The post Wood is the New Plastic: Sustainable, Educational Toys by Tree Blocks appeared first on Get Cultured Kitchen.

HELLO FRIENDS!!!! I know I have been gone for a long time since my last interview, but this one was definitely worth the wait. Today I’m talking with my friend Lander Oppen, the owner of the toy company Tree Blocks. Lander inherited Tree Blocks after his father’s passing and is carrying on his legacy: an eco-friendly, educational toy line made from natural wood. Tree Blocks makes toys that will last decades and will teach your children and your children’s children math concepts, building principles, spacial reasoning, coordination, physical balance and creativity. Tree Blocks’ toys are guaranteed for life as long as you own them and each toy (as you will read in this article) is made with love and has a special story behind it. There are no rules when imagination and building blocks come together, and speaking from personal experience these beautiful, sustainable, wooden toys are a lot of fun!

IN THIS INTERVIEW YOU WILL LEARN:

• How a passion for wood working and childrens’ education blossomed into a beautiful company
• How natural, wooden toys can inherently be the most imaginative, educational and timeless gift
• What makes a wood source sustainable
• Why it is important for children to be connected to nature
• How ethical businesses forge mutually beneficial relationships with manufacturers
• The struggles of small businesses to afford production costs
• The duties of ethical businesses owners towards everyone working under them
• How truly sustainable businesses cannot expect exponential growth

LANDER OPPEN OF TREE BLOCKS:

Kelsey: Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and how Tree Blocks came to be?

Lander: Of course, my name is Lander Oppen and I took over Tree Blocks, a company my dad started, when he passed away a couple of years ago. He loved working with wood and was always doing various wood projects. I mean, he had me working in the wood shop with him since I was 4 years old. In 1995 he decided he wanted to be done with the corporate contractor life and take his wood working in a different direction. He had a lot of wood scraps left over from various projects so my mom started collecting them in bags and selling them to parents at the local Waldorf school. Kids used them for all sorts of things- gluing them together for crafts, coloring them, stacking them- it was the students’ creativity that inspired my dad to envision them as blocks. After selling them for a bit my mom told my dad, “People just want the natural looking sticks”. So he went into the garage for two days and came back with a version of unit blocks that were made out of natural wood and that’s how Tree Blocks came to be. 24 years later we still make the same blocks.

Kelsey: Can you explain what unit blocks are for those who don’t know?

Lander: Sure. Unit blocks were invented in the early 1900s. Another term for them is Kindergarten blocks and they were basically made for young children to have really easy, physical representations of basic math skills. So there are a few different ways to make unit blocks, but ours are unit blocks, because they are cut in two centimeter increments. So they go from 2 to 10 cm and you can do things like stack 3 2 centimeter blocks to equal the height of 1 6 centimeter block when building structures.

Kelsey: What is Tree Blocks’ mission?

Lander: Tree Blocks’ mission has always been to provide the best educational toys for children while not damaging the environment. That along with my personal mission for the future of the company, provide simple, inherently educational toys for as many children as possible. I feel like there are a lot of electronics veering away from the natural world. So I want to connect as many children back to nature.

Kelsey: Why do you think that kids having access to toys made of natural materials is important?

Lander: Because trees are some of the most important things we have. Without trees converting oxygen we wouldn’t have life. So being able to identify a piece of wood, and have an association with it being something that helped you grow as a child, is building that reverence in your mind. I like to think building those connections at a young age poises people to care about the environment for the rest of their lives. I know it did for me.

Kelsey: Tree Blocks is known for sourcing sustainable wood. Can you explain exactly what makes a wood source sustainable?

Lander: There are a couple of places that we source wood. We get a lot of our fresh wood from Vietnam where laws are in place to ensure all wood harvesting is done sustainably. They grow forests intended for lumber that are constantly being replenished at a rate that allows the ecosystem to recover. We also use a lot of scrap wood. I don’t necessarily want to call it trash, but we do take a lot of what would become trash otherwise and turn it into beautiful, educational toys. Even the paper industry doesn’t use end limbs and we can turn them into craft rounds, dolls, blocks or whatever we need them for. Tree trimmers strip away bark and throw it away when making boards. My dad took those scraps and crafted a castle out of them. The Amish factory we employ collects fallen down trees by horse. Basically we don’t ever cut down live trees unless they are being harvested in a responsible, sustainable way.

Kelsey: Will you tell me a little bit about the Amish factory you contract?

Lander: Yeah, absolutely. My dad was contracting a factoring in Poland, but it got so expensive he wasn’t going to be able to stay in business. He wasn’t sure what his next move would be, because it was really important to him to continue to contract factories that treat their employees well. A really important man in the toy world, Mark Levine, was a good friend of my father’s and linked him up with an Amish community in Wisconsin and a Vietnamese factory we also currently do business with. So this community in Wisconsin has a really cute cabinet shop and their production is amazing. I mean they crank out cabinets and furniture. So my dad asked them if they would be willing to make Tree Blocks. He taught them how to make Tree Blocks and helped them figure out how they could make small modifications to their tools to help them make the toys. So basically they make cabinets and when they get a Tree Blocks order they switch around everything and crank it out. Our warehouse is only 10 miles from there so the products, at least on the production side, don’t have to travel far.

There was a long process of getting to know them. The community is very tight knit. If you want to do business there you have to talk to who you want to do business with, then talk to the elders of the community. Then they have to make sure you have a good business and there is nothing sketchy going on. They make sure that everyone will be treated fairly and no one will be able to take advantage of anyone else. It’s really cool actually. They have people in place that really watch the community. Their shop or a friend’s shop had burned down a few years before we were in there and the whole community came together to rebuild it. Then the owner slowly payed back the community. It’s a really cool system.

I’ve met them a few times and it’s always been really great. They use machines that are hundreds of years old made back when Chicago steel was made to never break. It all runs on two gallons of diesel gas a day. No electricity. It’s really amazing. They are so smart and industrious.

To produce in the USA is astronomically expensive for a small business, but through them we are able to keep a lot of our labor in the country. We have a mutual trust based off of the honor system. When they need more money for production costs or anything Tree Blocks makes sure we give it to them and in turn they give us really high quality products. My dad made some really fruitful, mutually beneficial relationships with truly beautiful communities while he was alive.

Kelsey: Will you talk about the Vietnamese factory?

Lander: My father visited there often, but I’ve never been. I plan to go in the next couple of years, but it’s a big expense for a small company. I have a person watching over the factory, and he communicates with my business manager and me often about conditions and any other business concerns. What I do know now is that someone working there makes 2 to 3 times the amount they would working an average factory job, which is really great. It is also a small group of workers so everyone can be attended to.

Kelsey: Do you think it is important to give jobs to people in third would countries from an ethical standpoint?

Lander: With the reality that we live in today, yes. My company can afford to pay these employees wages that really improve their lives and are still affordable for us. I think as someone in a more privileged position it is my duty to make sure I am taking care of every person who is a part of the process of keeping Tree Blocks alive. There are a lot of companies and corporations where the distribution of wealth is really skewed, but my dad never wanted it to be that way.

However, in my idealistic perspective I would say, no. I hope that the USA can move towards making American labor feasibly affordable for small businesses. And I hope Vietnam will be able to give its citizens better employment opportunities. Outsourcing labor has a huge cost on the environment as far as transportation goes. We are extremely inefficient internationally, and manufacturing within one’s own country is a huge step towards reducing those effects.

