Green Options: Seven Eco-friendly Options for Less Junky Junk Food

As part of Eco-Libris' ongoing content partnership with Green Options Media, we feature a post that was originally published by Sharon Troy on June 5 on Eat.Drink.Better. Today's post is not about a green lit topic, but it is about an important issue that bothers many eco-conscious readers who like to bite something while reading: what are the best eco-friendly and tasty alternatives to junk food? (my favorite? definitely the Mojo Bars!)

I confess: as much as I wish I could say every meal I eat is as healthy as my quinoa and kale salad, sometimes I just have a craving for junk food. Ya know?

When I first went vegetarian seven years ago I quickly realized how easy it was to replace meat with junk food. After all, I'd sacrificed so much my giving up chicken that I should reward myself with donuts, right? They're vegetarian! And so are potato chips, and candy bars, and french fries...

But not only are these instant gratification foods loaded with calories, sodium, and often trans fats, but they're not particularly eco-friendly. Consider even "healthy" choices like Nabisco's 100 Calorie Packs of Oreos, Chips Ahoy, and the like. All come individually wrapped, and I've made it clear how I feel about overpackaging.

So what's an eco-conscious consumer to do when you just want a quick bite? I've done you the favor of sampling some of the finest junk foods my co-op had to offer. (The things you do for research.) Consider some of these alternatives:

Instead of Oreos/Chips Ahoy, etc., Try Annie's Bunny Graham Friends

At only 130 calories per serving, Bunny Grahams rival the aforementioned snack packs, but without the wasteful packaging; the boxes are 100% recycled. They're 75% organic and according to Annie's, contain "no icky additives or pesky preservatives." I can also certify that they are 100% yummy.

Instead of Doritos, Try Rice Chips

I promise this isn't one of those tricks, like when people got all into rice cakes in the 80's and tried to convince you they didn't taste like styrofoam. These Rice Chips from Lundberg Family Farms are the real delicious deal. They come in a variety of flavors, but my favorite, and the most Dorito-esque are the Pico de Gallo chips. (They also offer a Nacho Cheese variety which isn't vegan so I haven't tried it.) The family company uses organic rice and has a long history of sustainable farming.

Instead of Pop Tarts, Try Nature's Path Organic Toaster Pastries

They're about the same in nutritional content as the Kellogg's treat you may remember from your youth, but made from organic ingredients. And while you won't find varieties like "Hot Fudge Sundae" and "Smores," they do offer Cherry Pomegranate and other flavors that are actually found in nature. varieties. Nature's Path also uses "Green Certificates" to produce their products, which according to their website come from "100% new green electricity." Check out their cereals, granola bars, and other products as well.

Instead of Cheddar Crackers, Try Eco-Planet Organic Crackers

When I recently tried this dairy-free cheddar flavored snack cracker I was excited but skeptical. Eco-Planet delivered though, and while it's been years since I've eaten a Goldfish cracker or Cheez-It, I'd say these pass pretty well. They're educational too! The crackers are shaped like suns, earths, wind turbines and electric cars and offer info about alternative energy. The company is 100% wind powered.

Instead of Snickers Bars, Try Mojo Bars

The Clif Bar folks are at it again. Their new Mojo Bars are more oriented towards habitual snackers, like myself than mountain bikers. They've got a variety of sweet, salty, and nutty flavors made with 70% organic ingredients. The company also uses biodiesel for shipping.

Instead of McDonald's Fries, Try Alexia Oven Crinkles

It's no news flash that McDonald's french fries are bad for you. There's more grease in there than potato! The most eco-friendly option of course, is to make some good ol' oven fries yourself. But if you don't have the time, pop some of Alexia's all organic frozen fries in the oven. Their original recipe has only 120 calories per serving. For something a little more sophisticated, try their rosemary oven fries.

Instead of Pre-Packaged Foods, Try the Bulk Foods Aisle

It's not just for grains and beans. You may be surprised to find snack chips, pretzels and candy there. Also stock up on nuts and dried fruit. Try making your own custom trail mix. Find more tips on buying from the bulk aisle here.

Got a guilty pleasure that's not on the list? Let me know, and I'll try to track down a greener version of it.

Monday's Green Books: Oil on the Brain by Lisa Margonelli

Oil? Yes, oil! Some of you must have read or heard about peak oil, and wonder what will happen when the wells run dry. Others may shake your fists instinctively at the oil companies, or roll your eyes in amazement and disgust whenever another piece of news about the industry's long, sad and cruel saga unfolds in yet another third world oil state.

