We’ve written about water for last year’s Blog Action Day, but some recent movies have got me thinking again about water, and wanted to share them.

View of Manhattan from Roosevelt Island

I recently watched the documentary No Impact Man. This guy Colin Beavan takes his family on a one-year quest to have no impact on the environment – meaning walking, biking, scooting everywhere, no electricity, no new clothes, no toilet paper, and of course, no water in plastic bottles. While many of us don’t live in places like New York City where it’s a bit easier because of the accessibility of farmer’s markets within walking or biking distance, the documentary makes one question what each of us can do to lower our impact.

Georgia Aquarium

For anyone who talks about caring about the environment or where their food comes from, check it out (streaming on Netflix) and the follow-up initiative, the No Impact Project. In any case, the Beavan’s taking their no impact to the nth degree really raises how far we have become as a society in how we treat our food and drink.

Waters of the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Town, South Africa

If you’ve ever drank water (duh), you need to watch Tapped, a documentary about the bottled water business. Winner of multiple awards, this movie examines some startling information, not only about how much we consume (29 billion bottles purchased by Americans alone in 2007), but also the terrible consequences of the business. A few notes:

• Everyone – EVERYONE, YOU, ME – will have an issue with having accessible, clean, drinking water by 2030. That’s not so far away.
• Only 1% of the Earth’s water is drinkable.
• Groundwater rights depends on the state, so big companies own water rights in small towns, like Nestle (which owns Poland Springs) in Maine.
• Though the International Bottled Water Association (yes, there is one) says they only take .02% of available groundwater, critics say by doing so in small areas, fish populations get depleted…among other things.
• 40% of bottled water is filtered tap water. (My way is cheaper!)
• Places nearby refineries making plastic bottles have higher rates of birth defects and cancer. In Corpus Christi, refinery workers are forbidden to let citizens know they have a right to clean air and water. Air and soil are contaminated. Birth defects are 84% higher than the state average.

Jellyfish at Dawn, Wilmington, NC

Wait! It gets better! Have you switched out of individual bottled water because of BPA and stuff? You might still drink water at the office from the water cooler, even filling your aluminum bottle with it. Well, it turns out that most 5-gallon bottles have BPA, and these low doses of estrogen can lead to cancers of the breast and prostrate, ADD, diseases of the liver, ovaries, uterus, low sperm count, and it goes on and on…. So you might think you’re safe refilling at the water cooler, but think again!

The movie is streaming on Netflix (oh, Netflix, how I love thee). See the trailer here:

The smart guys at McKinsey recently came out with a key report, Charting Our Water Future. They are part of a group, the 2030 Water Resources Group that comprises of some big business, including the Barilla Group, The Coca Cola Company, Nestlé (yes Nestle), New Holland Agriculture, SAB Miller, Standard Chartered, and Syngenta.

Folks are starting to recognize this issue more and more. University of Canberra in Australia is discontinuing sale of bottled water by World Water Day 2011. World Water Day (March 22) theme this year is: Water for Cities: Responding to the Urban Challenge. Find out here what you can do.

Essentially, something’s gotta be done because we’re all going to be effected – whether you want to know or not.

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I am now a weekday vegetarian.*

*Some exceptions: i.e. birthday meals at the Brazilian steakhouse, holidays during the week. I’m not perfect, OK. For more about this, see video at end of post. Even Anthony Bourdain is reducing his meat consumption.

For most of you, you might be thinking, big deal. You have to understand this in context. I. Did. Not. Eat. Vegetables. Until. After. I. Turned. 31.

31. That’s Yoda in dog years.

I tried once in college to become vegetarian, but since I didn’t eat veggies, I ate pasta for three straight days and got bored, not to mention hungry. So why now? One, my big kid tastebuds have started to grow in and I no longer gag on tomatoes or shiver at spinach. Two, as ZomppaPatty noted, I’d prefer to live out my years as healthy as possible, however long that will be.

One of the lessons learned is that while these centenarians didn’t cut out meat entirely, they didn’t eat it very often. So I’m a-changing my ways. For real.

The other thing that I picked up that I need to start implementing is the notion of Hara Hachi Bu.  According to the healthy seniors living in Okinawa, before each meal, they say to themselves, “hara hachi bu, ” a reminder to eat until only 80% full. Since food takes about 20 minutes to digest, you’ll soon realize you are actually full. Jenny from the Nourished Kitchen wrote a great piece on this.

This is something my mom told me for years, but for some reason, I always practiced negative hara hachi bu, if there is such a thing. I ate 20% MORE AFTER I was full. It was like I couldn’t stop until my stomach hurt. In fact, ZomppaLiz likes to make up stories of when I would outeat the football players at the all-you-can-eat cafeteria in college (only partly, sort of, kind of true).