Kelsey: As Tree Blocks grows how do you plan on keeping the company sustainable?

Lander: Keep using scrap wood and continue to take care of all employees involved. I have to ask myself, “How big can the company get without jeopardizing our morals? Are there enough scraps? Would I have to expand to a factory that might not treat their employees ethically?”

Kelsey: So this is a hypothetical and you already sort of touched on this, but if you got to a point where you could no longer grow your company while still holding onto your sustainable values would you cap the growth?

Lander: Yes. There comes a point where a company is just too big to be sustainable for a myriad of reasons, and I never want to cross that threshold. A goal of mine is to grow and maintain multiple small companies. That way I can continue to grow my success while remaining sustainable and giving more people who may be employed by me a better life.

Kelsey: I think that is a really key thing to understand as a business owner. Exponential growth is not sustainable, and unfortunately our country and much of the world market doesn’t seem to grasp that. Somewhere at some point down the chain of command, someone is going to get the short end of the stick when all you care about is growing profit. And it’s usually the people at the bottom that end up suffering.

Lander: Absolutely, I know I could source my labor cheaper, or sell my company to someone manufacturing plastic toys, but I don’t want that and my father didn’t want that either. It’s a balance.

Kelsey: Did you feel overwhelmed taking over the company in the wake of your father’s death?

Lander: Yeah. It was like a wave crashing over me. I wasn’t really doing anything serious with my life before I got the news he was sick. I moved to Tuscan to be with him in his last months. The plan was him showing me the family business and me running it with him. But he died 10 days after I moved there. It all happened so fast. I moved down there, he gave his friend power of attorney- we turned the company into a LLC from a sole proprietorship so that the company could go to me and not dissolve into a bunch of court fiascoes… and then he died.

Luckily my business manager Liz was able to help. I was also taking over the company after it had been around for 22 years so it was pretty established. I’m still learning the ropes and Liz has been so crucial in helping with the transition. She cares so much about the company [worked with Lander’s father for many years]; I owe a lot to her.

Kelsey: Thank you for opening up about that. A couple more questions. This one’s a little less heavy. What’s your favorite Tree Blocks toy? 

Lander: I think my favorite toy is the crash car, and that’s just a very personal thing. I have always loved cars; when I was a kid, man, I was a car nut. I had all the car magazines, all the hot wheels… so I guess when my dad made this car I always had a fond eye for it. I always have one around. I have one on my bedside table that my dad made himself.

Kelsey: Can you explain what the crash car is?

Lander: Yeah, the crash car is a magnetic puzzle toy. It basically represents an old Cadillac of natural wood. The wheels, the side panels and the chassis all come apart, and the magnets are oriented in such a way that they only come together one way. Originally my dad designed it with children who are blind in mind. Without your eyes to see you can put it together still. It takes a bit longer, but it is really good for your coordination.

Kelsey: What makes Tree Blocks special?

It’s a family owned and operated company, and everyone involved truly believes that they are a part of something that is helping the world. Everybody along the line thinks they are doing something special, that they are doing something unique and feel that they are a part of a beautiful, passive educational revolution. We’re doing something so different than the rest of the toy industry, which is largely plastic or electronic.

Kelsey: Tree Blocks absolutely is a revolution. It’s pushing for a return to production of the past. It’s not a new idea, and yet it must be reintroduced, because we have moved so far from sustainable, ethical models.

Lander: It’s a reminder. It’s a reminder of what I feel is important. Here you and I are, surrounded by redwood trees, doing this right now. I think it’s important to be around nature. To support it, to remember it, to respect it and to cherish it. My dad created something that parents and kids can play with for 5-10 years of their upbringing and then pass on to others. Something that lasts and educates. If it wasn’t a company this special that I had inherited I probably would have sold it. It’s special.

Kelsey: Is there anything else you want people to know about Tree Blocks?

Lander: I’d like it to be known that Tree Blocks is and was my dad. He was the reason the company was built. He designed every toy. He just loved being in the garage making toys for kids. He created his freedom with something that he loved to do… and mine. He created my freedom as well. That’s pretty amazing.

Kelsey: Thank you for letting me interview you and thank you for your willingness to talk about such personal things.

Lander: Yeah, thank you. It was fun.

WRAP UP:

Well that’s it for today! If you want to learn more about Tree Blocks or order one of there toys check out their website here! https://www.treeblocks.com/

If you want to learn more about sustainability and running an eco-friendly home check out my interview with the founder of the Go Green Initiative or check out any of the many other resources on Get Cultured Kitchen such as this interview on sustainable fishing or this interview about what it takes to run a sustainable restaurant. Or perhaps an article on how to live in balance with Mother Earth, spiritually and practically.

Thanks for reading everyone! I look forward to hearing from you; have a spectacular week!

The post Wood is the New Plastic: Sustainable, Educational Toys by Tree Blocks appeared first on Get Cultured Kitchen.

The post Waste Not, Want Not: “Easy Tips for Anyone to Go Green Now” appeared first on Get Cultured Kitchen.

Hello everyone! Hope you are enjoying the longest days of the year! Today I have a really special interview for you with Jill Buck. She’s the founder of Go Green Initiative: a free program educating students, teachers and communities how to live more environmentally conscious. Through reducing pollution and waste, reusing materials and through recycling, schools save money and create a healthier learning environment for our children. Jill also has easy to implement tips for home owners that are trying to live a little “greener”. Which is great in these hotter months where we use more water and blast our air conditioners. So without further ado, let’s get started!

IN THIS INTERVIEW YOU WILL LEARN:

• What the Go Green Initiative is, and how can it be implemented in your child’s school… or home.
• How ethical consumerism ties into living a green, sustainable life.
• Big and small changes we can make to reduce our environmental impact and “go green”.
• Why jumping straight onto the solar train might be a mistake and the steps you should take before you get there.
• Where to find local resources to make Green changes in your home.
• Wasting is expensive! Jill will talk us through ways schools and homes often waste, the cost and of course… quick fixes!
• Where we can learn more about going Green… on Go Green Radio!

But first… What does it mean to “Go Green”?

Go Green: ” ‘Going green’ means to pursue knowledge and practices that can lead to more environmentally friendly and ecologically responsible decisions and lifestyles, which can help protect the environment and sustain its natural resources for current and future generations.”

or straight off of the Go Green Initiative site for what it means to Go Green in the classroom:

What does it mean to “Go G.R.E.E.N.”?

Generate less waste

Recycle everything that cannot be reused

Educate the community on eco-friendly options

Evaluate the environmental impact of actions

Nourish discussions and activities that integrate environmental education into existing curriculum

JILL BUCK OF GO GREEN INITIATIVE:

Kelsey: What exactly is Go Green initiative and what inspired you to start it? Who is Jill Buck? I know before working on this you were a Naval officer, so this is a big change.

Jill: Yeah well, when I was in the Navy there was a point where my command was getting ready for an inspection from our Admiral that happened every three years. And it was my job to help the command get ready for that inspection. That would encompass things like keeping our classified material locked properly; locking our weapons up properly, because we had small arms; all kinds of things. There is a really thick binder of requirements. But that was at the time in the early 90’s when President Clinton had just signed an Executive Order requiring the entire Federal government to purchase recycled content paper. So out of this huge list of things I had to get our command ready to be inspected on, that was one little line item. So as I was going around from space to space in our command looking for other things I would feel the paper. And at that time you could tell by feeling it if it was recycled content. And so, that was my first kind of introduction into environmentally responsible purchasing. And our command was also starting to recycle paper in addition to purchasing recycled content paper.