But what does this really mean? How does oil really gets from the oil state to your car's gas tank? And how do all pieces of the puzzle fit together to create this mess we call (U.S American, suburban) automobile culture?

Enter investigative journalist Lisa Margonelli's Oil on the Brain – Petroleum's Long Strange Trip to your Tank. In the spirit of similar recent “natural histories”, such as Michael Pollen's The Omnivore’s Dilemma or its big screen counterpart King Corn, both telling the complex stories of staple food commodities, Margonelli weaves the complex tale of Oil.

What a fun read! So fun I got the local Seattle environmental book club I recently joined to read it at their next meeting! The quirkiness begins in the title, with its tongue-in-cheek play on the old "war on drugs" slogan. The subtitle (Petroleum's Long Strange Trip to your Tank) is yet another blatant yet apt California-centric Grateful Dead reference to the famous “what a strange long trip it's been” line from Truckin'. And indeed Margonelli's strange tale begins at the gas pump in her local independent San Francisco gas station, where she spends a couple of shifts as an observer. Did you know that some independent gas stations make more money selling bottled water and snacks than selling gas? Kind of gives a spin to the irritation at the high prices. That is one of the first tidbits of new information that will help us begin to make sense of the mess we call the oil economy.

The next stop is a day with the gas tanker, and then from the dispatcher and all the way to the Los Angeles refinery and the East Texas oil field. The pieces of the puzzle slowly fall into place, and the stories and histories of each segment of the industry are told with an eye for the weird, funny and significant.

The picture that emerges illustrates one aspect of one of Margonelli's key arguments. While the US maintains an active international policy, treating oil as a strategic resource, it domestically treats oil as yet another commodity. To paraphrase Frank Herbert, the policy is that “the oil must flow” and the results are total reliance of a culture on this unregulated commodity. While oil prices have doubled in recent years, consumption dropped only 4%.

And here's another key point– oil has hidden costs, always did. Even when it was 97c a gallon, someone was paying the price. Maybe it was a farmer in Texas, when he had to let an oil speculator put a drill in his back yard for measly compensation, because the law favors the drillers, and mineral rights take precedent over the rights of property owners. Maybe these are the communities that sprawled around the refineries, with their ubiquitous burning gas flares, paying with their health, needing health care that everyone else pays for with their taxes.

Margonelli's travelogue continues internationally, to countries that are producers of oil: Venezuela, Chad, Iran, and Nigeria. Each joined the oil economy as producers at different times and faces different challenges. In each there is a part of the population and economy as a whole that bears the vast “hidden” costs of gas at the pump. The cost of corruption is local poverty, sometimes in the exact places where the oil was found. The community bears the social cost of human rights violations, and the health costs of all sorts of environmental pollution.

But to know all of the above you did not necessarily need to read this book. What makes it unique and different from your run of the mill finger pointing rant are the stories and the people. Like Aresu, a female Iranian journalist who was Margonelli's sly accomplice in Iran, helping her navigate the bureaucracy and get access to key people to meet and interview, and arranged a rare visit as a woman to a Persian gulf oil rig. Another interesting figure is Herb Richards, the man “who created the business of selling self-serve gasoline in Northern California and much of the west”.

So grab this one for a fun environmental read. Get your book club to discuss it, and check out the official flash website with the funky chart.

Title: Oil on the Brain – Petroleum's Long Strange Trip to your Tank.
Author: Lisa Margonelli
Publisher: Nan A. Talese (original) / Broadway Books (reprint)
Published on: January 2007/ January 2008
Pages: 352
Official Website: http://www.oilonthebrain.com/
Here is also a more recent Lisa Margnoelli article in The Atlantic on recycled steam.

Eylon @ Eco-Libris

Plant a Tree for every Book you Read!

The podcast Litopia After Dark with Raz Godelnik is now online

Last Friday I had the pleasure to be the special guest on Litopia After Dark, the Litopia Writers' podcast. This is a great lit podcast hosted by Peter Cox, and I really enjoyed the opportunity to take part in it.

The podcast is now available online at http://podcast.litopia.com/?p=57, and I invite you all to hear it (to do so, just scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the 'play' sign).

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: plant a tree for every book you read!

Volume Two of Torpedo is available now (with our stickers!)

We wrote few months ago on our collaboration with Falcon vs. Monkey, Falcon Wins, a Melbourne-based independent publishing company that is publishing Torpedo, a printed fiction quarterly, available exclusively through their site (that way they can give 50% of the very modest cover price to the contributors, who thus earn royalties for their work every quarter).

