the link to this post) to ten friends and ask them to do the same.

Change.org urges “Start, join, and win campaigns for social change.” Let's start with green beans and take it from there.

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal  health and the health of our planet.”

Meatless Monday: How We Met the Challenge

Well, we did it! My friend Pam and I successfully prepared four items for four people with a total estimated cost of $20.

For those who are new to the blog or catching up on the news, Pam and I had signed the pledge to host such a meal in Slow Food USA’s $5 Challenge on Saturday night.

The menu — salad, soup, cornbread, peach pie — had taken careful planning. Pam’s fresh tomato, cucumber and green salad was a little pricey, so she balanced the cost with a less expensive curried zucchini soup. 

Since the meal was at Pam’s, it was easiest for me to be responsible for the carbs. My blue Danish mixing bowl got quite a workout over the course of the afternoon. The fresh peach pie was over budget with the fruit alone about $4.50. And when I opted to use butter for the crust, it was closer to a $7.00 pie. I did better with the cornbread, using about $3.00 worth of ingredients, including a politically correct egg, a cup of buttermilk, and 1/4 cup of local honey. 

On Saturday evening it was far too cold to sit outside. We dined indoors by candlelight and used the Fall placemats. We ate slowly and talked for hours about politics, religion, and life in general. We didn’t solve the world’s problems, but we had a delicious meal and a good time.

We were so excited that we forgot all about taking photos until most of the main course was gone! So you will have to settle for a photo of the pie with the ceramic black bird baked inside (to let out the steam).

Is it legal to deduct the cost of the leftovers from the total I wonder? With half a pie and 1/3 of the cornbread left, maybe we could have splurged for a little vanilla ice cream to turn naked pie into à la mode… 

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal  health and the health of our planet.”

Freebie Friday Returns!

Freebie Friday returns with Google Goggles, a free Mobile App with many uses, both practical and fun. Google Goggles lets you use pictures taken with your mobile phone to search the web; it’s ideal for things that aren’t easy to describe. Scan a barcode, and you can find out about a product. Scan a menu in a foreign language, and you can get a translation. You can even take a photo of a landmark or a piece of art, and Google may be able to tell you what it is. This link will let you see Google Goggles in action.  


Google Goggles is being continually improved. According to the support page, right now it works best for printed text, barcodes, logos, and landmarks, and not so well for photos of animals or furniture. 

Here is perhaps one of the products most valuable uses. Do you have a stack of Sudokus you could never solve? Take a photo of one with Goggles and just see what happens! Or watch this video.

And, now that I have your attention, please read on for some news and a few important reminders of upcoming events:

UPDATES from NEW HAVEN

The Long Wharf Nature Preserve will remain intact! Connecticut DOT Commissioner  James P. Redeker has announced the reconfiguration of the Exit 46 plan which would have taken a portion of the preserve. You can read the details in an article from the New Haven Register. According to this article, Redeker said the new plan actually improves traffic flow and safety more than the original proposal! 

Elm City Market posted progress photos. There are now 650 members and counting.

DATES TO REMEMBER

September 17

Slow Food’s $5 Challenge 

Take back the 'value meal' by getting together with family, friends and neighbors for a slow food meal that costs no more than $5 per person.

and a special opportunity from Slow Food USA … during the month of September, you can become a member for whatever you can afford to pay. With over 25,000 members and 250,000 supporters, Slow Food USA is part of a global, grassroots organization which believes that food and farming should be sources of health and well being for everyone. Through national advocacy, local projects and bringing people together through the common language of food, Slow Food USA members and supporters are making it easier to access real food that is good for us, good for those who produce it, and good for the planet. Any donation this month will allow you to join … give it a try. 

September 21

5% Day at Whole Foods in Milford.

Whole Foods in Milford will donate 5% of all sales to benefit New Haven’s Common Ground High School. 

