"Treehugger" news and stories

Each most Friday afternoons, I sort through the list of recipes, newspaper articles and blog posts that I've bookmarked over the previous week (or two) in order to dish up a tasty assorted eight. Here's the selection this week:

• Did you resolve to eat more veggies this year? Treehugger has written up nine ways to get more veggies into your diet.
• Think any good diet has to exclude delicious things like pizza? According to cookbook author and restaurant critic Joy Manning, it does not. Check out her sensible, healthy and mostly whole wheat pizza dough recipe.
• Entertaining at home is a great way to spend time with friends while saving some cash. Check out Maggie Mason's (queen of the Mighty Goods/Junior/Haus shopping empire) cheese plate jar which makes impromptu entertaining a snap.
  
• Attention Bacon Bits lovers! You would be well-served to skip any food service bits you come across for the near future, as 3,600 pounds of bits were recently recalled.
• The Pro Bono Baker recently adapted a Napa Cabbage Salad recipe from Chez Panisse Fruit to deliciously good results.
• I love the no-knead bread recipe, but sometimes I want bread that doesn't take 24 hours to make. I am intrigued by Katy (The Non-Consumer Advocate's) recipe for One Hour Bread.
• Nearly every week, Stefania (aka CityMama) posts a recipe on her site that makes me start a shopping list so I can re-create it at home. This week I am in love with her Mandoo Soup.
• Love take-out but don't love the cost (as well as all the packaging you consume each time you order out)? Check out this list of nine take-out standbys that you can make at home.

So often, when we talk about preserving food for the winter, we focus solely on canning and freezing. Rarely do we talk about the best ways to store those long-lived root vegetables and fall fruits so that they'll last you from harvest until early spring. However, for those of you with a bit of outdoor space and a little energy, you can devise your own root cellar that will keep your potatoes, pumpkins and apples fresh for months.

The inspiration for this post came from the Crunchy Chicken, who instructs her readers to dig a hole in the ground that will hold a lidded plastic container (garbage cans, coolers or storage tubs will work) and settle the container into the hole, leaving a few inches up at the top to protect from water runoff. Although the image above uses a garbage can, I imagine that for some, it might be hard to reach the bottom of the can. Crunchy Chicken recommends a longer, shallower container for ease in organization. For more detailed on a DIY root cellar, check out this post at Treehugger.

Until today, I was completely unaware that there were rules governing how produce had to look at the supermarket. I just thought that it was the retailers who were only accepting the "pretty" stuff.

However, in Europe there are all kinds of rules that dictate what produce has to look like. It covers the diameter of bananas all the way to what percentage of asparagus has to be green. The produce that doesn't fit those regulations gets tossed out. Recently, the European Commission decided that throwing away perfectly good produce just because it doesn't look perfect is just plain wasteful. Additionally the practice may also be contributing to the global food crisis.

As a result, the old rules are being abandoned on about 26 fruits and vegetables. Due to some opposition, though, not every variety of produce is having the rules changed. The compromise is that strawberries, pears, tomatoes, apples, kiwi, and lettuce must still meet the old guidelines.

What do you think about rules regarding produce appearance?

[via TreeHugger]

As with many people these days, I spend a not-insignificant amount of my time thinking about the environment and ways in which I can reduce my impact. I always have an Envirosax or two tucked into my bag, I try not to buy a cup of coffee unless I brought a reusable mug with me and I use my plastic vegetable bags over and over again.

However, I still struggle with the amount of trash I produce. Last night, as I was cleaning up my kitchen, after an evening of cooking dinner, making some muffin-sized quiches for the week's breakfast (something like these), making salads for lunches and cutting and marinating some chuck steak for dinner tonight, I realized that I had filled the garbage can full up. Now, it doesn't help that I live in an urban apartment and haven't figured out a way to compost yet (although I'm working on it), but most of my trash was unrecyclable food packaging. As I tied up the bag, and headed to the trash room, I found myself wishing for a store where it was encouraged to bring as much of your own reusable packaging along with you as possible.

Reading Treehugger this morning, I discovered that such a store does exist, although its in London, too far away from me to make it practical. It is called Unpackaged and sells all of its products loose. You bring your own container or buy a nice-looking reusable one from the store. Now, I know that this sounds like the bulk section at Whole Foods, but in my area, the bulk-buying options are quite limited and they look at you askance if you bring your own jar in when buying quinoa or popping corn. The idea of a store where that practice is encouraged makes me long for one in my own neighborhood.

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It feels like everywhere you turn these days, the word 'organic' pops up. I think that the tipping point for me was when the Batter Blaster turned up this fall as an organic product (I guess to convince consumers that it's slightly redemptive despite the fact that it ejects pancake batter out of a spray can).

I guess I'm not the only one who feels like it's getting a little bit abused these days, because it is one of 19 words or phrases on Lake Superior State University's annual List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness.

[via Treehugger]

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