The Mediterranean diet or style of eating is not just for cultivating healthy arteries anymore. Now researchers say it may reduce the risk of depression.

Image: © 2009 Oldways Preservation & Exchange Trust; (www.oldwayspt.org/)

A dietary pattern of eating plenty of fresh fruits and veggies, whole grains, fish and olive oil appears to help people fend off clinical depression, according to a report in the October Archives of General Psychiatry, a publication under the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) group.

The study looked at mental depression in a sampling of people in Spain, where mental disorders are traditionally less prevalent than among people in Northern Europe.

Other studies have suggested that a diet rich in monounsaturated fats (in this case, olive oil), and lighter in saturated fats from meats and dairy foods, could help protect people against serious mental illnesses.

The Mediterranean style of eating has also been associated with reduced risk of obesity and heart issues. It’s considered to be a greener style of eating because it does not revolve around large portions of beef and other meats, which raise the carbon imprint of a diet because livestock requires extensive water, grains and fuel to bring to market. Plant-based eating, or diets lower in meat, are considered to be more sustainable. Health-wise, the Mediterranean diet has been popular for weight reduction, improving mental acuity and reducing the cholesterol that can lead to hardening of the arteries. It has been associated with longevity and reduced risk of some cancers. And, it has been popularized in many nutrition books and cookbooks.

The sample group of 10,000 healthy Spaniards in the study were followed over nearly five years. Researchers found that those who adhered most closely to the Mediterranean diet — defined as consuming a high ratio of monounsaturated fatty acids to saturated fatty acids; moderate intake of alcohol and dairy products; low intake of meat; and high intake of legumes, fruit and nuts, cereals, vegetables and fish — had a 30 percent reduced rate of depression compared to those who did not ascribe to the diet.

The association did not change when the results were adjusted for other “markers of a healthy lifestyle,” such as marital status.

“The specific mechanisms by which a better adherence to the Mediterranean dietary pattern could help to prevent the occurrence of depression are not well known,” the authors write in the study report. Aspects of the diet may improve blood vessel function, fight inflammation, reduce risk for heart disease and repair oxygen-related cell damage. And all those factors could, in turn, reduce  one’s chances of  developing depression.

More likely, though, it is a combination of factors related to the overall diet that suppress the development of the mental illness.

“It is plausible that the synergistic combination of a sufficient provision of omega-three fatty acids together with other natural unsaturated fatty acids and antioxidants from olive oil and nuts, flavonoids and other phytochemicals from fruit and other plant foods and large amounts of natural folates and other B vitamins in the overall Mediterranean dietary pattern may exert a fair degree of protection against depression,” the authors write.

Almudena Sánchez-Villegas, B.Pharm., Ph.D., of University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Clinic of the University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain, led the study.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Here’s a little cautionary tale about how bigger is not always better — and about the inter-connectedness of our energy and food systems, specifically how coal-fired power plants affect your diet.

Say you were camping with friends and caught a really BIG fish. This monster would give you bragging rights for a year. Now say you caught a smaller fish, suitable for pan frying but not Kodak-worthy.

What do you do? If you’re Daniel Boone, you toss the little guy back. It’s a no brainer. But if you’re a post-industrial age sportsperson, you must consider this: That big fish fillet could be disproportionately loaded with mercury; keeping the little fishy could be safer.

According to recent sampling studies by our federal government, ALL of our freshwater fish are contaminated, to some extent, with mercury. And the way mercury works its way through the food chain is that it builds momentum, so that those higher on the food chain are more contaminated — a process called “biomagnification”. And some of those big fish contain a mercury that’s become more toxic, too, after the mercury has been acted on by bacteria found in wetlands and swamps and converted to the more dangerous methylmercury.

The science is complicated, but you don’t need a biology degree to get the gist of things, that our fish are coming to us in less than pristine condition.

Fishy Findings

The US Geological Survey study tested fish from 291 streams across the country and found that all tested positive for traces of mercury, demonstrating how widespread mercury pollution has become. But scientists also reported that only about one-quarter had mercury levels exceeding the EPA’s safe guidelines for people eating “average amounts of fish.”

