Valentines Day is coming up this Thursday - and while it’s not a Jewish holiday per se, it’s as good a day as any to remind the people in your life that you think they’re pretty freaking awesome.  To help you express your loving sentiments - the sustainable way - The Jew & The Carrot offers our newest resource list:

Kosher Sustainable C.H.O.C.O.L.A.T.E

All of the chocolate bars included on the list are kosher-cerfitied and some combination of organic, fair trade, cane-sugar sweetened, and vegan.  (sweet!)  If you want to put that chocolate bar to even better use, check out Chef Laura Frankel’s amazing recipe for chocolate mousse.  And if you’re looking for something a little bit more risque, the company Green Knickers is offering a Valentine’s day special: a bar of chocolate from Divine with every pair of organic cotton, fair trade boxers or briefs you purchase.  (I can’t find anything on Divine’s kashrut status, but this was too cute not to include.  Thanks to Grist for the hat tip.)

Thanks to Linda for Sunday’s post on the recent NYTimes article about the global context of rising food prices. While raising a number of important issues often overlooked in the domestic “locavore etc.” movement, the article begins to explain the effect of biofuels on global food prices. In December, Grassroots International, Community Food Security Coalition, World Hunger Year and several other groups released the report “Fueling Disaster: A Community Food Security Perspective on Agrofuels,” which deals with the effects of proliferating reliance on biofuels on food sovereignty.

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Eric Schlosser’s Nov 30 editorial targeted Goldman Sachs, one of three private equity firms controlling most of Burger King’s stock. The fast food monarch, in turn, is reponsible for turning the tide back on the one-cent per bucket increase in wages for thousands of Florida tomato pickers.

It would cost Burger King just $250,000 a year to increase the pickers’ wages by this amount, to solidify similar deals struck with Taco Bell and McDonalds by the AMAZING Coalition of Immokalee Workers. Although many readers of this blog may not frequent Burger King, many others do.

Regardless of the location, when we shell out $6.50 (or $36.50) for a meal, do we have any idea how much of our dollar is going to the person serving us?
to the person making the food?
to the person harvesting the food?
to the person driving our ingredients across the country?

An alternative model is practiced by Just Coffee, a Madison, WI-based co-operative business which sources, roasts, and sells coffee held to the most fair and ethical standards “using the language and mechanics of market economics to turn the market on its ear.”

A number of food industry firms have introduced voluntary nutrition labeling Read more »

As we sit down to our Rosh Hashana meals, all eyes go to the challah/apple ceremoniously (or should I say unceremoniously?) dipped in honey. The kids begin to sing that lifeless ditty to the tune of Oh My Darlin’ Clementine “dip the apple in the honey, make a bracha loud and clear. . . . “ (I can’t recall the rest because we banned that song from our house more than a decade ago). Much ink has been spilled (mostly by the honey lobby) perpetuating this custom of dubious and suspect origin in the name of sweetness for the upcoming year. In keeping with the spirit of the New Jewish Food Movement, perhaps we should critically re-examine this custom and explore alternatives. As a maple syrup producer, may I humbly suggest using maple syrup. Read more »

On the Friday night of last year’s Hazon Food Conference I said, “put your hands up if you eat meat - but would not do so if you had to kill it yourself.” And a good number of hands went up.

Then I said: “put your hands up if you’re vegetarian - but you would eat meat if you killed it yourself.” And a different group of hands went up. And after a brief pause, everyone laughed.

They laughed because the two responses revealed what a self-selected group we were - and how fascinating our different distinctions. The first group were essentially saying, “I do like eating meat - but I know the process of killing it is awful - it’s actually so awful that if I had to kill it myself, I just wouldn’t eat meat.”

The second group were essentially saying “I’m vegetarian because I hate everything about how animals are raised and killed in our industrial food economy. But if I actually took responsibility for killing an animal myself, I would feel I was acting with integrity, and in accordance with my beliefs - and therefore, in that instance, I potentially would eat meat.”

And my response, when the laughter died down, was to say “Great: next year we’re going to shecht (slaughter according to kosher law) an animal here at the Food Conference..”

