Processed food has a bad reputation, thanks to Twinkies and Spam. So it’s refreshing to see a whole new crop of food bars that are easy and energizing, but also nutritious. Bobo’s Oat Bars walk the middle path on the continuum between cookie (tasty, not so healthy) and powerbar (packed with athletic-inducing nutrients, not so tasty). Small and square, they’re a perfect fit for the side pocket of your Camelback, school lunchboxes, or your car glove compartment. Here’s how Bobo’s rates on the questions most vital to foodbar lovers everywhere: Read the rest

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Just because this holiday revolves around big portions of turkey and stuffing doesn’t mean you have to lose all hope in helping out the environment. Thanksgiving is a celebration of coming together and enjoying what Mother Earth has to offer us.  Start this year by making your holiday special, make it an eco-friendly Thanksgiving. You can feel fat and jolly at the end of your Thanksgiving and also feel Read the rest

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Recently, we here at elephant journal interviewed Dr. Weil. While we have yet to post the video, the meeting (at Origins in Denver, Colo) turned me into a convert. Today I found myself checking out the man with the famous beard’s site, and came across this apt recipe for economic tough times:

Dr. Weil: “I’m borrowing the title of one of my favorite cookbooks by Miriam Ungerer:

With the economic downturn Read the rest

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photos courtesy of Miranda Pearl

I was at the Sustainable Style Show in Toronto this past weekend. It was a great turn out and I had a lot of fun meeting all the vendors and hearing their stories. I also got to attend the Green Gala an ultra chic event showcasing (sustainable) couture from some of Canada’s freshest designers but more on that next blog…

I got to talk to Kealan, a charming and very hip Torontonian who owns 69 Vintage, a mini vintage store chain and Sonja from Thieves, the designer of the futuristic fashion luxury brand. The girls from Preloved were cool too (I didn’t get to meet the boy). They showed some cute recycled sweaters this time, one of their most popular items. They deal in hundreds of pounds of old used clothing, cut them up with innovative seasonal patterns and create completely new garments. They now get huge orders from some grand scale boutique clothing chains such as Urban Outfitters and Anthropology. Read the rest

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GMO = Genetically Modified Capitalism Run Amok Read the rest

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Just a few days after writing about my experience at Naturally Boulder Days, I had the opportunity to meet one of Boulder, Colorado’s most dazzling entrepreneurs, Ms. Sandja Brügmann. In my article, I had shared how I learned that in the Boulder community, there is always someone to have coffee with, and not three days later, I had an invitation from Sandja, a woman who owns her own public relations, marketing and merchandising company. Read the rest

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Faced with headlines announcing another bankruptcy, more foreclosures, images of stockbrokers weeping in the fetal position while they watch the market plunge, it seems implausible that some businesses are actually doing well in this economy. The LOHAS (we’ll give you a piece of tofu if you can guess what it stands for) industry, for the most part, has remained steady, even as Americans reel in their spending. Boulder-based Eco-Products, famous for their corn-based compostable drinking cups, and now their Ellie’s Eco Home Store, is one example of a company that is actually growing, and at an exponential rate. The company’s sales revenues were just (just?) five million in 2006, while projected numbers for 2009 reach over 100 million. In August, Eco-Products earned a spot on Inc. Magazine’s “Inc. 5000,” celebrating the fastest growing companies in America.

It hasn’t always been this way. Back in the ‘90s, when most dot com start-ups were raking in billions overnight, Steve Savage and his father, Kent, slowly grew their company for almost 17 years before experiencing the skyrocketing growth of the last three. It took them five years before Read the rest

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Check out Dave Rogers’ take on the same event in a previous post, complete with photo slideshow by Rusty Ralston.

Recently I was living in New York City, where I supported the national product launch of a mission-driven business called Kopali Organics. When I realized it was time to get out of the city and head to a place where I felt like I could have a better quality of life, Boulder was at the top of my list. I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to work for a natural foods company again, but being at the epicenter of the LOHAS market and around entrepreneurs and neighbors with similar values was enticing. I heard it was quite sunny most days of the year. I had a friend with a dog named Redford. I was sold. Having moved to Boulder just about two months ago, I was excited of the timing of Naturally Boulder Days and learning more about just what makes Boulder such a great climate for innovation. Read the rest

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“Mindfulness and the Melon” via Mary Taylor, from the Holiday 2008 issue. Photo by Diane Farris.

Before there were party stores with more colors of balloons than jelly beans, before children’s birthdays required party planners, magicians or pony rides—there were watermelons. Seed spitting contests, pin the tail on the melon, or the hoe-down hit of all time: tossing a huge melon, smeared with shortening, into a lake along with the challenge of bringing it back to shore. 

Hosting such unruly celebrations these days wouldn’t be so simple. There’d be waivers to sign before children could approach the beach, and mediators to hire so the kids whose arms the melon slipped out of could be consoled. But most difficult would be tracking down the right melon for the job. Half of those you see nowadays are either seedless or pocket-sized varieties that wouldn’t work at all. 

