Sampler Platter 06.14.09

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Sun Jun 14, 2009 at 17:37:07 PM PDT

• Farmers' markets in Oregon have been affected by the Bush Depression...in a good way.  Record crowds have been counted at markets here in Portland this year, and purchases are up over 20 percent from last year.  Also, people on food assistance have spent almost 3 times as much at some markets as compared to last year, and markets are receiving many more vendor booth applications than they have space for.

• David Suzuki and SeaChoice have teamed up with a regional chain of supermarkets, who will no longer carry yellowfin tuna, Chilean sea bass, orange roughy and other non-sustainable seafood at their 117 locations throughout British Columbia and Alberta, Canada.

• Should the Washington Farmers Market Association allow nuts from around the world to be sold at farmers' market booths?  One local hazelnut grower thinks not.

• "They've survived ice ages, asteroids colliding. They've seen the dinosaurs come and go. And now they're going extinct in unprecedented numbers." - that's Kerry Kriger, founder of Save the Frogs.  They may have met their match in us.  Native amphibians in Oregon are disappearing at an alarming rate.

• The (Vancouver / Victoria, BC) Tyee takes a look at the ongoing battle between two rival forestry certification non profits who certify eco-friendly wood products - the industry-created "Sustainable Forestry Initiative", and the "Forest Stewardship Council", a group formed by environmental activists.

• Nevin Cohen takes a look at New York City's recently unveiled "Food Retail Expansion to Support Health" (FRESH) plan to bring more supermarkets into low-income sections of the South Bronx, Upper Manhattan, Central Brooklyn, and Downtown Jamaica (Queens).

• Big Ag's gonna hate this!  Food, Inc. was the top-grossing independent film at the box office this weekend, finishing ahead of even Francis Ford Coppola's (director of the Godfather trilogy) new film.  Reviews of the film can be found here from Jill and from me.  See it!

Sampler Platter 06.09.09

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 14:40:54 PM PDT

• Over at Grist, Ken Ward looks at Waxman-Markey, and wonders why American environmentalists "remain irrationally committed to a losing strategy".

• Also from Grist, Sara Barz reviews the new film "The End of the Line", a documentary which takes a look at the impact of overfishing on our oceans.  Looking forward to seeing the film, but unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to make it to the Netherlands or San Diego (or to Seattle, ummm, yesterday...) to catch an upcoming screening...

• A piece from last year from Culinate, but certainly relevant as I sit here sweating buckets while typing - it's time again for cool summer cocktails!  I prefer cold (good!) beer on a hot day for the most part, but a few of those drinks look great.  Matter of fact, I think I could use a Pyramid Apricot Hef.  Or if I was back in Jersey, maybe a Raspberry Wheat Ale from JJ Bitting's.  Also, I just found a cool beer blog that may come in handy on an (eventual) upcoming trip to Vancouver and BC...

• Lol, yeah - I definitely don't want to be known as a "drinkie".  So there's gotta be a better term than "foodie", right?

• I passed on fennel at the market last week, mainly because I don't usually know what to do with it.  Here's a really great-looking parmesan fennel gratin recipe.  (drooling...)  Maybe next week!  

• From Civil Eats, Paula Crossfield and Friends build raised beds on the roof of their 6-story Manhattan walkup.

• Wolves are re-establishing themselves in Washington State for the first time in 70 years, and now environmentalists, government agencies and ranchers are working together to promote peaceful coexistence between livestock producers and the wolves.

The Silence of the Bats

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Sun Jun 07, 2009 at 18:57:08 PM PDT

The bats that are being silenced in this case are vital pollinators, seed dispersers and natural insect controllers.  The silencing is being done by a mysterious malady that has been rapidly destroying bat populations throughout the Northeast since 2006 -

As the Congressional Natural Resource Committee in Washington, D.C., began yesterday to review federal responses to the dilemma, the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey launched an effort to monitor roosting spots where bats spend their summers in the state. From old buildings and barns to dead trees, checking roosts may help state biologists confirm their worst fears -- that as many as 95 percent of the state's bats died over the winter.

More below the fold...

