What Do You Know About Your Food? – The Answers

At least three times a day (if not more), we make decisions about the food we eat, but even if you try to eat healthily what do you really know about your food?

Guide to Healthy, Green Grilling

About 76 to 80 million cases of foodborne illnesses occur in the US annually, most as a result of eating contaminated meat. But this summer, there’s no need to char your burgers into briquettes for fear of bacteria. Learn where animals came from and what they were fed, avoiding those that have been packed in disease-promoting factory farms and feedlots or contaminated with mercury or PCBs from polluted waterways. Whether you prefer fish, flesh or fowl for your firepit, you can avoid hazards if you follow these simple shopping and food handling steps.

Cap and Trade What?

By Wendy Gordon

When the conversation turns to cap and trade, is your first thought: “Oh, that will never work, it’s too complicated?” It’s true, it can be harder to get one’s arms around than a gas tax or even a carbon tax—who doesn’t get taxes, right?—but cap and trade is a familiar, and an effective, means by which to reduce pollution among regulators and industry.

Getting Good, Local Food on the iPhone

By Paul McRandle

When I decided to join the 21st century and picked up a new iPhone, the lure of the iApp topped my list of reasons (if not excuses) to make the purchase. And among the heap available free or for little money, I was intrigued by those dealing with food—how to find local foods, what’s in my food and what it’s all going to cost. With maps and a compass on the 3GS phones, I got to wondering if I could track down raw milk, find stands of unpicked wild mushrooms, scan bar codes for environmental details or at least locate the nearest the farmers market. Not quite, but there are some interesting options available.

Fresh, Local Tomatoes All Year Long

By Wendy Gordon

“Once you’ve tried fresh tomatoes, you’ll never go back,” Bing Wright tells me. A neighbor in the Catskill Mountains, where frost in May and September is not unusual, Bing grows tomatoes by the bushel in a 20-by-30-foot vegetable patch. From that small garden, he can harvest and put aside enough tomatoes to enjoy all year long.

How to Control Fleas Without Chemicals

Flea and tick treatments may contain toxic chemicals that can poison pets and harm people. Even when applied as instructed on the box, these chemicals are not safe, either for pets or humans.

Avoid toxic chemicals by taking care of your pet. Regular combing, bathing and vacuuming can reduce and control fleas. When chemical control is necessary, choose a safer treatment and avoid the most toxic chemicals. All pesticides should be used with caution and in consultation with a veterinarian. Ask you vet about one of the products or treatments marked with a yellow paw in our Guide to Safe Pets.

Food, Inc. Film Review: Are We Ready to Fight for a Safe Burger?

By Paul McRandle

With Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser introduced us to the unsettling fact that our hamburgers are composed of the meat from hundreds of cows and with The Omnivore’s Dilemma Michael Pollan walked us through the brief life of a single cow ending up at the feedlot and slaughterhouse. To these works is now added a documentary, Food, Inc., which opens today in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Working with producer-director Robert Kenner, the dietetic duo outlines the entirety of the agro-industrial complex that controls our food production from the genes of the seeds to the labeling of finished product. The film starts with facts you will have heard before if you’ve read Schlosser and Pollan, but it quickly passes on to the stories of individuals.

Second Life for Stadium Seats: Aluminum Foil

By Wendy Gordon

Wondering where all the seats at Yankee stadium went after the demolition? Into aluminum foil, quite possibly! While it seems like something they could have done years ago, given all the cans we recycle, Reynolds Wrap has just introduced a foil made from 100-percent-recycled aluminum they derived from post-consumer sources such as stadium seats, automobile components, cookware, gutters and siding, and post-industrial supplies such as scraps from industrial cable.

Image courtesy of Apple

By Ashlee Bradbury and Paul McRandle

TVs have been focus of American living rooms for fity years, but with Hulu, You Tube and other online sources bringing programing to our ever larger computer screens, is it time to bid the TV farewell? And is their any environmental benefit hanging in the balance? To narrow the question, we took a look at LED monitors and LCD television screens to see which is smarter and greener.

Phthalates May Harm Newborn Girls' Mental Development

By Paul McRandle

In the first study of its kind, researchers at Mount Sinai Children’s Medical Health Center have found that newborn girls whose mothers have high levels of phthalates contained in plastics show markedly lower levels of attention and alertness than newborn boys of similar mothers. Phthalates of different types are used consumer products ranging from fragrances to vinyl flooring. The varieties associated with neurological effects in this study are commonly used to make plastics more pliable and often appear in medical tubing, food containers, wall coverings and flooring. Among the most widespread of these phthalates is di (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) and it, along with two other varieties, were permanently banned by Congress from their use children’s toys and child care articles in August 2008. All toys containing those phthalates were to be removed from shelves by February 10, 2009.

World Oceans Day: Watch Out for Beach Runoff

By Paul McRandle

June 8 is World Oceans Day (so declared by the United Nations) and with the warm days here again you might take the chance to play hooky and go for a swim with the kids. But before you bodysurf on the swells, you'll want to be sure you and your family leave as healthy as you entered.

Oceans of Plastic

By Kathryn McGrath

Where does plastic go? Most plastic won't decompose for generations, instead over decades it degrades into small pieces, which often wind up floating in our oceans.

All those pieces of plastic, large and small, are accumulating in the central Pacific. Thousands of miles from shore, the plastic detritus of modern life floats in two separate gyres of garbage that span an area twice the size of the United States.

Make Dad's Day: Clean, Green Ways to Help Him Out

By Wendy Gordon

Forget the tie. How many does a man need, anyway? Give your dad something he’ll really appreciate—a good nap and then a trip to the park. “How can I do this?” you say. “I’m just a kid.” Do a couple of the weekend chores on his list and, to bring him real peace of mind, do them in a green way. Then follow up with a treat for everyone—a day or weekend at a National Park (100 are offering three fee-free weekends this summer) or a favorite nature spot near you. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, there are a couple of green chores to be done.

Cool Down With Less AC

By Wendy Gordon

Keeping cool isn’t just about comfort; in the worst of recent heat waves, whether Chicago's in 1995 or New York's in 2006, hundreds have died. And climate change will only make this worse. But every time you crank up the AC, power plants pump out more greenhouse gases, making the problem worse.

Is there a way out of this lose-lose cycle? In fact, air conditioning is not an absolute in a warming world. A good architect can design homes in hot climates that require little air-conditioning. But most of us aren’t building a new house or even moving any time soon. Is there anything we can do? Actually, yes. Recall the wise ways of your parents, or grandparents, and try out some passive cooling techniques that should definitely cut your AC use and your energy bills and your carbon footprint along with it.

Video: Dr. Gina Explains How to Safely Get Rid of Fleas

NRDC's Dr. Gina Solomon explains the results of NRDC's recent tests that found dangerous levels of pesticide residues on pets' fur after they were treated with over-the-counter flea and tick products and how she fights fleas safely on her two dogs.