So that was just one of the things I would go around doing. We had a huge command and I would look and see if we were doing those things. And then when I became a civilian and I got involved in my kids’ schools that little part of my brain just didn’t shut off. I mean, I could walk into a classroom and see if they were using recycled content paper. Are they recycling paper? You know, and so I was thinking, “Well there’s a violation”… *chuckles*… it was still with me.

When my oldest daughter started school we lived in South Carolina, but when she was in second grade we moved here to Pleasanton (California). And I was thinking, “Gosh, we’re going to be living 25 miles from Berkeley and everybody there is environmentally conscious. Surely the schools we will be taking her into will be doing all this right. And when we came here I found that that was not the case. We were not recycling, we were not trying to reduce waste, we were wasting energy, wasting water… I mean, the whole gamut.

So I became the PTA President for Walnut Grove Elementary and what I really wanted to do was just find a program that was already set. That I could just bring to the principal and say, “Can you do this and create a more environmentally responsible campus”. Her little sister, who’s now about to graduate from high school, was a toddler at the time. And at the same time that I was thinking about recycling and stuff in school she was experiencing some really bad asthma. There were times when it would get so bad that I would have to take her to the emergency room, and we were trying to figure out what was causing it, because no one in our family has asthma. And after a while we realized that whenever there was a “Spare the Air Day” here in the Bay Area -which means that the air is going to be higher polluted so try and carpool those days- she would have an asthma attack. So it was environmental pollutants that were causing her asthma. It wasn’t genetic thing that she was predisposed to. There were forces outside of her that were causing asthma, and the more I worked with her pediatrician the more I saw that this was a very common problem throughout the Bay Area. We have a lot of kids that are asthmatic and it’s very tied to our air quality. There are other reasons for it too, some kids are very sensitive to pesticides that are used in schools, some kids are very sensitive to schools that have poor indoor air quality.

So these two things were converging in my mind at the same time. This let’s treat the environment better, let’s recycle at school and my kid is having health problems as a result of environmental factors. And so as I was shopping around for this one-stop shopping opportunity for environmental education programs that I could bring to my kids’ school I realized there was no panacea. This was in 2002. And that’s because most programs were written by a government agency that had a mission to write curriculum or programs or activities for schools just for their area. You know, so just for energy, or just for recycling, just for water conservation. There was no program bringing them all together. So I decided to create a program for people like me *chuckles* who were too busy to do what I had been doing, which was researching all these different programs to cobble them together. I thought, “Okay, I can’t be the only one who wishes that I had found a program like this”, so I wrote the Go Green Initiative to be that program. So that’s how it all got started and that’s how it kind of filtered from my Navy days to my Mom days and came together.

Kelsey: In the paper section of your Planning Guide, (the more in-depth plan for carrying out the Go Green Initiative at schools), you briefly mention the concept of voting with our dollar. That it won’t matter if we recycle paper, if we fail to also buy recycled content paper in conjunction. In other words, in order to make recycling work, people have to actually use the products being made out of recycled materials. Suppliers will not make something there is no demand for. This concept can be applied to everything we consume, because businesses mostly measure their success in stock growth/ profit and will rarely make a sustainable change without a market demand for it.

The average person who lives in a developed country consumes a lot. From electricity to food to paper, it can be overwhelming to be as “green” as possible. Do you have any tangible tips for the average person trying to reduce their environmental impact?

Jill: Well probably the number one way to reduce your environmental impact is to look at your energy consumption; whether that’s through transportation, or the energy you consume in your home or office. Because even though the last few years the country has shifted a lot of our energy use away from coal to natural gas, it’s still not clean. It’s cleaner, but it’s still a fossil fuel. So that creates particulate matter in the air around where those plants are burning fuels. Essentially electricity is just a plant where they boil water to turn turbines to create electricity. And whether they are burning coal or through nuclear fission, or fusion or whether it’s through natural gas, or what have you… that’s generally how electricity is made. The renewable energy sources are another story, but generally that’s how our electricity comes from burning something to boil water to create steam to turn the turbines. So even though a lot of utilities have converted from coal plants to natural gas plants, they still create carbon emissions and particulate matter. So there is a substantial environmental impact to your energy use.

The other side of that of course is transportation. Transportation makes up a huge environmental footprint, both from the carbon emissions standpoint, (the greenhouse gas emissions that are incumbent in our carbon fuels), but also in the air emissions in the particulate matter that comes out of our tailpipes. Even if you have a 100% electric vehicle, unless you are charging that on electricity that’s renewable like solar panels, there’s carbon involved in getting the electricity to power your car.

So things that I do:

• I drive a Prius. There is some gasoline in there, so not 100% green, but…
• I try to consolidate my trips. I try to make sure that I’m not running 15 errands over 15 days. I think about making my drive time and distance as short as can be.
• If I’m going someplace that I can take BART, Bay Area Rapid Transit, or other forms of public transportation I do. Even when I travel for work, for the Go Green Initiative, a lot of times I’m going into a city that frankly has better public transportation than here in Pleasanton and I use it. I have to plan ahead to use it.

So I think between transportation and your electricity consumption, those are the two greatest impacts you can have. And then after that I would say food you consume, so eating as much locally grown food as you possibly can. Cutting down on meat if you can’t completely cut out meat. I remember years ago I had Philippe Cousteau, whose Grandfather was famous underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau,on Go Green Radio, and his Grandson Philippe is following in his footsteps. He said, “You know what? I love steak and I love cheeseburgers. So what I’ve done in my life is cut it down to the weekends. Throughout the week I’m a vegetarian and then Saturday and Sunday I let myself have one meat meal. And I’ve still significantly reduced my environmental impact”. So that’s the third place I go, food. And there are lots of other things, but those are the main ones. Based on what I know they have the biggest environmental impact.

Kelsey: So for conserving electricity, what are the specific things people can do in their homes and schools? I know turning off the lights when you are not using them, are there other easy things people can do too?

Jill: Totally, there are some very easy things.

• In your home or school use LED lights. If you can go to LED, yes, they are more expensive at the beginning, but they last so much longer and they use so many fewer kilowatt hours than a standard bulb. That’s a huge one.
• Things like washing clothes in cold water versus hot water; depending on your hot water heater, whether it is electric or natural gas, you could end up saving a lot right there.
• For things that you can line dry verses putting them in the dryer; that’s a big savings.
• One of the things in peoples’ homes, and this is something that we did that has been tremendously helpful, is in-su-lation. *chuckles* If your home is not properly insulated it’s not that costly to add insulation and it can reduce the amount of energy you use to heat and cool your home a lllot. So it’s probably one of the most cost-efficient things, between that and your bulbs, that you can do.

Kelsey: I read that on your website. That sometimes people will jump to solar and stuff like that, but they are missing a step.

Jill: Yes, energy efficiency first. Yeah! Cut your load! That’s the most expensive way to go green with your power, by purchasing solar kilowatt hour… and I’m all for that… but reduce your kilowatt hour load first and then purchase only that renewable energy that you need to cover your reduced load. It’s kind of like the same thing we do with reduce, reuse, recycle. We reduce first. It’s great to recycle! But instead of using a bunch of plastic water bottles I have to recycle it is much better to not use those to begin with and to keep reusing and reducing. It’s the same thing with electricity. Reduce your load before you go to renewable energy.