Still. ALL of the fish tested in the US showed some levels of mercury contamination. (The levels of mercury ranged from .008 to 1.95 parts per million – or micrograms per gram of wet tissue.)

This left us to wonder: Are we supposed to be alarmed? What can we now safely eat? Must we forfeit fresh fish along with all those ocean varieties that are endangered?

The answers: Yes and no. Some fish. No, but sometimes yes – can be confusing.

The government’s FAQs on this topic only left us feeling more uneasy about our future meals and also more than a little helpless about the air pollution at the root of it all. They explain that mercury is a “potent neurotoxin” in fish, wildlife and humans, yet they note that fish are “important part of a healthy diet.” We did know that: Fish are high in protein and healthy oils.

So officials are advising us to continue to eat fish, but with caution. The public should:

• Make “informed decisions” based on EPA and FDA guidelines.
• Check our state advisoriesUSDA guidelines to find out which freshwater fish are most affected and where.
• Kids and women of child-bearing age need to take special care because mercury can be harmful to developing bodies, and especially minds. They should eat no more than two meals a week that contain fish that are “lower in mercury,” according to the

“We don’t want to scare people away from eating fish, because they’re a healthy source of protein, but they should pay attention to state fish consumption advisories and also the EPA and FDA guidance for consumption of commercial fish,” says Mark E. Brigham, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, a leader on the study and an expert in mercury in biological systems.

Isn’t that a lot to ask of consumers who are already busy reading food labels, trying to shop “the outside aisles” of the grocery store, searching for information on how livestock was fed and trying to find the hormone-free milk?

Pause…. “We want informed consumers,” says Brigham.

In case you think freshwater fish present a minor culinary concern, you should know that the federal government estimates about 34 million people fish for sport and food. No doubt many more fancy catfish at the neighborhood fish fry and patronize lakeside restaurants looking for walleye and perch.

To be fair, though, Brigham isn’t on the food side of this issue, but the fact-finding science side. He understands that his team’s discovery -  that every last fish tested had some traces of mercury – is not a comfort to the fish-eating public. But it was not surprising.

Mercury, he points out, “is a pervasive contaminant in the environment.” It is the second leading cause of “impaired” water systems – the first is pathogenic contamination, such as bacterial infections – and has been tracked for many years. Forty-eight of the 50 states issue advisories on mercury in fish.

In addition, “there’s always been a natural component to the mercury cycle. It does get emitted from volcanoes and is “degassed from the earth” and rained back down into waterways.
That’s the good news within the bad news.

A human-made problem

The really bad news, though, is that historical sampling of lake beds shows that mercury contamination from natural sources was slight compared with the rapid accumulation from post-industrial activities.

Knowingly and inadvertently, humans have spewed significant mercury into the earth’s biological systems, waterways and atmosphere as we’ve developed cement plants, mercury and gold mines, metal smelting and coal-burning power plants.

Some of that pollution has been cleaned up as we’ve realized that dumping industrial waste directly into streams and lakes, no matter how giant (think: Lake Erie) is not a good idea.

But the main contributor to the global “mercury cycle’” is coal power plants of which there are 491 in the US and hundreds more around the world, such as in China, which is building coal plants faster than anyone.

Coal-fired power plants account for 40 percent of all mercury emissions in the US, according to the EPA.

The top 50 most-polluting US coal-burning power plants emitted 20 tons of toxic mercury into the air in 2007, according to a study by the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project.

All US coal plants collectively emit some 48 tons of mercury annually, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, preliminarily released in July.

That mercury gets emitted as oxidized, elemental or particulate-bonded forms. The oxidized or particulate-bonded mercury falls to the earth relatively quickly, contaminating the local region and watersheds — but it can also be captured more easily. The elemental mercury, though, can ride in the atmosphere, joining mercury emissions from around the world, Brigham said, which explains why his study group found mercury in fish in areas distant from known sources of mercury.

Furthermore, certain natural conditions, present in wetland environments and forests, enhance a process that converts mercury into methylmercury, which is easily taken up by aquatic life. This leads to the seeming paradox of some fish in relatively undeveloped watersheds and pristine areas having some of the highest elevated levels of mercury (in the rural South and wild wetlands of the Pacific Northwest and Midwest); and complicates the matter of knowing what is safe to eat.

