Important note: Foodies can't be Dummies

Please try to keep in mind as you shop this holiday season: Fair Trade doesn't just apply to African villagers and Amazon tribes - it also applies to the folks who grow our food here at home.

An interesting note from a farmer who tried switching from big-breasted flightless corporate turkeys to heritage birds:

Our customers who had eagerly signed up to reserve a heritage bird were not only disappointed about the size, but they also complained about the higher price tag and the noticeable lack of breast meat. So the heritage birds cost 2.5 times the price as chicks, took twice as long to grow out, ate nearly twice the food, and dressed out at half the size. We had to charge $8/lb. and we still made no profits on these birds. What was curiously frustrating was that these self-described foodies still wanted the size and body shape of a hybrid bird, along with a small price tag. Even somebody from a local Slow Food chapter still insists that we should be able to raise heritage turkeys for $4/lb.

That's right. Real food costs more, and doesn't look the same was as crap corporate food (or taste the same way, thank god!)

I've also got a post up over at Ecoble.com about how to live a little greener on Thanksgiving this year... check it out.

Whining about Wine

What is it with some people and wine?

Nobody would argue that Hershey's chocolate is better than Dagoba or Ghirardelli, or that there's no difference in quality between a Mercedes and a Mercury.

And yet, when it comes to wine, it seems every six months someone is trotting out "evidence" that there's really no difference between higher-priced bottles of wine and the cheap stuff. That it's all about elitism and marketing and hype.

When I was first learning about wine, I bought into it, too. I'd tried $6 bottles and $16 bottles, and there didn't seem to be that much difference. So why spend the extra $10?

Then I did a write-up on the Hermitage Inn in Wilmington, Vermont, and got a chance to sample from its 30,0000-bottle cellar. My first $40 bottle of wine, from California's Far Niente vineyard. Wow! Here was a wine that outshone the hype. It was complex, light, dazzling... and totally worth the price.

I still buy cheaper wines (who can afford $40 a week on wine, in this economy?), but I totally lost sympathy for the elitism/marketing whiners.

Like Robin Goldstein. His study, which "proved" that most people couldn't tell the good stuff from the cheap stuff in blind taste tests, made the rounds this past spring (here and here), and is cropping up again. Jonah Lehrer, at The Frontal Cortex, just brought it up, and Andrew Sullivan picked up on it too. Both of them pushed the line that, in Lehrer's words, "expensive wine doesn't necessarily taste better, at least for people who aren't wine experts".

This kind of "study" always bugs me, so I tend to delve into the raw numbers to see where they're pulling their conclusions from. And guess what?

To make sure that our results are not driven by wines at the extreme ends of the price distribution, we also run our regressions on a reduced sample, omitting the top and bottom deciles of the price distribution. Given the broad range of prices in the sample, this is an appropriate precaution. The remaining wines range in price from $6 to $15.

Meaning: 90% of their wines are priced at less than $15. What elitism? The useful comparison is between the $10 bottle and the $40 bottle, not between the $6 bottle and the $15 bottle.

So what's the real scoop? Goldstein was publishing a book: "The Wine Trials: Brown-bag blind tastings reveal the surprising wine values under $15." That certainly explains the fact that 90 percent of the study's wines were under $15.

Their choices of more expensive wines? Mere foils, so they could say things like:

"...when more than 500 blind tasters around the country sampled 6,000 glasses of wine ranging in price from $1.50 to $150, their preferences were inversely correlated with price. For example, Domaine Ste. Michelle, a $12 sparkling wine from Washington State, outscored Dom Pérignon, a $150 Champagne, while a six-dollar Vinho Verde from Portugal beat out a $40 California Chardonnay and a $50 1er Cru white Burgundy."

The book is a nice idea. There are a lot decent wines out there for under $15, and a guide is a great thing (see here for another good source of tips). But it's just not a source of accurate scientific data.

And yet they managed to market their 'findings' into the pages of Newsweek and the New York Times... while pontificating on the notion that much of wine snobbery was nothing but marketing. Ah, the irony..

Think Green This Thanksgiving

All we have to do this year is look toward Washington, DC, and we've got tons of stuff to be thankful for...