Sampler Platter 06.07.09

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Sun Jun 07, 2009 at 15:17:52 PM PDT

• The annual summer bat count will soon be underway in New Jersey, 6 months after the first confirmed appearance of white-nose syndrome in the state.  Biologists fear that as many as 95 percent of New Jersey bats may have died from the syndrome over the winter.  Bats are important pollinators and seed dispersers; and New York Department of Environmental Conservation bat expert Alan Hicks has described white-nose syndrome as "unprecedented", and "the gravest threat to bats [...] ever seen".

• Check out this awesome profile of a Yemeni-born beekeeper and his operation in Oakland, California.

• Go Oakland!  (Again!)  The long-awaited Mandela Foods Cooperative opened yesterday in the hopefully-will-very-soon-no-longer-be-a-food-desert neighborhood of West Oakland.

• Despite the fact that you can barely walk a dozen blocks here in Portland without tripping over a community garden, there are still long waiting lists for plots.  The Oregonian's Lynne Terry takes a look at formal and informal yard / garden-sharing groups here, and mentions that City Commissioner Nick Fish (who is in charge of the Portland Community Gardens office) is aiming to double community garden capacity over the next five years.

• Continuing the garden theme, the food grown at the Portland City Hall garden inaugurated last month, which replaced two small grass lawns on the SW 4th Avenue side of the building, will be donated to a downtown community kitchen serving 250 meals a day.  Multnomah County is also planting a garden at their headquarters building here on the east side of the city.

• Deep sea coral forests off the coast of British Columbia are being damaged by bottom trawling fishing methods.

• The NY Daily News has just discovered that local sustainable food can taste good!  Bravo!  Of course, being the NY Daily News, they had to qualify their praise with a "conservative populist", I assume, shot at arugula and a really odd title, but hey.  Anyways, decent tour of Dan Barber's Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture.

Sampler Platter 05.21.09

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Thu May 21, 2009 at 06:00:00 AM PDT

• Surprise!  A plastics industry-funded study claims that reuseable cloth grocery bags are a threat to their bottom line your health.  The gist of their study?  You can get really sick if you don't occasionally clean them, or if you also use them to carry dirty diapers and gym clothes.  (Note to self: keep soiled diapers separate from strawberries.)  Also, it's dangerous to use them for unwrapped raw meat.  (Btw - you can buy unwrapped raw meat at the grocery store?  Never knew that...)  They also point out that their brand new, single-use plastic bags are sterile and safe.  Natch.  In other news, the fossil fuel industry is going to soon claim that solar power is bad because if you sit in the sun and don't move for hours at a time, you could get a really bad burn.  And wind is just terrible because it can knock things over, and steal children's balloons and stuff...

• Action Alert: Let's ask Congress to put the "health" into health care reform, and increase funding for CDC's Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity (DNPAO).  This currently underfunded program provides funding to states for programs like building bike paths, starting up farmers' markets and initiating worksite wellness programs, in order to help prevent many of our diet-related diseases from ever becoming problems in the first place.

• California and Massachusetts have already passed statewide menu labeling legislation, Oregon is just about there, and now New York may become the next state to require chain restaurants (and convenience stores) to post calorie counts on their menus.

• Scientists and recreational divers are teaming up once again to conduct a fish census in the Puget Sound.

• U.S. District Judge James Redden has again told the federal government that their restoration plans for Columbia Basin salmon are too weak.

• A researcher in the Skagit River Delta has just come across a rare find, tidal beavers.  He also found that the beavers build prime habitat for threatened young salmon.

• Curtis Abbey mentioned this the other day, and in case you missed it - video of The Simpsons' take on fast food greenwashing is up at Grist.

Monday Morning Water Cooler

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Mon May 18, 2009 at 04:44:46 AM PDT

• India can coordinate a nationwide election for over 700 million eligible voters, yet "the world's largest democracy" doesn't seem to be too concerned with the fact that it still can't ensure access to clean water for its rural poor -

  That incredible coordination doesn't translate to the treatment of water. India still lacks sanitation facilities for about 700 million people. On top of that, 200 million don't have access to drinking water. Those that do have no guarantee it is actually safe.

• Great piece from my old hometown paper, The Newark (NJ) Star-Ledger, on the federal crackdown on oceangoing cargo and cruise ships that use our oceans (because they do belong to all of us...) as their illegal waste dumping grounds.