The best way to help save our freshwater fish, and their ocean cousins, from further injury, Brigham, among others, have concluded, would be to reduce those mercury emissions at their source.

(Though remember, some fish is safe to eat all the time, and other fish is safe to eat some of the time, like once a week, if it’s the right type…Check your advisories.)

Dialing back mercury emissions

The EPA first tried to reduce mercury emissions from coal plants with a 2005 regulation called the Clean Air Mercury Rule. But it was thrown out by the courts, which advised the agency to employ the Clean Air Act to set mercury emission guidelines.

The EPA is in the midst of trying to make this change, but a new rule must meet certain tests. The Clean Air Act requires, for instance, that standards for other pollutants in the same category, known as “Hazardous Air Pollutants” (lead, toxic gases and dioxin) be set simultaneously.

Once a rule is written and approved, coal-fired plants will be required to use the latest technological advances to cleanse mercury from their admissions. It can be done: Some coal plants in the US have already added scrubbing technology, required by more stringent state guidelines, proving that removing the mercury is possible.

Furthermore, according to the July GAO report technology to remove mercury is effective and affordable.

Coal plants with the technology already in place are removing 80 to 90 percent of the mercury in air emissions.

Coal’s CO2 emissions, blamed for rising carbon in the atmosphere, will not be affected by this new rule

Resources:

• GAO Testimony to the US Senate committees and subcommittees concerned with food and environmental health.
• EPA list of State Fish Advisories
• Effects of Mercury on People on the EPA

(Photos of: Fish in a Pan by ZKruger/dreamstime.com; brook trout by Eric Engbretson, US FWS; boy fishing by Ronald Laubenstein, US FWS.)

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Some of our nation’s most prominent locations are greening up their dining practices. Restaurant Associates, the operators of eateries inside some of America’s museums and landmarks, has committed to a five year partnership with the Green Restaurant Association.

All current and future cafes within the US House of Representatives, American Museum of Natural History, and the Lincoln Center will become more environmentally friendly.

Each location has committed to the Two-Star Certification level as their goal. This includes:

• Operating a full-scale recycling program
• Eliminating the use of polystyrene foam
• Meeting point requirements in six environmental categories
• Developing an annual environmental education program for staff
• Earning 140 total points under the GRA program by the end of the fifth year

On average, it takes three months for restaurants to become certified. “Once each restaurant has completed the certification program, they will have the ability to display the Certified Green Restaurant logo/seal in the window, on their menus, and any other signage they want to create to show customers that they’re certified,” stated Colleen Oteri, communications director at the Boston-based Green Restaurant Association.

While the Two-Star Certification level is the lowest of the three levels of certification, it is still a major step towards change. The restaurants will cut waste, energy, and water costs and be making a statement. “With every restaurant we certify, we hope that more industry professionals and consumers will learn about the benefits of becoming certified, and how simple it can be to improve the environmental impact of the restaurant industry.  These prestigious locations will certainly help to spread awareness of the Green Restaurant movement,” Oteri said.

(No word yet on where the Senate dining room stands.)

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

The more you learn about your carbon-footprint, the more you’ll realize that it’s weighed down as much by food choices as by what car you drive and your home energy program.  Food production comes with a cornucopia of green issues, from pesticide use to deforestation to global shipping.

No food issue, though, is more important than choosing the right fish to eat. Seafood merits special attention, because the fish varieties that we’re consuming could be on the brink of survival.  Ocean ecosystems are being wrenched apart by the overfishing of certain species and the destructive fishing techniques used to harvest others.

Fortunately, there’s help out there to assist you in sorting out what you can responsibly buy and what you should avoid.

Seafood Watch is a current, easy-to-use table of contents to the marine menu. It breaks down your seafood options into three categories, “Best Choices”, “Good Alternatives” and “Avoid.” These lists are kept and updated by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, an authority on marine health. You can download a pocket guide to use while shopping or use the iPhone application, handy for dining out.

For those who want to know why and how their favorite menu pescatarian choices have been graded, click through on any given species and find out more. Haddock, for instance, is considered either a “Good Alternative” or a fish to “Avoid” depending on the fishing technique used to catch it. Haddock caught the old-fashioned way, with a hook and line, are considered to have been reasonably harvested. Trawled Haddock, however, represent a destructive practice that’s harmful to coral and the ocean’s floor.

