Archive for November, 2009
Meatless Mondays With Black Bean Burgers
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As we announced last week, Planet Forward joined the Meatless Monday campaign - a non-profit initiative in association with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. It’s part of an eco-friendly worldwide movement to reduce consumption of animal products in favour of more plant-based meals to fight global warming and improve our personal health. As we enter our second week, we will get into some vegetarian pantry basics and a recipe. As we progress through the campaign we will continue to post recipes, tips and updates on the campaign.
A vegetarian menu is a powerful and tasty way to achieve better health. The vegetarian eating pattern is based on a wide variety of foods that are satisfying, delicious, and healthful. Vegetarians avoid meat, fish, and poultry. Those who include dairy products and eggs in their diets are called lacto-ovo vegetarians. Vegans eat no meat, fish, poultry, eggs, or dairy products. Just thought I’d get that out of the way. Our recipes will always be either vegan or lacto-ovo with vegan substitutions.
A vegetarian pantry that is stocked generally contains:
- Grain products: rice (especially brown, arborio, jasmine, basmati and sweet), millet, couscous, quinoa, kasha, wild rice (aquatic grass), buckwheat, barley, polenta, and whole grain flours.
- Pasta and noodles: pasta made from grain products (e.g., wheat pasta, rice pasta), noodles (e.g., udon, buckwheat etc.). Try to avoid quick-cook noodles; these tend to have a lot of the healthy nutrients removed and are often high in trans-fats.
- Legumes: dried legumes (peas, split peas, lentils, chickpeas/garbanzo, kidney beans, pinto beans etc.), tins/cans of legumes, shelf-stored tofu.
- Nuts and seeds: Nuts and seeds should be eaten quickly to ensure that they remain fresh. Only purchase small amounts at a time. It is handy to always have on hand walnuts, almonds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, cashews, pecans and sesame seeds. Peanuts are a personal choice given modern allergy problems. Nut and seed butters are also very useful to keep on hand; consider tahini, peanut butter, cashew nut butter, almond butter etc. Some require refrigeration on opening.
- Condiments/Seasoning/Spices: Braggs amino acid, soy sauce, shoyu, tamari; look for low sodium options. Vegetable broth/stock cubes, liquid or powder - check ingredients carefully. Seasonings such as herbs, spices, salt, pepper etc. and flavoured vinegars, dressings. Mustard, ketchup and mayonnaise should be on hand as well. If you are not going to be eating eggs you can try Vegenaise.
- Of course fresh fruit and vegetables should always be aplenty but they’re not a pantry item.
I think that is pretty much the basics covered. If you have these options in your kitchen, you will be able to whip up a vegetarian meal at any time.
I will leave you with a quick (and delicious) black bean burger recipe.
Tasty Black Bean Burgers for Meatless Mondays
Green Gazette (Issue 22) Christmas Trees, Indian Air Pollution and Propane Scooters
Posted by: | CommentsHello again and I trust your weekend is going well and that Winter hasn’t shown itself just yet wherever you read this (unless of course you happen to love Winter). If more proof of global warming was needed a friend of mine visited the midwest this week only to find temperatures about 15f above normal and autumn colours hanging around 2-3 weeks longer than normal. Record rains have savaged much of NW Europe in the last week also and the concern with stronger, wetter storms every Autumn seems to be well founded. However, I’m not a weatherman but I do have some eco stories to share with you so sit tight!
As we’re only 4 weeks from Christmas (and right into the preparation phase) I thought it would be a good time to ask can you find an organic Christmas tree? The obvious choice would be an artificial tree that you use for decades but they of course have a high quantity of plastics in their production. So a natural tree is your heart’s desire so what should you do? Follow this link for a list of organic tree farms, the odds are good as 22 states are represented and there are probably others that did not make the list. The key to an organic tree is really rather simple, instead of being chopped 6-12 inches above the ground these fir trees are potted with sufficient roots so they can be replanted. The only thing to consider is the timing of replanting - dependent on how cold your region is you may need to wait until spring to replant the tree. For your green investment you get an indoor natural holiday tree and a beautiful shade tree for your garden afterwards. Naturally they are regional trees and grown free of pesticides. Consider an organic tree this holiday season and let the blog know how it works out for you. I’m still looking for an organic option near me - but driving 700 miles round trip to acquire one seems to be defeating the purpose.
You may have noticed Barack Obama’s recent Asian travels and the subsequent state visit to Washington by the Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh. 
There’s some really good news on the eco-front to trickle down from this. The United States and India have signed a green pact and this includes US support in establishing a National Environmental Protection Agency within India. The US have committed to providing scientific and organisational support to India in getting a body in place that will vastly improve the environmental aspects of production, inspection and improvement with national and global compliance. Steps like this are integral as India is rapidly becoming one of the largest production economies on earth and while it is encouraging to see European nations and North America continue to make strides; if giant economies such as India, China and Indonesia are not improving their own standards it will be very much a case of two steps forward but three steps back. Pollution control is a local, regional, national battle for all manufacturers but the ultimate goal of improvement can only be accomplished on a global scale. More of the same please from the White House. You can read more here….
I’m seeing more and more people riding Segways (there are flocks of them in Los Angeles) Mopeds, electric bikes and fuel powered scooters. 