Kelsey: That reminds me of what we were discussing in our conversation before this interview about ethical consumerism being a little bit of an oxymoron. If you think, “Oh well, now that I’m recycling paper I don’t have to worry about my paper consumption. Or now that I’m buying humane meat I don’t have to reduce my meat intake. And now that I drive a Prius I can drive so much further”. It completely negates the purpose of what you are doing if you go crazy on meat and drive across the country all the time now.

Jill: Exactly. So it’s about moderation at every stage of your decision-making process, it really is.

Kelsey: Yeah, and planning ahead and actually thinking about your impact is crucial to success.

Jill: Yeah thinking it through and like I was saying about coordinating my errands, it requires me to plan out my week. And even in food planning I sit down and I spend some time planning out the menu for the week. I can see what I’ll need from the store so that way I’ll only have to go once. I can make sure we aren’t eating too much meat. I can make sure we get our protein from other sources, because I am planning it out in advance.

Kelsey: If someone in America is trying to “go green” through something the government might supply or give tax returns on, such as solar panels, a rain barrel or compost bin, who should they contact? Obviously, it is going to be different for different counties and states. But if they were to do a Google search on how to invest in these things where should they start?

Jill: Well it depends on what you are talking about. Like, okay if you are talking about composting most cities or counties have a recycling coordinator who’s going to know about solid waste issues. There is going to be somebody who is an employee of the county or city, depending on how rural you are, department of public works or they might be under city services. But if you get on your city website, or if all else fails just call the city’s main line and say, “Who knows about recycling? I want a composting bin”. They will be able to point you in the right direction. They may send you to your local waste hauler. Like for instance, if you want a composting bin for your backyard, like one of those 36 gallon totes, for whatever reason your family doesn’t have one and you want to separate your yard waste and compost from your kitchen and have it hauled away. You’re gonna need to call Pleasanton garbage service, but you’ll find that out by going to your city website. The compost bin for your backyard is through a program that has been running for a while and sometimes they have money to give them away for free and sometimes you have to pay a little bit for it. But the Alameda Country waste management authority is our county regulatory agency that covers all these issues.

This is something I’ve spent a lot of time on for the Go Green Initiative. Helping people understand how their systems work in their local town. So before they get solar on their roof, start with who you pay your electricity bill too. They have resources to help you with those things. A lot of times a utility company is mandated to provide customer service that you don’t have to pay for. The rates that you’re paying for your electricity already pay for some of those services. So you know, if you want help with energy start with your utility company. If you want help with waste start with your waste hauler or your city. Because a lot of times your city is the one who contracts with the waste haulers to provide services. In the contract they make the waste hauler have certain customer service options. But it’s really a good idea to know how your city works… where your water comes from… It starts with your utility companies. If you want to know about rain barrels and recycled water or conservation measures that maybe there are rebates for, start with the company you pay your water bill to. They can help you with that. So yeah, gosh, everyone’s got a website now, so start there.

Kelsey: When I was on the Go Green Initiative site I read through the planning guide and it talked a lot about composting, recycling and educating people about both of those things. But then on the rest of the website it briefly touches on other issues such as water, food and electric waste. Is there another spot on Go Green Initiatives site where it talks about how to combat those types of pollution in schools?

Jill: Yeah, actually that’s coming. We are constantly trying to improve. One of the ways that people can get more information if they need it right now is listening to Go Green Radio’s podcast. I’ve had some of the nation’s premier experts on the show talk about all those issues and more. But one of the things we’ve been working on as Go Green Initiative is an updated Planning Guide that will include all of those topics. So some of that is coming and that’s actually something I am looking for Summer interns for. To help create the next version of our Planning Guide.

Now Go Green Initiative is a program for schools. So a lot of our information is targeted towards schools. But if people want information for their homes on those topics we’ve kind of had a standing policy for the last 15 years. If there is a question you have that is not immediately apparent on our website, fill out the contact us form with the question and we will get back to you with an answer. We have people who email, people who call the office line all the time and we help them find those resources. Some of my favorites are on the EPA website. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) is our tax payer dollars at work, and they have awesome resources. If you get out on epa.gov they’ve got things on waste, and food, and energy. Also the Department of Energy, DOE, has a website chalked full of great tips. So no matter where you live you will find ways to address these issues in your life. So I tend to send people to other websites, not just the Go Green Initiative. But the EPA and DOE are two of my favorites, because I think they are really practical.

Kelsey: Something I think is really great about the Go Green Initiative is how focused it is on involving the community in what’s going on with schools. Because if the community is involved in fundraisers or you are educating your students, your parents and faculty about all of these practices they will hopefully trickle out into the home and out into the community. And the school is a good model for what we can be doing at home.

Jill: It tends to have a ripple effect. I mean, we have heard that anecdotally throughout the years. That when kids and teachers and parent volunteers see stuff happening in school they think, “Well that’s not hard”. They do take it into their place of business. We’ve even seen students advocate to their city councils saying, “We are recycling at our schools, but we can’t at the sports park where we have practice”. Students will take a leadership role in having it ripple throughout the community. So I do think it’s important to take a whole community approach to instituting some of these practices. Having it start at school where kids are spending most of their waking hours is a great place to start. However, it’s certainly not the end all be all.

Kelsey: I really liked the idea that you had on the Planning Guide of really measurable ways to show the progress that you are accomplishing. So actually measuring out the weight of the recycling; I think that’s a good reward system for people. So I was wondering if you had any other ideas for rewarding students and the community for getting involved? Just so that they can see the tangible, measurable things that they are doing.

Jill: I am a big believer in being able to report back to the community the “So what” of it all. So we did all this recycling… so what did it matter? So what? And part of the way you are able to do that is by quantifying how much you recycled and then putting that through an environmental benefits calculator. There are so many environmental benefits calculators out there now that it’s easy for a school to record that weight and figure out the environmental benefits themselves or we can do it for them. Plug it into an environmental benefits calculator and because we recycled this much of these materials this is the environmental impact that we had.

But moreover, a lot of times when you are doing these kinds of activities you are saving in money. One of the things that I really encourage schools to do is be super transparent. If the school is saving money on its waste hauling bill, because they are recycling or because they are reducing their waste they should tell everybody how much they saved. And then say, “We’re gonna take that money and do something great with it”. Maybe it’s been a goal of the school, if they are an elementary school, to open up a new playground. You can save enough money through saving energy and wasting less to build a new playground. Maybe it’s hiring a part time art teacher. At Walnut Grove, in Pleasanton, we saved $10,000 by printing less newsletters for parents and switching to email. So we took that money from the PTA budget and applied it to hiring a part time art teacher. That was the first year of the Go Green Initiative, $10,000.

So I help schools kind of tailor design their incentive programs. Some school districts really need classroom supplies and it’s not okay to spend money on something frivolous like a pizza party, but I still encourage them to be transparent. To say, “We needed books, or we needed crayons or we needed computers and we were able to purchase that, because we didn’t waste money on energy or waste hauling or whatever. And we were able to do something better.” That is an incentive on so many levels. First of all it gets back to what Benjamin Franklin said forever ago in “Poor Richard’s Almanack”, he said, “Waste not, want not”. The less we waste the more money we have to spend on other things we really need, which is good, but it also teaches students the economics of environmentally responsible behavior. That it costs a lot of money to be wasteful. And besides the economics of it, there is an environmental cost and a cost to clean up those environmental messes. So the school around the students becomes a real learning laboratory of the cost of wastefulness. You can talk about that in terms of ethics, you can talk about that in terms of morals or you can just be very crass and say, “It’s too expensive to be wasteful.” We don’t have the money to be wasteful. None of us do. Because there’s always better we could with that money or that resource or that time. So I think it’s important to show people the fruits of their labor. If they are going to do a good job at being environmental stewards show them what that’s worth.

