Hyde Park Meat

Ok, so Beth Goullart first broke a little tidbit about Hyde Park Grill and their meat claims. I, like most people I have talked to, get the impression from their menu that they buy all natural meats by my vague definition of it being free from nasty stuff. In fact, it says it on their menu. See Beth's article here, where she learned they get their meat from Winn, which doesn't carry any Texas meat even though the menu claimed they had Texas-raised Wagyu burgers.

Well, they changed their menu to say 'American-raised.' I understand if maybe they originally had Texas meat and just had not updated their menu or something. It's completely understandable, but also made me want to be a little more aware of their menu.

As I've mentioned before, I have made the decision to not eat any meat that I can't verify it's source and feel assured they were treated humanely. So, while there last I noticed they said they carry Sterling Silver beef that was all-natural, hormone & antibiotic free. I went ahead and looked them up at the table. Their website (www.sterlingsilvermeats.com) doesn't say anything about 'natural' or free of anything. It just has some basic content saying it's premium, aged, and graded. Then it talks about how it's owned by Cargill foods, the largest privately-held company in the US ($120Billion revenue), and that just this premium meat subsidiary employs 35000 people. This made me suspicious enough to not order any meat and investigate further later on. I don't think big companies are inherently bad, mind you, but Cargill is a pioneer in confinement lots and has come under a lot of criticism, including for their recall of @ 1 million beef patties for E-coli contamination. So I asked where their chicken comes from and he had to go ask the manager who informed him it comes from Labatt's distribution. Not encouraging. So I got some farm-raised catfish....which I may swear off one day, but for now I'm ignorant enough of their problems to order it.

So, this week I called Sterling Silver. They say that their meat is, in fact, certified 'natural' according to this USDA definition:
NATURAL:
A product containing no artificial ingredient or added color and is only minimally processed (a process which does not fundamentally alter the raw product) may be labeled natural. The label must explain the use of the term natural (such as - no added colorings or artificial ingredients; minimally processed.)

For my purposes, that leaves a lot to be desired. First off, none of the actual definition applies to antibiotics or hormones added before the meat is processed. It's just saying they don't paint it red or pump it with preservatives. It also doesn't touch the treatment of the animals. The rep at Sterling said he would email me full information. I haven't received it yet. I hope it has pictures of happy cows in fields. I really do.

I don't mean to pick on Hyde Park, I really have liked them as a restaurant. It's just that I get the impression they care about their food and ingredients. If they weren't making claims about the quality of their ingredients I would be less picky. I wouldn't eat there, but I wouldn't call them out. With so many great choices for quality meat these days, I just don't see any excuses and I hope more restaurants start making the right choice, like even fast-food restaurants do (read P-Terry's and TerraBurger).

Texas Wine Anyone?

Not for Greenling. At least not yet. This has been rather heart-wrenching and has created quite a few inquiries. But here's the bottom line - It's hard to grow wine grapes in Texas. Really hard. So you can pretty much assume if someone is creating wine from Texas grapes they dumped lots of chemicals on those grapes to get them to grow. And I'm not talking a little liquid Nitrogen to give them that growth-spurt in the spring. I'm talking boatloads of all sorts of chemicals to ward off diseases, fungi, bugs, etc. You name it and it probably likes to feast on the oh-so-delicate Vitis vinifera grapevines struggling for survival in Texas climates.

It's not pretty. So, what's a self-respecting, Sustainability-oriented company to do? Well, we carry Sustainable wines not from Texas and will wait for intervention for the poor Texas grapes. I hear that Becker vineyards is working on some wine from imported, organically grown, grapes. At least that would be locally produced. And our good friend, Scott Collier, at Rockroom wines has some incredible wines that are just waiting on Texas Distribution.

It was an incredibly tough choice to leave these off the menu. The best way to achieve the advancements to get to Sustainable Texas wines is to encourage and support Texas wines. But we just can't support anything that damages the environment. We hope you understand. And if you know of any environmentally responsible Texas wine operations, please let us know!