Now this gets to be a deep subject, so a new fish selector service has launched. FishChoice.com aims to help commercial buyers like restaurants and retailers hook up with sustainable fishing enterprises, so that the seafood industry can steer a new course. FishChoice.com is starting as a non-profit, funded by foundations and donors, but expects to earn some operating money from subscriber fees at a later date.

“It’s been difficult to find sustainable seafood at the right commercial quantities,” said Richard Boot, Founder & President of FishChoice.com, in a news release announcing the new service today.

“FishChoice.com provides a business solution to an environmental problem by creating a crucial link in the supply chain to connect buyers and sellers of sustainable seafood,” said Boot, a former chef who previously worked with a fishery advocacy group.

Soon maybe you won’t need that pocket guide.

(Image credits: Haddock, Monterey Bay Aquarium; FishChoice.com logo)

Food, Inc. could have delivered a reach-for-the-Maalox montage of cows mired in manure, pig carcasses whacked about on conveyor belts and immobilized chickens locked in dark crowded coops to make its point about how mass food production has become such an unhealthy affair.

The film does dish up selected grotesque shots of slabs of beef, downer cows, dead hens and grimy CAFOs. There are a few gasp-aloud moments, such as when chickens are beheaded (inexplicably, the scene is chosen from footage of a sustainable farm operation — to show humane life and death?). But that aside, the beauty of this excellent documentary lies in its restraint. Rather than beating up corporate culprits Smithfield, Cargill and others with the big stick of blood and guts, Food Inc. confidently and methodically peels back the labels on our packaged food wonderland, telling an even-handed tale of relentless corruption and greed.

We begin in la-la land — a chilly grocery aisle where cheap subsidized corn infiltrates everything from mayonnaise to pancake syrup and the eerily perfect vegetables come engineered to survive shipping. The camera flows Lynch-like over beautifully arrayed aisles teeming with seeming variety, except that its an illusion. This bonanza of pre-fab food is composed mainly of subsidized commodities — corn and soybeans — and doused in cheap sweeteners like the high fructose corn syrup. A formula for poor nutrition, and diabetes.

Food, Inc. covers a lot of turf. It shows how we got here (agriculture that once nobly tried to pump up yields turned aggressive and restaurants adopted assembly line production — shout out to Mickey Ds!); how bad it is (cows fattened and sickened on grain that build up E. coli in their guts); how big it is (32,000 hogs killed every day at the world’s largest slaughterhouse in North Carolina), how warped (chickens bred to produce more breast meat pitch forward and can’t walk) and how negligent (as the system has grown, food inspectors have declined five-fold since 1970).

Pathogens, food poisoning victims, ineffective regulators, corrupt Washington influences. It’s all here, a feast of good intentions run amok and bad intentions covered up.

The film is relentless, and fascinating, as long as you’re not planning on dinner afterward. Reviewers have called it “riveting” and “horrifying”, (though I bet after a hiatus they’re still eating hamburger). To those familiar with the issues, it won’t be horrifying so much as a call to action. (You can answer that call on the website.)

Director Robert Kenner spent six years on this film, and it shows. Food, Inc. races back and forth between the producers and the consumers, but remains coherent. We get intimate glimpses of a financially strapped family shopping for groceries only to find that the hamburger is more affordable than the broccoli. There’s a classroom where the majority of kids raise their hands when asked if they have a family member with diabetes. A chicken producer reveals how the animals fare in a typical poultry house, risking her corporate contract (which she later loses). Diana De Gette remembers her toddler son, Kevin, poisoned by a hamburger infected with the E. coli bacteria.

The narrators, journalist and co-producer Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and author Michael Pollan, (Omnivore’s Dilemma), walk us through the complexities but don’t get in the way.

For most of us, walking into a seafood store is an exercise in both ignorance and hope: we’re ignorant of what’s available but we hope we’ll leave with what we want. We all know fish come in two colors: the red one is salmon and the rest are white. Here is what you should know about fish:

Mark Musatto, a partner at Airline Seafood in Houston, says “There are three basic feelings I want every customer to have when they enter my store: they should feel, smell and see the freshness; notice that fresh fish has a sheen and a translucency and I want customers to tell me how they plan to cook their fish and we can talk about the best fish for that method.

