Eating Organic and cooking Green.

I’ve posted a few times about loving my trips to the grocery store. It feels great to be buying organic and healthy food and green products and that you’re doing your part for the environment and keeping your body healthy. However, buying the right food is only part of it in terms of eating healthy; a lot depends on how and on what you cook it. There was an article on Yahoo News last week that talked about various cooking surfaces and the hidden dangers. I’ve tried and tried, but I cannot find the link. So using the vast resources of the Internet, I found –>this great article about the subject. You can bet that all of our teflon pans are going to disappear quick! I’m even considering replacing our stainless steel. Although this particular article was somewhat approving of stainless steel, the article on Yahoo I referenced earlier was not so complimentary. The doctor that wrote that article expressed concern about the metal eventually leaching into your food even from stainless steel. Both articles highly recommend porcelain and cast iron cookware.

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Here’s a quick tidbit I picked up from Green Living by the E/The Environmental Magazine: Want to know if your buying something that’s been genetically engineered? Just check the bar code. If it’s been genetically engineered, the code will begin with an “8″. If it’s organic, it will begin with a “9″ and if it’s conventionally grown, it will begin with a “4″.

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Whole Foods is debuting its first ever –>online weekly cooking show! Here’s the release:

Whole Foods Debuts Weekly Online Cooking Show
MAY 11, 2007 — Natural and organic grocer Whole Foods Market has launched “Secret Ingredient,” its first-ever weekly online cooking show and resource for home cooks looking for helpful tips and easy recipe ideas, reports Progressive Grocer.

Shoppers can access a new episode of the video podcast every Monday on Whole Foods’ Web site, www.wholefoodsmarket.com/secretingredient, as well as on iTunes and YouTube.

“Secret Ingredient” highlights foods exclusively carried by Whole Foods or that meet the retailer’s strict quality standards. Featured items will include the world’s first nitrate-free prosciutto, award-winning aged Balsamic vinegar, fresh artisan-made goat cheese, and hand-selected Parmigiano Reggiano.

“We hope to deliver inspiration,” said “Secret Ingredient” host Scott Simons, who also works as Whole Foods’ associate marketing director for the Southwest region, in a statement. “Because we focus on only one ingredient per episode, viewers really get to know the featured item and take away practical cooking tips and recipes. Top that off with easy yet tasty meal solutions, and ‘Secret Ingredient’ is a home cook’s treasure.”

The inaugural episode spotlights antibiotic-free farm-raised catfish, which Simons uses to prepare Thai-inspired fish tacos.

The video podcast is filmed in high definition at Whole Foods stores and the retailer’s culinary centers across the United States. All episodes will be archived so consumers can view them anytime.

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Other Blogs

From Crank and Pedal, –>a great post about reducing your carbon footprint by riding your bike. Very appropriate post during Bike to Work week. Cycling is not only good exercise, but part of a green lifestyle.

Speaking of good exercise, came across –>this post about yoga in Jane’s Here’s to Life! blog. According to an article in Yoga Journal, yoga is a pretty complete form of exercise, building not only flexibility, but also strength, cardiovascular fitness and helping with reducing unwanted body weight. Pretty good endorsement for including yoga in your workout regimen.

That’s all I got today. Peace!

Yoga, bikes, and blogs…

For you yoga fans out there, I found this great site through an ad in Yoga Journal: –>Yoga Today. Everyday the site hosts an hour-long yoga video for FREE! They also have some back episodes for download. I tried one last night and found them to be of excellent quality and you can download in various formats including HD WMV. Free is good!

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May is Bike to Work Month, next week is Bike to Work Week, and Friday, May 18 is Bike to Work Day. I ride my bike everywhere, except to work. Why? Well probably because I only live a few minutes from where I work. But I figure that’s all the more reason I should stay out of my car and make the quick bike ride to work. So today, I rode in for the first time. It takes a little bit of planning; I have to get up earlier, leave earlier, take clothes in the day before, take some toiletries, etc. But the payoff is worth it. I don’t sit in traffic, I get some exercise, I get to ride in the beautiful Southern California sun (sunny and 75 deg at 8am!), and best of all, my car is in the driveway. –>Read up here.

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From around the blogworld:

Panda Dan’s –>blog entry today included a nice little list of –>Top Ten tips for lazy environmentalists. Careful when you click over! Looks like Bert has been a bad influence on the other Muppets…

Green As A Thistle.com’s post today has a great tip, –>the green hangover cure. Some of us can use this information once in while, right?!

Geoff –>posts on his The Way We Live blog about Google’s new eco-search engine Blackle. Apparently viewing Google’s homepage (which gets over 200 million hits a day) with a black background instead of the traditional white background saves a bit energy. Add up all those visits and now you’ve got substantial amount. What’s truly amazing is that Google did this apparently in response to a blog entry – ahh, the power of the written word, or is that the typed word

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Don’t forget: ride your bike to work!

Weekend is here = good reggae!

It’s Friday and I’ve got the weekend on the brain. After a long work week, it will be nice to spend the time listening to some good reggae. With that in mind, found a couple of posts by fellow bloggers worth sharing:

Mg –>wrote in his blog about Bob Marley’s –>”Slave Driver” from the Catch a Fire album, saying it “speaks profound truths about past and present oppression, of far-reaching societal machinations that hold people down and the power it takes to combat and resist those forces.”

Well said! This has long been my favorite Marley song of all-time (and you fans know how hard it is pick just one)! The first time I heard it, I said to myself, this man is worth listening to because he has something to say. I recommend the version found on –>Catch a Fire Deluxe Edition album. Stripped of all post-production embellishments added by the record label, you get the raw, unadulterated recording as laid down by the Wailers in Jamaica. I also highly recommend the version of “Concrete Jungle” found on this album.

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Here’s a classic Steel Pulse clip from YouTube performing “Babylon Makes the Rules”, found in this blog –>MixMasterE.

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Lately I’ve been very concerned about how green my employer is or isn’t. Luckily, I am closely involved in promoting green policies within my company and actually moving us in that direction. Our company has some very exciting things looming that is going to make sure that we are not only at industry standard for good green practices, but way above. I’ve been doing some research into what some other companies have doing in this arena, and obviously there has been a lot of media interest in this as well lately. Apple, has received some –>recent coverage (–>more here) for –>their green approach. Marc Gunther, a writer for Fortune Magazine, has published a book called Faith and Fortune, a look at how some of America’s biggest corporations are actually changing for the better. He profiles some well known companies such as UPS, Southwest Airlines, HP, and Starbucks, and shows how they are not only engaging in socially responsible practices towards the environment, but towards employees and customers as well.

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From the Ideal Bite newsletter, a green minded auto insurance company: Better World Club Insurance. Get a policy with them, and they’ll offset the first ton your auto’s carbon emissions for free! Oh yeah, and for us cyclists, they offer free roadside bicycle assistance. Sweet!

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Besides good reggae music, I hope to get some good trail riding in this weekend. Any MTB’ers out there in blog world? I love the feeling of being out in nature with my bike free from my car, my job, and well, just about everything else. That freedom is hard to come by these days, so I’ll take a couple hours of it any day. Hopefully I’ll get some good pics here and there to post on the blog.

Enjoy the weekend!