When we introduced the Parducci Sustainable Red and White, sales shot up above any other wine and I wondered if there was a misconception about our wines. Every single one of them can be called 'Sustainable,' though they may have different approaches to the term. Here's the skinny on just a few of our wine choices -

Bonterra - These guys were one of the first to get Organic certification for their wines. They're a great $15 bottle that supports people who are committed to the Organic seal.
Chimango - From Argentina, this is one of the lowest priced certified Organic wines combining the seal with affordability. Pick up the Cab or Malbec Rose for only $8.99
Joseph Drouhin - This winery has been cultivated by the same family for over 130 years. Using biodynamic farming (some call it 'beyond Organic') the Drouhin family uses only natural products with the utmost respect for the soil, the vine, and the environment. Learn more about them here - http://www.drouhin.com/en/index.php

And many more! Great wines you can feel good about buying and drinking. I'll talk about our beer selection next time. Add beer & wine to your order here (As usual, I'm sorry to report that TABC only lets us deliver alcohol in Travis County) - http://www.greenling.com/categories/35/products

And a quick side note on the TABC - It's actually quite incredible that we're able to deliver wine and beer at all! We're very happy to have worked with TABC to ensure we have the right security measures in place and the right kind of permit. It actually took 18 months to work through all of this. One of the rules we just couldn't work around was that we can only deliver within the county where we're located. So, there you have it. We've thought about having satellite locations in surrounding counties so that we can deliver all over....but we'll only go through this long, arduous process again if sales of these items really pick up. So, to all who don't live in Travis county, encourage all of your Travis-county-living friends to order so we can justify expanding this option.

Mason Arnold
Founder & Cookie Monster - www.Greenling.com

Death on a Factory Farm

Did anyone see this documentary on HBO? I had seen the trailer for it on meat.org and it was very disturbing. We started to watch the full documentary the other night and had to stop. We just couldn’t take it. I just can’t wrap my head around how people can treat animals this way. It has completely ruined me for conventional restaurant meat products. I have evangelized for a while to ask where the meat comes from when you go to a restaurant and I have done this often. I have not asked every time and when they don’t know I used to still order the meat. Now I don’t. If they can’t tell me where the meat comes from and I recognize it (or can look it up on Mylie’s iphone) I just won’t eat it. I’ll just have to settle for vegetable dishes. Some well-intentioned restaurants in town striving to support local and natural still get their meat from conventional sources.

We were at Paggi house (they’re not paying me for this) last night and I wanted a filet, but was very worried that even this great place might just say ‘Wynn meat co.’ or ‘Ciscos.’ To my pleasant surprise they said ‘Niman Ranch,’ which is fairly well-known. And they’re a great step in the right direction. They’re not perfect from a Sustainability standpoint…..they still grain finish their cattle - which means they pasture raise them, but a few weeks before they go to slaughter they feed them grain to increase marbling and fatten the cattle up. There are balances in all areas of life - you don't always expect your dessert to have vitamins & minerals in it, right? And in terms of humane treatment, this is not a huge problem. But studies and anecdotal evidence from Betsy Ross Ranch (they test nutrients in their meat) show that most of the good qualities in the meat from grass-feeding cattle are lost within 2 days of grain-finishing the cattle. CLAs and vitamins are up to 90% depleted in that short time. Cattle just aren’t meant to eat grain! Period. It’s not good for them.

But, I appreciate Paggi using a vendor that pastures their cattle, uses no hormones or antibiotics, and humanely slaughters them.

Many people have been asking me where the best places to eat out for local, organic, and natural are. While I think the best choice is to eat at home, I want to highlight my adventures in eating out and share what I learn as I grill waiters in town (just kidding).

Fun new options for eating healthy in Austin

We've added a couple of great new options to the dining scene in the past few weeks:

First, and this one is really, really cool, is Daily Juice cafe. It is phenomenal. We have eaten there about 8 times in the last month and every single dish we've tried was just amazing. It is completely raw, dairy-gluten-soy-wheat-meat free food and is often Organic. They've got a great ambiance with some cool paintings on the wall. They give you cloth napkins and real silverware to use and free water. Here's a sampling of what I have had:

BBQ Sandwich - they take coconut meat and marinade it in a spicy BBQ sauce made from chili, tomatoes, & spices then add some guacamole, almond dijon mustard and some veggies. Throw it on some of their homemade chia seed Daily Bread and you've got a filling sandwich. Amazing!

