Please don't preheat your oven, really

When temperatures drop, home cooks break out the roasting pan. But recipes contain a lot of outdated lore, particularly admonishments to preheat your oven. Although pre-heating may be helpful for certain sensitive tasks like baking, your meat and vegetables probably aren’t going to notice the difference.

How this helps

When you preheat an oven, you’re spending a lot of energy to heat up a small amount of air — which then goes whooshing out when you open the door to put in the food. Preheating can be an especially pernicious habit if you turn on the oven before you start doing food prep, leaving it “running on empty” for half an hour or more.

More information

• The best source of information is your own oven. Experiment to see what works best for you.
• This Treehugger article digs into the preheating issue and some related myths.

Users Guide to the Backyard Chicken Movement

Sustainability Tip of the Week

In cities across the U.S., health and organic-minded "locavores" are starting to raise their own chickens. This backyard farmers movement is a direct result of the birth and evolution of the "eat local" consciousness. On a city by city basis, a nationwide grassroots campaign is gradually convincing municipalities to drop previous laws that did not allow small flocks of poultry to be raised in city limits. "Fresh is not what you buy at the grocery store. Fresh is when you go into your backyard, put it in your bag, and eat it," said Carol-Ann Sayle, co-owner of an urban farm in Austin, Texas, located within walking distance from the state capitol. "Everyone should have their own henhouse in their own backyard."

Learn more

October 24th - National Call-In Day for Farmworker Rights!

Whole Foods: Can you Hear Us Now?

Despite
a mobilization by thousands of organic consumers, Teamsters, and United
Farm Workers, sending in petitions and handing out leaflets at Whole
Foods Market stores in 33 states, WFM is refusing to stand up for
workers rights! Oregon-based Beef Northwest, the feedlot corporation
that fattens up Country Natural Beef's herds, refuses to negotiate with
the United Farm Workers in good faith. Whole Foods in the single
largest seller of Country Natural Beef in the U.S. Joining leading
elected officials in Oregon, Presidential Candidate Senator Barack
Obama, in a letter earlier this year urged Beef Northwest to sit down
and negotiate a contract with the United Farm Workers. In the spirit of
Cesar Chavez, please support the United Farmworkers Union drive at the
Beef Northwest feedlots in Oregon and send a message to the world:
eliminate labor exploitation in the organic and natural food sectors.

• Call and fax Whole Foods' Corporate Headquarters and you local Whole Foods' General Manager.
• Spread the word in your community and send a letter to the editor in support of sweatfree organic and natural food.
• Send a letter to Whole Foods executives here.

Fighting Organic Label Fraud - Round One

Legal Victory for Organic Consumers

As
reported previously in Organic Bytes, the Organic Consumers Association
and Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps have sued organic certifier Ecocert in
the ongoing campaign to stop the certification and misleading labeling
of fake organic personal care products that are fundamentally made-up
of synthetic ingredients and petrochemicals. Dr. Bronner's has launched
a further umbrella lawsuit against specific companies who label their
products as "organic" but have primary ingredients that are synthetic.
After hearing oral arguments earlier this month, the San Francisco
County Superior Court ruled on October 8 that Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps
can proceed with its lawsuit seeking to compel so-called "organic"
companies and certifiers to drop, or stop certifying, deceptive organic
label and brand claims. Brands denounced by OCA and Bronner's include
Avalon "Organics", Jason "Pure, Natural & Organic", Nature's Gate
"Organics", Kiss My Face "Obsessively Organic", Giovanni "Organic
Cosmetics", Head "Organics", Desert Essence "Organics" and Stella
McCartney's CARE "100% Organic".

Learn more

School Lab Rats Freak Out on GE Food

Schools in Wisconsin are showing kids the dangers of genetically engineered (GE) junk food with some unique science class experiments. Sister Luigi Frigo repeats the experiment every year in her second grade class in Cudahy. Students feed one group of mice unprocessed whole foods. A second group of mice are given the same junk foods served at most schools. Within a couple of days, the behavior of the second group of mice develop erratic sleeping schedules and become lazy, nervous and even violent. It takes the mice about three weeks on unprocessed foods to return to normal. According to Frigo, the second graders tried to do the experiment again a few months later with the same mice, but the animals have already learned their lesson and refuse to eat the GE food.

The Organic Consumers Association has more info ... Learn more

PETA Wants Hybrid Car Tax Credits for Vegetarians

Source: PETA

SYNOPSIS: A University of Chicago report shows that switching to a vegetarian diet is more effective in countering global warming than switching from a standard American car to a Toyota Prius.

This morning, PETA founder and President Ingrid E. Newkirk dispatched letters to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid urging them to extend vegetarians the tax break currently given to hybrid car owners for purchasing a vehicle with low carbon emissions. Newkirk’s request comes in light of a University of Chicago report showing that switching to a vegetarian diet is more effective in countering global warming than switching from a standard American car to a Toyota Prius. Newkirk also cites a scientific report recently published by the United Nations that concluded that the meat industry generates more greenhouse gases than all the world’s transportation systems combined, including cars, trucks, planes and ships.

"The single best thing that any of us can do to for our health, for animals, and for the environment is to go vegetarian," says Newkirk. "Anyone who buys a hybrid in order to cut down on their contribution to global warming and uses it to drive to the supermarket to buy chicken, steaks, and milk should face up to the fact that there’s no such thing as a meat-eating environmentalist."

For more information, please visit PETA’s Web site GoVeg.com.

Well, I'm a Vegetarian who drives a Toyota Prius.... would I get double tax credits?