blogs.ubc.ca/theoilieat

Jenna Talackova was originally not allowed to enter the Miss Universe  competition because she was not “a natural born woman”, but this rule was later revoked and she was allowed to compete. I think it’s great that she got to compete, and I believe she would have done Canada proud if she had made it to the finals! I think it’s important for transgender people to be recognized as the sex they feel they truly are….What are your thoughts??? Should she have been allowed to compete despite being transgender? And if yes, do you think the same could be said for other competitions such as sports, etc..?

I picked up a bottled water after work. Although I usually bring my own, if I were to do this on a regular basis it’s environmental impact would be notable.

Check out this video for Smart Water promoted by Jennifer Anniston: Bottled water seems to also be a fashion statement.

A plastic bottle goes through several steps from it’s creation to it’s demise – manufacturing the package, water sourcing, shipping, retail, sale and finally discarding. There are severe allegations in every one of these steps.

Globally, bottled water involves almost 3 million tons of plastic packaging every year. People are becoming increasingly concerned about the price our environment will pay, in regards to the waste and from exhaustion of oil, gas and coal supply used in the making of the bottles. The raw material cost will continue to echo its role as an unrefined oil spin-off product.

The NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change predicts that to produce just a one one-litter bottle they need approximately 200 milliliters of oil! Billions of bottles are made every year.

Michael Pollan on why we should eat local.

For the summer I am working at restaurant called Aurora. We only use local Pender Island greens from Hope Bay Farms. My salad contained carrots, onions, spinach, lettuce, and tomatoes all which came from Hope Bay Farms. The vegetables are sent to the resort where I work a couple times a week in a large reusable Tupper wear container. Very little gas is used, almost zero waste from wrappers or containers and they are organic and fresh with no preservatives or pesticides.

 http://masselinkdesign.com/wordpress/farm/

If you buy food from the grocery store, it could have been shipped from thousands of miles away from your home town. This can leave an enormous carbon footprint to get produce you can often find locally. By supporting farmers close to home you assist in preserving crops, orchards, and other green plots in your region. The smaller number of processes there are between the source of your food and your table lowers the risk of it being contaminated. When you are knowledgeable of where your food is from and who farms it you become much more familiar with the food. Money spent locally on farmers, growers, and locally-owned stores and restaurants improoves your district’s economy as oppose to large conglomerates at another location benefitting. Because the products are passed through much fewer hands, the money will benefit the people growing it. Being acquainted with your food and who is growing it unites you to the farmers who raise or grow it. This way you can develop tighter-knit links to additional food sources
 Photo of Hope Bay Farms

Good thing I didn’t have the tuna sashimi (one of the more popular ones!) As said in Richard Manning’s article : “As a rough rule of thumb, that factor of ten applies to each level up the food chain, which is why some fish, such as tuna, can be a horror in all of this. Tuna is a secondary predator, meaning it not only doesn’t eat plants but eats other fish that themselves eat other fish, adding a zero to the multiplier each notch up, easily a hundred times, more like a thousand times less efficient than eating a plant.”

Local is always best! The salmon was local, and not farmed. Living on Pender Island for the summer has given me access to fresh and local seafood,  vegetables, poultry products, and cheese. Although many cannot recognize the differences in farmed salmon, it is important to buy wild, eco-friendly fish and fish products.

The main threat of farmed salmon is that they are contained in net-cages that connect to the open ocean. These farms are a severe hazard to the equilibrium of marine wild life, especially to their counterpart, the wild salmon.  

Many of these farms have up to 500, 000 fish held in these nets that connect to open water. There are more then 100 of these fish farms raising salmon in secluded inlets up and down the coast of BC.

Fish and human waste, poisons, illnesses, and parasites from the farms can easily bypass and react with the adjoining ocean and ocean floor. The most harmful to wild salmon are the parasitic sea lice that latch onto wild young salmon on their journey from the rivers to the ocean. If the young salmon pick up too many sea lice, they will die.

