"earth day" news and stories

Here's a pretty irresistible Earth Day offer from Starbucks: Bring in a reusable travel mug, get a free brewed coffee.

Last year the company ran the same offer and claims to have saved a million paper cups. Which is no small change.

And just in case you're wondering, you can get a 10-cent discount on your coffee every day at Starbucks when you bring in your own mug.

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:

• If you recorded PBS' showing of Food, Inc. last night, watch it with the perfect pairing -- popcorn!
• Eat a healthy treat on Earth Day with coconut pineapple loaf cake.
• Don't even think about saving Mother Nature anything on an empty stomach.
• Test your tasty-bits system know-how.
• Take a bite of out a Greek salad on a toothpick.
• Who says you can't drink your Sunday Best?
• Recycle your beef -- Japanese style -- with this tataki recipe.

When you were going through school, did you ever think about the cafeteria trays? Trays have been a hot topic in university cafeterias recently. Many colleges and universities have been going trayless over the past couple of years. In fact, several of them started their 'no tray' policy on Earth Day this year.

There are two main arguments for going trayless: it leads to less food waste by students as well as less water waste in cleaning the trays. According to CNN, colleges in drought-stricken states are more concerned about the water waste. Fifty to 60% percent of colleges served by Aramark are getting rid of trays, and in a study conducted by the comapny food waste was reduced by 25% to 30% when trays were taken out of the picture.

Wasted Food has been covering this trend for quite some time, and has seen a lot of the backlash to the new trayless movement. I can understand the inconvenience the students face in all of this, but I personally think that finding ways to prevent waste trumps any individual complaints. What's your take on the trayless movement?

So..what are you doing today to honor the Earth?

Are you baking Earth Day-themed cookies? Making an organic fruit salad? Walking to the grocery store (with your reusable bag, of course)? Finally starting your own compost pile?

Check out this What Shade of Green are You? quiz on sister site Green Daily, and then read more of their green food coverage.

Tell us, we want to know: what are you doing today (or what do you do everyday) in celebration of the earth?

Yes, y'all, we are making way through some earth-friendly products and ways to live as we near Earth Day, which is next Sunday, April 22. We've already seen Green Chocolate from food blogger Sean Timberlake, using bamboo in the kitchen and on the table, and today, these are just a half-dozen foods that are considered earth-friendly. Yes, as sad as it would seem to think that the foods we eat, which come from the earth, could be bad for the planet, these are a few things that are grown sustainably, or in some way cut down on the impact that transport, packaging, etc. have on the environment.

• Edible Indoor Miniature Garden - Instead of using all that energy to go out to the market to buy a salad, grow one on your desk!
• Srina Organic Tea - Grown on a sustainable farm in Sri Lanka
• Organic Dwarf Meyer Lemon Tree - More of "grow your own!"
• Sterling Caviar - Luxury, produced sustainably
• Square One Organic Vodka - Produced organically, and with a social conscience
• Niman Ranch Beef - Local farmers who raise cattle and livestock traditionally, humanely, and sustainably