• The Center for Biological Diversity has filed suit against US EPA under the Clean Water Act for failing to recognize the impacts of ocean acidification.

• A "voluntary" (uh-oh...) plan has been struck amongst six Asia-Pacific nations to protect the threatened Coral Triangle.

• The more things 'change', the more they stay the same.  EPA has just signed off on 42 of 48 new "mountaintop removal" mining permits.  Appalachian Voices provides us a tour of just one such site in West Virginia.

Sampler Platter: "Don't Know What You've Got Til It's Gone" Edition

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Fri May 15, 2009 at 05:30:00 AM PDT

• Scientists with kitchen utensils and model-train glue represent the last hope for the Puget Sound's pinto abalone.

• We ain't gonna bring back paradise to the parking lots, but maybe we can make something out of them after all.  I remain a Kunstlerian skeptic about those places; but at least our thinking is on the right track these days...

• The online link is subscription-only, but if you have one Harper's has a great piece this month on Alaska's disappearing salmon.

• The birds and the bees still can't catch a break from DDT.

• Speaking of which, almost one in eight bird species worldwide currently face extinction.

• Yeah, when you're resorting to having to catch, sell and eat the babies of a popular fish species, that probably does not bode well for the future of said species...

• The number of eels in European waters are down by 95% over the last 25 years.

• The oldest surviving human culture in the Andes, who've been around for over 4,000 years, may soon become the latest victims of climate change.

• Let's close this out with a bit of good news - this piece of Ancient Oregon is now owned by all of us, and will be preserved forever.

Sampler Platter 05.13.09

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Wed May 13, 2009 at 15:15:00 PM PDT

• The FDA has sent a warning letter to General Mills, telling the company to stop promoting Cheerios as a health food.  (For a funny take on the Right Wing blogosphere's outrage (grrrr!) at FDA's "attack" on America cereal, see here.)  Meanwhile, Health Canada unfortunately seems to want to make it easier for food manufacturers to be able to market junk as "health food" in their country...

• Elementary school students are snacking on (and learning about) healthy local produce in Madison, Wisconsin.

• Can't say this is really a surprise - from Grist, Monsanto is now firing off their propaganda on National Petrol, errrrr, National Public Radio.  Great article debunking Monsanto's claims, but it's not like the oil companies, ADM and other corporate interests haven't already been scrubbing themselves "clean" in their own greenshowers over the airwaves of NPR for years and years and years...

• Fantastic article from Ken Olsen at High Country News on the intersection of agriculture, business, politics, power and salmon - and what government ultimately needs to do to help restore wild salmon runs in the Pacific Northwest.

More below the fold...  

Sampler Platter 05.08.09

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Fri May 08, 2009 at 17:07:34 PM PDT

• Tomorrow, May 9 is the National Association of Letter Carriers' annual Stamp Out Hunger food drive, the largest annual single-day food drive in the US.  I don't have much myself these days, but I'm going to leave out my little bag with a couple cans of Eden Organic kidney beans by my mailbox for tomorrow morning.  You can find out how to help here; and as always, Feeding America can use your donations or help you find a local volunteer opportunity here.

• Over at Civil Eats, Kerry Trueman interviews James Howard Kunstler.

• Deborah Lehmann takes a look at the school food bills currently in the US House and Senate.

• The Southern Willamette Valley Bean and Grain Project, a local foods project here in Oregon started up in 2008 by Harry MacCormack, a long-time Corvallis organic farmer and co-founder of Oregon Tilth, is working towards convincing conventional large-scale grass-seed growers to transition towards growing beans and grains organically for local markets.

• Not quite sure what to make of this, but Oprah's KFC promotion didn't quite seem to work out well for anybody involved...

• Wow - the Texas State Legislature has joined New York and California in banning the use of trans fats by restaurants.  Also, Minnesota today officially banned the use of BPA in plastic baby bottles and cups.

• Cognitive dissonance reigns in Ken Salazar's Interior Department, at least regarding the now-officially-listed-as-threatened polar bear.  The American Petroleum Institute is cheered by today's ruling, however...

