Conservation 101: the Compete to Conserve Blog

photo credit: hlkljgk

Saving fuel is on nearly everyone’s mind these days, and one area that sucks up a lot of petroleum and energy is food production and transportation.

According to Sustainable Table, a study done in 2000 estimated the food industry claims about ten percent of the energy used annually in the US. About 40 percent of that energy is expended making pesticides and artificial fertilizer. Another 23 percent goes to processing and packaging.

This doesn’t even touch on the energy used to transport food (and keep it cool en route). The Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan estimates that the average US food product travels about 1500 miles before it is consumed—that’s a lot of fuel and refrigeration.

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photo credit: pfala

While I’m not usually one to buy into shameless promotions, I was intrigued by organic yogurt producer Stonyfield Farm’s recent “Bid with Your Lid” campaign.

Stonyfield, which started as an organic farming school 29 years ago and launched the climate-conscious non-profit, Climate Counts, in collaboration with Clean Air-Cool Planet, has long been a favorite brand in our household, mainly due to a desire to avoid high-fructose corn syrup when possible. But the “Bid with Your Lid” campaign provides another health-focused reason to stock up on the active cultures of acidophilus.

This fall, the company plans to divvy a pot of $100,000 among three environmental organizations…and it’s up to you to decide who gets what.

The “big three” all have worthy causes. They include: Physicians for Social Responsibility (which focuses on keeping toxic chemicals from the environment), Ocean Conservancy (which focuses on climate change affecting our land and seas), and Worldwatch Institute (which focuses on sustainable agriculture systems).

The more votes they get, the more of the pot they receive. Simple enough.

While the main idea is most likely to promote purchases, like most campaigns in the US “Bid with Your Lid” contains a “no purchase necessary” option—which means you can give a gift to your favorite without having to open your wallet.

For more on the promotion, these organizations, or even to place a vote for your cause, check out: www.stonyfield.com

(I swear, it’s not everyday that I recommend an individual corporation’s website, but this could be a way to give without having to give up much.)

photo credit: Sue Richards

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council approved an experiment by the city’s Bureau of Sanitation to begin a table scrap collection program within select areas of L.A., giving hope not only to the reduction of landfill waste, but also to the minimization of sewage waste and wasted energy caused by the common practice of disposing food scraps into garbage disposal units.

The experiment will begin with the distribution of 2-gallon kitchen pails to about 5,000 households in the areas of Harbor Gateway, Lincoln Heights, and South Los Angeles.  Once these pails are filled with various food leftovers, its contents are to be dumped into the large green bins outside of each home that are currently collected for various yard trimmings.  The food and green waste combined, would then be delivered to a composting center near Bakersfield.  The program will start next month, following the lead of other regions within the state, including the San Francisco Bay Area.

According to a study conducted by the City of Los Angeles in 2002, single-family homes generated over 230,000 tons of food waste, while multi-family homes contributed almost 149,000 tons, adding up to about 380,000 tons of waste that could be turned into compost.  A  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report indicates that yard trimmings and food waste make up 23 percent of U.S. waste stream.  Although there has been surge in yard waste recovery from 1988 to 2000, only 2.6 percent of food waste was composted in 2000, compared to 56.9 percent of yard trimmings that were recovered for composting, indicating a larger need for food waste programs throughout the country.

While there are an assortment of regional composting programs and educational information available to U.S. residents, the reality is that not enough people are used to or comfortable yet with the idea of food recycling as they are with the recycling of cans, bottles and newspapers.  The benefits of composting food and organic waste cannot be ignored though, when you consider the amount of greenhouse gas that is emitted by its decomposition in a landfill or the amount of money that is wasted on disposal fees, hauling costs, fertilizers and pesticides.

