Plate to Planet: Making the Connection Between Food and the Environment

Farm Sanctuary has a new project site called Plate to Planet, which teaches the environmental impact of our food choices, and how small steps we take can make a big difference. The site features facts, interviews with experts, and the video below narrated by Jason Schwartzmann.

New App - Chemical Cuisine

The Center for Science in the Public Interest has released a new app called Chemical Cuisine that allows consumers to make healthy food purchase decisions by searching and filtering through a list of food additives, their descriptions, and safety ratings. No smart phone? The same information is available at CSPI website here.

Wired - Google Recipe Search Cooks Up Next Gen of Search

By Ryan Singel
February 24, 2011

"Stepping into the kitchen now, Google introduced a recipe search engine Thursday that serves up dishes based not only on the ingredients you may have on hand, but the calories you want to consume and even how much time you have to cook..."

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/02/google-recipe-semantic/

New Website - Foodzie

According to its website, Foodzie is "an online marketplace where you can discover and buy food directly from small passionate food producers and growers."

Check out TakePart's post about this new foodie resource by clicking here, and sign up at Foodzie.com to receive their weekly newsletter that includes new food discoveries, deals, and stories about producers.

New Website - Foodily

As stated on its website, Foodily is "the world's largest recipes network, bringing together recipes from across the web so you can compare any recipe and find the ones your friends like."

A recipe search engine with a social media component, Foodily offers a creative and intuitive way to find new recipes and share them with your friends. The home page has a simple search box, like Google, and once you've entered a recipe search term you view the recipe results (all of which have full color images, ingredients, instructions, and recipe source) and and browse them side-by-side, like flipping a magazine. Using Facebook Connect, Foodily allows users to see what recipes their Facebook friends have "liked" and commented on.

Click here to check out Foodily.

Organic Egg Scorecard

The Cornucopia Institute has produced an Organic Egg Scorecard for conscientious consumers seeking to know more about an egg company's practices beyond its certification as organic. The scorecard rates organic egg companies on factors such as hens' outdoors access and farm size and gives them a score ranging from one egg to five eggs.

Check out the scorecard here, and read more about its criteria here.

Food & Water Watch - Factory Farm Map

"Food & Water Watch [has] unveiled the newest version of its pioneering Factory Farm Map that charts the concentration of factory farms across the country and the impacts these massive operations have on human health, communities, and the environment. The interactive map illustrates the geographic shift in where and how food is raised in the U.S. and allows anyone to quickly search for the highest concentration of animals by region, state and county." (Taken from Food & Water Watch Press Release)

The updated version of this impressive and valuable resource reveals that livestock on factory farms grew 20 percent in 5 years, among other shocking trends. I highly recommend checking out the map (you can view county-by-county breakdown of all livestock raised in the U.S.) as well as the website's collection of facts about how factory farming affects all of us. What I also like about this map is that it helps to expose and increase the transparency of an industry notorious for its secrecy and lack of disclosure to the public about its practices.

I've also added a widget from the Factory Farm Map website (see right-hand side of blog) that allows easy exploration of the map and displays a rotating assortment of factory farm facts.

Check out other announcements of the new map on Civil Eats and Grist.

TakePart - Buy Locally Grown Produce Online With Local Orbit

By Kate Hanley
November 29, 2010

"CSAs are great, but you can't choose what you want and if you're not around for that week's pickup, you're out of luck. Enter Local Orbit, a new Web-based business that connects local farmers with hungry consumers of all types—restaurants, schools, hospitals, and individuals (including those who want to pay with food stamps)."

Read more about Local Orbit here, or go straight to their website to find out more. As of now they only operate out of two "hubs," but they're looking for support from volunteers to start hubs all over the U.S.

New App - Fooducate

Fooducate was created by a team of parents, dietitians, and techies who want to help you make better choices when buying groceries.

Use this app when shopping at the supermarket:

1. Scan a product barcode (over 160,000+ products available now, and growing daily)
2. See what's really inside the product (such as excessive sugar, tricky trans fats, additives and preservatives, high fructose corn syrup, controversial food colorings, etc.)
3. Select healthier alternatives

Check out the Fooducate website for more information and to find out how to download this user-friendly and helpful app.

Understanding the Farm Bill: A Citizen's Guide to a Better System

A new Facebook page, created by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) and Simple, Good, and Tasty (SGT), serves as "an information exchange for people that want to better understand how to change food and agriculture policy."

"Like" this page on Facebook by clicking here.

Real Time Farms

The website Real Time Farms is a national online food guide that helps you understand where your food comes from. By entering your location on the home page, you can discover nearby farms, farmers markets, and locally-sourced restaurants in your area.

The site also encourages people to participate by sharing photos and information on their local farms and farmers markets to help them build the most transparent food guide available.

The mission of Real Time Farms is to excite and educate people about where their food comes from and to connect them to fresh, local sources of food.

This Dish Is Veg Social

"This Dish Is Veg has launched a new online social gathering place for people within the vegan, vegetarian, animal rights, and eco-friendly community.