Sampler Platter

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Wed Apr 29, 2009 at 12:56:10 PM PDT

• Today's LOL moment while looking through the news: Lobbyists with the National Association of Home Builders are whining about the Obama administration's reversal of another last-minute Bush administration attack on the environment and endangered species.  Always fun to see lobbyists pretending to be for "transparency" in government.  Especially since NAHB's PAC, BUILD PAC, apparently has trouble of their own in providing transparency when it comes to financial disclosure obligations right in NAHB President Joe Robson's own city council elections.  Amazing what 30 seconds of googling can reveal.  Hey Joe?  You might wanna check your own house first, before you start whining about 'transparency' in others', okay?

• An article in today's New York Times takes a look at college cafeterias that have gone trayless.

• This piece takes a look at the new student-run food pantry at Oregon State University in Corvallis.

• desmoinesdem has written about Rob Marqusee here before, and now he's back in the news.  Marqusee, the Woodbury County (Iowa) Rural Economic Development Director, will be eating only local foods for the month of June, and blogging his experiences at the Woodbury Organics site.

• An advisory council set up by Vancouver, B.C. mayor Gregor Robertson has issued a report suggesting measures to make the City the world's greenest, while the city's park board continues to debate a proposed ban on bottled water sales in park board vending machines.

• Dawn at the Sustainable Table blog posts a few very useful links to help determine exactly how long any given food stays good for.

Earth Day Fish & Water Sampler Platter

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Wed Apr 22, 2009 at 13:59:55 PM PDT

• The American pharmaceutical industry is still dumping hundreds of millions of pounds of drug residues into our water supplies.

• Two California-based environmentalists and researchers are cycling 2,000 miles down the Pacific Coast to raise awareness about the massive plastic soup in the North Pacific.  I can't even come up with the words to describe how angry the picture with this article makes me - an adult turtle who was grossly deformed by crawling into a plastic ring while young, and whose body grew around it.  

• And also (we all saw this one coming), the plastic-bag industry and the American Chemistry Council are kicking up the greenwashing a few notches.

• An article from Canada looks at the ongoing attempts at sustainability in sushi restaurants.

• A commonly used home garden pesticide, carbaryl, which is sold under the brand name "Sevin" (which has also been classified by EPA as a likely human carcinogen and is banned in the UK, Germany and several other countries...), has been identified as a threat to salmon and steelhead populations throughout the Northwest.

• The National Marine Fisheries Service is seeking our input as to how to form the rules protecting the now-endangered Cook Inlet (Alaska) beluga whales.

• A new study finds that the world's major rivers are drying up, and the Christian Science Monitor takes a look at how things might play out along the Colorado River for the Southwestern United States and Mexico.

• The European Union on Wednesday called for major cuts in the European commercial fishing fleet, and is cracking down on illegal fishing, to help overfished stocks recover.  88% of EU stocks are overfished, according to the commission.

Sampler Platter Meets Pot Luck

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Sun Apr 19, 2009 at 19:00:00 PM PDT

• A nice piece from (Bend, OR's) Bend Weekly touches on farm-to-school, and describes how school district food buyers and local farmers can connect.

• Hooray for Oklahoma City!  The people of the city will soon be able to enjoy great local craft brews...and the best part?  Unlike their NBA team, they do not have to steal it from Seattle!

• 44 million dollars of federal stimulus money will go towards aiding migrating salmon and making more efficient use of irrigation water in Central Washington.

• The Cass County Board of Supervisors in Southwest Iowa have just approved funding that will make them the latest government to have a local food policy council and a regional foods coordinator.  Kick ass, Cass!

• A view from Across The Pond (besides AAF's awesome input, of course...) - John-Paul Flintoff writes about digging for Britain.

• Surprise!  A quick NY Times blog piece drools over Portland's food scene.  Again.  I agree with her on the first point, though - the prices are amazing here.  There are at least a dozen fantastic restaurants / cafes / brewpubs within walking distance of my apartment (Inner SE Portland) where I can get a great (local, seasonal, organic) meal for pretty much the same price as a fast "food" "value" meal.  And since most of them are based around healthy whole grains, they'll also keep you full for much longer than the empty calorie "convenience" crap ever could.

• Closing out National Library Week, I have to include this piece from Emily Underwood at High Country News on the importance of small-town libraries.

• Also from High Country News, Michele Haefele writes that United States Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is on the right track.