For more information on Composting Programs in your region of the country, visit the EPA’s website: http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/composting/live.htm

There is also a really cool website, “Composting 101,” that can provide you with tips to create your own composting program in your own back yard (no pun intended!): http://www.composting101.com/

Additional Resources:

Los Angeles Times:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/valley/la-me-scraps13-2008aug13,0,6358339,print.story

City of Los Angeles Solid Waste Planning Background Studies Summary Report:

http://www.lacity.org/san/solid_resources/pdfs/rfp-swirp-appendix-b3.pdf)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency:

http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/composting/basic.htm

National Resources Defense Council:

http://www.nrdc.org/enterprise/greeningadvisor/wm-composting.asp

photo credit: SqueakyMarmot

If you love seafood as much as I do, you should know that there is less of a reason to fear for your health or that of the ocean’s when you are armed with the knowledge to make educated choices about the type of fish that you buy (where it comes from and what species it is) as well as how you prepare it.  You can stop avoiding the fish market or the fish entrée served at your local restaurant if you follow a few easy guidelines in making your selections:

Sustainable Fishing Certification: One of the keys to making smarter choices when purchasing fish has been simplified through the sustainable seafood certification methods implemented by the Marine Stewardship Council. This non-profit organization works with independent, accredited certifiers to ascertain whether or not various fishery practices meet the following standards of sustainable fishing methods.

Every fishery must demonstrate that it meets 3 core principles:

Principle 1: Sustainable fish stocks
The fishing activity must be at a level, which is sustainable for the fish population. Any certified fishery must operate so that fishing can continue indefinitely and is not overexploiting the resources.

Principle 2: Minimizing environmental impact
Fishing operations should be managed to maintain the structure, productivity, function and diversity of the ecosystem on which the fishery depends.

Principle 3: Effective management
The fishery must meet all local, national and international laws and must have a management system in place to respond to changing circumstances and maintain sustainability.

The blue MSC ecolabel can be found on seafood products at fish markets and retailers throughout the world.  Check out their website (http://www.msc.org/) to see which retailers in your area are carrying MSC certified products.  You may be surprised to find retailers, such as Target and Walmart listed among the likes of Whole Foods.

Choosing Safe Fish: Different types of fish are known to be more harmful than others, depending on the general preferred fishing practices for each species. There are a handful of downloadable pocket guides that you can keep in your wallet and reference the next time you are out shopping for seafood.

Some safer seafood to purchase include:
Anchovies
Catfish (farmed)
Mussels (farmed)
Oysters (farmed)
Salmon (Alaska, wild-caught)
Scallops, Bay (farmed)
Striped Bass (farmed)
Tilapia (U.S. farmed)
Tuna: Ahi, Yellowfin, Bigeye, Albacore (pole/troll-caught)
White Seabass

Some seafood to avoid:
Cod (Atlantic)
Crab, King (imported)
Chilean Seabass (Toothfish)
Halibut (Atlantic)
Monkfish
Orange Roughy
Shrimp (imported)
Snapper (imported)
Swordfish (imported)
Tuna: Bluefin

For complete downloadable pocket guides, visit one of the following websites:

http://www.audubon.org/campaign/lo/seafood/
http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/
http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=1521&redirect=seafood

Cooking Your Fish:
Since seafood can be contaminated with toxins, including mercury and PCBs, the way you cook your fish is another factor to consider since these toxins tend to build up in the fat of the fish:

• Before cooking, remove the skin, fat (found along the back, sides and belly), internal organs, tomalley of lobster and the mustard of crabs, where toxins are likely to accumulate.
• When cooking, be sure to let the fat drain away avoid or reduce fish drippings as much as possible.
• Grilling or broiling fish is much better than frying fish in order to avoid sealing in chemical pollutants that might be stored in the fish’s fat.

Additional Resources

Environmental Defense Fund:
http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=79

WWF:
http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/marine/our_solutions/sustainable_fishing/sustainable_seafood/index.cfm

photo credit: apert

Thanks to enormous human intervention and tens of millions of dollars spent, the California condor population is at 279, up from just 21 in 1982. But according to a new report released by California Audubon, this recovery effort requires “constant and costly human assistance” that is unsustainable and unrealistic unless lead is banned from ammunition.

Lead Is Bad News for Condors and People Alike

Lead poisoning from spent ammunition is what drove North America’s largest birds to the brink in the 1980s, and it continues to sicken and kill the last surviving California condors. Condors, as a scavenging species, feed on carcasses, so the killed game remains left by hunters are integral to condor survival. Unfortunately, when the carcasses contain lead-bullet fragments, condors inadvertently ingest lead. The consequences are deadly.

(It’s also worth noting that the lead fragments in shot game are highly toxic for humans and at least 48 other species, including Bald and Golden eagles.)