From individuals who follow a plant-based diet to flexitarians practicing Meat-Free Mondays to those just interested in the lifestyle, everyone is welcome to participate at This Dish Is Veg Social.

The network is private, meaning only those signed in can access the member’s area. After setting up a free account, participants can add friends, write blogs, upload photos and videos, connect with others through groups and forums, and update status messages. For added security, members may set privacy settings to their liking." (Taken from This Dish Is Veg)

Click here to sign up - I just did!

Eating Green Calculator

The Center for Science in the Public Interest has a new site featuring an "Eating Green Calculator" - a clever resource for consumers along with a way to promote their book, Six Arguments for a Greener Diet. As described on Epicurious' blog, the Eating Green Calculator "lets you figure out the effect your diet has on the world and how making small changes - such as cutting down the amount of animal products you eat - reduces that impact. The calculator also gives you nutritional breakdowns for your food choices, highlighting the calories, grams of fat, and fiber in those foods."

After entering my food quantities into the calculator, I was given the following results for the environmental burden of the animal products I eat in a year: 0.1 acres of grain and grass needed for animal feed, 0.0 pounds of pesticides used to grow animal feed, 4.9 pounds of fertilizer used to grow animal feed, and 674 pounds of manure created by the animals I eat (and that's dairy alone!).

Check out the Eating Green Calculator here.

New USDA Website - Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack launched a new feature on the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food website, which he started last year "in order to create new economic opportunities, promote local and regional food systems that assist in keeping the local economy in business in rural communities, and to encourage a national conversation about what Americans eat and where it comes from in order to benefit consumers and producers of all sizes."

The website's new section, Ideas and Stories, "will provide real-world examples of people who work in the agricultural industry every day across the country."

See full article about the new site posted by Food Safety News here.

This new resource is important because it represents the government responding to the growing interest among consumers in knowing where our food comes from and in promoting local and regional food production. This is a good sign of more progress to come! You can receive updates about the site through Facebook, Twitter, or RSS feed.

Happy Cow - Vegetarian restaurants guide and directory of natural health food stores

As described on its website, "Happy Cow's Compassionate Eating Guide to Restaurants and Health Food Stores is a free worldwide guide created to assist travelers and people everywhere find vegetarian and healthy food options."

Check out Happy Cow.net when you're planning a trip, traveling, or looking to try a new local vegetarian restaurant. (As an example, I entered my zip code in Durham, North Carolina, and it came up with the following results: 3 "Vegetarian" restaurants, 13 "Veg-Friendly" restaurants, and 7 "Stores n' More."

New Blog - CNN's Eatocracy

A friend (thanks, Martha!) recently told me about a new blog on CNN.com called Eatocracy, self-described as "your online home for smart, passionate conversation and information about food news, politics, culture. This blog will "highlight regional and family recipes, dive into restaurants and food shopping, chat with celebrity and local chefs, and show you what's for dinner around the world tonight."

For more information, see the blog's introductory post here. And should you want to start reading Eatocracy regularly, subscribe through the RSS feed link in the upper right corner of the homepage.

Happy food reading!

Where Is My Milk From?

Wondering about the origins of your fridge's dairy products? Check out whereismymilkfrom.com and enter the code on your carton to find out the farm, town, and state your dairy product (milk, yogurt, buttermilk, etc.) comes from.

This kind of tool is a great way to facilitate conscious eating - the more you know about your food and where it comes from, the better choices you can make when selecting and buying it.

What the F*ck Should I Make for Dinner?

A friend (thanks, Lukas!) just told me about What the F*ck Should I Make for Dinner, a new recipe generator website that pulls its suggestions from either Epicurious (for non-vegetarian recipes) or Recipe.com (for meatless recipes), and is essentially, as described on the Huffington Post, Recipe Roulette.

Here's what happens when you enter the site:
1. A non-vegetarian dish is suggested. If you like the sound of it, click on it and you'll be taken to the full recipe on Epicurious.
2. If you don't like the suggested dish, click on "I don't fucking like that" and another suggestion will appear.
3. If you want a vegetarian dish, click on "I don't fucking eat meat," and a meatless suggestion will appear. If you like the sound of it, click on it and you'll be taken to the full recipe on Recipe.com.
4. And so on.

This is a great recipe resource for when boredom or indecision strike and you're not seeking anything specific to cook. The randomness is refreshing too, and will perhaps lead you to dishes / food combinations you'd never before heard of or considered.

Enjoy!

Food Safety News Article - USDA Updating Farmers Market Directory

By Michelle Greenhalgh 

Apr 22, 2010

On Monday the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) launched it's latest campaign to collect information about farmers markets for the 2010 National Farmers Market Directory.

The USDA's website allows consumers to find farmers markets in their area.

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2010/04/usda-to-update-2010-national-farmers-market-directory/

Epicurious - Spring Farm-to-Table Cooking and Eating

Check out this link at Epicurious.com to see when the best produce is available at your farmers' market with their interactive ingredient map; discover fresh recipes for peas, strawberries, and artichokes; grow a spring garden; and get to know food heroes Michael Pollan and Alice Waters.

http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/seasonalcooking/farmtotable/farmtotable?mbid=RF