Kelsey: It’s very interesting to reframe what it means to waste and how it saves money. Because in America, or rather a lot of developed countries, people can almost feel like they are richer, because they can “afford” to waste. They will buy lots of inexpensive food, but let excess rot in the fridge. Or frequently buy cheap clothing they may wear a few times that they can just throw away, because it was $5-10. They are not thinking obviously about how the materials, transportation, labor, etc. all had to be under that amount to turn a profit. But all that aside, people feel richer through consumption. As the middle class shrinks they may not be able to afford health care or a home, but at least they can buy a lot. It’s like a false sense of success, or it fills a void or expectation we have in our minds in which we measure success through materialism. But in actuality it adds up fast to be wasteful. It’s so expensive. This mindset is making us poorer. So to say you should waste less, because not only will it help save the planet, but it will give your child’s school the resources they need is huge.

Jill: And it’s gonna catch up with us, because when a landfill becomes a land-full, which is about to happen to us, then what? It always catches up with us. In states like California we have so much land and there was a time when we could keep building landfills and keep building landfills. But the East Coast is getting wise to this. I work with a lot of schools in New Jersey and they used to have hundreds of landfills open. So you want to know why recycling is such a big deal? Why they are willing to fine a school in an impoverished area $3,000 per school per day for being out of compliance with recycling laws? Because they only have 16 left. Only 20 years ago there were hundreds and now they are down to 16. We’re running out of space and that cost is too much. That is why the county is coming down hard on a school that can barely afford to keep the lights on, because they are not recycling. It has to do what will happen when 16 becomes 6… 6 becomes none… Then what do you do? It costs too much to export your waste somewhere where at least for now they have the landfill space.

Kelsey: I think that’s kind of the problem when we outsource so many things. When we don’t work within our communities it’s difficult for us to actually see the impact of what we are doing. When you go to the grocery store and there is a little pretty package of meat, but it doesn’t look like that animal… or you just see the clothing, but you don’t see the sweatshop laborer… or you just throw away your trash in the trash bin and you don’t see where it goes. Ignorance is bliss. Out of sight out of mind; it’s easy not to worry about it. People would probably be much more careful if they had to pile their trash in their backyard.

It’s interesting that in discussions about sustainability the word “sustainable” has lost its meaning. We kind of throw it around without actually thinking about what it means. The definition of unsustainable is we CANNOT keep doing this infinitely. We talk about making sustainable “choices” like they are a nice thing to do, but they are a necessity. It’s not a choice; we have to learn how to live sustainably if we want to keep surviving.

Jill: You’re exactly right, and you know I’ve run into plenty of people who don’t want to hear anything about climate change and, ya know, me too. *chuckles* That’s all fine and good, but at least we can agree that fossil fuels are finite. Can we agree to that? I mean, fossil fuels are called fossil fuels for a reason. We are not making more of them. When the oil and the gas and the coal are gone, how will we pass on a good standard of living to our children, grandchildren and beyond? They’re going to need a source of energy. And so at what point do we say, “It’s time to switch over to infinite sources of energy”?

Right now we are not creating solar panels with solar energy, okay. So there’s some amount of these fossil fuels that we need to invest to create that energy system of the future. And we’re getting really close to that tipping point if we haven’t already tripped over the line. So even for people who are not invested in issues of climate change, adaptation or mitigation I still try to help them see that if they want their children and grandchildren to have a great standard of living, energy is kind of the bed rock of that.

It takes energy to do everything. Even pump clean water. We need energy to do that. So that because we can agree that fossil fuels are finite, let’s start talking about transitioning into infinite sources of energy. And in the process guess what? We are going to lower our carbon emissions and that’s going to be a good thing for the environment. But even if they are not concerned with that, they are often concerned with the standard of living that they want to have in place for their posterity.

Kelsey: It’s good just making that connection with people and educating them, because often times I’m sure people don’t even think about that. You switch the switch and the lights are on; you don’t have to think about how it got to you. I think a lot of people don’t even know.

Jill: Right. We discovered that at Amador High School. We had somebody come in and have them talk about the infrastructure right here in Pleasanton. How does energy move? Where does it come from? What’s the source of it? How much is from coal? How much is from hydro? It was very interesting. I wanted them to be able to look around the community and see that’s a transmission line, that’s a distribution line, that’s a substation and I know what it does. And I know how energy gets to me. We are actually going to be going to the nuclear plant in Diablo Canyon in San Los Obispo in May. So we can see what the deal is with nuclear. The students will be able to evaluate it themselves.

Kelsey: You’re just giving them the information.

Jill: Yup, exactly. But I think knowing how the system works is so critical. Things that people have a hard time getting their head around when it comes to sustainability stem from one simple point of ignorance. And that is, not knowing how systems work in our communities. Waste. Water. Food. If they don’t know how those systems work locally they don’t understand why we are being asked to recycle or compost. It doesn’t make sense. One of the things that the Go Green Initiative is trying really hard to do is educate school communities (that includes adults) on how systems work. And how you make choices to be more sustainable and conserve natural resources for future generations based on your knowledge of how your local systems work.

Kelsey: That’s kind of what we were talking about before the interview. Being able to empower people through allowing them to be informed.

Jill: We’ve all said there’s a water distributor that deals with that, or there is a waste hauler that deals with that, ya know. There’s a utility, I pay my utility bill, well we need closer to our food, energy, waste and water and where they come from.

Kelsey: It applies to everything. It’s funny, because it’s easy to say, “Oh I need to be more careful about my food, but it applies to where my water comes from, my clothing, energy… where my stapler comes from… It applies to absolutely everything.

Jill: It’s a big Venn diagram isn’t it?

Kelsey: Yeah, it’s all connected. And it’s not necessarily about being educated about all these things and making this huge overhaul. It’s about being aware that this applies to everything in my life, whether I fully understand it all or not. So let me take a step back and be present and make each choice deliberately. And understand that I have the ability to make a choice when it comes to living sustainably or consuming ethically.

Jill: Be as conscious as I can. And if you can make that snappy and easy that’s what I want.

Kelsey: Well that’s exactly what you are doing for schools. I think it’s incredible that you’ve created this program for schools that is now used internationally. You made it straight forward for people to know exactly what it means to “Go Green”. That’s a big deal.

Jill: Well yeah, I mean, the success of it is really based on a simple truth, and that is that I am not the only person who wants this. I didn’t have to push that hard. I just had to make it available and simple and accurate and trustworthy. But people wanted it. If they didn’t I wouldn’t have made it very far. I can’t push that hard. It was what people wanted, it was the right product for the right market. And I say that very loosely, because as you probably know from our website, we sell nothing. *laughs*

Kelsey: It’s all free information! So the Go Green Radio on Voice America, what is that? I know you interview different people about sustainability.

Jill: Well this is where I get to have a little fun that goes beyond just school stuff. I cannot stop this quest of learning everything I can about sustainability issues. I get to go out and find information for Go Green audience that may or may not be just about schools. I can explore topics that are much broader. But what I am finding is that a lot of students, particularly college students will use episodes of Go Green Radio as a reference in a paper or whatever they are doing. Because I have such credible guests coming on the show and giving such great information. This is where I get to explore some of the greatest minds when it comes to water and infrastructure and energy and different products and food and all these topics and how they relate to sustainability. It’s kind of my sustainability playground. *laughs* And I have had such a wide variety of guests. People in government, entertainment, academia, business. I try not to be hindered too much. As long as it has to do with sustainability and environmental protection it is fair game.

