Planetsave

In two weeks The National Organics Standards Board is expected to vote in Washington on what kinds of fish can actually be labeled organic.  Tell Washington what YOU think by signing a petition from the Consumer’s Union.

We’re all pretty clear on what “organic” means when it comes to vegetables, poultry and red meat, but what about fish?  This is a question that has been on our radar for quite some time. There is a limited amount of seafood being sold as organic at stores in the US but oftentimes these products were certified in other countries.

The organic fish question still has us scratching our heads, because as of yet there has been no “official” organic designation when it comes to seafood in the US.  That’s about to change. Read the rest of this entry »

In this day and age of highly processed, artificial ingredient-infested “food products”, fermentation offers a beautifully simple, healthy, and delicious alternative to preserving some of our favorite foods. Fermentation is a natural food preservation process typically requiring nothing more than very simple ingredients and time. Many popular, everyday foods would not exist without magical fermentation processes: sauerkraut, cheese, yogurt, miso, soy sauce, beer, and wine, just to name a few.

Fermentation not only preserves food, it makes food more nutritious and digestible, and the practice has spanned thousands of years. (Just one example: over 1000 years ago, Icelandic Vikings transformed milk cultured with rennet into skyr, a kind of thick yogurt-like cheese for later consumption.) It is a transformation made possible by bacteria and fungi. (I like to call it “controlled rotting”). For example: Salt some cabbage and throw it in a crock in the corner of your kitchen, and within a few weeks you’ll have delicious, aromatic sauerkraut, the result of a magical lactic acid fermentation.

Read the rest of this entry »

A Florida ranch was raided yesterday after repeated complaints from residential neighbors about a horrible smell lingering around the property. Officials discovered a shed with floor drains and butcher knives, a freezer full of various types of animal flesh and a horse’s head, and over 400 live animals living in poor conditions.

Ramiro Perez, who owned and maintained the operation, insists that he has done nothing wrong.

Read the rest of this entry »

CNN is reporting that 1,500 Chinese Raccon Dogs have died because of a tainted food supply.

Apparently melamine was found in the dog food supply. Melamine is the same deadly chemical that was added to the dairy supply last month and sent Chinese babies to the hospital with kidney stones. Four Chinese babies’ deaths have been blamed on infant formula that was laced with melamine. Some 54,000 other children were sickened.

Zhang determined that the animals died of kidney failure after performing a necropsy — an animal autopsy — on about a dozen dogs. He declined to say when the deaths occurred but a report Monday in the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper said they had occurred over the past two months.

“First, we found melamine in the dogs’ feed, and second, I found that 25 percent of the stones in the dogs’ kidneys were made up of melamine,” Zhang told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. (from CNN)

We have a problem. We have 1,500 dead dogs but let’s take a look at what these dogs are. These dogs are bred for their raccoon like coat which is used for trim on coats. Are we as a global economy okay with the slaughter of dogs, man’s best friend, for ornamental fabric? Is it acceptable that Melamine is added to the food supply of both humans and animals?

Read the rest of this entry »

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) tested ten brands of bottled water and found that Wal-Mart’s “Sam’s Choice” contained chemical levels higher than is legal in California, and exceeding voluntary limits set by the industry.

The study found that 10 popular brands of bottled water, purchased from grocery stores and other retailers in 9 states and the District of Columbia, contained 38 chemical pollutants altogether, with an average of 8 contaminants in each brand.  The group is not disclosing most of the brand names at this point, but did single out Wal Mart’s “Sam’s Choice,” as a brand to be wary of.

The Environmental Working Group found that some of the Sam’s Choice bottled water bought from stores in Mountain View and Oakland, California, came from the Las Vegas Valley Water District’s public water supply, which is sometimes chlorinated.  Scott Huntley, a spokesman for the Las Vegas Valley Water District, said he had no knowledge that Wal-Mart was using Las Vegas’s water supply for bottling.

On Tuesday, the Environmental Working Group filed a notice to sue Wal-Mart, stating that the chain did not effectively warn the public about the health risks of their bottled water. Read the rest of this entry »

Scientists in Australia have discovered antibodies in the blood of sharks that could potentially prove effective in battling cancer.

It has been discovered that the antibodies (molecules that fight disease) in sharks are extremely resilient and researchers hope that this quality can be isolated to help slow the spread of  cancer, malaria, and other human diseases.

The Australian team discovered that shark antibodies were tough and able to survive in both very acidic and very alkaline settings.  This is important as it means that a “shark pill” would still be effective within the very acidic environment of the human stomach. Read the rest of this entry »

Across the country, cities are passing new laws to allow backyard chickens.

Cities across the country have shown new leniency in the urban chicken arena.  Ann Arbor, Michigan, South Portland, Maine and Fort Collins Colorado, have all voted in the past year to allow backyard chickens.  They join the growing number of U.S. cities to make legal the raising of poultry in the backyard.

Illegal or not, city chicken flocks are more popular than ever.

“It’s no longer something kinky or interesting,” said Jac Smit, president of the Urban Agriculture Network. “The ‘chicken underground’ has really spread so widely and has so much support.”

