Food/Gardening
Oldways' Mission
Oldways is the widely-respected non-profit "food issues think tank" credited with successfully translating the complex details of nutrition science into the familiar language of food. It is best known for developing consumer-friendly health-promotion tools, including the well-known Mediterranean Diet Pyramid.
Oldways also creates and organizes a wide variety of other educational activities, conferences and materials about healthy eating, drinking, lifestyle and the traditional pleasures of the table. Its educational programs are for consumers, scientists, the food industry, health professionals, chefs, journalists and policy makers.
Oldways initiatives include: The Whole Grains Council; The Latino Nutrition Coalition; The Med Mark Mediterranean Alliance Program; and The Managing Sweetness Program, among others. In 2007 Oldways published The Oldways Table, Essays & Recipes From the Culinary Think Tank, by K. Dun Gifford & Sara Baer-Sinnott with contributions from around the food world.
Seafood Watch Pocket Guide
Urban areas consume natural resources at astounding rates and in the near future 70% of the world's population will live in cities. To help save the planet from climate change and the arrival of Peak Oil, it is important that we begin turning to more sustainable ways of living.
Experimenting, innovating, and implementing ways to live more sustainably specifically in the cities and suburbs is paramount to preserving our culture for the generations to come. Garden Girl TV isn't just about gardening. My videos span the wide range of 21st Century modern homemaking, including cooking, arts and crafts, alternative energy, pet care, and aquaculture.
Transition Farming to go with Transition Towns
The only way to avert a food crisis resulting from oil and natural gas price hikes and supply disruptions while also reversing agriculture’s contribution to climate change is to proactively and methodically remove fossil fuels from the food system.
The removal of fossil fuels from the food system is inevitable: maintenance of the current system is simply not an option over the long term. Only the amount of time available for the transition process, and the strategies for pursuing it, can be matters for controversy.
In 1989, Seeds of Change began with a simple mission: to preserve biodiversity and promote sustainable, organic agriculture. By cultivating and disseminating an extensive range of organically grown vegetable, flower, herb and cover crop seeds, we have honored that mission for 20 years.
We offer home gardeners and professional growers the highest quality seed varieties, combining superior agronomic traits with beauty, flavor and nutrition. With the relentless consolidation within the agriculture industry, declining natural resources, and the industry's focus on crop yield and handling characteristics over food quality, our mission resonates more than ever. Our organic seeds represent a starting point for change. They epitomize the best of our genetic heritage and are well-adapted for the low-input, sustainable gardening and farming of the future.
Organic Vegetable, Flower Herb and Cover Crop Seeds, including Heirloom Varieties
Financial advisors tell us wise planning involves making decisions today that are oriented to our future needs. The same applies to decisions about the natural capital—like air, water, soil, plants and animals-- we hold in trust for future generations.
A good example of planning oriented to the future can be found in the Canadian province where David Suzuki lives: British Columbia.
In the early 1970s, British Columbia designated good quality farmland in the province as an “Agricultural Lands Reserve” (ALR). The reserve is essential because once developed, agricultural land can never be fully recovered or restored.
In recent years however, decisions in the province have led to significant losses in productive agricultural land where it matters most--near the major population centres, which is where most of the productive farmland is located. Alterations to the ALR have been geographically lopsided: 90 per cent of additions were placed in the north, while 72 per cent of the land lost is from the more fertile southern part of the province. In 2006, the David Suzuki Foundation released “Forever Farmland”, which closely examined the state of the Agricultural Land Reserve at a critical time in its history. The land reserve provides a variety of services to British Columbians, including food security - fresh produce is located in close proximity to large communities - as well as many important economic opportunities. |
Home/Personal
Ecosystems everywhere are under the siege of a careless or apathetic human population. It need not be that way. Each one of us can make simple changes in how we live towards a more sustainable relationship with our environment. The key to reducing the assault on the earth's fragile ecosystems is to decrease our demand for resources. Clean air and water, forests and other wild landscapes are not infinite. By driving less, making less trash, eating lower on the food chain, and being responsible earth citizens in other ways, we become less burdensome to the environment.
On the other hand, by nurturing the environment we actually become positive forces for creation. I would like to share some simple, concrete tips my family and I have discovered to live lightly on the earth.
Tips for preparing for living without access to supplies in the coming years.