“Some fish are better for grilling, others for sautéing, and others for frying.”

There are some basics to consider and ask about when you shop for fish:

• Do you know the store to be safe and reputable?

• Is the seafood fresh or “previously frozen”?

• Where was it caught — Is it local or shipped in from afar?

• How was it caught — is it from open waters or farm-raised?

• And, the increasingly vital question: Is the store selling varieties of seafood that are endangered?

A seafood store must have some basics that make it a good, safe place to shop. The smell should be clean, not too “fishy”; there should be constant filleting of fish so the fish is always fresh, not dry or brown from exposure to the air; fish must be left on the bone as long as possible and those handling the fish should be able to answer any questions you have.

A question to help separate the average shop from the superior one: Is this a store where restaurants buy their seafood? The answer must be “yes.”

How to tread lightly when dining on seafood

The word “seafood” doesn’t define only fish. Seafood includes scallops, lobster, oysters, clams, mussels, crawfish, crab, shrimp and other non-fish creatures. And among these are endangered varieties.

The Environmental Defense Fund has put together a Seafood Selector (available as a pocket guide) that will tell you everything you want or need to know about the status of fish and seafood stocks around the world. They have grouped seafood into three categories: Eco-Best, Eco-OK and Eco-Worst. But there is always a dispute among fishermen, governments and private organizations about which varieties of seafood fall into which category. And restaurants don’t always abide by the warnings about over-fished species.

For example, Chilean Sea Bass is on just about every Eco-Worst list but it’s still on many menus. Bluefin Tuna, the staple of sushi, is also on that list but every sushi bar in the world serves it.

Some Salmon are endangered, some not. Some trout are threatened, others not. Ask your fish-seller and your restaurant waiter if you have any doubts or questions. Don’t fall for something that is out of season (”wild” Alaska Salmon in winter) or is a substitute for the real deal (farmed White Bass or Catfish for Grouper).

(Note: Chilean Sea Bass, Bluefin Tuna and Atlantic Salmon are all considered in jeopardy, and they’re fish that tend to carry high mercury concentrations, so staying away from these varieties provides a double benefit.)

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Foodies love to talk about “pairings” – usually they’re discussing the best wine to compliment an entree and there are those wine/chocolate pairings everyone seems to be buzzed about.

Houston gourmands have begun exploring a more fundamental pairing: They’re bringing top chefs together with local farms, within 150 miles of the city, as part of a celebration of local food.

The FM 150 Farm to Table Dinner series kicked off this past weekend at the Bellaire studio of photographer Ralph Smith, where tables were set up in the courtyard around a candle-lit pond.

The first featured chef was Randy Evans, former executive chef at Brennan’s, which Houstonians and many people beyond will recognize. Since Brennan’s burned down, Evans has become the co-owner of a new green restaurant called Haven, which is set to open this summer. Haven will feature local food and other green features, like a shade garden inside the restaurant.

For the dinner Evans worked with local farmers, and specifically with Gita Van Woerden owner of Animal Farm in Cat Springs, Texas, (no we didn’t make that name up).

The result: Evans with the help of sous chefs, Van Woerden and Gulf of Mexico shrimpers fulfilled everyone’s hopes, and tummies, with a delectable spread of Gulf shrimp with Tabasco sorbet, a hot house tomato arugula salad with goat cheese vinaigrette, iron seared Gulf shrimp and carmelized pork shoulder followed by a colorful Baked Alaska with a chocolate beet cake base.  Alas, we don’t get to taste. But please take a look.

By Christopher Peake

Even a cattle rancher probably wouldn’t deny that if people cut out even some meat from their diet they’d not only be healthier but they’d also be saving money as well as helping save the planet.

You don’t need to consider cutting out meat altogether, just a day or two a week.

Most of us have no idea of the mammoth-sized carbon footprint cattle leave on the earth. The United Nations’ 2006 FAO report states: “if every American gave up meat 1 day a week it would save almost 100 megatons of greenhouse emissions, or 90 million plane tickets from New York to Los Angeles.”