Which raises the question: what’s up with watermelons? Not to mention all the other exotic produce we find at upscale grocers. From weirdly shaped tomatoes and triple sweet corn Read the rest

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Below, a new video tribute to the Obama movement from the man behind “Yes We Can,” the video that hit wayyy back in June, while Obama was facing off frontrunner Hillary Clinton back in the Primary. Read the rest

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Thousands of Americans buy chemical cleaning products each day, convinced the scented, neon liquids will protect them and their families from sickness and germs. But these people have been misinformed, bamboozled by marketing—it turns out that many of these chemical ingredients actually cause serious health problems. Women who work in the home are 54% more likely to die from cancer, due to exposure to household cleaning products. Asthma rates have increased fourfold in the last 20 years, making it the most common ailment in America.  Poor indoor air quality (up to twice as worse as outside air, according to the EPA) is taxing our health care system and putting kids at risk of a lifetime of complications.

It’s absolutely vital to know the ingredients of every product that you use and understand its effects on the human body, or to rely on companies that you know you can trust. Luckily, there are plenty of resources  Read the rest

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The below is excerpted via Cornerbirch.com:

“I’ve posted before about my admiration for Michael Pollan.  Here is a list of simple eating tips:

1. Don’t eat anything our great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. Read the rest

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I don’t even like ketchup, ordinarily, and I could eat this stuff by the spoonful—it’s that good. Nothing like the creepy red goop that lasts forever in your fridge. So rinse out your high-fructose corn syrup-encrusted bottles of you-know-who, recycle them, and get your hands on Wholemato. It’s organic, gluten-free, agave-sweetened and best of all, delicious. French fries, sweet fries, grass-fed and veggie burgers alike will delight in the complex flavors that unwind from these bottles—a fragrant depth and balanced sweetness unheard of in a ketchup. Compare fine Chianti to stale box wine. I recommend spicy but original is yummy, too. Visit the site.

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from elephant Autumn 05 issue

Pregnancy and Childbirth: An Herbal Journal
By:  Willow King

During my pregnancy and the months that have followed the birth of my son, Lucien, I’ve come to respect the role that herbs play in our health. My becoming a home for another human being inspired me to eat well and pay careful attention to everything I put in my body. Being pregnant was an opportunity to deepen my relationship with nourishment. The birth year is a great time to acquaint oneself with the healing properties of plants. They provide Read the rest

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This urgent video warning comes via Canada’s Jon Stewart, Mr. Rick Mercer. Please: share this with all your gardening friends, for the sake of tomato plants and morning glories everywhere.

Video: Read the rest

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Photo courtesy of Vegan Society

November 1st is World Vegan day and the start to World Vegan month.

Agriculture is one of the most resource-intensive and environmentally damaging processes in our industrialized lifestyles. Vegan Society states that “[r]emoving the causes of environmental degradation is often more effective Read the rest

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Blog via the grouchy, good man Dave Rogers. Photos by elephantjournaldotcom’s Rusty Ralston. More to come via the sunny-side up Lindsey Wolf on Monday.

Have an itch to enter the LOHAS market but don’t know the fundamentals? Wish the titans of the natural foods world would dissect your dream idea and give it a push into the green limelight? Do you like hobnobbing with fellow entrepreneurs while sampling gluten-free granola made from shade grown oats on a co-op that supports the rights of farm animals in a developing nation? 

Well, if you weren’t at Naturally Boulder Days 2008, you missed your chance.

You missed Ann Cooper (written up a year ago in the New Yorker) talk about her farm-to-table solution to America’s ridiculously unhealthy school lunch system. (Note: I too missed this one. It was held at the un-Boulderly hour of eight a.m. The only pre-cappuccino events in this town involve skis.) Read the rest

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(all photos by Michael Levin www.zoobird.com unless otherwise specified)

“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination”  —Oscar Wilde

Living off-the-grid means living without public utilities like electricity. People who live off-the grid may not depend on municipal water, sewage, or natural gas. It also can mean you’re self-sufficient in various ways. There are many third-world citizens who have lived off-the grid for generations. Some people choose this alternative lifestyle to save money. It’s also a way to lower your environmental footprint.

Michael “Mycol” Stevens lives off-the-grid just north of Gainesville, Florida. I met Mycol at a Fall planting workshop called “Fall Harvest Fest” hosted by our local green store, Indigo. He gave a talk about his experiences with self sustenance, organic living and his alternative lifestyle in general. He invited me to his place after the talk.

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I had never thought much about my wine purchases when shopping the aisles of Trader Joe’s. The simple answer was in the phrase, two buck chuck.  Yep you got it, decent wine for two bucks.  Not bad! And quite unheard of in Colorado!  But I realized that maybe my wine choices were good for my wallet but not so good for my body (or the environment).

I was finally introduced to Organic wine.  I had never thought Read the rest

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Via Mary Taylor, from the Holiday 2008 issue. 

Oh! Can you do the can-can? If you can then I can…
Canning your own foods may seem daunting, if not a bit out of fashion. But it’s the ultimate retort to Winter as it sneers at Autumn’s endless supply of fresh produce. Like it or not, even those of us who’ve been meditating on non-attachment for years can experience a twinge of grasping, come mid-winter, for a serving of peach pie!

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