Land & Sea Salad - Really flavorful combo of organic sesame marinated greens, arame, olives, sprouts, carrot, radish, dulse, and cherry toms served with a blackberry vinagrette.

We've also tried the Avocado Ceasar and the Enchiladas. Both incredibly flavorful.

Really good prices, too, considering you're getting raw food dishes. These things not only have a lot of ingredients, they take a long time to prepare. If you go to a California raw food cafe you'll pay $15-$20 for dishes that cost $6-$10 at DJ.

The DJ cafe is located at 45th and Duval in the Hyde Park area of town. Here's their website and full menu:
www.DailyJuice.org











































Next is Terra Burger. I haven't been there yet, but tried their burger at the Austin Green Living Expo. Will definitely be trying the restaurant soon. Really nice people and they are working hard to make everything Organic that they can. They also happen to get some of their product from Greenling, so that's cool too. They just opened at Dean Keeton & Guadalupe. Check them out!

The Spiralizer!

If anyone has followed my tweets (@masonarnold) you probably know that I just finished a cleanse (the Love Cleanse by Kim Love...whose birthday is actually Feb 14th, no lie!). While on this cleanse we spent a lot of time at the Whole Foods raw bar. We had several days of a very restricted, raw diet. We graze on our share of foliage at home, but we hadn't ventured far into raw main dishes (aside from salad) or dehydrated stuff. Our favorite dish at WF was the Pumpkinseed pesto over Zucchini pasta. Zucchini pasta rocked! We saw them make it and instantly fell in love with the device.

We started dreaming of all the glorious dishes we could make with it, so that night we ordered one at www.rawguru.com. (Buy the Spiralizer here). They're not paying me, but they should. Mylie graciously prepped some veggies for me to obliterate with this awesome tool. I'm a pretty good prep cook for her, though in the kitchen I'm one of those employees that you have to tell what to do constantly. And at any moment of inactivity I just might disappear into another room to email or make a call. So she keeps me busy. First up was carrots and then kohlrabi and beets (all from Greenling, of course). You can spiralize just about anything! Mylie nixed my tomato idea, though.

It creates this small core in the middle and you end up with a disk at the end. I think it's to keep it from flying off the spiralizer, but I'm not totally sure. I knew Mylie would get a kick out of em, so I lined up the little towel rods on the counter after each spiralled masterpiece. She loved them so much they became garnishment for our salad and I gotta say, it worked. The most festive salad I'd ever had resulted. I felt like putting on some Kool & The Gang. Tomorrow we'll venture into the world of veggie pasta.

Remember those ridiculous yellow page books from December?

Luckily, we can shred them and use them at Greenling as packing materials. Otherwise I really would have mourned the trees who gave their life for such an arcane exercise.

I'm not sure this will really help...It may be hard to get them to pay attention. But, you can certainly try to opt out and if we all do it, they'll have to stop. Here's where:

http://www.yellowpagesgoesgreen.org/

So, tell them to stop sending you the Yellow Pages! Those directories are still a $13 Billion dollar industry in the US, but I'm sure it's fading. We don't support them at Greenling. There are much more green ways to advertise. If everyone stopped advertising in them, they'd go away and the 540 million of them that are printed would still be trees instead of door stops or wasted space.

Seriously, folks, Google even works on dial-up out in the country. Unless you live somewhere that flat out does not have internet, there's just no need for the Yellow Pages anymore. At all.

Word verification

Seriously?

Update from Urban Roots - Volunteer call

From Urban Roots email -
-------------
Hi all,
Just wanted to drop a quick note to to let you know about a couple things.