Tiny Lead Fragments Cause Birds to Starve

What happens to the majestic birds after ingesting lead fragments isn’t pretty. Lead poisoning paralyzes the birds’ digestive systems and they are doomed to slowly starve. So poisoned birds are trapped, confined, and injected twice a day with a chemical to rid the body of lead. Sometimes the treatments don’t work, and birds die despite conservationists’ best efforts.

Copper Bullets Cost More and Are Not Always Available

Efforts to encourage voluntary replacement of lead ammunition and to remove or bury kills have been largely unsuccessful. Not all hunters are aware of the environmental harm lead bullets wreak. Habits are hard to break. And higher costs and lack of widespread availability of alternatives, such as 100-percent copper bullets, also hamper compliance, even on ranges where lead ammunition is already banned.

Today, human assistance acts as a costly band-aid to the problem. California condors are provided lead-free food at man-made feeding stations, hindering their ability to forage. They are also regularly monitored, trapped, tested, and treated for frequent lead poisoning, which lessons their fear of people and man-made structures. As a result, the birds risk electrocution from sitting on utility lines and frequently feed harmful “microtrash” (nuts, bolts, rags, bottle caps, etc.) to their young chicks.

Removing the Source of Lead Is the Condors’ Only Hope

As long as lead exposure continues, recovery efforts are doomed. Researchers hope that a successfully enforced ban on lead ammunition across Western hunting ranges would allow the California condor to survive without human assistance.

More resources:

Audubon California
View the complete report as a downloadable PDF:
http://ca.audubon.org/AOU_CONDOR_REPORT_Aug08_final.pdf

The Audubon California page below hasn’t been updated to reflect the passage of CA bill AB821, but it provides a good summary of recovery efforts and information on where to find alternatives lead bullets:
http://ca.audubon.org/California_Condor.html

The American Fisheries Society on the impact of lead in shooting and fishing sports (downloadable PDF)
http://www.fisheries.org/afs/docs/fisheries/fisheries_3305.pdf

U.S. National Park Service
http://www.nps.gov/pinn/naturescience/leadinfo.htm
Lead v. Copper Bullets Quicktime movie

photo credit: gregor_y

As interest in eating organic grows, the range of what carries the “organic” label increases exponentially. Organic food is now available in nearly every section of the grocery store. But just because something is labeled “organic” doesn’t mean it follows the criteria you may think of as organic.

According to the Organic Trade Association, being certified as organic assures that the crop has been grown according to strict standards that were verified by an authorized third-party organization or the state government. Certification involves “inspections of farm fields and processing facilities, detailed record keeping, and periodic testing of soil and water to ensure that growers and handlers are meeting the standards which have been set.”

But some critics point out that this does not guarantee the items are “sustainably grown,” “cruelty-free,” “worker-friendly,” or “fuel-efficient”—important aspects to many organic product consumers. In fact, many organic operations do not sell “certified organic” items, because some smaller farms cannot reap enough reward from certification to cover the costs of becoming certified.

Sources add that the desire to cash in on the “organic” dollar has extended to the country’s giant food conglomerates. The concern is these big operators have the ability to use lobbyist pressure to get rules bent in their favor, potentially altering the definition of “organic” even further.

While the “certified organic” label may leave some aspects up to question, most sources agree that buying organic is preferable over standard industrial farm products. To find out more about what qualifies as “organic,” check out the Organic Trade Association frequently asked questions here: http://www.ota.com/organic/faq.html

Call me stupid, but when I saw Heirloom tomatoes at the local grocery store, it never dawned on me that these were actual antiques. Or maybe they are more like ancient family recipes, handed down the generations.

Either way, the current debate around the lack of diversity in the global food supply has more people buying heirlooms—both the food and the seeds.

Small groups of local and organic farmers have made it almost an elite practice/underground supply chain/cult following—more than a hobby, not quite an obsession, but possibly something close.

And who could blame them? The idea of a genetic strain of tomato that extends back 50 to 100 years is pretty cool. Though not all heirloom fruit and vegetable varieties go back that far, all have been passed down within a family or community. They are also unique and genetically distinct from commercial options. (more…)

When talking about conserving natural resources, we usually think of energy, gasoline, water…not our food supply. But in reality, the food supply may be one of, if not the most important resources we have. Especially for those of us not currently growing a year’s supply of veggies in our backyards or on our fire escapes.