• From the "Yet More Corporate Astroturf" files: Agribiz interests in California are organizing and paying for phony protests.  IMO, we need to focus on the real problem here, which is the destructiveness of these ridiculously unsustainable agricultural techniques.  It isn't "Pacific smelt vs. workers".  Rather, the real issue is "corporate greed and shortsightedness vs. workers and the rest of humanity and wildlife".

Use this diary as an open thread...

Friday Sampler Platter

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 15:15:00 PM PDT

• A nice piece from Civil Eats keeps us up on what's going on in Montana's local food movement.

• PETA has called on Newark, NJ mayor Cory Booker to ban construction of new fast-food restaurants in the city.  A 2007 study shows that 34 percent of Newarkers are obese, as opposed to the NJ statewide average of 22 percent.  I'd like to see more projects like this around the city, myself.

• Willamette Valley Vineyards has just launched what they claim is the world's first cork recycling program.

• This map allows you to follow the movements of 11 tagged grizzly bears throughout the City of Anchorage, Alaska.

• This week's edition of Eugene Weekly has a few cool pieces as part of this year's Earth Day edition.

• Blue whales are returning to the British Columbia coast for the first time in decades; but it's more likely due to a regular pattern of following food as ocean temperature cycles change, rather than an increase in the whale population.

• A piece from Seattlest covers an ongoing conflict caused by bycatch in the Alaskan pollock industry.

• If you happen to find yourself at the new Yankee Stadium hopefully to root heartily against the home team this year, the (Newark, NJ) Star-Ledger's Munchmobile covered the new food options at the stadium at yesterday's home opener.  Props to Peter Genovese for mentioning zeppole, which I haven't had (or even found!) since Summer '06 down the Jersey Shore.  My heart and arteries probably thank me for living 3,000 miles away from Jersey Shore food now, though.  Heh...

Wednesday Night Sampler Platter

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Wed Apr 15, 2009 at 17:00:00 PM PDT

• Two pieces from the LA Times: one on the connection between fast food and happiness in children (as the commenter says: of course there's a connection!  The stuff acts like a drug...); and another on the increasing sexualization of fast food advertising.

• Connecticut is now one step closer to banning the sale of plastic baby bottles, food containers and cups containing the dangerous industrial chemical bisphenol a.  The measure, which would also require warning labels on all food products sold in packaging containing BPA, unanimously passed a state legislative committee on Tuesday.  Connecticut would be the first state to pass such a ban.  Oregon, California, Hawaii and a handful of other states are also currently considering such legislation.

• A piece about a different BPA:  from High Country News, an investigation into the Bonneville Power Administration's influence on salmon research in the Columbia Basin.

• The volunteer work of a pair of law students working out of a Lewis & Clark Law School-based environmental nonprofit helped lead to this week's criminal sentencing of a Washington fish processing plant for spewing "chemically rendered chicken goo" into the Columbia River in violation of the Clean Water Act.

• A nice piece on a Washington family's mission-oriented worm raising business.

• Some good wildlife news from Alaska: the populations of two caribou herds in the state have recently jumped significantly.  The downside is that two other nearby herds are decreasing in numbers.

• Two pieces from Civil Eats: the Berkeley (CA) Farmers' Market has become the first market in the nation to eliminate all plastic bags AND plastic packaging; and Part 2 of a great interview with Gary Nabhan.

Monday Evening Sampler Platter

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Mon Mar 16, 2009 at 18:26:29 PM PDT

• A couple of really cool interactive tools from Periscopic; all kinds of maps, graphs, historical data, etc on the state of Pacific salmon - State of the Salmon, and the Visual Marine Stewardship Council web tool

• NOAA Fisheries Service proposed last week to list Pacific smelt as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act.

• The Corvallis Environmental Center in Corvallis, OR (home of Oregon State University) is organizing a tour of local homes who keep chickens and ducks.

• The first salmon-eating Columbia River sea lion was just killed at Bonneville Dam last week, under a new policy that will relocate or kill up to 30 sea lions from Bonneville this year.

• The Klamath, California-based Yurok Indian tribe is in discussions with wildlife experts and state and federal officials to re-establish condor populations in Oregon, where the largest North American land bird hasn't been seen in over a century.

• The US government on Saturday permanently banned downer cows from our food supply, replacing the temporary partial ban that has been in place for the last 5 years.