Feria Para Aprender (para padres, niños, and maestros)
We are looking for one or two Spanish-speaking volunteers to represent Urban Roots at this Festival next Saturday, February 7th from 10am-2pm at the Burger Activity Center. We are excited to be at this event, but just realized that our Spanish-speaking staff cannot make it. Please contact us soon if you are able and interested in helping out. Thanks!
www.feriaeducativa.org/


VISTA related
Carly Blankenship joined Urban Roots as a VISTA volunteer in mid-December. She comes to us after having served for a year with American YouthWorks’ Environmental Corps. Carly has hit the ground running on many fronts and most recently has gotten us organized for our Farm Intern interviews this weekend. Please help us welcome Carly to Urban Roots!

Kelly Stolpman, our first VISTA volunteer, is just finishing her year of service with Urban Roots and is moving on from Urban Roots. She has been an instrumental part of our first year and we are sad to see her go. (On a happy note, she has accepted a position within YouthLaunch in the No Kidding program as a Program Specialist, so she is staying in the YouthLaunch family).

We are currently in the process of accepting applications for another VISTA. Click HERE for more information. The application deadline is February 19, 2009.


All the best,
Urban Roots



Mailing Address:
YouthLaunch
7756 Northcross Drive
Suite 203
Austin, TX 78757
US

Contact Name: Russell Smith
Telephone Number: (512) 342-0424
----------------

Cows With Names Make More Milk

This is awesome. At the very least it shows that there's always more to a story than just numbers:

http://www.livescience.com/animals/090127-cows-names-milk.html

$17,000,000 in Organic Agriculture Research funds released

Get your proposals in by March 9, 2009.

This is one of the most exciting things for the Organic industry this year. The USDA has done very little to help the Organic industry and in fact has adopted some measures in the past that have significantly hurt the industry (like making Organic farmers pay a premium for insurance and then only reimbursing them for conventional prices of their crop).

But this is a good step in the right direction. It's still does not come close to reflecting the size of the Organic industry in their support. The USDA spends billions of dollars in agriculture research. Despite Organics being almost 3% of the US food system, the industry received less than .5% of the research dollars. Not fair? Tell me about it.

Here's where you can go to apply for funds (and yes, anyone can apply):
http://www.csrees.usda.gov/fo/organicagricultureresearchandextensioninitiative.cfm

Texas 4th Graders get too many calories, not enough nutrition

Very interesting study released recently. It's just plain not enough to feed our kids any food available. What everyone should be concerned with is getting real nutrition to them. That means fruits and vegetables! Our food distribution system is currently not adequate for getting nutrition to everyone. There are some great organizations trying to change this including the Sustainable Food Center and Green Corn Project just to name a couple. Greenling hopes that as we grow, we can help build the distribution network necessary to get nutrition to everyone, even low income families. Snipet:

Low Income Fourth Graders Face Heightened Risk of Diabetes from Too Many Calories, Not Enough Nutrients

A Texas team studied the diets, weight, body mass index, and diabetes risk factors for a cohort of 1,402 fourth graders composed of Mexican American (80%), African American (10%), Asian (5%), and non-Hispanic white children (5%). Nearly 75% of the children lived in households with less than $20,000 income.

Almost half lacked adequate calories in their diet, yet 33% were obese and already, in the 4th grade, 7% had high blood glucose levels. Diets were composed of energy- and calorie-dense foods like cookies, chips, and ice cream, and were low in nutrient-dense fruits and vegetables.

The authors concluded that these children faced a high risk of developing diabetes and were in need of substantial dietary interventions, increasing in particular daily intakes of nutrient-dense foods.

Source: Roberto P. Trevino et al., "Diabetes Risk, Low Fitness, and Energy Insufficiency Levels among Children from Poor Families," Journal of the American Dietetic Association, November, 2008: pages 1846-1853

Cool endorsement of Organics from an unlikely source

RealAge seems like one of those internet promotions that's just around to generate traffic, click-throughs and cash for someone. But I was surprised and happy when an old high-school friend, Emily Heckmann, sent this link to me. It's good info on how Organics is not only free of dangerous pesticides, but also contains higher levels of nutrients:

Mason Not just less of the bad, but more of the good in Organic produce - http://budurl.com/organic4.

Inaugural Greenling Tasting Soiree

Come share the joy that is Greenling food!

