"green daily" news and stories

These days, more than ever, issues of food and the environment overlap one another. Our friends over at Green Daily have been busy this week, blogging about all sorts of green food issues. Here's some of what they had to say.

The Lazio region of Italy is adding organic fruit to local vending machines. They are doing this to make healthy food more accessible and to fight against childhood obesity. I wish that vending machines in this country dispensed organic fruit.

Bluefin tuna is overfished and so several countries have agreed to limit fishing in the Atlantic and Mediterranean oceans. This means less tuna for sushi bars and so some chefs in Japan are experimenting with other options, including raw horsemeat sushi.

Taking your own reusable bags to the grocery store is the thing to do these days. Check out clerks have mostly adapted to this practice and often ask me for my bags before I can even offer them. However, one woman had her bags refused and Patricia asks Green Daily readers if anyone else has had this experience.

Dalene tries to answer the question: Where to find local, organic, farm fresh food year round?

After a visit to a chicken farm, Jamie Oliver was horrified by the treatment of the chickens. He is now working to improve living conditions for chickens and is asking people in the UK to pony up the extra money it costs to buy a free range bird.

Organic maple syrup comes from trees that are pesticide-free for life. The number of taps allowed in those trees is also limited so as not to oversap the trees. Looking for places to buy organic syrup? Check out Laura's post!

The 100 foot diet challenge means preparing meals that are grown or raised within 100 feet of your home and use as few store bought ingredients as possible. Oh to have a backyard and the space in which to grow some food!

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Our sister blog Green Daily has a list of 21 things you can do with old coffee grounds (besides, I would assume, using them again to make more coffee). A couple of the ideas I've heard before, such as adding coffee grounds to plants to help them grow and hanging them in closets to absorb odors, but a couple of them are rather intriguing. Using coffee grounds to soften your hair? Making temporary tattoos? Interesting.

If one of your resolutions is to be a little bit more green in 2008 and reuse items and recycle and all that, maybe there's an idea or two on here you can use.

For most of the years of my life, my family has eaten string beans as the main vegetable for Christmas dinner. We don't do the traditional green bean casserole, instead choosing to steam them and dress them with butter, toasted almonds, salt and a little roasted garlic. They are so good and my sister, mother and I often fight over the leftovers the next day.

However, this year we're planning on deviated from our tradition in order to have a huge bowl of these Brussels Sprouts instead. Sadly, according to our friends over at Green Daily, Brussels Sprouts are not a particularly green choice for the holiday table. Apparently the seem to have the ability to cause some people to have a bit of gas after they eat them. If you multiply that gas over the millions of people who eat sprouts for Christmas dinner, it can have something of an effect on the green house effect. Luckily, for those of us who don't want to give up our sprouts, we can follow these simple cooking tips in order to reduce their gassy effects.

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Now I realize that it's the day after Halloween and the last thing you want to be thinking about is pumpkin, especially since some of the neighborhood kids smashed your jack 'o lantern last night and you have big chunks of pumpkin to clean up off your front porch. Be that as it may, I wandered across a really fun recipe for pumpkin steaks and I couldn't help it. I had to share.

It's sort of a labor intensive recipe, in which you cut the pumpkin into flat chunks, bake it in the oven until its tender and then pan fry it. But gosh does it sound good. I'm tempted to get my hands on another cooking pumpkin and try it out. It would be a great one to tuck away for Thanksgiving, for those of you who are tired of the same squash or sweet potato dishes. The full recipe is after the jump.

[via Green Daily]
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Issues of the environment and food often go hand in hand. Our friends over at Green Daily have a number of current posts up about issues that are near and dear to our foodie hearts.

Yesterday, Patricia posted about a group of Italian farmers who have contracted with a prison to have the inmates make eco-friendly ice cream with local milk and fruit. The group of farmers is leading a campaign to encourage Italians to eat locally as a way of reducing carbon emissions.

Beer is about to get more expensive because of climate change, says Jonathon. Apparently in Australia prices of wheat and barley, vital ingredients in beer brewing, are rising due to extreme drought conditions.

Sarah's got good info about keeping the world a better place by packing lunches in safe, reusable plastic containers.

Want some simple tips on how to go green at the grocery store? Look no further than Rigel's post with recommendations on what to buy when it comes to coffee, chocolate, fruits, veggies and salad dressings.