But as we officially enter the season of holiday cheer, holiday shopping and holiday excess, can we all think about the planet, too?

They say that green is the new black, but that doesn't mean you have to get all emo about it. It's possible to be joyful and celebratory - and smart.

10 Great Ways to Green your Thanksgiving

Getting There - Thanksgiving is one of the heaviest travel weekends of the year, and how you choose to get there can make a big difference in your annual carbon footprint. If you’re driving long distances, avoid SUVs and big gas-guzzlers – remember, you can always rent something smaller. Carpooling is also good, although not always an option. And if you’re flying, keep in mind that air miles are about the most damaging mode of travel for the environment. Avoid flying if possible; if you can’t, consider purchasingcarbon offsets from a reliable source.

Set the Scene - Candles are great for creating a warm, homey environment. But paraffin candles are awful for the home environment. They’re made from petrochemicals, they put vaporized parrafin into the air, and they often contain artificial oils and scents that you don’t want your loved ones to be breathing, either. Today, we have better options, made with beeswax and soy wax. Likewise, as you’re buying decorations, think of what’s going to happen to them when the holiday has passed. Try to avoid buying a bunch of paper goods that will go straight into the landfill.

Moderate the Meat - Industrial agricultural poultry farms generate a huge amount of waste; too much to compost (which is how small farms deal with natural by-products in a natural way, returning them to the soil as fertilizer). Instead, all that manure degrades into methane – a greenhouse gas that’s 20 times more potent than CO2. Plus, these birds are pumped full of antibiotics and nasty chemicals to try to keep them healthy in that cramped, hellish environment. This does awful things for the meat – both in terms of nutrients, and in flavor. Go for a free-range organic bird – your taste buds will thank you, as will your arteries. (Or you could try going Vegan…)

Go Local - Transportation is a big part of the CO2 impact of our food. Shipping by water has a modest impact, trucking is pretty bad, and air freight is terrible. Which means that, surprisingly, (ocean-shipped) Peruvian mangoes may have a lower impact than (trucked) Idaho potatoes. Your best bet – buy local. Go down to the farmers market for the most planet-friendly potatoes and yams.

Go Seasonal - Hothouse-grown peppers, tomatoes and lettuce are also not great for the environment – because of the hefty energy used in growing them in cold climates. Think like the Pilgrims, and try to focus on things that grow naturally in your neighborhood this time of year. In the north, that might mean substituting cold-loving crops like spinach, kale and chard instead of a salad.

Go Organic - Industrial agriculature depletes the soil, then uses petrochemical-derived fertilizers to attempt to replenish it. It’s a crazy system that’s accelerating climate change. Organic agriculture, in contrast, actually returns large amounts of carbon to the soil. If all the farms in the US switched to organics, it would be the equivalent of taking millions of cars off the road! Plus, organics are healthier. And your health is always something to be thankful for.

Avoid Packaged Foods - Often, producing and disposing of food packaging takes more energy than it took to grow and process the food in the first place. What can you do about that? Cut back on pre-packaged stuff. Go with fresh local spinach instead of frozen; bake your own pumpkin pie instead of buying one in a plastic clamshell from the market.

Recycle - And of course, make sure the cans, bottles, and packaging you use gets recycled.

Compost - Don’t send your scraps off to a landfill! In that nasty environment, food waste breaks down into methane, which as we’ve noted is a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than CO2. Set up a home composting system; if you can’t, check locally – many cities now have composting programs.

Don’t Say “Yes” to Excess - Don’t go whole hog – or whole turkey. Buy a smaller bird, only make three side dishes instead of six, go for two pies instead of four. You can still eat plenty of food, there will be less waste overall, and when you step on the scale Monday morning, you’ll be able to look at that dial without fear and loathing.

Image credits:

1. Flickr Creative Commons photo by Groovnick
2. Flickr Creative Commons photo by Eschipul
3. Flickr Creative Commons photo by Cyanocorax
4. Flickr Creative Commons photo by NatalieMaynor
5. Flickr Creative Commons photo by KingDesmond1337
6. Flickr Creative Commons photo by Normanack
7. Flickr Creative Commons photo by Darkroom Demons

How to Cook the Perfect Thanksgiving Turkey

I've got one of my classic pieces up on Helium.com: How to Cook the Perfect Thanksgiving Turkey. It includes step-by-step instructions, plus expert advice from Eric Trites, the gourmet chef at the Hermitage Inn in Wilmington, Vermont.