And people went: “Oooohhhhhh..”

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(Thanks for this guest post from Jessica Schessler of SHI)

Slash and burn is one of the leading causes of rainforest destruction in Central America. Sustainable Harvest International is working to curb this destruction, while improving the lives of families living in these regions. I’ve been fortunate enough to intern with SHI for the summer and have learned a great deal about their work.

SHI has worked with more than 850 families in the past 10 years, and has saved tens of thousands of acres of tropical forests from slash-and-burn destruction. What is my favorite part of this effort? Not only does SHI save acres and acres, but they do it by teaching local farmers sustainable uses, such as “organic vegetable gardens, wood-conserving stoves, community loan funds and a host of other projects…” So not only is SHI helping out the environment, but they are improving the health and economic lives of the people living in it.

For the rest of the summer it’s easier than ever to support SHI, through Stonyfield Yogurt’s Bid With Your Lid campaign! Vote online and send in specially marked yogurt lids with your vote for SHI and help allocate a portion of $40,000 to SHI, while collecting cool prizes. For more information on SHI and how to vote, visit Stoneyfield.

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Once, a man came to his rabbi and said, “Rabbi, at home I keep strictly kosher. I do everything by the book, but when I go out, I can’t be so kosher. I’m not so strict when I eat out, but at home everything is 100% kosher.” The man’s rabbi replied, “Ok, you’re very lucky, all of your dishes will go straight to heaven!”

I’d like to turn this old joke on its head for a moment. We’re here at this site because we care about our food’s impact on our bodies, our community and our planet. Many of us consider the choices we make as conscious consumers to be “eco-kosher.” That is, we want our food to be “fit” (ethically, chemically, socially, spiritually) for consumption, and we try to base our purchasing decisions on these values.

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Back in 2000, I was fortunate enough to take part in a “Jewish heritage” tour of China. I came home with some amazing memories, including shabbat dinner and davening with a local minyan in Bejing, and a tour of the Jewish neighborhood in Shanghai where thousands of Jews successfully fled Nazi persecution. Six straight weeks practicing with a Chinese language tape in my car allowed me to successfully navigate the streets of China (or at least ask, “where’s the bathroom?” or “is there pork in this?” at least five times a day). But my proudest moment came when I was able to walk into a store in Shanghai and order a package of my new favorite tea (a sweet concoction called ba-bou-chai - “8 treasures tea”) without uttering a word in English.

I had quite a different cultural experience when I entered a brand-new coffee shop in the Forbidden City and ordered a Venti non-fat caramel latte. Yes, Starbucks (or *$ for short) had managed to outdo the parodies of its own ubiquity by opening a branch in the most culturally innappropriate spot in all of Asia. I shouldn’t have been surprised - American culture had infiltrated urban China to such a shocking extent that an alien plunked down in Tienanmen square would have assumed from the sheer number of KFC awnings that Colonel Sanders was China’s “Great Leader,” and not Chairman Mao. But the juxtaposition of American consumerism and ancient/communist Chinese culture was too great to wrap my head around without a serious infusion of caffeine. Read more »

I picked up a chocolate bar in the checkout line the other day. It had sleek packaging, and the offer of “dark chocolate with orange” was enticing. As was the Fair Trade symbol, which was prominently displayed on the front of the bar. Great, I thought, I’m sold.

Unwrapping the chocolate later (are you drooling yet? it was good, but I’m not going to elaborate on the taste, since I have a different bone to chew), I had the opportunity to peruse smiling faces of Latin American farmers, and read the careful literature on What Is Fair Trade and The Fair Trade Difference and Chocolate with a Smile, etc. etc. etc.

I give us as a society (and my local supermarket as a provider) points for valuing Fair Trade chocolate. But you know what would REALLY signify to me that we have ‘arrived’ in a new era of sustainable healthy global food supply?

If you didn’t need the description at all.

Think about it. You don’t see products with a hekhsher also sporting carefully worded literature on how this hekhschered product will enable you to keep a kosher home and raise a family of torah scholars!

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