September 21

New Haven Green Drinks

6-8 pm at 

Cave A’ Vin, a newly renovated wine bar at 975 State Street, near Edward Street.

This evening’s program will be a departure from the norm. Instead of a speaker, it will be a “special fun event to get everyone to meet new people.”

September 24

Moving Planet 

At the 350CT event people will come to the New Haven Green via bikes, on foot, carpools, mass transit, anything and everything BUT carbon-intensive travel, for a central celebration with tables, music speakers, art, and a bike-powered outdoor screening of the movie Wall-E! The date is fast approaching, check out the ActNH site for opportunities to volunteer.


TGIF! Be sure to come back for my Meatless Monday post when I hope to report on a very successful $5 Meal!

Meatless Monday: 5 Tips for Meeting Slow Food’s $5 Meal Challenge

Slow Food USA’s $5 Meal Challenge is this coming Saturday — September 17!

For those of you who haven’t heard (or may have forgotten), Slow Food USA is inviting people across the country to share — this Saturday —a healthy, affordable meal, at a cost of less than $5 a person.

Are you ready to meet the challenge? Here are 5 tips to help you on your way.

• Think beans or other legumes, and plan ahead so you can skip the canned version. Food critic and cookbook author Mark Bittman urges all cooks to do so.  Among his talking points for cooking dried beans vs. using canned ones are economy, variety, taste, and the fact that leftovers can easily be frozen for future use. All you need is time, so keep this in mind when mapping out your cooking strategy. Here is a link to my Split Pea Soup which appeared on the Meatless Monday site on April 12, 2010. 

• Eggs (off-limits to vegans, and the whites of which are allergens to some) are another inexpensive source of protein. Just make sure your guests are on-board before choosing to use them. The Incredible Egg site has scads of recipes You might want to verify that the eggs you choose are “Certified Humane.” 

• Use seasonal ingredients. For example: A fresh peach pie prepared while peaches are in season can be a “can-do” for this challenge, particularly if you make your own crust. One made with oil is the least expensive way to go. I bought a bushel of peaches for $18.95 last week, about 50¢ a peach. If I’d picked my own, they would have been even cheaper. $5.00 should just about cover the cost of your pie. Check out two of my favorite cookbooks for more ideas: Simply in Season, by Mary Beth Lind and Cathleen Hockman-Wert and The Art of Simple Food, by Alice Waters. The recipes in each volume are clear, relatively easy, and foolproof (in my experience anyway).

• Make a meal from what you have on hand. Use Google with Recipe View to help you find the perfect recipe. With this tool you can search for a specific recipe or main ingredient and then narrow your options by selecting the ingredients you do or do not wish to include, as well as the time available and any caloric restrictions.

• If you are cooking with friends, consider Stone Soup. Just be sure to start VERY EARLY, and you might want to omit the stones.

For more details about the day and the campaign, click here. You can pledge to take the challenge here. 

Good luck, and have fun. “See” you next Monday if not before.

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal  health and the health of our planet.”

On My Radar 9.10.11

It’s been a busy month in New England with an earthquake (for which I was absent) and Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene. I’ve been remiss in reporting a number of important pieces of news. Here are some of the items on my radar.

The WRATH of IRENE:

• No one in the northeast is likely to describe this storm as “over-rated.” While it is true that downtown New Haven survived the storm with minor loss of tree limbs and without any power outages, this was the exception rather than the rule. The city as a whole lost 1,250 trees, storm damage was estimated at $13 million, and some sections were without power for nearly a week. Still, there were no homes or lives lost due to the storm. Such was not the case in the adjoining town of East Haven, where a number of houses washed into the sea. Coastal damage was severe — with extensive beach erosion and property damage statewide, due in part to the astronomical high tide which coincided with the storm’s arrival. So busy were we CT residents focusing on our own woes that it was not until the next day that we learned of the devastation in the Catskills and the state of Vermont. 

