LANDFILL PRIZE 2010

Bored with your old fridge magnet and scribbled notes? Fancy an award winning digital video recording fridge magnet instead?

If so then the Digital Fridge Memo, recently awarded the Landfill Prize 2010, is just the thing for you.

The Landfill Prize is awarded each year to the most inventive, creative yet utterly useless piece of rubbish destined for the dump soon after purchase.

(pic by hyena from wikimedia commons)

Suggestions are submitted on line, and a judging panel chooses the best of the worst.

Brainchild of author John Naish (Enough: Breaking Free from the World of More) the Landfill Prize is �a monument to perverse imagination and needless consumption� he suggests.

Naish, who has previously written books on Hypochondria and �Bizarre Sex Advice�, was joined in judging by authors Anna Shepherd, (How Green Are My Wellies?) and Carl Honore (In Praise of Slow) as well as Ben Davis, co-founder of BuyLessCrap.org.

Last year, a motorized rotating ice cream cone was the winner � for those literally too lazy to turn their head or hand whilst piling on the pounds.

For 2010 the digital fridge magnet, which allows for a 30 second personalised video recording, is top of the pile.

According to the nominator of the Digital Fridge Memo, � you�ve only added a digital screen, a rechargeable battery system, a computer and a camera to the planet�s landfill potential�.

And what potential. In Ireland alone, we generate 3.4 million tonnes of municipal waste annually, of which 2 million tonnes is landfilled.

Other 2010 winners include the Bra Dryer, The Dryear Ear Dryer and the UroClub.

The beauty of all of these is that they have some immediate attraction, because they do exhibit some design cleverness. They also immediately seem supra wasteful.

The Bra Dryer, runner up in the 2010 Awards, is shaped like a female Torso. The �69 (sterling) ear dryer, dries ears by blowing hot air into the canal. However it is to be used after first using the towel, according to instructions.

How about the Uroclub, for the golfer who really needs to go? This ingenious little addition to the golfer's bag is, according to its nominator, �a hollow plastic club in which you can urinate mid-round, instead of an eco-friendly bush or tree to pee behind in the time-honoured way�. And that�s not all: there�s also a tie-on �modesty blanket��.

Golf scores again with the Reel Putter, further down the list at number 7. This novelty item is �a golf putting club with an attached fishing reel, so you can reel in your putts�.

Last year's eco anomaly in the Landfill prize was the Toyota Prius. This year, 100% organic cotton toilet tissue scoops a prize. Clocking in at number 5, this product gets the nod because it displaces

�something that is recycled from a renewable resource�, whilst also �set(ting) aside valuable agricultural land to grow cotton.�

Another quirky winner is the Kindle, which arrives in at 10. Here's why: �Not only is it a completely unnecessary piece of electronic rubbish, it seeks to replace a design classic: the far-from obsolete, cheap and entirely reusable (ask any library!) book,� says Ben Duncan, who nominated it.

�It creates a whole new market in copyrighted material as it does so, meaning literature is reduced from being a pastime and an art form to being a piece of tradable intellectual property.�

I spoke to John Naish in Brighton about this year's awards. I first asked him about the size and price of the products, which seemed markedly smaller than previous years.

�They are nominated by public, but maybe the public just isn't seeing these big things for ridiculous money anymore. Of course, these aren't necessarily cheap � is 70 quid for drying your ear after already drying it with a towel really cheap?

The Kindle seemed contentious: I put it to Naish that, notwithstanding the issues of copyright and reuseability, the Kindle may be seen as something of an eco option: it can store a lot of information, cuts down on paper, on non-vegetable based inks, and on what could be termed 'book miles'.

�The problem is that the Kindle and products like it simply aren't sustainable technology. Next year there will be a better one, and there will be a race to get it first. If we were building one to be sustainable, it wouldn't be so throwaway.�

He elaborates �modulised parts, for example, would be a marked improvement.� In other words, parts that could be taken out and reused elsewhere or in upgrades.

He also points out that products like the Kindle tend contain more toxic parts parts than a book: the latter can be reused, recycled or even composted.

�We should be moving into cradle to cradle technologies� he points out. �it would make a lot of sense to almost rent products from manufacturers, who should be telling us a lot more about these things and what they are doing with them from beginning to end. We could be using things until they are literally worn out, and then giving them back.�

�Certainly we should be evolving better use values. Technology is our way out of planetary problems: people don't seem to want to consume less, but we need to start using technology properly.�

He suggests that some industries, such as the car industry, are moving more in this direction than others, where various environmental regulations are forcing their hand.

For more, see Naish's site which includes five ways to avoid buying into unnecessary waste, or, in his own words, �five ways to crap-proof your brain�.

Public Right-to-Know About Chemicals

For the first time, the U.S. EPA is providing web access, free of charge, to the Toxic Substances Control Act Chemical Substance Inventory. This inventory contains a consolidated list of thousands of industrial chemicals maintained by the agency. The EPA is making this information available on http://www.epa.gov/tri/ This action represents a move by the EPA to increase the transparency of chemical information while the agency continues to push for legislative reform of the 30 year old Toxic Substances Control Act, (TSCA). Currently, there are more than 84,000 chemicals manufactured, used, or imported in the United States listed on the TSCA Inventory, yet the EPA is unable to publicly identify nearly 17,000 of these chemicals because the chemicals have been claimed as confidential business information by the manufacturers under the TSCA.

Today with Pat Kenny ...tomorrow!

Quick one; if you are listening to the radio tomorrow morning, I'm doing a foodie slot with Paulo Tullio on Today with Pat Kenny. It's from 11.30-12. I'll mostly be talking about available organic and farmers' market foods.

Do tune in if you get a chance.

Congress Looks At Child Nutrition

March 18, 2010

The Food Institute reports that child nutrition has been an issue very dear to the Obama administration and earlier this month the House of Representative�s Agriculture Appropriation Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies held an overview hearing regarding the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act with several important witnesses from industry and academia.

Chairwoman Rose DeLauro opened the hearing, commenting that it is chilling to her how many children do not have enough to eat, and there is also a need to be concerned about the nutritional quality of what children are eating. She does not like the characterization of people and children being called �food insecure.� In her view, they are simply hungry. 69% of all children participating in the school lunch program in public schools qualify for free or reduced school lunches. In rural areas, too many households qualifying for federal food assistance programs do not participate in them, including 55% of those eligible for the National School Lunch Program, and 92% of those eligible for the Child and Adult Care Food Program.

She said members of the Subcommittee share the Administration�s two main priorities: reducing barriers and improving access to combat childhood hunger; and enhancing nutritional quality and the health of the school environment.

A number of issues were discussed and there were several key items touched upon, including:

• USDA expects to publish revised school meal standards based on the Institute of Medicine recommendations by the end of this year, but additional resources will be required since foods meeting the new standards are likely to be more expensive;
• Improving access to federal child nutrition programs, including through simplification of the application process and direct certification;
• Increasing the federal reimbursement rate for school meals conditioned upon the additional funds used for improved meals;
• There are alternative strategies for dealing with obesity that deserve consideration;
• The nutrition environment has changed over the years and is likely an important factor in current concerns about obesity.

Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services at USDA, Kevin Concannon testified that the President�s Administration is concerned about a number of issues and:

• Wants to bring meals up to the standards recommended by the Institute of Medicine;
• Wants to provide increases in meal reimbursement rates with increases tied to improving the quality of the meals being served;
• Establish nutrition standards for competitive foods sold as part of a la carte meals or in vending machines;
• Establish competitive grants to encourage the consumption of healthier foods;
• Enhance school food safety capabilities.

Dr. Kelly D. Brownell, Professor of Psychology, Epidemiology and Public Health, Director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, Yale University, focused his views on increasing the availability of healthy foods, particularly fresh, and cutting the amount of sugar in foods. He said that the current nutrition environment encourages unhealthy consumption. Food portions are too large, using big drinks and big muffins as examples. Three meals a day is viewed as �not enough.� He urged taking action to create �better default environments.�

He was also critical of food marketing to children, suggesting that there has been �scant progress by industry� in improving the messages provided to children, and would like to see all food advertising banned in schools.

To help in those efforts he Dr. Brownell recommended a one-cent per ounce tax on sugar-containing beverages, with the revenues used for nutrition education programs. He claims that he has received a number of calls from around the country in support of this concept, and that he would not be surprised if various localities adopted this policy recommendation on their own. He believes that the tax would reduce the consumption of sugar-containing beverages from 50 gallons per capita to 38.5 gallons per capita.

Dr. Mariana Chilton � Principal Investigator, GROW Project/Witness to Hunger, Co-Principal Investigator, Children�s Health Watch, Drexel University School of Public Health Children�s Health Watch believes children�s health is turning to the worse. She noted that in Philadelphia, one in three people does not have enough money for food. She expects USDA to issue revised school meal nutrition standards based upon the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine by the end of the year and sees a need to develop a strategy to document the effectiveness of efforts to end childhood hunger by 2015.

Scott Faber � Vice President for Federal Affairs, Grocer Manufacturers Association stated that GMA believes that more resources are needed in the program to enable the purchase of food choices meeting more stringent nutrition sources, and that there should be standards for all foods sold to students in schools. He pointed out that 10,000 product changes have been made in recent years to reduce calories, fats, sugars and sodium.

Zo� Neuberger � Senior Policy Analyst, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

The Center supports the Hunger Free Schools Act, introduced by Congressman David Loebsack of Iowa to provide school-wide eligibility for school meal programs. When schools are in areas of high poverty, it does not make sense to spend money processing applications to find a small number of students as not eligible for a program. The Center believes that if the legislation is adopted 10,000 schools could qualify if 40 percent or more of the school�s students were directly certified as eligible for the program.

Congressman Farr commented that The Child Nutrition Program is #3 in terms of paperwork, with the IRS being number one and said �bureaucratic barriers� are 60% of their costs and asked Under Secretary Concannon What can be done to reduce these barriers who responded that USDA wants to simplify the program, and is using resources Congress provided to increase the use of direct certification.

Congressman Bishop stated that The School Nutrition Program was one of his best experiences growing up. He agrees with Dr. Brownell that changes in lifestyle have contributed to nutrition problems and saluted the American Beverage Association for its cooperation with the First Lady. He is not sure that the idea of the beverage tax suggested by Dr. Brownell is a good idea though.

Chairwomen DeLauro asked if the Grocery Manufacturers support standards for competitive foods? And Mr. Farber responded they will noting that the industry has done several things to improve operations that should be considered, has changed advertising and reformulated products to meet the Dietary Guidelines.

Child nutrition is certain to be discussed much more in future hearings and there will be much more activity in Congress on this front that will affect not only children but the food industry as well.

Be sure to check out the Food Institute at www.foodinstitute.com which will be monitoring developments each day in its daily newsletter, Today In Food, and each week The Food Institute Report.

TREVOR SARGENT

The best and most honorable minister in the Dail, and he's just gone and resigned hasn't he!

(pic (C) Green party: of Trevor Sargent and Vandana Shiva)

(as an aside, according to an article by Fintan O Toole in November 2009: in one year as Minister for Justice, Maire Geoghegan Quinn achieved the grand total of 2283 successful mitigations of punishments imposed by the courts. Technically legal then, this was nonetheless morally questionable:

From the piece:

In 1993, in one of the most extraordinary episodes in Irish judicial history, district justice Patrick Brennan, recently retired after long service on the bench in Mayo, felt impelled to take Maire Geoghegan-Quinn to court because she had set aside or changed so many of the sentences he had handed down....Judge Brennan maintained that ... Maire Geoghegan- Quinn was �wrongfully interfering with his judicial decisions and has been herself purporting to administer justice by a kind of parallel system which for all practical purposes provides an alternative to an appeal to the Circuit Court . . . the Constitution never envisaged two systems of justice, one a system of private justice and the other a system of public justice�.

Now she's the pro GM EU Commissioner. And he goes and resigns for tryong to protect a constituent who felt threatened.)

Hoist by his own petard of integrity. Still, I'm sure he'll rise again. See his gardening blog here

Here's a feature I had on him in the Irish examiner recently:

Trevor Sargent's resignation as Minister with responsibility for organic farming means that the organic sector has lost out significantly.

Sargent has been innovative, hard working, committed, supportive and very capable. Whoever replaces him � presuming all the Department's junior ministries stay the same - will have big boots to fill.

From the get go, as a Minister he has achieved for the organic sector: the recent reintroduction of the Organic Farming Scheme and the Grant Aid for the Organic Sector at the previous rates of pay and support was in fact on of the biggest.

This, in times of recession and curtbacks, was literally incredible: under a different Minister, it is highly unlikely that such supports would have been maintained.

He also got the place of organic farming in the Programme for Government strengthened in its recent rewriting.

In general, creating the target of 5% utilisable land area as organic has given both the organic sector and the Department a real focus for organic farmings' growth.

It justified maintaining supports and increasing them where possible: a very worthwhile Organic Action Plan with specific measurable targets was introduced.

Under his Ministry, the following and indeed more occurred: The organic farm walks increased in numbers and professionalism, as did the general availability of research and training; public procurement of organic food was initiated; organic milk quota was freed up; new markets in Continental Europe were accessed, particularity through his and companies attendance at BioFach, the world's largest organic trade show; the organic farming rules were modified to allow partial farm area conversion, primarily to develop the amount of tillage available; Organics with Altitude has been supported for hill farmers considering organics (which I am involved in); the National Organic Awards were introduced.

Organics grew both in numbers producing and in volume produced: this has continued right up to his resignation.

Outside of these sorts of achievements, there was also stylistic innovations: A novel, ground breaking act by Trevor Sargent was his decision to write to every framer in Ireland about the opportunities organic farming held.

In this simple act, he bypassed the traditional power structures at play in farming - both the organisations and media - and spoke directly to farmers. And at lease some farmers responded, as the farm walks had far higher attendances following this letter.

At times, it has seemed that the problem lay with the organic sector itself: here they had a person who believed in, understood and could achieve for organics. And yet, too often, the sector has sat on its hands or mumbled under its breath: sadly, the sector has to a significant extent failed to grasp this opportunity.

At times, it has been puzzling as to whether major players in organics have actually wanted 5% of utilizable land area to be converted to organic. It is a challenging target no doubt, but it is both achievable and more especially worth aiming for.

While in an ideal world, he would have legally compelled errant local authorities to change their behaviour towards farmers' markets, the introduction of a best practice scheme is a definite step up from the previous situation.

From speaking to various political insiders, I know that both his work rate and approachability were quite unique.

It is surely a glitch in the political system that someone performing so well in such a detailed and complex area should feel compelled to resign over something so small. If only there was some kind of yellow card or penalty points system instead.

However, I have a feeling that whatever Trevor Sargent turns his hand to after this, he will achieve with it and for it.

Ecoeye

Quick One: See Ecoeye tomorrow at 7 pm on RTE 1, for a food special which also features some interview data with me.

(Its also available in ROI on the rte.ie website, under the live TV tab)

I haven't seen it yet, so have no idea how I'll come across, but we'll see!

Spring is here in Portland

One of my 'three little birds' that let me know it's time to get busy in the garden, 'wake up & live!' they sing. Our spring is early after a very mild winter. The perfect day to spend in the community garden, get things cleaned up and make a plan.


Check these roots--one of my leeks. I love to grow leeks because: they're scrumptious to cook with, and storage is not a problem, these have been in the ground all winter here. I dug them as needed. I planted them last spring. This one is huge, and I love it that these leeks have absorbed all that winter energy, survived those freezing rains and winds and come through even more strong and beautiful---now their nature becomes a part of us. That's some good eatin.

Look at the size of my oregano, jus now wakin up from a nice winter slumber. I fed and cultivated it today.

Wow, these chives have doubled in size since last fall. You can eat the flower buds and flowers too later.

Lookin down the bed---garlic is on the left, about 8" high, planted on time (for a change) last October. It'll be ready by June. You can see that I've added some amendments to the soil---I added my favorite chicken manure, a nice organic compost, and some lime.

Earth Hour

On Saturday, March 27th 2010 at 8:30 p.m. hundreds of millions of people around the world will turn off their lights for one hour, symbolically calling for action on climate change. Learn more by visiting www.myearthhour.org/home

Raw Food: Natasha, Veronica and Gaby

�A lot of women, when they see my chocolates, the first thing they thing is 'I'd love to, but I can't'. But really, its the sugar, the fat and the high temperature processing that does the damage. My chocolates don't have any of those elements�

So says Natasha Czopor�s of Natasha's Living Foods. In fact, once you take these elements out, and use raw cacao, chocolates nutritional benefits, such as flavonids magnesium and potassium, come to the fore.

Raw food may have an image puritan abstinence, but with a little effort, it can actually be about improving the flavour and fun of food.

More than anyone living in Ireland today, Natasha Czopor exemplifies this. Her business involes making a range of raw foods with natural and organic ingredients, including chocolates and confectionary. These chocolate treats include varieties like baby fig and sundried apricot, or hymalian crystal salt and black pepper. She also makes cakes, like the raw ganashe tart, and savouries such as raw vegetable and seed crackers.

Her stonybatter kitchen actually has no cookers: �It's all very clean and fresh � There is no moisture or smells in the air. So your clothes don�t smell of the kitchen at home. The only noise in the fridge and the dehydrators.�

The key to raw food is avoiding cooking temperatures over 42 degrees centigrade. Above this, proponents argue, food start to loose some of their natural and essential vitality, freshness and nutrition.

Soaking and sprouting are also important. �You germinate the seeds, by soaking them in filtered water. That way, you are tapping into the foods essential nature. Seeds want to be plants. They relase all their vitality through the sprouting process. So you work with the natural aspect of the food.�

She gives an example: �when I make my vegetable and seed cracker, all the cooking I do is soaking, blending and dehydrating. That makes the nutrients more available, as the gentle extracting of moisture allows the food to retain its goodness�

New research suggests that many cooking styles, including heating, pasteurisation, drying, smoking, frying and grilling, harm foods to some degree. According to research just published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, using less harsh cooking styles such as poaching, stewing, steaming or of course eating raw, may reduce inflammation and help boost the body�s natural defences.

There is something of a raw food revolution going on in Ireland at present. Once, all raw food information came from California, and seemed a million miles away from this cold, wet little island off the north west coast of Europe.

Now, along with Natasha Czopor, foodies like Veronica O' Reilly and Gaby Weiland are showing people how to go more raw. Both have very creative cookbooks published in Ireland, full of ingredients available here.

Veronica O Reilly's book is actually called Raw in a Cold Climate, and is full of wholesome recipes. While many require some soaking or sprouting, there are still quite short and easy to do.

Advacado, carragheen, honey or agarve, soaked seeds and nuts, and coconut milk seem to be the secret helpers to get taste and texture into many of the dishes.

Gaby Weiland's book is more an easy entry to raw, as it combines raw and cooked dishes, from flapjacks and smoothies to pickled cabbage and soups.

Interestingly, both work in places full of like minded and very organic foodies: O' Reilly in the Servants of Love, Wicklow, a Christian spiritual community in Wicklow, and Weiland in the Organic Centre in Leitrim.

I asked nutritionist Valarie Kelly about raw food. Quite supportive of the idea and practice, she pointed out that �raw fruits and vegetables do generally contain higher levels of vitamins that cooked varieties, with the exception of carotenes � cooking improves absorption of carotenes.�

While she claimed that �fat soluble vitamins are not as sensitive to heat�, she did recommend cooking approaches like steaming to help retain foods nutrients.

To end, here's one I featured some years back: the sexy bitches who like it raw. (more and newer vids at link btw) Oh Yea.