Kelsey: So is it always the format of you interviewing people?

Jill: Mhm, it is. And sometimes it’s just one person and sometimes it’s many. We’ve had up to 6 people at a time on, and it drove my engineer crazy. *Laugh* The studio is actually in Arizona. I Skype in from my office or from my home office and then my guests call in on land lines. So I very rarely get to actually meet my guests. But one time, just last November, I was at a conference in D.C. I had been traveling all day carrying my luggage. I was getting off the subway and my hotel was like three blocks away. And I look up and I see in the window of this coffee shop, Reverend Yearwood who was like my guest two years ago. He has a very distinctive look. He is the head of the Hip Hop Caucus. He wears a black shirt with a collar and a hip hop hat. I was like, “Oh my gosh”! So I ran in to the coffee shop and said, “You were on my radio show!” and he said, “I know that voice… Jill Buck!”. And so I got to actually meet him; he’s in D.C. and I’m always out here in the Bay Area. It was really cool.

Kelsey: So what do you want people to be able to take away from listening to Go Green Radio?

Jill: It depends on the theme of the radio show. I always try to finish up each episode with what’s the take away for the everyday person. And sometimes it’s just increasing their awareness of a topic. Sometimes it’s getting in touch with your congressmen. Sometimes it’s purchasing or not purchasing something, or sometimes a life hack. Ya know, what you can do to conserve more. It kind of depends on the topic of the day what the take away is. But hopefully it’s for people like me who just want to know more about sustainability. People who are never satisfied and constantly want to know more about how to live a greener life and are seeking out more information. Because that’s how I am; constantly learning how I could be doing this and that better.

Kelsey: It’s great that you get to learn through the process.

Jill: I know! It’s so fun. I love it! So exciting. I’m going to be watching a documentary that’s coming out on PBS in a few weeks and I’m getting a sneak preview before it airs. I’m having the film maker and a couple of the people in the documentary on my show to promote it. I get to do that a few times a year. The same thing happens with books; a lot of times I’ll get the first look at a new book that’s coming out and interview the author just as the book is coming out and hitting the bookshelves. It’s a blast.

Kelsey: It’s an awesome opportunity for you and your listeners.

Jill: Yeah. It’s really fun. And the thing is I’m pretty sure it started really small. I’m pretty sure all my listeners were related to me at the beginning. *Chuckles* But now we have at least 25,000 people a week who listen live and then we have close to 2 million people who download archive broadcasts from iTunes every month. So they are from all over the world.

Kelsey: Congratulations!

Jill: Thanks! I get emails from people in Europe and Asia and all over the place. So it’s kind of fun.

Kelsey: It’s great that you have such a widespread reach and that’s something that’s so cool about technology now. That we can share that with each other so easily.

Jill: And it’s cool not to be limited to a terrestrial radio station. Voice America was really ahead of its time with its online radio station.

Kelsey: Is there anything else that you want people to know about the Go Green Initiative or Go Green Radio?

Jill: Hmmm, well um, we’re here to help. I mean that’s my mission is just to help people with whatever their environmental goals may be. Whatever their life goals may be with how it relates to sustainability. We love to get help too. I mean, we love to have people volunteer with us, I love having students do projects in the Summer. We are always looking for help that way. We are a little community, very collaborative that way. I love meeting people along the way, like you, who seem to be moving in the same direction. It gives me hope.

Kelsey: I feel the same way. I always feel so inspired getting to interview people like you. Thank you for inspiring us all! It keeps me moving along.

WRAP UP:

Well that’s it friends! If you want to bring Go Green Initiative to your local schools (and please do!) here is a link to their page: https://gogreeninitiative.org/wp/ 

If you want to learn more about sustainability and living green check out Go Green Radio: https://www.voiceamerica.com/show/1303/go-green-radio or check out any of the many resources on Get Cultured Kitchen such as this interview on sustainable fishing or this interview about what it takes to run a sustainable restaurant. Or perhaps an article on how to live in balance with Mother Earth, spiritually and practically.

If you are feeling inspired and want to help out Go Green Initiative with their global quest for environmental consciousness here is their contact page for volunteering: https://gogreeninitiative.org/wp/contact-us-4/

Thanks for reading everyone! I look forward to hearing from you; have a spectacular week!

The post Waste Not, Want Not: “Easy Tips for Anyone to Go Green Now” appeared first on Get Cultured Kitchen.

The post Finding Sustainable Seafood with Flying Fish Co: Sustainable Seafood appeared first on Get Cultured Kitchen.

I’m so excited to share this interview with you, all my readers! It is possibly the most useful thing yet on the blog giving you real tangible strategies for consuming fish ethically and sustainably. I was lucky enough to sit down with Lyf Gildersleeve, an active advocate for sustainable seafood and sustainable seafood business owner. He is funny, charismatic and incredibly knowledgeable, I could have picked his brain all day, but I was so humbled to have him take a little time out of his hectic schedule to talk to me about sustainable seafood in an effort to spread awareness.

Quickly though before we delve into the interview I want to answer the question, “What does sustainable seafood mean?” Well first let’s answer, “What is food sustainability?” Sustainability literally means something that can be maintained. So food sustainability is food being produced in a fashion that is not depleting the Earths resources, because if we deplete the Earth of its resources there will be no food to eat. Food is a resource/ takes resources to produce. So what does this mean specifically for fish? Right now over-fishing, pollution, and global warming are causing havoc in the oceans. Ecosystems are changing in ways they never have before and this means the endangerment and extinction of a lot of marine species. Our current practices are unsustainable if we want to keep eating seafood and have oceans full of marine diversity. If not for the compassion of hundreds of thousands of marine species our oceans play an important role in human society too. Seafood is important to many cultures and is an excellent source of many fat soluble vitamins, minerals and omega- 3 fatty acids. AKA the good stuff.

I find it interesting that people talk about sustainability like it is a nice choice to make. Sustainability is not a choice, it is a necessity, because the very definition of unsustainable means you can’t do it forever. And right now our oceans are in grave danger. Today we are going to learn how to find sustainably sourced seafood, so that we can protect our oceans for generations of marine and human life to come. Remember, when you buy from an unsustainable or unethical business you are giving them a thumbs up. If that is a new concept to you or you want to learn more about ethical consumerism I have a discussion of it’s importance here and tips for becoming a more ethical consumer here. Now for the interview!

In this Interview You Will Learn:

1. About Flying Fish Co Sustainable Seafood
2. What goes into regulating the waters to ensure seafood is sustainably sourced
3. How to kill a fish ethically
4. What to look for as an ethical consumer when trying to buy sustainable seafood
5. What the most sustainable seafood choices are
6. The good and the bad of fish farming and where we hope it’s heading
7. The challenges specific to being a sustainable business owner vs. a regular grocery store

*Disclaimer: A little of this content is paraphrased for clarity purposes. However, most of the interview below is composed of direct quotes from Lyf Gildersleeve and myself.*

Sustainable Seafood Interview- All About Fish:

Kelsey: Can you tell me a little about yourself and Flying Fish Co?