GOING GREEN is GOOD for the BOTTOM LINE

• The wind turbine at Phoenix Press kept on turning through most of the storm. The turbine, which automatically shuts down for safety if the wind is more than 60 mph, only did so once over the weekend. Phoenix Press was able to put power back onto the grid during the storm, generating 2,500 kilowatts of power during Irene’s 48-hour visit — more than four times the amount generated normally.

• The Devil’s Gear Bike Shop, sponsor of many local cycling events, was recently named one of the top 100 bike stores in the country by Bicycling Magazine.

• Ecovative Design, LLC, a small company on which I reported on May 30 of last year, recently received the Dupont Diamond Award for its biodegradable mushroom packaging. Ecovative produces home-compostable and cost-competitive replacements for conventional packaging foams using mycelium, or "mushroom roots," as a self-assembling glue. In a June 13 press release the company announced an equity investment by 3M, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the DOEN Foundation. Ecovative's technology has broad applications beyond packaging including insulation, building products, automotive, and consumer goods. The company's Mushroom® packaging, EcoCradle™, is currently used by a number of Fortune 500 clients. Ecovative operates a pilot production facility in upstate New York, and plans to expand to new regional manufacturing facilities in the United States. Ecovative now has an online store featuring a variety of “fun stuff” made from mushroom mycelium, all very green, and some purported to make great wedding gifts. 

NEWS from ALL OVER:

• Gus Speth, former Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and Justin Haaheim, lead organizer of Act New Haven, were among the over 1,252 arrested in Washington, DC in a two-week protest over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, a 1700 hundred mile pipeline carrying the fossil fuel diluted bitumen that would run from Alberta, Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast. 

• The state of Connecticut passed a bill which will go into effect on October 1 requiring all businesses that generate over 104 tons of “source-separated organic material” (food scraps, food processing residue and more) annually to compost them.

• In Sacramento, a measure that would have banned expanded polystyrene takeout packaging in California has been shelved without a vote in the state Assembly. Senate Bill 568, which passed the Senate in May and would have gone into effect statewide Jan. 1, 2016, would have applied to PS cups, bowls, trays, containers and clamshells. It would have been the first statewide ban on PS packaging in the U.S. The bill was placed in the inactive file Sept. 8, meaning it could surface again in 2012.

• In response to recent crop failures, women farmers in Nepal have been discarding imported hybrid seeds and husbanding hardier local varieties in cooperative seed banks. 

• The Google Green Grocer program offers Googlers in Mountain View the opportunity to  order the same high-quality, sustainably sourced seafood, meat and eggs they already enjoy in Google cafes, while supporting local community fisheries and farms.

NEWS from NEW HAVEN:

• The Elm City Market has now pushed back its opening to October. At the end of August 625 people had signed on as members.

• Officials including Gov. Malloy and DEEP Commissioner Dan Esty met with developer Bruce Becker at 360 State Street late in August in the hopes that the way can be smoothed for a fuel cell metering request so that the building can meter and charge its tenants for the fuel cell power they consume. 360 State’s fuel cell is currently operating at only 55 to 60 percent of capacity, powering only the building’s common areas—corridors and lobbies. 

• New Haven’s Apple Store is rising on Broadway.

• I was deeply saddened to learn that Chris Sanseverino, former chef at Caseus and West Hills alum, died on September 2. Donations can be made to Slow Food CT in Chris’s name. See his obituary for details. 

SPECIAL EVENTS:

September 11

Anniversary and Commemoration of 9|11

New Haven’s bells, including the Yale Carillon and the one at United Church on the Green, will toll city-wide at 1 pm for precisely 1 minute.

September 17

Slow Food’s $5 Challenge 

Take back the 'value meal' by getting together with family, friends and neighbors for a slow food meal that costs no more than $5 per person.

September 21

5% Day at Whole Foods in Milford 

Whole Foods in Milford will donate 5% of all sales to benefit New Haven’s Common Ground High School. 