Even though these figures are difficult to comprehend, they illustrate the enormity of cattle’s carbon footprint.

Methane gas is a potent greenhouse gas 24 times more potent than carbon dioxide; can you guess which gas a cow gives off when they pass gas, excrete waste and burp? Methane gas. Foodreference.com says 15 – 20% of global methane emissions come from livestock (mainly cows, chickens and pigs). And if that isn’t a large enough cattle carbon footprint for you consider this from the USDA: growing crops to feed farmed animals requires 80% of our agricultural land and half — that’s half — of our water supply.

Imagine the results if that land and water were used for growing fruit and vegetables.

Cut meat from your diet and you also inevitably save money. Everything you replace the meat with is less expensive: beans, lentils and other foods. The savings can be passed on to purchase better, healthier foods like organic fruit and vegetables. Garrett Glaser has been a vegan for 5 years; a career in TV news had taken their toll on his body and his health. If you eliminate meat for just a couple of days “you will feel lighter and food will taste better,” he says

Sarah Pike was raised in Maine on an organic farm. She owns and runs Good Tastes Kitchen in Newburyport, Mass. She offers freshly-prepared foods as well as a growing meal-shipping business. Although she has some meat and poultry dishes on the menu, she says “Our black bean burger is a big hit with my husband, a self-described carnivore, and beans are very economical. My food cost to produce (a baked corn, bean, spices and breadcrumbs dish) is much less than when we source all-grass-fed beef from Vermont. Yet taste is never sacrificed. We have a lot of customers … looking for vegetarian options.”

Pike is featured in the April 2009 issue of Working Mothers magazine as one of the nation’s outstanding “Eco-Mompreneurs” (working mother with her own business).

Let’s look at the cost of meat: Steaks can easily run you $10 a pound; gourmet sausage, pork chops, chicken — all can run $15-$20 for a family dinner cooked at home.

And by the time these items reach your table they have consumed massive amounts of feed and water, emitted methane gas and we haven’t mentioned the energy it took to send it to you.

There are many Internet sites that emphasize the “no meat” program including meatlessmonday.com, Frances Lappé’s smallplanet.org and the United Nations food websites.

• Meatless Monday puts forward the concept that Monday, being the first day of the week, is the ideal day to leave meat off your menu. The meatlessmonday website is part of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Eaters’ Digest is their email newsletter. The meatlessmonday website highlights that meat is high in saturated fat, which can contribute to heart disease, diabetes, stroke and breast cancer. As soon as a patient is diagnosed with a heart or blood-related issue, cutting back on meat or doing away with it altogether is one of the first dietary topics a doctor will suggest.

• Smallplanet.org is the website of social change activist and author Frances Lappé. She was among the first to note that the eight essential amino acids found in meat are also present to various extents in a range of food plants, again underscoring the fact that money saved by not buying meat can be spent on healthier and fresher organic fruits and vegetables. In her bestseller, Diet for a Small Planet, Lappé wrote, “…one way to reduce our exposure (to pesticides farmers spray on their land) is to limit our intake of meat, poultry, fish and fats.”

According to Lappé, what farmers feed their cattle and poultry adds proportionately more weight to them than they give back as meat. She too endorses Meatless Monday (”or Tuesday or Wednesday, etc.”) and advocates ‘Live la Vida Loca(l)”.  It’s better for Planet Earth, which can feed more when its less strained by livestock production.

Glaser says that he substitutes texturized vegetable protein for meat in his spaghetti sauce, and “nobody ever knows the difference.” He goes on to say that meatless dishes can easily be jazzed up by using any of the myriad spices now available. “My sense of taste has accelerated by eliminating meat from my diet.” And  Garrett says he definitely saves money by not buying cheese, milk and eggs. Organic growers in his Hudson Valley neighborhood have come up with a wide variety of fresh vegetables and he has lost unwanted and unhealthy weight. “I now know I’ll live longer and better, so there is no downside to not eating meat and poultry.”

To underscore that thought, on March 24, 2009, the National Cancer Institute published its findings from a study on the health impact on humans. Researchers there concluded that “People who eat the most red meat and the most processed meat have the highest overall risk of death from all causes, including heart disease and cancer.”