Lyf: Yeah, so my name is Lyf Gildersleeve and my family started Flying Fish Company before I was born in my hometown Sandpoint, Idaho. And so in Northern Idaho- inland obviously- my dad used to fly small planes, cessnas, and instruct them. So he’d fly all the time over from Sandpoint to Seattle- it’s only about 350 miles- and pick up a box of fish and bring it back inland and sell it. So it was “flying fish”; that’s how it started. As a kid I grew up packaging fish and selling fish in the market in our little thing. It was just a little part time dealer, like Wednesdays and Fridays. So it’s been a family business forever.

Then I studied aquaculture in college down in Ocean Graphic Institute in Florida, called Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute. [I] worked in different fields like that for a while, and then moved up to Utah… ski bummed up there for a while and got out of fishery [a place where fish are caught for human consumption] stuff until the recession hit and I lost my job and couldn’t find any other work. So I went back to my roots at that point and knew how to do fish, so I said, “Okay”. Got a little loan and started selling fish at the farmers’ markets in Utah and ended up getting married there. [I] had my daughter, and then we didn’t want to raise her in Utah so we moved to Oregon where my sister-in-law lives, here in Portland.

There was just an opportunity. There is not a lot of fish in this town and I wanted to focus more on just having a fish market, but the sustainable key was an important factor for me. So my slogan was, “Flying Fish Company: Sustainable Seafood”. When I came here I had a truck, like a step van- kind of like a food cart- that I started in over on Division. So I was in this food cart pod where everyone was selling lunch and dinner and stuff and I was selling my fresh fish. That lasted for six months or so, and then I started moving to another spot on Hawthorn and then I was back and forth. So for the first week of [doing both], was out of my truck and then the second spot was a produce tent that invited me over there, because I’m the protein and they’re the produce. That was five years ago now. And that really helped both of our businesses. We both doubled our business and revenues multiple times and it was great being paired up next to a grocer rather than next to food trucks.

So really I source a lot of my fish from local fisherman and oyster farmers for the oyster bar. I’m an advocate for sustainable seafood in the sense that I’ll go testify at the Pacific Fisheries Management Council meetings where they make the regulations on how many fish can be caught and that sort of thing. Actually, this Spring I got flown out to Washington, D.C. to go talk to our Congressman and Senators about the fisheries policies and the Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization. Our national fisheries policy needs to be reviewed in Congress and their are Republicans in there that are trying to pass this other Bill called the “Empty Oceans Act” [nickname] that’s loosening the belt on fisheries basically. So yeah, I do advocacy work outside of just owning a fish market. I’ve got a vested interest in fisheries, because that’s what I make my living off of. But I also want to make sure that it stays there. Coming from an aquaculture world as well, if I sell farmed raised fish I make sure it’s sustainably raised, and there is no artificial color and no growth hormones and antibiotics and that sort of thing.

Kelsey: It’s interesting that you were saying that you have a vested interest in there still being fish in the ocean so you can keep your job. I’d never thought about it that way.

Lyf: Well yeah, it can be looked at both ways. I’ve got a vested interest in that I want there to be fish harvested, but also for the long term sustainability of our oceans. But yeah, humans are f*****g a** w****s.

Kelsey: [Chuckles] Seriously. I feel like the more I learn about ethical consumerism, the less I know about ethical consumerism. It’s every avenue. It’s not just food; it’s everything we consume and we consume a lot. It’s a lot to think about every time we buy stuff, but basically at the end of the day we just have to consume less. You can’t impulse purchase when you actually dedicate yourself to doing the research on everything you are buying. It’s crazy how we just take and take and take, and it’s not a symbiotic relationship with anything. You know? I’m glad there are people who are starting to not seeing it that way, but as a whole it’s definitely how we treat the Earth and it’s inhabitants. It’s a bummer.

Lyf: Exactly, the cleaning chemicals that we use, and whatever. It relates to so many different things. Yeah, it’s so challenging. As a consumer and a business owner and all the above it’s a complex equation. But I think just general mindfulness every step of the way, in whatever hat that you are wearing is just important. Using that piece of paper or not, or using the back of a piece of paper you’re actually not going to use. Ya know? Just general mindfulness [is a good way to start changing our habits.] I like mindfulness; it’s a good word.

Kelsey: How do you find the fishermen that you get your sustainable seafood from? Do you interview them?

Lyf: Yeah sure. It’s definitely a relationship. Nowadays I get a lot of guys coming to me. So those spot prawns over there, that was a fisherman in Alaska that contacted me this week. A new contact for me; they’ll search for fish markets in Portland and I’ll come up. So nowadays I get people contacting me when they have products to sell. But originally I had to go out to the coast into the ports and try to find fisherman, and then be able to get it delivered too. I can’t go driving up and down the coast; I don’t have the capacity to be able to be sending people up the coast to be able to get it. And yeah, there is definitely a level of interviewing and making sure they are handling the product, because most fisherman are used to selling their product to a commodity distributor where it doesn’t matter if they handle the product well or not. It all just goes into the totes and out the door and they buy it all. There is nothing, even if the fish is half way split apart it just goes through. Whereas me, I am much more sensitive. I want those fish being taken care of on the boat, bled and iced properly, and handled properly so that the consumer gets the best quality product possible.

The local albacore tuna is a great example of that. My guys that fish the Colombia River; I go fishing with them. I get to go out and go fishing and get to actually physically handle the fish and do everything myself. That’s when you really get a handle of what’s going on. That’s kind of what I do.

Kelsey: So what are your specific sustainable seafood standards to ensure proper care of fish?

Lyf: Bleeding the fish is definitely important for salmon and tuna in particular. You cut their gills so the blood goes out of their system and the fillet doesn’t have the little veins of blood in them. Those veins will deteriorate faster, because blood is really nutrient rich so bacteria can grow fast. So when you don’t have that blood in there a fish fillet is going to last a lot longer. Same with tuna if you are eating it raw and stuff; it will have a better flavor if you don’t have blood in the flesh. That’s part of it. And ya know, like I said already, handling it well on the boat. You don’t want them flopping on the deck and bruising themselves every time. And then how you ice them [is important]. The best way to do it is in slush ice, so water with ice mixed in. It brings the temperature down a lot faster, rather than just packing the tuna in [straight ice]. Tuna, for example, are 60 degrees because they are swimming all the time; they are an active species. If you just take them on board they flop around on the deck for a while and then you put them right into the hole, into the packed ice. It’s kind of like an igloo. You know how when you get in a snow igloo the moisture creates a pocket like an oven inside. So if you just pack that 60 degree fish in straight ice you are going to create an igloo, so the internal guts of the fish is going to stay warm for quite some time. That’s part of the element of handling them properly.

Kelsey: You kind of answered this already, but as far as humanely killing fish… there are a lot of different ways fisherman go about harvesting. I know there are already issues with netting fish, because you might end up catching “bycatch” or fish you didn’t mean to catch or raking up fish from the ocean floor destroys entire ecosystems. But as far as hook and line fishing, what is the most efficient way to kill the fish quickly?

Lyf: Bonk them on the head. Give them a bonk with a little baseball bat, and it pretty much just kills them. You could take a little dagger as well and poke them in the head between their eyes into the back of their skull and it’s right on their central nerve. So you bonk them on the head and knife them and then they are out right now. Instead of letting them flop around on the deck, bruising themselves and getting beaten up trying to get out and they can’t. Bonk them immediately and then the cold slush ice kills them.