Though some worry that backyard chickens might carry and transmit avian flu, advocates of urban chicken farming claim that farming poultry on a small scale presents less of a risk of disease than large-scale production.

Read the rest of this entry »

One in six people on the planet do not have access to safe, clean drinking water.

Your tap water is fine.

Worried it isn’t? Get it tested.
If it turns out that it isn’t get a tap water filter, and join a “stream team” (google it to find one in your state).
Need to take it with you? Get a re-usable bottle that will last long and not leach harmful chemicals into the water you are drinking.

There. Your water problems are solved, and I never once suggested purchasing bottled water.

Water is free (kind of) it falls from the sky. If it were Coke that came out of your taps and fell from the sky—I can’t imagine ANYONE purchasing it in a bottle for an incredible mark up. Afterall, it’s free (sort of)! So why buy water of a similar quality to that which flows from your tap, in bottles made from some of the most environmentally damaging chemicals on the planet? And why pay one, two, or three dollars?

…Why not pay twenty?

Seriously.

The only good bottle of water available for purchase is being sold by Scott Harrison and it costs $20!

“Why would ANYONE pay $20 for a normal-sized bottle of water?”, you ask.

Because this special bottle of water has the unique ability to drill wells!
Read the rest of this entry »

This is a guest post by Meg Hamill who works at LandPaths in Partnership with The Open Space District of Sonoma County, California.

Here’s a question, not meant to keep you up at night, but definitely worth thinking about:  Which of the foods in your refrigerator right now would be likely to survive a global climate change?

Lucky for us, this question is not going unanswered.  The Global Crop Diversity Trust recently earmarked 1.5 million dollars towards screening the world’s food supply for natural resistances to floods, temperature change, and droughts.  The Trust is also looking for higher yielding crops that need little water and less space to grow.

The overarching mission of the organization is to ensure the conservation and availability of crop diversity for food security, worldwide.  In February of this year, they opened the doors of their “Arctic Seed Vault,”  otherwise known as “Doomsday Vault,” a safe haven for seeds from all over the world.  The vault was dug into a mountainside in Svalbard, a group of islands nearly a thousand kilometers North of Norway. Read the rest of this entry »

This most recent weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting about two dozen different superheroes. These weren’t your typical eye beam-blasting, web-slinging, high-flying superheroes, though. Instead, they were bicycle-riding, service-providing, and compassion-inspiring superheroes with names like CompashMan (short for compassionate man), Believe-Oh, Love Ninja, Queen Bee, Atomic Calm, and Super OK With Himself Guy. They were all part of The Haul of Justice, an extraordinary event in which regular folks dress up as superheroes and hit the roads on their bicycles for a month-long journey, providing service to the public with no agenda, and no pre-established course or plans .

Once or twice a year since 2000, the Superheroes have assembled to bike through a specific location (usually a particular state - 23 states and five other countries have been ridden through thus far). On their journey, which is totally unplanned, these Superheroes stop in random towns and cities, and provide service to people in need. Usually, it’s a simple matter of asking people if they need help with anything. As you might expect, people are often surprised by the appearance of twenty-some-odd bikers dressed up in capes and costumes.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Ethan Hughes (a.k.a. The Zing), a friend and fellow communitarian based out of The Possibility Alliance of La Plata, Missouri, who helped to inspire and start the biannual movement. Speaking with him during the Superheroes’ first stop at the tri-communities area (Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, Sandhill Farm, and Red Earth Farms) of northeastern Missouri , I learned a great deal about the history and inspiration for The Haul of Justice, Ethan’s thoughts on activism and public service, inspiring change, and ultimately, helping to create a healthier, more compassionate world.

Inspiration for the Superheroes bike ride

Brian Liloia: How would you summarize the overall mission of the Superheroes bike ride?

Ethan Hughes: There are a couple of guiding principles. The first mission is to be totally open, with no agenda, to just show up in downtown Seattle [for example], and see who needs help. Someone who’s homeless, all the way to a community garden. The second mission is to do that service as mindfully as we can, without preaching. I think the third part is to make service enjoyable, with things like the costumes. Can we go out on the road, with no plan, try to be mindful of the earth and communities, and have fun? And on a good day, we do all of those.

BL: Where did the inspiration for doing this come from? When was the idea formulated?

EH: It grew over time. I read comic books when I was little. I think the myth of the hero is in all cultures. As I aged, I saw that I have heroes like Martin Luther King, and Gandhi. Without blowing people up with eye beams, these people were heroes. So the idea started with a few people dressing up as superheroes for different campaigns. At some point, being an avid comic book reader, I said, well, you know, Daredevil swings around randomly looking for people to help. That’s the element missing. We were picking our campaign. But, hey, let’s get on our bikes in Seattle and bike to Boston, dressed as superheroes, looking for any service to provide to people. So that’s how it evolved.

Response to the Superhero ride

BL: How do people respond to your presence? How are they affected?

