Monday, December 19, 2011

Meatless Monday: Food in the News


Remember the online petition I started a while back? It was the petition asking Stop & Shop supermarkets to stop sourcing their frozen green beans from China. Well, it’s still chugging away. I have over 270 signatures now and I have just extended the petition deadline to January 15. I’d really like to reach my target of 500 signatures by then. Can you help?


While doing my holiday shopping, I discovered that with a little extra effort it is possible to buy many gifts manufactured in the USA (or at least North America), especially sox! [More on this after the presents have been unwrapped.] Whole Foods and the Elm City Market both carry organic frozen beans sourced from North America. It would seem that Stop & Shop could, too. Sourcing frozen green beans from a world away makes no sense.

On another note, for those in need of an artificial tree, including those who are allergy-prone or travelers during the holiday season, it would seem impossible to find an artificial Christmas tree NOT made in China. [Please correct me if I’m wrong.]

King Arthur Flour, whose products have been staples in New England pantries for years, is featured in an ad being aired by Google. If you’ve missed it on TV, you can catch it on YouTube. This is the short version; there is a slightly longer one as well

The ad, promoting Google Chrome, tells the wonderfully inspiring story of how this 220-year-old Vermont flour company has used the web to transform itself into a baking company known the world over.

New Haven’s Elm City Market now has over 1,200  member/owners.

Slow Food USA posted this link to an article at Civil Eats promoting ways to reduce food waste during the holidays.

Last Minute Gift Ideas
For the person who has everything, consider a symbolic gift in his or her name to Women for Women, an organization which helps women survivors of war rebuild their lives. By a couple who love to bake, I was gifted with a symbolic baking kit (rolling pin, flour, and tins designed to help women in countries like Bosnia and Afghanistan to learn the skills and get the tools they need to start bakeries) and my husband with a carpentry kit (for women in Kosovo training to become carpenters). There are many gifts in a wide range of prices including: fabric, carpentry sets, okra seeds, gardening tools, dirt…you get the idea.

And there is still time to order through LocalHarvest (the subject of last week’s Meatless Monday post). A number of vendors are offering free shipping on selected products from Page oranges to pecan pie.

Please come back tomorrow for some free stuff for kids and more last minute shopping ideas.

Happy Monday.

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.”

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