* It turns out cows hate the heat; and as we know, our planet is getting hotter. To read more about how climate change is affecting cows, and what farmers are trying to do about it, go to LancasterOnline.com: Comfy Cows, as temperatures rise, Lancaster Country farmers employ bovine cooling
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350 or bust: The Link Between Good Food & Good Health
It’s TED Talk Thursday on 350orbust, and I’m reposting this talk from TEDx Austin 2011. I’m presenting about GMO/GE foods at a regional diabetes conference this week, and as part of my preparation I listened to Ms. O’Brien’s talk again. Her journey from Wall Street executive to food activist is
Continue reading350 or bust: Deconstructing Our Dinner: What’s Wrong With Our Food System
For today’s TED Talk Tuesday, a home-schooled 11 year old deconstructs what’s wrong with our current food system:
Continue reading350 or bust: Start A Garden, Change The World
Hope you are enjoying a relaxing long weekend Friday, as we are. One of the topics that has come up while we relax and sip our morning tea is the plans for our garden this summer. Besides just talking about it, my husband, also spent time this morning tending to
Continue reading350 or bust: Listening to Nature’s Operating Instructions: Chef Dan Barber
For TED Talk Tuesday on 350orbust, Chef Dan Barber tells an eloquent and surprising parable of foie gras. “The most ecological choice for food is also the most ethical choice for food whether we’re talking about brussel sprouts or foie gras…
Continue reading350 or bust: Smart, Regional Food Production The Answer To Global Food Crisis
It’s TED Talk Tuesday on 350orbust. Louise Fresco is a former UN director, a contributor to think tanks and an advisor to academies in Europe and the United States. The TED website describes her this way: A powerful thinker and globe-trotting adv…
Continue reading350 or bust: It’s All About Food – and Zombies
Okay, maybe we don’t need to worry about zombies but we should certainly consider future food shortages, not to mention the pesticide-laced food and genetically modified food (GMO) we are already exposed to on every trip to the grocery store. Today is World Food Day, and while I write this I’ve
Continue reading350 or bust: Seeds of Life, Not Genetically Modified Organisms
It’s TED talk Tuesday on 350orbust. Here’s Winona LaDuke, whom I had the good fortune to meet recently, speaking about our broken food system from a First Nations perspective: * Winona is an internationally renowned activist working on issues of sustainable development, renewable energy and food systems. She lives and
Continue reading350 or bust: Really Cool Old Squash and Writing Festivals
I still haven’t had a chance to catch my breath since returning home from our trip to Newfoundland last week, having jumped with both feet into the Turtle Island Writing Festival the afternoon of our arrival, including hosting one of the distinguished authors. Today I once again hit the road,
Continue reading350 or bust: Incredible Edible Movement: If You Eat, You’re In
It’s TED Talk Tuesday on 350orbust. Here’s Pam Warhurst from Todmorden, U.K, sharing about the revolution in local food growing that she and the rest of her volunteer community association started three years ago. Very inspiring! What should a community do with its unused land? Plant food, of course. With
Continue reading350 or bust: Northern Gardening Reflections: A Mouthful Of Rainbow
Summer gardening season is in full swing. It’s time for fresh corn on the cob, cucumbers, tomatoes, and of course the ubiquitous zucchini squash to be on our supper tables. You’ve heard the old joke appropriate for this time of year – if people in town start locking their car
Continue reading350 or bust: We Are The Solution As Well As The Problem
This podcast features Joel Salatin, interviewed by Chris Martenson from Peak Prosperity.com. Salatin rejects the idea that all human involvement in shaping the landscape is bad; in this interview he discusses how humans can improve the environment through “ecological participation”. I always feel better, and more optimistic, after listening to/reading
Continue reading350 or bust: Transformation
What are you making for supper on this Meatless Monday? Right now we have an abundance of swiss chard, although our other greens have been slow to come in. I substituted chard for kale in this family-favourite salad yesterday, and it was deemed acceptable by the more discerning (aka “picky”)
Continue reading350 or bust: Vandana Shiva: A “Dinosaur” Mentality Guides The Planet Right Now
One of the best interviewers on television, Bill Moyers, speaks to one of the global sustainability movement’s “superstars”, physicist and food activist Vandana Shiva. The discussion is wide-ranging but centers around genetically modified seeds/foods and the fight against corporate agro-giant Monsanto: These seeds — considered “intellectual property” by the big
Continue reading350 or bust: A Radical Monday Morning
Today is the first cool and rainy day in quite a while, so I’ll be spending the morning the way other “radicals” the world over are, in the kitchen and the garden reclaiming democracy and occupying the food supply. I’ll be cooking up strawberry & rhubarb jam with organic local
Continue reading350 or bust: Meatless Monday Thoughts: The Stinky Circle of Life
One of the problems in our industrialized, heavily urbanized North American society is the huge disconnect between our food system, and the cycle of life and death that nearly every other generation of humans in the history of our planet has known intimately. As I sit here at my computer
Continue reading350 or bust: The Climate Crisis: It’s Time To Take Back The Land
Dr. Vandana Shiva – physicist, ecologist, activist, author, and founder of Navdanya (a movement for biodiversity conservation) on the most important work of our times: * VandanaShiva.org
Continue reading350 or bust: Growing Food, And Other Radical Acts
* It’s time for a tour of my garden, as promised. I should preface this by saying there’s a reason that I’m attracted to the randomness/wildness of the “hugel kultur” raised bed garden. (“Hugel” means hill in German – thanks Mom Polle – so saying hugel kultur – pronounced “hoogel
Continue reading350 or bust: The Response To Food Dictatorship: Occupy Our Food System
* VandanaShiva.org: Global Visionary Solutions For A Secure & Sustainable Energy And Food Future Dirt! The Movie
Continue reading350 or bust: Are You Hungry For Change?
Yesterday, I asked the question: what if our dysfunctional relationship to food is connected to the dysfunctional relationship we have with our ecosystem? Can we really properly care for our planet if we aren’t able to care for our own bodies? If we are making choices that contaminant our bodies,
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