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“Most high school kids have trouble with education because it’s not relevant to them and their experiences and their lives,” Alison Diaz, founder and executive director of Environmental Charter High School, tells Organic Connections. “I think the main part of finding a school or creating a school is you want to develop and build schools that get kids interested in meaningful and authentic issues.
Web-only Features Archive
The Medical Profession and Agricultural Policy
A new website, Healthy Food Action (www.healthyfoodaction.org), seeks to bring medical professionals into the fight for a healthier food system—and several nutritional experts think it’s about time.
“We looked around and saw that the food system is really in quite a bit of trouble,” David Wallinga, MD, director of the Food and Health Program at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy—creators of the new website—told Organic Connections. “There are signs that it is falling apart, particularly in terms of its negative impact on the health of the American public. We identified a big disconnect between that fact and the fairly broad lack of awareness among health professionals about different aspects of the food system and what they could do to change it for the better. So we came up with Healthy Food Action as a partial way to start to address that disconnect.”
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The Gardenerd: Grow Your Own Organic
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Imagine a world in which industrial-chemical agriculture dominates the entire food system, from megafarm to market. Expediency and profits are the main driving force. Toxic chemicals along with genetic modifications that haven’t been tested for their long-term effects are employed. These industrial giants supply major food channels and have cultivated government support and subsidies. Advocates of healthy, sustainable farming face a steep uphill battle.
Body Toxins and Our Children
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Once in a great while, a video gets online and goes “viral” that contains so much truth that it cannot be ignored: 10 Americans is one such video. It is a live presentation given by Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, detailing the hundreds of toxins found by analyzing the blood of ten average Americans.
Supreme Cocktails—the Organic Way
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Much like gourmet cooking, fine cocktails can be a pleasurable adventure into incredible flavors. Just ask anyone who had “that one killer margarita” at a remote bar on a Mexican beach or a mojito in its native Havana, or talk to an old-timer who remembers the original highball served at an exclusive New York club. Now that flavor experience is being taken to a whole new level—with organic ingredients.
The Zero-Emission Hydrogen-Fueled Chevy
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It’s been said many times in the last decade: our reliance on fossil fuels must end. In pushing forward this goal, many vehicle manufacturers have marketed their offerings in alternative-fueled vehicles—most of them hybrids combining the use of battery power with traditional internal combustion for lowered use of gasoline. If we are to truly reach this goal, however, we must eliminate the use of fossil fuels altogether—and that is where future solutions such as the Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell SUV come into play.
Building an Organic Restaurant in the Big Apple
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What if you routinely came to a city you loved—say, New York—but couldn’t find healthy, tasty organic food you really liked at an affordable price? Most people would simply shrug in disappointment and say, “Oh, well.” Or, you could do as entrepreneur Alberto González did and just build your own restaurant.
Helping the Homeless Survive: the Organic Soup Kitchen
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It’s a topic that’s tough to think about: the homeless. There are those of us who do what we can for them—drop change in a bucket, spend a day serving food at a homeless shelter, or donate to a charity. Some dive in and do everything they can to help, and former publisher Anthony Carroccio not only decided to feed the homeless, he determined to do so in the healthiest way possible.
Urban Homestead: Local, Organic and in the City
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Dervaes Gardens sits practically on top of a Pasadena, California, freeway and is only blocks away from the famous Rose Bowl. Outside are all the trappings of twenty-first-century life: automobiles, satellite dishes, supermarkets, car washes, and stores carrying produce brought thousands of miles for the convenience of their customers. But inside, Jules Dervaes and his children have created what they call an Urban Homestead. Virtually every square inch of land they have available to them—a tenth of an acre in all—is utilized for growing their own food. In addition to the hundreds of varieties of fruits, vegetables, herbs and flowers, there is a beehive for honey, ducks and chickens for eggs, and goats for numerous purposes.
Going Mainstream with Locally Grown Food
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Most of us know where to find locally and sustainably grown food: at the local farmers’ market or a health food store. But much of the time, we have to go out of our way to get it. Wouldn’t life be a lot simpler if such products were available right at chain supermarkets, restaurants and our kids’ schools? Meet a remarkable individual named Melanie Cheng, who is well on her way to realizing such a vision for us all.