Sure, many vegetarians and even some vegans will tell you they love the smell of steak on the grill or they miss the crunch of a strip of bacon. Eliminate meat and poultry one day at a time, substituting beans and lentils and see how you feel.

It’s already mid-March and that means the snows will melt and if the ground’s not too saturated farmers will soon be planting seeds for the food that will feed us this year.

Since time immemorial farmer’s markets have been with us: farmers harvest, bakers bake, dairy farmers milk their cows and they all meet at a central location where there’s lots of foot traffic … and they sell. The common theme: the food is fresh.

In addition to the standard organic fruits, vegetables and eggs, farmer’s markets offer items you wouldn’t usually consider: hand-made brooms, herbs, bath and body care products, lobster rolls, wine, organic teas and “traditional handcrafted leather goods and repair”, rabbits, natural and dyed yarn and spinning supplies, photographs of local scenes, elk and moose meat, organic spice blends and increasingly, fresh fish.

1. It’s locally grown

Most but not all Farmer’s Markets in the US require vendors to have grown, produced or crafted what they sell at the market. Most vendors are small, one- or two-person operations and they grow only what they can manage. They grow what’s in season and it’s local. Ask the farmer if they grew what they’re selling, ask if it’s organic. Don’t buy until you’re satisfied with their answers.

2. You know the farmer personally

You know where the farm family lives; you’ve seen their farm, your children go to school with their children, you see each other at church or at Little League games or at a movie. You know the farmer and you trust him. He’s a neighbor.

3. It’s where the chefs and restaurateurs shop for fresh produce and baked goods

Patrick Soucy, chef at a Portsmouth, N.H. restaurant that specializes in New American cuisine, buys at the local farmer’s markets because of the “better health, better quality” of the food.

“And the produce defines ‘tree-ripened’. It’s fresh. ”

Raj, chef at an Indian restaurant in southern Maine, buys there “because it’s local, within a 20-mile radius. It didn’t come here from California. Also, I support the local community.”

4. Prices are often cheaper than supermarkets

… but not always. Organically-grown and the small-operation produce is very labor-intensive. Individually planted by hand, individually nurtured during the growing process and then individually harvested by hand obviously takes a tremendous amount of time. But the local farmer doesn’t have the tremendous labor, mortgage, transportation and other expenses of a supermarket, so cost comparisons show that all-in-all the farmer’s market sells food for less than a supermarket.

5. There’s less of a carbon footprint: field to farm

What about the bananas at a supermarket in America that come from El Salvador, the berries from Chile, and the kiwis from Australia … how can they possibly be their freshest when they were harvested so early in their growth process and they grew older on their journey? Local produce usually travels less than 10 miles from field to market. Take a bite from a store-bought peach and then take a bite from a locally-grown peach. As chef Patrick Soucy says, “I needed five napkins to wipe my mouth after biting the locally-grown peach”.

By Laura Whitley
KTRK

HOUSTON — A popular Houston restaurant is making a comeback and going green at the same time. Ruggles is back with a new green idea that’s setting an example for other businesses.

Becoming a green certified restaurant goes way beyond selling a few organic entrees, and it’s not just for health nuts. From buying local produce to using biodegradable containers, some owners have found that in the high pressure, trendy world of restaurants, green could sustain them.

> Watch Now

Oh for the days when all we had to worry about was a little pesticide residue on our apples. This past week brought two reminders that what we don’t know is in our food can hurt us.

The peanut butter snack recalls continued flying off the conveyor belt, noteworthy for the sheer number of products potentially tainted with salmonella – more than 400 at last count. All that contamination from one little ole peanut processing plant in Georgia. Best to heed the advice of the Food and Drug Administration’s Dr. Stephen Sundlof, “If you don’t know the source of the food that contains peanuts, don’t eat it.” At the same time, the FDA has declared that “national name brand peanut butter” sold in jars at retail has not been contaminated.

We also learned last week that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), that controversial, cheap and ubiquitous sweetener might contain more than just the empty calories blamed for our flourishing flab. A study by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) reported finding traces of mercury in 17 of 55 tested foods made with HFCS.

How’d it get there? Researchers blamed HFCS factories that employ an outdated process involving mercury.