I’ll confess that I’ve considered a moped (except in the Summer!) but here’s a novel spin on the powered scooter idea - propane powered! The GoPed ProPed is being manufactured for the California market at present and the benefits of a propane scooter are quite amazing. Starting at $499 the little green scooter puts out 96% fewer carcinogens and 97% fewer particulates than a standard four-stroke gas scooter engine. It can reach speeds of 21mph and has a range of 20 miles from a 16.4oz propane canister. Sit back and do the numbers - that equates to over 150 miles per gallon. The scooter can carry 400lbs so while I don’t expect this to replace an individual car I think for a teenager going to the mall or the movies its got to be better than driving Dad’s SUV 5 miles and burning half a gallon of gas for a 5 minute drive.
The Green Screen - Top Chef Airs Eco-friendly Television
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As part of our continuing series reviewing eco-friendly television and film, The Green Screen takes a look at Bravo’s popular reality TV show Top Chef. Yes, even reality TV can be eco-friendly and I wanted to give a shout out to one of my personal favorites.
Top Chef features host and head judge Tom Colicchio as an intimidating yet charismatic mentor. Along with co-host Padma Lakshmi and my other favorite judge, Gail Simmons, Top Chef fascinates you with culinary skill and lures you in with food you can only look at and not taste. The show’s format involves chefs from around the world competing to become Top Chef with an contestant eliminated each episode if their food doesn’t make the grade. And even though you can’t taste the food, it’s clear from Judges feedback that these Chefs are talented.
So how are they eco-friendly? Well, Top Chef contestants often cook with sustainable foods and always shop with reusable bags. Viewers of the show know the format - they cook in a mini-challenge and then head to the elimination challenge where they are given a budget to shop for ingredients. Every time they shop for food, they fill up their groceries in reusable bags. After their food has been prepared, tasted and evaluated, the Chefs head to judges table to determine who will be eliminated. Unlike most reality TV, Top Chef is not a popularity contest, they are assessed based on cooking skills only, not personality. If you haven’t seen it, you really should tune in - it’s reality TV at its finest.
Top Chef takes it a step further since contestants often cook with sustainable foods from a sustainable farm. Read More→
Green Gazette (Issue 21) Autumn Leaves, E Book readers and a Cola story
Posted by: | CommentsGood Evening and Happy Thanksgiving if you are reading this in the States and Happy Thursday/Friday if you are elsewhere. I’ve got a few interesting pieces of news for the Green Gazette tonight if you can stay a short while. As for Thanksgiving, speaking as a foreign born person living in America I have to say it’s my favourite US Holiday. It’s a holiday where you’re not expected to rush to a toy shop, a card shop, a jeweler or elsewhere to purchase a gift (that the recipient may not even need) to show you are ‘celebrating’ the holiday. Instead it is the one time of the year where people seem to really slow down, choose to be with family and friends, and say thank you for what we have in our life instead of bemoaning what we don’t have. I’d argue that our overt sense of ‘entitlement’ here in the Western world is one of the biggest issues that has contributed to the eco-crisis we find ourselves in. The never ending quest for convenience and affordability has created wastefulness that is just impossible to excuse. I feel fortunate to have been born in a ‘first world’ nation and always lived in one - but it’s not my birthright to then waste as much as I can. We should be thankful for so many things we have that so many on the planet only dream of. Being more concerned with our environmental impact might be the best way of all to say thanks to the planet in general. Just a thought…
Here’s a creation that I never even considered to be possible, I’m not even sure what you’d call it. Its not recycling as there is no reusing of a previous incarnation, its not farming as this would happen in nature anyway. What am I talking about? Well, there is a company called VerTerra who have created dinnerware that is created from fallen leaves! They have taken one of the most natural things imaginable and created a legitimate usable item that replaces wasteful chemical treated white paper plates. They are proud of using only two ingredients - leaves and water and run the nifty tagline ‘Dinnerware from fallen leaves’. They start by collecting fallen leaves from plantations—no trees are ever cut down to make the dinnerware. The leaves are then brought to our factory, where they are sprayed with high-pressure water, steamed and UV sterilized. Over 80% of the water used is recaptured and reused, and the entire manufacturing process uses just 10% of the energy used in recycling. The plates are 100% free of chemicals, lacquers, glues, bonding agents or anything toxic. This is one of the coolest things I’ve read about in a while and the used plates are completely compost ready.
Amazon.com have had their kindle product on the market for about a year now and now a lighter (in terms of functionality) product is one the market by Sony as an e-book reader. If you’re not familiar with either product they are both e-book readers. The book sized electronic device 
that allows you to download and read books without the eco-unfriendly aspect of a book being published and paper being consumed. The eco-reader is quite expensive ($200-$320) but can come with ‘classic’ books pre-installed and the memory capacity (512mb) allows you to download as many ebooks as your heart desires. I’ve seen these in use on a few flights and they look pretty handy and are very slim and lightweight. As with most technology it might be a few years until they enter the price range where they are considered a normal gadget to own, but until that time every e-book downloaded is saving paper wastage at a rate that would stagger you. Check out the Sony e-book store to learn more or check out the readers here.
If you’re a regular visitor to our site and blog you probably already know how we feel about plastic bottles. It’s interesting to note that Coca-Cola are unveiling their new ‘plant bottle’ at the forthcoming Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Please check out this well written article by The Toronto Star. In my opinion it’s all a bit of a sham, the Coca-Cola company have one goal, so sell more Coke and other beverages - in plastic bottles and aluminum cans. Neither of which get recycled at anything approaching acceptable levels. At least they are trying but unless 100% of people recycle they are never going to be making much of a net positive contribution to the environment. Paying for bottled water in a plastic bottle from Coca-Cola is beyond understanding, we may as well pour petroleum down the drains. 16oz of water for $1.49 and not recycling the bottle is a clever spin from the soft drink giant but not a clever reality for our planet. Hopefully time will change this.