I drink filtered NYC tap water (the water itself is good, but there could be lead coming out of my ancient building pipes so I choose to run it through an activated carbon filter) out of glass at home, and from a stainless steel bottle on the go. I avoid paying for what is free, and I avoid plastic altogether. For more information on choosing water filters and more on what's wrong with bottled water, see Chapter 6 of The Conscious Kitchen.
2. Everything else is a pretty huge category. Think about what you drink over the course of a day. Green the items you drink the most of to make the biggest impact. For me that's coffee, some tea, and wine. I don't drink much hard alcohol or beer but there are certain local/organic or just organic versions of both. Choose these. It's amazing to me how many people I know who eat a very conscious diet but forget somehow to drink sustainable coffee, tea, and wine. These, like your veggies, are plants. They can be highly sprayed or unsprayed. There are considerable labor issues when it comes to both – always look for Fair Trade coffee and tea. Depending on where you live, these can be local or from very far away. When it comes to coffee, shade-grown is another label to look for. The choices for organic/biodynamic/natural/sustainably grown grapes abound. Organic wine used to have a bad reputation but these taste great. Depending on where in the country you live, American wine might be less green than French. It has to do with transportation miles and economies of scale, not to mention irrigation.
roger doiron
What I don't delve into in the book is the sort of drinks that line the beverage aisle and drinks cases in most supermarkets. Soda isn't a conscious choice. If you want bubbles with flavor, buy a home seltzer maker, use it, and add some home squeezed juice. If you choose to drink it, do so knowing how much water is involved and how the sugar that is processed into high fructose corn syrup affects both you, the farmers that raise it, and the earth. Juice is an odd middle ground territory. If you don't live near an organic orange grove but do live near a low spray apple orchard, drinking the latter for breakfast can have considerable conscious impact. Besides, so much that is sold in bright plastic bottles as juice is mainly water and sugar, with flavor and maybe some juice mixed in. A good way to drink real juice is to buy a juicer and make it yourself.
conscious kitchen book
Next post, we'll move onto packaged foods. Meanwhile, I'm curious to know how you're faring. Let me know in comments. Any questions? Put them there as well. Or, if you happen to be in the New York area, come ask me in person. To find out where I'll be speaking, head to www.alexandrazissu.com/events.
The Conscious Kitchen: The New Way to Buy and Cook Food - to Protect the Earth, Improve Your Health, and Eat Deliciously is an invaluable resource filled with real world, practical solutions for anyone who has read The Omnivore's Dilemma or seen Food, Inc. and longs to effect easy green changes when it comes to the food they buy, cook, and eat.
Children and teens are gulping down more sugary beverages and fruit juices than ever before, a new study has found.
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Children aged 2 to 19 now take in up to 15 percent of their total daily calories from drinks that contain sugar, a finding that confirms previous research and suggests consumption is rising.
It's known from previous studies that children and teens in the United States drink a lot of sugary beverages, said study author Dr. Y. Claire Wang, an assistant professor of health policy and management at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, in New York City.
"We show that the consumption trend continues to increase," she said, and that it's occurring mostly at home.
Experts recommend restricting both sugary beverages such as soft drinks and 100 percent fruit juices, to avoid excess "empty" calories.
Wang's team analyzed 24-hour dietary recall records from children or their parents, trying to determine how many calories a day came from sugary beverages and 100 percent fruit juices.
They used data from two national surveys, conducted from 1988 to 1994 and from 1999 to 2004. The first survey had almost 10,000 participants, the second, almost 11,000.
Overall, daily calories from sugary beverages or 100 percent fruit juices rose from 242 calories a day to 270 during the two study periods.
"We see the largest increases happening among kids 6 to 11," Wang said. The increase in sugary beverage intake was statistically significant in boys but not in girls. Boys' averages went from 228 to 259 calories; girls' went from 177 to 186.
Wang's team also looked at where the kids drink the beverage. Most consumption -- up to 70 percent -- took place at home, suggesting that schools' efforts to restrict sales of sugary beverages are having limited impact on consumption.
The Juice Products Association took exception to the findings.
"We take very strong issue with statements in this paper which suggest 100 percent fruit juices are without nutritional value and contribute to weight gain," the industry group said in a statement. "In fact, a recently published scientific literature review has concluded that 100 percent juices do not contribute to children being overweight, even when consumed in amounts that exceed American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines. That review paper concludes, 'Overall, the data support the consumption of 100 percent fruit juice in moderate amounts, and this may be an important strategy to help children meet the current recommendations for fruit.' "
In another study published in the same issue of the journal, researchers from the University of Minnesota found that even parents who recognized their child was overweight did not take "healthy" actions at home -- such as providing plentiful supplies of fruits and vegetables -- to help their child.
Dr. Dianne Neumark-Sztainer and her team evaluated the behaviors of parents whose teens participated in Project EAT, analyzing data from 314 parent-teen pairs.
"Basically, we compared parents of overweight children who recognized their children were overweight with parents of overweight children who did not recognize their children were overweight to see if knowing your child is overweight is associated with better behavior," Neumark-Sztainer said.
They asked parents about several behaviors, such as providing more fruits and vegetables and fewer soft drinks, salty snacks and candy; having more meals as a family; watching less television during dinner and encouraging children to make healthy food choices and be active. They also asked the parents if they encouraged their children to diet.
The only difference? Those who recognized their child was overweight were more apt to encourage their child to diet. "And that turns out to be bad," Neumark-Sztainer said. "Those kids actually weighed more five years later."
Both studies are concerning, said Connie Diekman, director of university nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis and immediate past president of the American Dietetic Association.
There was a bit of irony involved when it was announced early in the summer that the giant Safeway grocery chain was slashing wine inventories on the West Coast. Ironic because a few weeks later, Steve Boone opened the first of a planned 25-plus specialty retail stores in California. The chain is called Beverages, & more! and the more! is an important part of Boone's strategy to put more bottles of wine and spirits in the shopping cart. Boone is, of course, the man who put together the Liquor Barn chain for Safeway in 1979.
Not only that, but four days before the first Beverages, & more! opened in Walnut Creek, Calif., across the Bay from San Francisco, a study conducted by Nielsen North America for newly-formed Premium Wine Research Coalition (PWRC) shows that wine buyers are a group that grocery stores should be targeting, not turning away.
The year-long study tracked food store purchases among 40,000 U.S. households beginning in February, 1993. The study revealed that wine buyers made 105 annual trips to the grocery store, compared to 96 for non-wine buyers. Wine buyers spent an average of $2,150 for the year in food stores, compared to $1,895 for non-wine buyers. (Wine buyers were defined as those shoppers buying 1.5 liters or more of wine per year.)
Shopping trips, when wine was in the basket, produced grocery bills 15% higher than the average shopping basket sale ($39 vs. $34) and 35% higher than when beer was purchased ($39 to $29). When super-premium wines ($7 and over) were purchased, the average cash register ring was $44.
Marion Minor, president of Wine-Scan, a Nielsen/PIB service which tracks wine sales in scanner stores, said, "It is the super-premium wine buyer who offers retailers dramatic growth opportunities. Not only does the average grocery expenditure increase when super-premium wine is in the cart, but this wine segment is experiencing the greatest growth in the wine industry."