The FDA said the mercury was not a problem because the study measured total mercury and didn’t break out methylmercury, the form found in fish and absorbed by the human body, from other forms not so easily absorbed.

Furthermore, the findings show miniscule amounts, a few parts per trillion (ppt) — akin to a drop in 20 Olympic-size swimming pools, according to one report in the Minneapolis StarTribune.

But the researchers, from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis, defended their work, reported in Not So Sweet: Missing Mercury and High Fructose Corn Syrup. They say that mercury is so toxic, even trace amounts should not be tolerated in foods, and that the government should push the factories still using mercury to modernize.

Most U.S. HFCS plants, some 90 percent, use a non-mercury process, noted lead researcher Dr. David Wallinga, which shows that mercury contamination is avoidable. But four plants in the U.S. and many more around the globe use mercury in the production caustic soda, which is then used to make HFCS. (The “missing mercury” of the study’s title refers to mercury that cannot be accounted at HFCS plants, indicating it must be seeping into the HFCS and/or the environment. A second, peer-reviewed study released this week had tested the HFCS itself and found several samples to be tainted with mercury.)

The list of 17 food items that tested positive for mercury – albeit tiny amounts – is distressing.

It includes many foods you’ve come to love and trust, like Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup, Hunt’s Tomato Ketchup, Manwich Gold Sloppy Joe,  Nutri-Grain Strawberry Cereal Bars and Frosted Blueberry Pop Tarts (we always knew those were of dubious nutritional value, but this is ridiculous).

Wallinga told us that he doesn’t blame the food producers because they, like the public, probably didn’t realize that the HFCS was tainted with mercury.

Food manufacturers responded to the study with skepticism, questioning whether the minute amounts of mercury found merited concern. Con-Agra, maker of the ketchup, said consumers issued a statement saying consumers would have to eat “more than 100 pounds of ketchup each day” to exceed the government’s threshold for unsafe exposure.

Still, Wallinga thinks consumers should call manufacturers of the mercury-containing foods to ask about their HFCS suppliers. “You should be worried that we’re finding it in food, even at these levels, because mercury is so toxic and because we eat so much high fructose corn syrup. I mean one in 10 calories in the U.S. (consumed are from HFCS),” he said.

Even if the implicated HFCS foods turn out to be quite safe — and their makers insist they are — the mercury study, coming on the heels of the peanut butter debacle, surely shows that we need more transparency, modernization and oversight of our big industrialized food chain.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

New Year’s Eve is upon us, an occasion when even teetotalers may be tempted to toss back a couple of stiff drinks. Celebrants concerned with the origins of their booze are in better shape than ever this year, with enough organically produced spirits available to intoxicate the whole of Times Square.

The most popular variety of liquor for organic producers appears to be vodka: You could stock a nice little bar choosing only from green-friendly vodkas with numbers in their names: Vodka 360 and Vodka 14, for instance, alongside Square One, whose promotional materials (after scrupulously detailing a tightly-controlled production process) offer plenty of unusual imbibing ideas, from “culinary style” to tea-infused cocktails.

In keeping with wider vodka trends, some offer varieties infused with things like cucumber; Crop Vodka goes a step further, offering the unusual choice of tomato infusion — an excellent idea for Bloody Marys.

Not content to stick with a single product, the Organic Spirits Company may emphasize its Juniper Green Gin, which it says is “the world’s first organic London dry gin,” but it also produces vodka (of course), plain and spiced rums, and even a scotch whiskey using organic methods. All have won awards, but the company seems most proud of an endorsement from the Royal Family, whose members probably know a thing or two about gin.

And lest you think there are only organic options for garden-variety spirits, check out the Del Maguey company, which as of this writing offers a whopping seven varieties of mescal, each of which is produced within a single Oaxacan village using no chemicals, colorings, or additives. (They also come packaged in distinctive straw containers that may be redundant packaging but are appealing enough to reuse in a variety of ways.) Find outlets, retailers and restaurants, on their website.

“Sip it, don’t shoot it,” the company urges, though it also suggests a tempting non-straight option: dropping a shot on top of a freshly made margarita. (Unless you’re the designated driver.)

Happy New Year!

Copyright © 2008 Green right Now  | Distributed by Noofangle Media