Weather, animals, and mistakes made by fish farm workers can cause the nets to split or rupture letting the farmed fish to swim into the surrounding area. Seals and other predators are often killed by the farms to prevent this, only causing more disruption in the natural balance of marine life. Other marine animals get caught in the mesh and die.

A possible key to fixing this problem: Raising the farmed salmon in closed containment creating a solid blockade between farmed salmon and the external marine environment assists in serving marine wildlife, especially the wild salmon from the nuisances caused by these farms.

I found this great website which provides information on different kinds of sushi! It let’s you know what locations it most commonly comes from, and if it is eco-friendly, eco-ok, or eco-worst.

http://www.edf.org/documents/8683_sushi_pocket.pdf

Feel free to print out, and cut out this pocket manual!

http://civileats.com/2009/01/27/a-vegan-reassesses-soy-a-health-and-environmental-perspective/ a vegans view on soy

typical Japanese Miso Soup recipe :

http://japanesefood.about.com/od/misosoupr/misosouptofu.htm SOOOUUUUUPPPP!

Can’t get enough of how it’s made. Tofu can be delicious but it is also the one of the most genetically modified stocks of all time.

  As a crop tofu is an exhaustive, extensive agriculture – particularly throughout the Amazon, where thousands of acres of rainforest are cleared to create fields to grow more soya bean every year. If we continue at these present rates of devastation, 40% of the rainforest in the Amazon will have vanished by 2050.

What’s in YOUR milk?

Livestock has been reported to account for about 18% of global gas emissions.

We demand Milk> Milk needs Cows >Cows ^^^> GHG emissions ^^^^>Environment negatively impacted ^^^.

*Deforestation to create land/fields to hold them.
*Soil Pollution from their waste
*Account for 80% of grain used in United States.

“Eighty percent of the grain the United States produces goes to livestock. Seventy-eight percent of all of our beef comes from feed lots, where the cattle eat grain, mostly corn and wheat. The cattle spend their adult lives packed shoulder to shoulder in a space not much bigger than their bodies, up to their knees in shit, being stuffed with grain and a constant stream of antibiotics to prevent the disease this sort of confinement invariably engenders. The manure is rich in nitrogen and once provided a farm’s fertilizer. The feedlots, however, are now far removed from farm fields, so it is simply not “efficient” to haul it to cornfields. It is waste. It exhales methane, a global-warming gas. It pollutes streams. ” Richard Manning

Milk is produced in female animals to nourish their young. Once the young are weaned off the milk the female will stop lactating.  Milk farmers will use artificial insemination to keep the cows almost constantly pregnant or lactating. After the calves are born they are taken from their parent. Males are sent to another location to be made into veal or are fed and made plump for beef, and female calves will endure the same life as their mothers.  Female cows are attached, numerous times a day, to milking mechanisms. Using influencing genes, giving potent hormones, and continuous milking, factory farmers cause the cows to create 10 times more milk then they would organically.

How it’s made! You can see just how much energy goes into grinding, baking, drying, and sorting cereal. Although Cheerios are healthier and better for than envrionment then some other cereals (frosted flakes, fruit loops) they still require alot of calories of energyto make. 

Richard Manning-“The grinding, milling, wetting, drying, and baking of a breakfast cereal requires about four calories of energy for every calorie of food energy it produces. A two-pound bag of breakfast cereal burns the energy of a half-gallon of gasoline in its making.”

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3352328729137050210# potential metaphor for how cereal affects the environment….or just stupid!? You be the judge….

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The wrappers of many popular cereals seem to be a danger not only to the environment (landfills), but also to the health of the cereal’s consumers. Here is a link to an online article concerning the Kellogg’s Cereal Recall due to the packaging. Methylnaphthalene, an organic carbon used in the packaging of Kellogg’s cereal was found to be the reason for many customer complaints of feelings nausea, ill, and dizzy after eating or smelling the cereal. 

http://apexnewsnetwork.com/23661/kelloggs-cereal-recall-2010-recalled-cereal-making-consumers-sick/