It makes sense, watch portion control, live healthier longer.

Another key point that the Blue Zones speak of is the notion of having a greater purpose. Last year, I wrote about Dan Buettner’s piece on finding one’s Ikigai. Forget what that means? Take a look – one of the best “diet” tips ever – as well as a real impetus to reach for what ZomppaPatty speaks of: growing old and healthy with the ones near and dear.

Life is not about cutting things out, but about living well. Yes, that means Hara Hachi Bu for me. But it means that I am also more aware of the foods I eat. People often think of chicken liver as gross, but I adore it. The centenarians all eat meat, and when they do, they utilize as many parts of the animals so as not to waste as well as for nutrients. Liver is high in iron and can be so tasty when made properly.

You might be wondering why I’m writing a meat post on this discussion about becoming a weekday vegetarian. One. I am a fan of pate. Two, since I don’t eat meat on the weekdays, I want the meat I eat on the weekends to be a delicious treat. Three, pate allows me to utilize more of the chicken. Four, pate fills you up quickly, so you don’t have to eat a lot of it. Five, pate is such a nutrient-dense food. In other words, big flavor, not a lot, nutritious.

Rather than question how it is made or overspending, I make my own. For less than $3.00 for organic chicken livers, you can impress your loved one from now until 108.

Thank goodness for the weekends.

Homemade Chicken Liver Pate

Chicken Liver Pate
1 lb. chicken liver
6 TB butter
2 TB olive oil
1/4 cup orange juice
1 cup chicken stock
2 TB dijon mustard
1/2 tsp rosemary
2 tsp black pepper
2 garlic cloves, crushed

1. Melt 2TB butter
2. Add chicken livers and saute 10 minutes until brown
3. Add orange juice, chicken stock, rosemary, dijon mustard, pepper, and garlic clove
4. Boil until liquid is pretty much gone
5. Cool and put in food processor with 4TB of softened butter
6. Add salt to season and puree

Curious about weekday vegetarianism? Check out this TedX video with Treehugger’s Graham Hill:

Check us out on Tip Day Thursday, Simple Lives Thursday, Full Plate Thursday, and Fresh Bites Friday!

On February 12, TedX Manhattan held a session on “Changing the Way We Eat.” Some amazing speakers…it’s a bit long, put it on while you’re cleaning or cooking, it’s worth your time. Check out the site for more, but some highlights from Session 1:

This post originally appeared on Grist:

Once every five years, the federal government goes to great lengths to update its recommendations for how Americans should eat. In fact, Congress mandates that the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) be based on the most current science available. Yet over the years, the DGA process has been wrought with politics, which should come as no surprise. With each cycle, we gather to witness just how strongly the food industry has managed to exert its influence.

Last week’s release of the 2010 version was no different. Like most versions before it, it inspired plenty of spin and criticism. But really, what does it matter?

Food Pyramid

The time has come to ask, are dietary guidelines just another charade, a waste of taxpayer dollars? Who even pays attention, except for a bunch of dietitians, food industry lobbyists, the media (for about a minute), and a few policy wonks like me and my fellow Grist contributor Tom Laskawy? The general public barely notices; and after the initial media blitz, it’s back to business as usual for the next five years.

Now, the guidelines do play an important role in setting nutrition standards for the federal food assistance programs, and I certainly don’t mean to belittle this important purpose. But given the huge disconnect between actual science (which the DGA is supposed to be based on) and what comes out the other end, why do we keep bothering to engage in this hopeless charade?

While the 2005 version’s take-away message seemed to be that Americans needed to eat more whole grains, this time, the media fixated on the DGA’s warning to eat less salt. (It seems we can only handle one basic nutrition concept every five years.) But as I told Andy Bellatti for his blog post on this topic, such advice is doomed to failure because of our toxic food environment. Such reductionist messages also provide industry an opportunity to retool its junk food to downplay the “bad ingredient” du jour:

Telling people to cut back on salt in the current food environment is like telling fish not to die in a polluted stream. Just like we have restrictions on pollutants in water and air, we need regulations that restrict salt in food. But of course, the food industry would go ballistic over that idea. Big Food is happy to have Uncle Sam keep doling out meaningless advice. And, we are likely to see more “low-salt” junk food soon, just as we saw “whole grain” Reese’s Puffs cereal in 2005. That worked so well.

SODA!

Things did get a little better this time around. Veteran food politics maven Marion Nestle declared herself “in shock” at such obvious DGA statements as, “avoid oversized portions,” “drink water instead of sugary drinks,” and the most straightforward and useful piece of advice, “make half your plate fruits and vegetables.” But somehow even these no-brainers didn’t make it in the government’s 90-page “policy document,” as Nestle explains.