We have all seen images of poverty and famine from across the globe, and tuned them out over time. But some experts hold that these images could just as easily be from parts of the United States—and the potential threat could be growing. (more…)

photo credit: macieklew

To help shoppers make informed choices at the grocery store, the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit dedicated to educating consumers about commonplace but potentially dangerous chemicals, tested pesticide residue on common fruits and vegetables. The lists they created from their research serve as a great money-saving cheat sheet:

12 Fruits & Veggies Highest in Pesticides (Try to Buy Organic)

1. Peaches
2. Apples
3. Sweet Bell Peppers
4. Celery
5. Nectarines
6. Strawberries
7. Cherries
8. Lettuce
9. Grapes - imported
10. Pears
11. Spinach
12. Potatoes

12 Fruits & Veggies Lowest in Pesticides (Don’t Sweat If It’s Not Organic)

1. Onions
2. Avocado
3. Sweet Corn - frozen
4. Pineapples
5. Mangoes
6. Sweet Peas - frozen
7. Asparagus
8. Kiwi
9. Bananas
10. Cabbage
11. Broccoli
12. Eggplant

EWG offers a more detailed downloadable PDF guide that you can print out and take shopping. The other good news is that our family taste tests, the “try to buy organic” foods like peaches, apples, and strawberries taste much better than their higher-in-pesticide counterparts. And the ones lowest in pesticides like onions or cabbage taste just as good as organic.

My “mother in-law” (for lack of a better term) has diverticulitis. I’ll admit that I’d heard of this ailment, but I didn’t really know what it was. So I looked it up. According to the National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse, diverticulum are small pouches in the colon “that bulge outward.”

Apparently the condition is pretty common and most likely caused by a lack of fiber in the diet. In other words, someone wasn’t getting enough roughage, which resulted in extra pressure in the colon area, causing bulges and then inflammation and…well, let’s just say I now know more about my in-law’s colon than anyone should.

What interested me about the timing of her illness is that I’ve been reading a lot about buying/eating locally. And this disease was spotted in the US at around the same time that processed foods were introduced (early 1900s). Hard to believe that processed foods are over a century old—some may even have been on the shelf for about that long.

But even if you shun processed food and try to eat “real,” not all food is created equally. Whether it is a backlash against the use of pesticides and hormones, or just a desire to help sustain the local farming community, more of us are considering the benefits of eating organically.

Many sources tout how local, organic food saves on fuel (transportation), preserves the land, and maintains much-needed diversity in food supply—all while providing more nutrients for your buck. And it will take a few of those to walk the organic line. But if it is true that the food is better for you, it could be worth the investment.

Some also argue that the cost difference between organic and industrialized foods is negated by the fact that industrialized organizations get subsidized by our tax dollars. In other words, we pay for their gas, among other resources, via government support, while suffering the nutritional differences in the process.

The recent salmonella and E. coli scares in vegetable supplies have definitely called into question the practices of veggie suppliers—from farm to distributor to grocer.

Living in California, I realize how spoiled I am by having so many food options available in state. I can feed myself (and the family) with local products pretty much year ‘round.

Even our local grocery has choices, and although the organic fruits and veggies take up a smaller section, have fewer options, and cost more overall, you have to weigh in what that cost gets you and your community.

If moving in this direction interests you, and your grocer isn’t as stocked as mine, you still may have options. Most major metropolitan areas have farmers markets at least one day per week. In other regions, roadside stands, “pick your own” options, and buyers clubs may be available. Plus, Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) subscribers receive weekly shares of produce year ‘round. This is a great opportunity to establish a relationship with those whose livelihood depends on producing these foods and selling them to you. As you get to know what’s “in season” at different points of the year, you can make choices around what works for you.

So maybe you aren’t ready to swear off Pop Tarts, and that’s okay. Hey, I love the Pop Tart. Can’t help it. They’re good. But as the “eat organic” movement extends beyond the hippie culture, it’s becoming easier to find the healthier foods you like/need from a variety of sources, providing you with options.

To check out what may be available in your area, here are some helpful resources:

Farmer’s markets (farmer’s market search): www.ams.usda.gov/farmersmarkets

Local harvest (food sources local to you, including CSAs): www.localharvest.org