A sample:

Your first turkey could be a piece of cake, or it could be a total disaster. So we thought we'd seek out some professional help - Eric Trites, chief cook and pheasant plucker at the Hermitage Inn in Wilmington, Vermont. The Hermitage is a resort that specializes in the fare the pilgrim fathers (and mothers) laid on their tables: pheasants, wild turkeys, ducks, gamecocks, deer. And Trites figures he's cooked around five hundred turkeys over the past ten years....

Thanksgiving food-fests: "Before you start cooking, remove the little plastic bag with the giblets." It is, of course, not a major disaster if you forget this. It just makes the inside of the bird a little messy when the plastic bag starts to melt in the 325-degree oven...

"Actually," Trites notes, "the first thing you have to do depends on whether it's fresh or frozen. If it's frozen, you've gotta defrost it. The best way to do that is to leave it in the fridge, because turkeys are apt to spoil - as with all fowl. They have been known to have salmonella, which is not fun. Spending Thanksgiving day on the john is not a good time."

On the Practical and the Symbolic.

Bill McKibben has a great column in Orion magazine this month, in which he makes an interesting point:

But in a world where we need massive change at lightning speed, the usual equations are turned upside down. We’re used to thinking that being practical is what really counts—that you can only reduce carbon by, in fact, reducing carbon. Hence the light bulb, or the farmers’ market, or the hybrid car. If we think globally, to use the hoariest of green clichés, we should act locally. In the fight against global warming, though, the practical acts are for the most part symbolic, while the symbolic acts might just save the day. Say you have a certain amount of time and money with which to make change—call it x, since that is what we mathematicians call things. The trick is to increase that x by multiplication, not addition. The trick is to take that 5 percent of people who really care and make them count for far more than 5 percent. And the trick to that is democracy.

We naïvely believe that it takes 51 percent of the people to make change in a democracy, but it clearly doesn’t—5 percent is plenty, if those 5 percent are engaged in symbolic action that can force the kind of legislative change that resets the course for everyone. In the civil rights movement, for instance, the strategy was not to desegregate the country one lunch counter at a time—there were way too many lunch counters. Instead, you use the drama of the fight over one lunch counter to help drive the Civil Rights Act, which puts the full power of the federal government behind the idea that anyone can order a hamburger wherever they want to. And here’s the thing: I bet less than one-quarter of 1 percent of Americans took part in a protest during that great movement, but it was more than enough.

Google has Life magazine's photo archive

Wow. Just wow. Life magazine's photo archive (published and un-published) at your fingertips...

Futuristic Green Transit: 10 Vehicles for 2010

Want to green your ride, but can’t afford a Tesla? That’s okay… there are plenty of cool (if not quite so flashy) new transportation options coming down the pike that will cost you less than $100,000. Some of ‘em you can even build yourself.

Seriously Strange Fossil Fuelings:

Who needs hydrogen? Some energy alternatives have been around for years, and are making a comeback.

1. Wood

It’s not talked about as much as the Manhattan Project, but there was a big energy crisis during WWII, when the military sucked up a huge portion of the world’s petroleum output. Individual car-owners across Europe converted their cars and trucks to run on… wood.

Wood?

Wood. Engines don’t run on liquid gasoline - they literally run on fumes. Same goes for the fire in your fireplace – when you see flames rising, that’s the fumes of volatiles coming off the logs and igniting. You can do the same thing in your car.

Some folks are working on making this high-tech, with scrubbers and sealed, carefully controlled burners. Renewable Energy Systems are currently running a demonstration coast-to-coast tour with a couple of modded 1991 Dodge Dakota V8 pickups.

But for now you can go very low-tech – plonk a stove on the back of your pickup and run a vacuum hose to the carburetor; after that your spark plugs ignite the fumes as per usual. You can get information on the web to rig your vehicle with a hundred or so dollars in parts: Jim Mason offers workshops and info, or order a how-to guide from Mother Earth News.