We want to update you that Volume Two of Torpedo has now been released and is available for purchase on falconvsmonkey.com. Like with volume One, also Volume Two of Torpedo will be balanced out with Eco-Libris: for every copy to be purchased, a new tree will be planted and the buyer will also receive Eco-Libris sticker.

The following genii are featured on Volume Two: Rod Hunt on cover duties; Kelly de Meyer & Ricky Butler on illustration detail; Paul O'Connell, Brian Hoang, Tom Larkey & Jeffrey Brown take care of graphic fiction; Aaron Gwyn, Jeff Goldberg, Josephine Rowe, Christian TeBordo, Tony D'Souza, Justin Taylor, Luke May, Jon Bauer, Yannick Murphy, Greg Ames, Holly Tavel & Ryan Crawford thrill you with fiction.

There will be several launches - one in Brooklyn, New York (date and venue tbc) and one in Melbourne on Saturday 5th July at the relaunch of the Federation Square Book Market (more details on the site shortly).

Volume Two sounds really great, so all of you fiction lovers are welcome to grab a copy and enjoy the fiction and graphic fiction works of all these talents!

Yours,

Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: plant a tree for every book you read!

The green side of the British Book Awards

I was very happy to read this week that not only the American Booksellers Association is going green, but also the British one.

The Frankfurt Book Fair 2008 reported in its June newsletter on the British Book Industry Awards, the Oscars of the British book business, which took place on May 13. The Awards, reports the newsletter, were first set up 19 years ago by the independent trade newspaper "Publishing News" and are organised today in cooperation with the Booksellers Association (BA), having become a firm fixture for the industry.

And here's the green part of the newsletter that made me happy and I wanted to share with you :

Riding the green wave
The event had been preceded by a two-day conference of the Booksellers Association. Despite the sunshine and the attractions of the nearby beach, the programme was well attended, with around 400 delegates from the world of publishing and bookselling. The dominant topics were digitisation and ecology.

"Going green" was the slogan and experts like Sir David King, one-time scientific adviser to the UK government, asked what sort of contribution the book industry could make. In the discussion featuring Managing Director Gerry Johnson from Waterstones bookshop chain and Ashley Lodge from Harper Collins, it became clear that the industry is serious in its intentions. Even if the industry is not the main cause of climate change, there was still an urgent need to take action, as BA President Graham Rand reminded delegates: "We do not want to sit back, lose the agenda and allow ourselves, perhaps justifiably, to be targeted by any environmental group."

I can't agree more with BA President Graham Rand about the need to take action, and not only because of the fear to become a target of criticism, but because it's just the right thing to do.

We reported last December on some steps that were taken in this direction in the British book industry and were looking to see more bolder steps to follow. It looks like this two-day conference is definitely an important step in the right direction and I hope we'll hear more soon from the BA about further efforts to go green.

Yours,

Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: plant a tree for every book you read!

Raz Godelnik is on the Litopia Writers' Podcast today

Litopia After Dark, the Litopia Writers' podcast, is a great podcast hosted by Peter Cox, and they invited me to be their be their guest on today's podcast. We'll talk about Eco-Libris and green issues related to the publishing industry.

It's definitely going to be interesting and I invite you all to listen to it. The Podcast will be viewable on Ustream live today from 7.30pm GMT (2:30 p.m. EST), so you can come and watch it being recorded: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/litopia-after-dark

And then from late Sunday afternoon it's available on the Podcast website - http://podcast.litopia.com/

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: plant a tree for every book you read!

Eco-Libris collaborates with Green Mom Finds in a giveaway of green books

We're always happy to take part in giveaways of green books. This week we're collaborating with the great website 'Green Mom Finds' in a giveaway that is in celebration of the upcoming father's day (June 15).

Green Mom Finds presents their readers with our green books guide for father's day as a source for ideas for green-themed books. We also helped to arrange a giveaway of two great books that are included in the book: The Green Parent and Hey, Mr. Green. In both cases, the publishers (Kedzie Press and Sierra Club respectively) generously donated two copies of each book. We also added another prize of 20 trees/stickers and of course, a tree is planted for each copy given here.

What you need to do to take part in the giveaway? All you need to do is look for the answer to the question: answer to this question: What’s the carbon footprint of the book publishing industry and what’s the biggest contributor to this footprint? the answer can be found on our website! For more details check out the post on Green Mom Finds - http://greenmomfinds.com/2008/06/11/for-the-earth-lovin-bookworm-dad/. Don't forget you can enter the giveaway by 6/18/08.

Yours,

Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: plant a tree for every book you read!