Covered in the JTA today, the Charlotte B. and Jack J. Spitzer Hillel Forum on Social Justice and the JCPA annual plenum donated $2,000 to negate their carbon impact, requested that no toiletries be delivered to conference goers unless asked, and all paper was recycled.

This is encouraging for a number of great reasons. Last year’s conference was an abominably empty attempt at any environmental awareness, as covered by yours truly and Ilana Sichel in an open letter to Hillel in The Forward, such as the lack of any recycling efforts and the overwhelming amount of complimentary bottled water. It is great to see Hillel (hopefully after that op-ed peice of prodding) take the next step forward.

But noticably, little mention was made of the food at the Spitzer Forum. Read more »

Guilty as charged!

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Scary.

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Written for Kol Zimrah’s Feb 2nd, 2007, Tu’Bishvat minyan:

Last week’s parsha featured the ten miracles and the ten doubts of the Israelites as they flee Egypt for the Holy Land. Ten times, the Israelites lose faith in Moses and God and ten times they return to God and Moses’ leadership after an appropriate miracle.

The people say to Moses, “Dude, we’re gonna die!” So Moses says to God, “Dude, gimme a trick!” And God says to Moses, “Here, try this.” Moses then turns to the people and displays a miracle, “Ta dah!” And the people say, “Whew, Moses that was close. We almost lost faith in you there. Thanks for the manna/water/victory/pillar of fire.”

Can I say that this is really stupid? We can all see it. This level of faith endurance is pretty shallow, this reliance on miracles. And I want to say that I don’t need miracles to be faithful. As a post-modern, post-Enlightenment, seriously spiritual but definitely down to earth guy, I’m not a fan of big miracles. When I set out to write this d’var, I was ready to be very condemnatory. But when I sat down to write this d’var, recent live events prevented me from being so:

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The San Fransisco Chronicle is quickly becoming my favorite newspaper for food and sustainability news. In a 101-style, here’s the scoop on the myriad of animal-friendly certifications, seals and medallions. For more on this, check out Arlin Wasserman’s workshop materials on almost ALL the symbols at the Latkes to Lattes workshops resource page.

Here’s a brief comparison of the main labels:

Animal Compassionate — So far only pork guidelines are complete. Tail-docking. sow confinement prohibited. Natural daylight required.

USDA Organic — Federal organic rules allow de-beaking, tail-docking, sow-crating and dual production systems; they require outdoor access and natural daylight.

Animal Welfare Approved — De-beaking chickens, docking pigs’ tails, confining pregnant sows in crates and dual-production systems (one humane, another not) prohibited; outdoor access and natural daylight required.

Certified Humane — De-beaking, tail-docking, sow-crating and dual-production systems permitted; outdoor access and natural daylight not required.

Free Farmed Certified — De-beaking, tail-docking, sow-crating and dual-production systems allowed; natural daylight, outdoor access and natural daylight not required.

X-posted courtesy of Sustainable Apple Pie:

Yesterday I bought a whole chicken at ShuferSal (which I will always call SuperSal, by the way) that was “natural and antibiotic free”, but I passed up the organic eggs, only because they were twice the price of regular eggs. In the shuk, you can buy strawberries covered in pesticides or strawberries that supposedly don’t use pesticides - but if you ask an Israeli they’ll tell you it doesn’t matter, they’re lying to you anyways.

All of these things give me hope that Israel’s moving in a greener direction and that maybe someday we’ll have more options when we want to buy Israeli products that are not covered in chemicals or contain MSG. Currently, most organic products are imports from Europe and are more difficult to locate if you don’t have a natural foods store nearby. They are also a lot more expensive, making most of my less-eco-conscious friends roll their eyes at buying such items.

This article discusses how Israeli companies are starting to see a different green when thinking about organics and investing in smaller organic businesses like Harduf Organics and Zuriel Dairy Farm. Perhaps it will start to trickle down into the consumer mindset that going organic is good for you and your country.

From Ben Baruch via Jewschool:

Natch.

If the science of cloning can take stem cells and regrow organs and tissues such as stomachs, skin, and muscle then here’s a creepily not too distant question: Will you one day purchase meat which is grown in a vat rather than slaughtered from an animal?

Says Jason Matheny, the leader of a team to do just that, “With a single cell, you could theoretically produce the world’s annual meat supply. And you could do it in a way that’s better for the environment and human health. In the long term, this is a very feasible idea.”

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Answer: Little kids don’t eat broccoli.

Children. Munchkins. Rug rats. Fritos’ corporate sponsors. The San Fransisco Chronicle’s Gate’s Tara Duggan carries an insight into the lives of mommies and daddies who, while cooking for picky and sugar-loving babes, are looking for good ways to keep their progeny healthy.

Here’s a family meal of pasta with broccoli and cheese (for the children) and tomato sauce and olives (for the adults), recipes below the fold:

THE WORKING COOK
When life gives you children, mealtimes can be a challenge

Before I became a mother, I used to look down on parents whose kids would eat only hot dogs or noodles with butter. I must have assumed my own children would be born with refined palates and would joyfully dive into plates of endive salad and osso buco I would present to them, putting their peers to shame.

I’ve heard rumors of — and even seen in action — these sort of young children who gladly eat almost anything their parents serve. But mine are not like that.

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Today, I appreciate the travails of Californian farmers, not just because the heater in my office is a little underperforming today, but because of this round-up on the frost’s effect out West.

The San Fransisco Gate Chronicle offers up how California’s record cold may freeze some items right off restaurant menus, but by and large chefs know how to cope with the seasonality of crops under shortage this winter. Here it suggests some professional fixes home cooks can imitate:

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This is remarkable, from the headlines in Britain:

Supermarket chain Tesco pledged last night to revolutionise its business to become “a leader in helping to create a low-carbon economy” with a raft of new measures to help combat climate change.

In the most significant step announced yesterday, the UK’s biggest retailer, which produces 2m tonnes of carbon a year in the UK, said it would put new labels on every one of the 70,000 products it sells so that shoppers can compare carbon costs in the same way they can compare salt content and calorie counts.

Tesco pledged marking all products shipped via airplane (counting for 13% of all CO2 omissions) and to reduce to 1% the amount of products flown from 2-3%. Other changes include halving the prices of low-energy light bulbs, converting Tesco’s truck fleet to run on 50% biodiesel mix and providing children with carbon calculators to show how simple changes, such as car-sharing, can cut carbon costs. At the bottom, it compares how

The U.S. has a long way to go in order to catch up. Full article below.
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Michael Pollan said it first, “supermarket pastoral” is ubiquitous — as reported in the NY Times and dubbed “greenwashing” by Kim Severson.

The kind of greenwashing I’m talking about is not just a fake environmental ethos. Greenwashing, it seems to me, can also describe a pervasive genre of food packaging designed to make sure that manufacturers grab their slice of the $25 billion that American shoppers spend each year on natural or organic food.

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