Despite these modest improvements, most messages in the 2010 DGA remain lame. While some experts are understandably pleased that the government is finally telling Americans to “eat less,” I doubt that such vague advice will have enough tangible meaning to be effective, especially with the food industry constantly telling people to “eat more.”

I went back to read my take on the 2005 update and realized that very little has actually changed. In an op-ed piece published in the San Francisco Chronicle, “Why Uncle Sam won’t tell you what not to eat,” I concluded:

Americans need is to be told outright: Stop drinking so much Coke. People don’t think in terms of ingredients. Most consumers don’t even buy ingredients anymore because they don’t cook. We think in terms of packaged-food brand names and fast-food menu items. Imagine dietary guidelines that said: Stop eating Big Macs, Doritos and Oreos. Those are recommendations most Americans could understand, but not ones we are likely to hear. Until people are told the entire truth, instead of meaningless messages such as “eat less,” the nation’s health will continue to suffer.

CHIPS!

As long as Big Food continues to influence the process, the dietary guidelines will never be that blunt. But the larger problem is really the disconnect between our agricultural policies and public health. Rather than tweaking guidelines, the government should figure out how to subsidize more of the foods we should be eating, instead of those we shouldn’t. That’s when eating a truly healthy diet will actually be within reach for everyone. But until then, maybe the feds should just stop bothering to tell Americans how to eat right.

Because, who’s even listening?

I say add the source, lot #, whether the animal was raised humanely or in gestation crates, what feed, and what additives/hormones were added.

Check out this great post by So Good about Oprah’s investigate video into Cargill’s feedlots…PR effort or real thing? Either way, wouldn’t you like to know where your meat comes from?

But is it always? A USDA study showed that bags of fresh broccoli and spinach lost much of their nutrients just by being exposed to the lights in a grocery store. Vegetables that are flash frozen (not soaked in sodium BPA-lined cans) could retain some of those lost nutrients. Read this Slate article by Daniel Engber for more information.

A tip? Next time you reach for that bagged spinach, reach for the one in the far back that’s been hidden in the dark.

Do I know at what price my seafood consumption pays for the environment and for the wild animals who live in the waters?

Jellyfish at the Georgia Aquarium

I’m always a little perplexed by those who say they won’t eat meat because they don’t want to eat animals or hurt the planet, yet seafood is often an exception….

Seafood. Frutas del mar.Frutti de mare. We don’t call four-legged animals we eat “landfood,” yet we think our oceans are forever overflowing.

Salmon at Jaleo, Bethesda, MD

If you eat anything from the seas, do you know how it’s caught? Is it endangered? Is it sustainable? If you eat any kind of fish or animal from the waters, I highly recommend first reading Four Fish by Paul Greenberg.

Four Fish by Paul Greenberg

One of the best written and clear books I’ve read, Greenberg investigates the fishing industry and what “seafood” and sustainability means through the four fish that have characterized much of our “seafood” today: salmon, cod, bass, and tuna. Being from New England, cod, lobster, and clam chowder were givens. We ate like there was no tomorrow.

Sea bass

But Greenberg warns otherwise, and investigates which fish are more sustainably raise, fish that have had less fame – tilapia, Kona Kampachi, carp. He also makes it clear that wild fish are not “seafood,” there for our consumption, but like any creature, deserves to fulfill its destiny. Francis Lam from Salon interviewed Greenberg via email recently, and you can read the transcript here.

Yet recent reports, like Treehugger and Guardian’s pieces by Lewis Smith raise concern about whether MSC is rushing too label certain fish or sea animals sustainable when they may not be.

Rights to animals in the water and what constitutes as our food is coming to a head, literally. Do you remember that report of Gordon Ramsey getting doused with gasoline for investigating illicit shark fin trade? I love Gordon Ramsey!! Sorry for the digression…but he rocks.

An important video to watch is End of the Line (also streaming on Netflix. Netflix, I love you!). Check out their site and join the campaign to protect our “seafood” before we can no longer “see” anything in the ocean. See trailer here:

If we pay more attention to the animals that come from the waters, we may start hearing better news. Recently, Barry Eastabrook of Politics of the Plate noted that haddock stocks have been replenishing. Marc aka  Mental Masala wrote a great piece on Ethicurean on what some restaurants in San Francisco, i.e. Fish and Chez Panisse, are doing. Follow fish2fork (on Twitter too) which is a “campaigning restaurant guide for people who want to eat fish – sustainably” – done by the folks who did End of the Line.

Seafood is a misnomer. Animals in the oceans are wild, roaming animals, and we need to recognize and honor their place, especially if we ask them to give their lives for us.

Fast Company Magazine posted this rather terrific yet scary graphic about the mysterious decline in Western bee colonies.

Click on the image to go to the article

Bee at NC Botanical Gardens

Source: GreenDeals

Source: Summer Tomato