EH: It’s a huge spectrum. I’d say most of it falls into the “very positive” range. We’ve been in totally conservative towns, in Mississippi, in Montana [for example], and we pull in, and big trucks pull up and ask what we’re about. And we say, what do you need? And it’s a message that very few people can get angry at, if you are authentically asking them “what do you need?” For one example, I went into a bar, and I walked in with my superhero outfit, and there were truckers, and I asked “hey, what do you guys need? Does anyone need any help in this town?” And they all turned, and it was very hostile in the beginning. But I explained that we were people from all over who come together to give help once a year, and within five minutes, people were inviting me back to their homes for dinner, etc.

The final part that helps us is that we actually celebrate local superheroes, so instead of coming in and saying we’re the superheroes, we come in and say we’re here to help you who are full-time superheroes, and then that changes that dynamic. They feel really seen. It’s not, well, we’re the cool superheroes, you’re the losers, it’s we’re here for a day, in costume, and you’re the hero, day by day, you’re running this women’s shelter, day by day you’re running this community garden, etc. That really helps people to receive us.

BL: Why do you think people occasionally respond in a negative way? Is it just because of your appearance, and how you are presenting yourself?

EH: I think that one, it’s appearance. And two, so few mainstream Americans believe someone would actually go out for free, not part of a paid job, and serve, with no ulterior motive. No, “hey, and join this religion”, or “hey, and sign this petition for this politician”. I think we’re in a cynical society that doesn’t just trust someone who comes in, and says hey, I want to help.

A community on wheels: organization of the Superheroes bike rides

BL: How would you describe how the rides are organized? It appears to me to be almost like an intentional community on wheels. How are decisions made?

EH: That has evolved. The first ride was meant to be the only ride. We weren’t planning to carry on for years. During the first ride, the first few weeks were very chaotic. Over time, we have built systems, and there is now a superhero community. There’s over 500 Superheroes now. It is an intentional community on wheels. Some of us have spent over 13 months together doing this. We use consensus. Everyone has an equal voice. There’s wisdom handed over to riders who have been on multiple rides. The group will definitely defer to people who have been in more situations, but in the end, no one has a higher voice. It’s total consensus. What looks chaotic really has a deep intention to function well. If they can create an army for war and be so disciplined, the Superheroes’ goal is to be that disciplined for love and peace. Get up at 6:30 a.m., eat by 7:00, and we’re ready to go out and serve.

BL: It seems like biking is at the heart of the Superheroes movement. Can you tell me about the significance of biking to the movement?

EH: On a bike, you’re the most efficient living thing in the known universe. It’s three times as efficient as walking. You actually become more efficient, which is amazing in nature: that a tool can allow us to become more efficient. It’s a perfect balance. People have argued for us walking. Human power is definitely the maximum. But, the bike allows us to go fifty miles in one day. Bikes enable a great amount of distance and human power without the environmental cost. We believe superheroes would ride bikes. If you can’t fly like Superman or cruise on water like Aquaman, the next best thing is the bicycle. The majority of superheroes are human-powered. Extraordinarily human-powered. We’re kind of embodying that. The bike just fits in so perfectly. We love the bike because we can go 100 miles in a day, and it’s easy to fix. Who could fix the Batmobile? Bikes are a technology that can spread to the masses.

Spreading the message of the Superheroes

BL: It seems like there are many things that can be said about this Superheroes ride. There’s the biking element, the service element, the community element. But is there any way to summarize, into one message, the thing that you would want people to take away from the Superheroes bike ride?

EH: The wonderful thing about this is that every Superhero would probably say something different. One would say it’s the connection, another would say it’s the service, for another it’s the biking. It’s exciting when you can have this kind of unity with diversity. For me, the biggest message is, start living what’s in your heart now. A few of us had this vision, and we didn’t wait to be a nonprofit, we didn’t wait for any big budgets, we made capes for nothing, and this was our expression of being alive. Imagine if everyone in the world started doing it now. We just jumped in. For me, that’s the biggest message, if we all live what’s in our heart, everything would be covered. It’s crazy, it’s imperfect, but we’re trying. You can do the same.

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If you’re located in Missouri, keep an eye peeled for a group of bicycle-powered Superheroes now through mid-October!

In my next entry, I will look more in depth at The Possibility Alliance, a newly formed intentional community based on the ideals of the Superheroes, founded by Ethan Hughes, partner Sarah Wilcox-Hughes, and other Superheroes. The Possiblitiy Alliance is located in La Plata, Missouri, and is completely petroleum-free, car-free, and electricity-free. The community also serves as the headquarters for the Superheroes bike rides.

To learn more about the Superheroes, contact The Possibility Alliance at:

Possibility Alliance
28408 Frontier Lane
La Plata, MO 63549

Telephone: 660-332-4094

Also, you can read more about the Superheroes and goings-on at the Possibility Alliance in the current issue of Communities Magazine. And to follow along with the Superheroes’ journey through Missouri and other bicycling events, check out the biking revolution news toolbar.

(Image credit: CompashMan and Gratidude)

Read More about Activism and Culture

• Senator Jeff Klein to Cyclist: Get out of my F***ing Way
• Two Wheels Good, Four Wheels Baaad: Atlanta’s Sopo Bicycle Co-op
• Ecological Sustainability Requires a Cultural Revolution, Too