September 24

Moving Planet 

Moving Planet is a worldwide rally to demand solutions to the climate crisis. At the 350CT event people will come to the New Haven Green via bikes, on foot, carpools, mass transit, anything and everything BUT carbon-intensive travel, for a central celebration with tables, music speakers, art, and a bike-powered outdoor screening of the movie Wall-E! Awesome!

BLOG NEWS

I STILL need a reader in Mississippi. Someone must know someone there.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and please come back soon.

Meatless Monday: Checking In from the Mid-Section

I’d noticed the small sign in previous years while traveling Route 34 between Galva and Galesburg, IL. FARMERS MARKET, THURSDAYS, 3-6. The town? Oneida, in Knox County IL, population 689. The location? A small parking lot across from DT Sales and Service (purveyors and maintainers of mowers and outdoor power equipment).

This year the timing was right, and we planned ahead to include a visit.

What would a mid-Western farmers’ market be like? Would there be lots of vendors? What would they sell? Many questions came to mind during our 14 mile drive without stoplights, or even stop signs, past rolling fields of lush, green crops, mostly corn. Upon our arrival we spotted a handful of vendors, some under tents, one under a sample double carport, and one with a stand-alone display on the back of a pick-up truck. Decidedly absent were the fancy white tents and the crowds of people milling about which are so much a part of the coastal urban markets.

Most vendors had a specialty, some of which were familiar — goat cheese, heirloom tomatoes, and local honey. The find of all finds was the dazzling array of heirloom tomatoes grown by Tom and Ann Collopy of Hilltop Heirlooms in Dahinda, IL — perfect fruits from black to bright orange at the amazing price of $1.50/lb, mix and match. Yes, $1.50!  We sampled two pounds in total — a large Brandywine and a half dozen smaller varieties including Reisentraube (tasty red ones with a sharp, pointy end), yellow pears, and sweet orange cherry (a marble-sized perfect ball and our favorite). According to Tom, after years of growing vegetables and herbs for their own family’s use, the Collopys expanded their garden and began experimenting with heirloom tomatoes. Last year they had about 80 plants in 15 varieties  for sale at area farmers’ markets and the Local Growers’ Network in Knox County. The Local Grower’s Network offers an innovative program — a  $20 box of produce, filled with a variety of food “at the farmers’ whim,” available by calling in or emailing a reservation, weekly, every other week, or whenever the urge hits, pay upon pick-up.  A CSA without a long-term commitment — I like this!

Our group also bought goat cheese, a crumbly garlic infused variety, perfect for topping a salad; honey from the Murdocks of Wataga, paler and sweeter than Connecticut honey; strawberry jam (sold frozen) which tasted exactly like fresh strawberries (yum); sourdough cornbread; and sweet pickles for my mother-in-law. 

We were clearly noticed as not being locals; a big clue was the rental car with the Minnesota plates. The honey vendors were particularly intrigued about our origins and enjoyed hearing our tales of inner-city beehives and New Haven’s ordinance allowing hens but not roosters.  However, the young boy couldn’t understand what a city would have against roosters. Too noisy? Really? 

Missing were any signs proclaiming “Illinois Grown” or “Organic.” We didn’t ask too many questions. I did inquire at the truck, which included in its display kiwi with stickers clearly marked “New Zealand,” where the grapes had come from. I decided Michigan was close enough. They were delicious. However, the corn at $4/dozen was not as sweet as what I can buy at CitySeed. Maybe that’s because most of Connecticut corn is grown for human consumption, and that’s simply not the case in this part of the country. [That’s another story.]

We also checked out another market in the area’s biggest town on Saturday morning. It was a disappointment — 3 vendors, only one with produce. As it turns out, the Oneida market is a real gem. 

Please check back again soon, certainly next Monday, when I plan to offer some tips to help you meet Slow Food’s $5 Challenge.  

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal  health and the health of our planet.”