Food
Vertical Gardens for Urban Areas
If you have only a small exterior space for growing plants and flowers, why not try a vertical garden?
Urban Renewal: The Greening of Cities
If you imagine a green city, you might not first think of Houston, Texas, but according to a green building index, over half of the commercial square footage there has an EPA Energy Star or LEED rating. In fact, Houston has ranked as high as number 3 in the US for LEED-certified commercial space. “Since Houston is the energy capital of the world, sustainability is paramount to all aspects of our economy. This is evident in the way real estate has been consistently…
Say Hello To Kalettes!
Kalettes are a 100% non-GMO vegetable that is a cross between kale and Brussels sprouts. Try all 3 recipes or just munch on them raw.
Urban Farming is Coming to Los Angeles
In the wake of the landmark passing of California’s Neighborhood Foods Act, urban farming is flourishing in Los Angeles. In October, City Councilmen Felipe Fuentes and Curren Price filed a motion to allow owners of vacant lots in the city to qualify for tax relief if they make their land available for agricultural use. Los Angeles has about 8,600 such lots. “By converting empty parcels into urban farms, we can encourage local economic development, green our more closely knit communities and provide produce…
Hydroponic Farm Slashes Water Use by 99%
This hydroponic farm in Japan cuts water usage by 99%! The farm occupies an abandoned Sony chip manufacturing facility in Miyagi prefecture, near where the earthquake and tsunami struck the country in 2011. It is the brainchild of Shigeharu Shimamura, a plant physiologist who was inspired by a vegetable factory he saw at the Expo ’85 World’s Fair in Tsukuba, Japan. Shimamura used his passion to start his own aquaculture company called Mirai in 2005. The name means “future” in Japanese. Shimamura’s newest…
Vermicomposting Saves Prison Systems Money
Starting in 2010, a prison guard and a few inmates began a vermicomposting program at Washington State Reformatory. Vermicomposting is a process that takes left over food and table scraps and turns them into compost with the aid of earth worms. Vermicast compost contains water-soluble nutrients and is an excellent, nutrient-rich organic fertilizer and soil conditioner. The Washington State prison system is a leader in training inmates for jobs in the green economy after their release. Gardening and prairie restoration have long been part…
Fukushima Factory Becomes Aquaponic Farm
Superconductors and microchips have to be produced in a sterile environment. But what happens when a former microchip factory becomes obsolete? That’s a question facing many of Japan’s chip-makers these days, but Fujitsu has an answer to that question: If you are Fujitsu Electronics, you convert one of your excess chip factories’ sterile spaces into an indoor hydroponic growing area that is free from environmental contaminants and crop-destroying pests. That “clean room”, as it’s called, also happens to be insulated…
Bus Top Gardens Pop Up in NYC
As part of his thesis project at NYU, graduate student Marco Castro Casio designed a garden for the top of buses Casio calls his mobile garden idea “Bus Roots”, and says it is a way of “reconnecting urban communities with nature in a practical and playful way … bus roots is a playful public transportation project that uses plants as a creative medium. It connects the citizens with their community while trying to use the least amount of resources and improving the…
Vertical Garden Exhibit at Chicago MSI
Green roof design is becoming popular all over the world, but this vertical garden conceptual model – part of the Fast Forward exhibit at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) – takes the concepts of aquaponics, locally-grown produce, and urban farming to new heights by stuffing all those things into a single, “green” skyscraper. Vertical farming, which some experts claim uses just 1/6 of the resources required by conventional “flat” farming to produce a given quantity of produce, is…
Learning How to Preserve Food and Community
To help promote healthier lifestyles, a free two-hour hands-on public class explaining how to preserve food was held in Oakville, Washington this week.
Zero Packaging Grocery Stores are Increasingly Popular
As our landfills overflow and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch grows, some good news is that zero packaging grocery stores are spreading across the globe; from Germany to Colorado, more people can buy locally grown food in bulk without wasteful packaging.
Why Dumpster Diving for Food in Spain Could Cost You 750 Euros
Incredibly, some Spanish towns are now fining people who search through dumpsters for food the equivalent of nearly $1000; while elsewhere, other communities are beginning to understand the power inherent in salvaging and reusing resources gleaned from our garbage.
Boycott Monsanto: Ten Easy Steps to Avoid GMO Foods & Subvert Agribusiness
Monsanto is a company that does little to no good, and a whole world of bad. Such massive and largely unaccountable corporations have been economically ravaging our world by externalizing the hidden costs of their dirty business and decades of environmental destruction. So what’s a concerned citizen to do? Here’s how to hurt Monsanto in the only place that they care about: their wallet.
10 Tips for a Healthier Diet: Could Eating Unprocessed Foods Improve Your Health?
Eating a balanced diet that largely consists of plants and fresh whole foods is one of the most powerful things you can do to improve your health. Consuming large amounts of processed foods is risky behavior. Eating processed foods have been linked to an increased risk for heart disease, cancer, diabetes, auto-immune illnesses, atherosclerosis, and many more common sicknesses. If you would like to start feeling better, consider these 10 simple suggestions to help you begin your unprocessed diet: