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Airport sleeping compartments (or micro-hotels) are nothing new, but the designers of Dream and Fly have taken the environmentally friendly concept to a whole new level of cool. According to their website: “Inspired by the nature of a womb, this space aims to transmit a feeling of protection in contrast to the movement and agitation of the outside world.” Dreamy.
FOOD INC: As the saying goes, you are what you eat… and this film is an alarming journey of self-discovery. Food, Inc. reveals surprising and often shocking truths about what we eat and the mega-corporations that produce it.
John Hantz, of the financial services firm Hantz Group, hopes to rejuvenate the city of Detroit by creating the world’s largest urban farm. Hantz Farms – owned, operated and staffed by residents of Detroit – could provide the city with “hundreds of “green” jobs and a generous supply of fresh, local, safe produce for local families and the region in general.” You can read about the project in more detail at hantzfarmsdetroit.
If you’re looking for a truly original and locally produced gift, skip the mall and hit the farmer’s market. Thousands of farmers markets across the U.S. continue to operate through the holiday season (even in cold country). Not only will you find all kinds of great foods for your holiday meals, you’ll likely find all kinds of great locally-produced gifts like soy candles and fresh seasonal wreathes. To find a farmers market near you, check here.
Last year, What if: Projects – a art and architecture group in the U.K. – provided inner-city residents with a half-ton bag of soil each on a vacant lot in Hoxton, east London. The “plots of land” were used to grow cucumbers, onions, carrots, herbs, and wild flowers. One resident grew 200 lettuces after paying about $12. Read the rest of the story at metro.co.uk.
This Friday’s Focus is FOOD. Nine delectable posts. And not coincidentally, you can purchase a copy of Food Inc. at your favorite purveyor of DVDs. If that happens to be Amazon, click: www.amazon.com.
This is Joel’s second appearance on greenlandoceanblue (some of you may have missed his debut in July). In any case, take a minute or so and watch it.
If you don’t have the time, take a half a minute or so and read Polyface Farms’ Guiding Principles:
TRANSPARENCY: Anyone is welcome to visit the farm anytime. No trade secrets, no locked doors, every corner is camera-accessible.
GRASS-BASED: Pastured livestock and poultry, moved frequently to new “salad bars,” offer landscape healing and nutritional superiority.
INDIVIDUALITY: Plants and animals should be provided a habitat that allows them to express their physiological distinctiveness. Respecting and honoring the pigness of the pig is a foundation for societal health.
COMMUNITY: We do not ship food. We should all seek food closer to home, in our foodshed, our own bioregion. This means enjoying seasonality and reacquainting ourselves with our home kitchens.
NATURE’S TEMPLATE: Mimicking natural patterns on a commercial domestic scale insures moral and ethical boundaries to human cleverness. Cows are herbivores, not omnivores; that is why we’ve never fed them dead cows like the United States Department of Agriculture encouraged (the alleged cause of mad cows).
EARTHWORMS: We’re really in the earthworm enhancement business. Stimulating soil biota is our first priority. Soil health creates healthy food.
Please pay a visit to polyfacefarms.com.
In the not-too-distant future, “vertical farms, many stories high, will be situated in the heart of the world’s urban centers. If successfully implemented, they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming.”
Some of the advantages of vertical farming:
* Year-round crop production
* 1 indoor acre is equivalent to 4-6 outdoor acres or more, depending upon the crop (e.g., strawberries: 1 indoor acre = 30 outdoor acres)
* No weather-related crop failures due to droughts, floods, pests
* All VF food is grown organically: no herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers
* VF virtually eliminates agricultural runoff by recycling black water
* VF returns farmland to nature, restoring ecosystem functions and services
Hat Tip & More Info: verticalfarm.com/
If you’re in or near Washington, D.C. on October 17th and 18th, the White House invites you to visit Michelle Obama’s Kitchen Garden where carrots, peas, beans, lettuce, and other vegetables are harvested for the First Family’s meals and formal dinners. The tour is free but you’ll need tickets (they’ll be handed out on a first-come, first served basis starting at 8 a.m. each day at the Ellipse Visitor Pavilion at 15th & E Streets). For more information, click travel.latimes.com.
The Bountiful Backyards’ team includes designers, landscapers, artisans, philosophers and educators who create “beautiful, diverse and sustainable edible landscapes for schools, communities, congregations and homeowners.” Among the services they offer: “Unique designs tailored to your needs and resources, from small organic vegetable gardens to food forests and “installation of designs using environmentally regenerative, and as-local-as-possible plants and materials.” They also offer consultancy packages (by the hour) for do-it-yourselfers.
TRUCK FARM is a Wicked Delicate film + food project. Combining green roof technology, organic compost + heirloom seeds, we are creating a living story about growing a little food in a big city. Each “episode” is a partial excerpt of a larger film project, slated for completion in fall 2009. Visit www.wickedelicate.com to learn more, and stay tuned!
Shopper’s note: the sticker labels (produce codes) on the fruits actually tell whether they were organically grown or conventionally grown with pesticides and herbicides or are genetically engineered.
* Conventional Fruit Labels: Four digits, mostly starting with the number 4
* Organic Fruit Labels: Five digits and start with the number 9
* Genetically Modified Fruits: Start with the number 8
In short, the label 4922 tells you an apple has been grown with herbicides and harmful fertilizers. If it has a sticker 99222, it’s organic and safe to eat. If it says 89222, it could be an alien.
NAMASTE: skrewtips.com
Joel Salatin’s Polyface, Inc. is “a family owned, multi-generational, pasture-based, beyond organic, local-market farm and informational outreach in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. “We are in the redemption business: healing the land, healing the food, healing the economy, and healing the culture. Writing, speaking, and farm tours offer various message venues.”
Joel plays a major part in Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma and can be seen in the documentary, Food, Inc.
Slow Food is a non-profit, eco-gastronomic member-supported organization that was founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world. The group seeks to protect our food heritage through projects supported by the Slow Food Foundation.
Visit Slow Food at slowfood.com.
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- Chipotle Mexican Grill embraces anti-fast food film (dailyfinance.com)
“Forget buckets of blood. Nothing says horror like one of those tubs of artificially buttered, nonorganic popcorn at the concession stand. That, at least, is one of the unappetizing lessons to draw from one of the scariest movies of the year, Food, Inc., an informative, often infuriating activist documentary about the big business of feeding or, more to the political point, force-feeding, Americans all the junk that multinational corporate money can buy.” Read the entire review at movies.nytimes.com. Then see the film (skip the popcorn).
Ben Flanner, who quit a desk job at an online stock trading company to grow food full time this spring, has joined with fellow farmer, Annie Novak, and turned the roof of an old industrial building in Greenpoint, Brooklyn into a thriving 6,000-square-foot farm. “A lot of people doubt it when they hear about it, and they come up and they’re like, ‘Oh, my God,’ ” says Flanner, 28, who is also known as Ben the Farmer. Flanner and Novak have already started selling kale, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, radishes, peas, and herbs to local restaurants and hope to start selling at local farmers’ markets as well. For more information visit brooklynfoodconference.
Namaste: nydailynews
Organic agricultural production benefits the environment by using earth-friendly agricultural methods and practices. And Hammy “proves” organic tastes better, too.
$50M Funding For Farmers To Go Organic! (friendseat.com)