But either way, your fuel can be wood if you want – or any scrap biomass.

2. Steam

The British Steam Car looks like the Batmobile and runs like an iron horse. It is not quite road-ready just yet, though, as it guzzles 1,000 litres (one ton!) of water per 25 minutes of travel time. So for now it is recommended only for shorter commutes (or perhaps not at all).

3. People Power

HumanCar is driven by people - even the steering is human powered, like on a bicycle or motorcycle.

How does it work? They’re being very, very cagey – there’s lot of talk on their website about patents and proprietary trade secrets, not too much on how it will run.

But for sure, this won’t be a Flintstones-style feet-through-the-floor operation.

Already on the Market:

4. ZAP Xebra

Perfect for in-city commuting or shopping, this little car only has a 25-mile range. Still, it brags that even after counting emissions from generating the electricity it uses, it produces 98% less pollution than a gas vehicle. And it’s available now. Next up: A ZAP trucklet with a solar panel to fuel itself.

5. Smart Fortwo

This may look like a toy, but it pumps out 110 horsepower (between a 4-cylinder gas engine and a 50-kilowatt electric motor) And it is kind of cute. This vehicle seats two comfortably (depending on the individual, of course); at a stretch you can cram in thirteen contortionists.

Future Green Transport:

6. Zoop

This little electric flitter can travel at up to 120 mph (although that prospect raises the specter of “Unsafe at Any Speed”). The Zoop is more about being seen – hence the clear canopy and the flashy design by EV-proponents André and Coqueline Courrèges of Paris-based fashion house Maison de Courrèges.

7. Ecooter

It is hard to say whether this Chinese offering is even a car, and even the name implies it is some sort of scooter…

Still, it has four wheels (in a diamond layout, rather than the standard “four corners” formation) and there is a roof over your head to keep out the wind and rain, so perhaps it qualifies.

The way it parks is particularly interesting - thanks to the diamond wheelbase, you can do some remarkably tight turning with this little thing:

7. Loremo

The name stands for “Low Resistance Mobile” This just goes to show that you don’t need to wait for next decade’s technology to accomplish amazing things with milage: The Loremo combines a highly-efficient German-engineered diesel engine with extremely low-drag design to achieve 150 miles per gallon. Coming next year to Europe, with US launch to follow.

8. Helios

Want to really get off the grid? Helios has the answer: a solar-powered buggy with a saurian solar sail that spreads out to soak up the sun and recharge, photovoltaicly. This concept car won the Best Use of Technology at the Interior Motives Design Awards 2008. Note to racers: do NOT attempt to deploy the sail as a drag chute…

9. The Air Car

Coming as early as spring 2009 from MDI and Zero Pollution Motors, it runs on compressed air. Developed by Formula One engineer Guy Nègre, the Air Car is expected to make big inroads in India, where it will be sold as the Tata Nano for $2500.

10. VW 1-Liter

A few of the mainline automakers are trying to break out of the gas-guzzler mode (although not GM, who have announced they won’t be bringing their min-cars to the US market, further demonstrating their brilliant business acumen and why the government should give them a big bailout.) VW wanted a car that would go 100 miles on one liter of gas, but it’s taken them more than six years to perfect the high-tech low-weight materials like carbon fiber and titanium. Along with a super-sleek aerodynamic shell, this diesel-powered commuter car is scheduled to get a spectacular 235 mpg when it hits the roads (in a limited edition test release) in 2010.

Can’t wait - or really want to do something now? Don’t despair - you can upgrade your current rustbucket to at least make it a little more fuel-efficient.

Yes, We Did

Print magazines are so last century...

At this stage, who really wants dead-tree magazines shipped to your doorstep?

It seems there is finally an alternative - and the first dose is free, thanks to The Read Green Initiative.

There's a wide range, from Parenting to Playboy, plus PC, Popular Science, even Reader's Digest. Nice!

Over the past few years, I've cut out just about all of my magazine subscriptions (Lyra and I still get Mother Earth News and the sister publication, Herb Companion).

I'm trying to decide with zine to take as my freebie... probably going to go with Outside. I'm guessing Lyra will go with Saveur.