Event InfoHost:
Greenling
Type:
Party - Dinner Party
Network:
Global
Time and PlaceDate:
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Time:
7:00pm - 10:00pm
Location:
Catarina's House - RSVP for exact address
Contact InfoPhone:
5124408449
Email:
info@greenling.com

Potluck! Catarina will whip up a few vegetarian dishes and everyone is encouraged to bring a dish (can be omnivore creations, too) made primarily from Greenling Organic food! Greenling will bring some of our new wines that we're carrying too!

Let's mix and mingle and enjoy amazingly nutritious, healthy, and tasty dishes prepared by friends.

Guest list limited to 30 people because of host constraints, but hopefully we'll be able to do this more often.

No theme, dress, or rules this time around. Just good food and good conversation.

This will also be a Greenling tweet-up so if you've been wondering what twitter is, go sign up & we'll talk about it at the party!


http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=71085166232&ref=mf

Greenling Announces it's biggest promotion ever!

Win FREE Local Boxes for a Year!
Just for sharing Greenling with friends & family.
See Details Here:
http://blogs.greenling.com/2009/01/02/win-free-local-boxes-for-a-year-contest-details-rules/

Slow Food in Austin

Here's a great video produced by Adrian Tapia:

Happiness is Infectious

So smile more! Apparently, happiness really does rub off - a person's happiness depends on the happiness of others with whom they are connected.

One really cool example - a friend who becomes happy and lives within a mile increases your likelihood of happiness by 25%.

Make happy friends and be happy! Especially in the challenging times we're facing now. Happiness is more important than ever.

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2008/12/04/happiness.infectious

One Farmer's Field of Dreams

Remember that movie? With Kevin Costner? Side note, even his insanely over-budget, complete flop of a production, Waterworld eventually broke even after about 10 years of DVD sales. So, seems like movies is a pretty good business.

Anyway, thanks Cheryl for sending this article along. What a great story. Farmer opens up his farm at the end of the harvest season for people to come pick food for free. He was done with his CSA and figured, why not give a little back. 40,000 people showed up!! Amazing:
http://peoplepoweredmachines.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/farmers-donate-their-remaining-harvest-40000-show-up/

Closing the loop on CFLs

So.....I'm not sure how to say this....but I have 3 ziplock bags with broken CFLs in a closet that I have had no idea what to do with...until now! Our local trash company (think they're pretty big, not just in Austin) has a really cool website with some cool recycling products - one of them being a recycling kit for CFLs. Yay!

Every time I've broken one I've freaked out because of the Mercury in them (http://budurl.com/cfls). I open all the windows, try to leave the room for a while. I'm not sure it does much good since I think most of the exposure is pretty immediate, but it at least keeps it from lingering.

They say the best thing to do is to put all of the pieces in a ziplock to keep them from continuing to off-gas mercury. So I have done that like a good boy...but then what. I couldn't throw them away because the bag will get torn pretty easily somewhere along the way and the mercury will be let out again. Certainly don't want it to end up in a landfill where the mercury eventually finds its way back into our drinking water. So they have lived in my closet. Waiting for news on their fate. And with out further adeiu:
http://budurl.com/wmgreen
If that ever stops working:
https://www.thinkgreenfromhome.com/ThinkGreenFromHome.cfm

Alternative MBA program

For anyone is not familiar with Seth Godin, he's a best-selling author of 10 books with his latest being Tribes and I think is really a brilliant marketing thought-leader. He's offering an alternative MBA program where you go hang out with him for 6 months starting in January. Sounds like an amazing opportunity to me and I wish I was in a position to apply. Applications are due December 14th:
http://budurl.com/godinMBA

Rodale Institute veteran to lead USDA NOSB

This is great news for the Organic agriculture industry. The Rodale Institute is often called the founding force behind Organics. It has been around for decades and completed the first research on the advantages of Organic agriculture.

Putting such an industry veteran and true believer in Organics atop the NOSB (National Organic Standards Board) ensures strong regulations for the Organic industry. I'm very excited about this news:

http://budurl.com/nosb