Kelsey: What about seafood that is kept alive, like a lobster? Are their more humane ways of killing them than throwing them in a pot of boiling water? I’ve read some stuff about freezing them first so that their central nervous system slows down and then slicing them open first.

Lyf: I think just in the hot water is fine. Some people will do the same thing as what I was talking about with the tuna. Sticking a knife between their eyes and killing them that way first, but if you drop them in a pot of boiling water they are going to die in half a second anyway.

Kelsey: I read recently that it took them three minutes to die.

Lyf: No, no way.

Kelsey: Are you sure? I had read that recently.

Lyf: Well, I’m not positive, but it only takes 10 minutes to cook them completely. So I think they are gone.

Kelsey: Yeah, I don’t know. That’s why I looked into it. I guess somebody invented a quick killing machine- the CrustaStun– recently, because of this study that came out that said it takes a crab 4-5 minutes to completely die and a lobster 3 minutes to die in boiling water. So they invented this machine that’s a wet pad that electrocutes them. Which is extremely expensive, but if you were in a restaurant killing a bunch of them it might be worth it. Probably not reasonable for the home cook, because the machine is $1,000, but it kills them in like .3 seconds. You press the pad down, you electrocute them and they are dead. I thought that was interesting, but they are at that stage where they are very expensive.

Lyf: Yeah, there is definitely a level of humane and practical. It is a challenging subject, the humane side, because we are talking about eating another animal.

Kelsey: So how do we regulate the oceans to make sure people aren’t fishing during a breeding season or over fishing a specific species? Essentially, how can we guarantee we have sustainable seafood?

Lyf: There are definitely seasons on all the different species. Salmon is a good example. They are counting all the salmon that come up the river. The Columbia River, for example, is a big fishery and in the past years we have had the highest levels of salmon returning in 10 years. This year was a little bit lower in general, but the last couple of years before that were super strong. They allow “x” amount of fish to pass up the river, it’s called escapement, before they allow any fishing. So you are always assured that enough fish are getting past the fishermen to go spawn and keep the flow going. It’s a little bit easier with a migrating species like salmon, because you can count them as they are migrating to the same place. Otherwise, they are creating these protective areas right now, marine reserves in the ocean. They are studying geographical information about where the troughs and valleys are, you know where the older broodstock [a group of mature fish used for breeding] live to spawn and create more juveniles. They are protecting those areas that are spawning grounds. Basically those areas get full of fish, they are spawning and spawning little guys and then they start to overflow into the other areas. They only allow the overflow areas to be harvested, to be “fish-able” areas. So that is happening a lot, all around the world actually, but particularly off the Oregon coast several marine reserves have been created.

Kelsey: How do they control those designated marine reserves?

Lyf: Oh GPS nowadays. There is something called I think, globalfishingwatch.org, which is a new satellite based system that tracks each fisherman’s boat and what they are doing. It makes sure they are not fishing in marine protected areas and this and that. It’s part of the push against the illegal, unreported and unregulated fisheries (IUU) nationally. Obama started implementing some new systems to regulate that issue. So basically we have an exclusive economic zone that is controlled here off the United States coast line up to 200 miles, but once you get past that 200 miles you enter the high seas and there is no law governing those oceans so that’s the challenge. There is no one responsible for that area and of course there are countries that are trying to ((protect the high seas)), but we are not all the way there. We need more attention on that. And furthermore on that point, that is why it is important not to buy products from China or Indonesia or the Phillipines [or many other places], because you don’t know where they have been caught or where they [were] harvested. And if they were harvested and then brought to those countries and then shipped back to over here we are supporting those IUUs fisheries.

Kelsey: Yeah, and also the fish is being shipped from all over the world which is not necessary and adding to transportation pollution.

Lyf: Well yeah, and that is what is happening here too. Tons of fisheries off the Oregon coast are getting shipped abroad to China, to Japan. The Oregon albacore tuna that I keep talking about, those fish are frozen up on the boats off the coast, taken back to port, put in shipping containers and sent frozen over to China. There they get defrosted, filleted and vacuum packaged in China, boxed back up, frozen and shipped back over here. So it’s twice frozen and shipped back.

Kelsey: Really? That is so inefficient!

Lyf: You would think! But it is still worth while for them, because labor is so cheap over there. And it is totally not sustainable. But you go call up a local seafood supplier and try to get the Oregon albacore tuna loins and they’ll send you a product that says product of China albacore tuna loins and they will say, “Well it’s just been processed in China. It’s still our Oregon albacore tuna loins.” However, now it says product of China, because they have to declare where it was processed and we can’t be sure that they are really sending us back our own albacore. It’s bulls***.

Kelsey: Yeah, there are a lot of issues around out sourcing labor in all sorts of fields, and how that work force is treated amongst other issues.

Lyf: Oh brutal! There are all these reports of slave labor in the shrimp industry and this and that. It’s brutal, yeah it’s dumb.

Kelsey: So if somebody wants to buy sustainable seafood and they aren’t in Portland and can’t buy from Flying Fish Co…. let’s say they go to their local farmer’s market or fish market. What should they be looking for so they can be sure that it is coming from a sustainable source?

Lyf: Yeah, I mean there are two big things, the first being don’t buy anything that is foreign. Don’t buy a product of China, ask where it’s from and double check, triple check. So that’s the start. At least try not to buy anything foreign, now if it is New Zealand or something, okay fine, that’s different than a product of China. So then if it is a product of the United States check the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch or if it is in a bigger box grocery store like Target or Walmart look for the one with the MSC certification. It’s the Marine Stewardship Council, a little blue check mark, and that is a certifying body saying that fishery is being fished in a sustainable manner. So first it is country of origin, second it is Monterey Bay Seafood Watch, third it is MSC certification. I say if we all followed that it would be amazing.

Kelsey: Does the MSC certification have restriction on the way that fish are fished?

Lyf: Oh yeah, it is quite a long process to get MSC certified.

Kelsey: Do you know the standards? Is it all hook and line?

Lyf: Um, not necessarily. There is by catch reduction.

Kelsey: Can you explain what that means?

Lyf: Um, it’s super involved. If you go onto the MSC site they post what the different requirements are for different fisheries, because each one is so unique. Lobster for example is caught differently than let say the Oregon albacore tuna. The MSC certified Oregon albacore tuna is the hook and line caught albacore tuna verses a net. So um yeah, the fishing method is definitely a part of it as well as where it is coming from and stuff. For sure.

Kelsey: Do you think there is ever a situation where it is appropriate to be net catching fish?

Lyf: Oh yeah. Most of the Alaskan fisheries are net caught, gill net caught, and they are still sustainable, because they are highly monitored as to how much fish they are catching, the escapement, to make sure enough fish go up river before harvesting fish… so all those. And our Oregon trawl commission, the fleet who basically net the bottom fish like the dover sole and those sorts of things, they have done awesome work in the last years to become more sustainable. The nets are just up off the bottom of the ocean now so they are not dragging and scooping all the s**t up.

Kelsey: Right, not destroying the ecosystem.

Lyf: All those things need to be worked towards to make it sustainable.

Kelsey: How do they control for bycatch?

Lyfe: Fishermen know the seas pretty well and know they know what areas have the dover sole verses the slope rock fish that are on the endangered species list. So if they catch too many slope rock fish the whole fishery will get shut down for the year, because they can only have “X” amount of those fish caught every year, because they are endangered and there are third party observers on the boat.

Kelsey: In the whole world or just the United States?

Lyf: Just in our fisheries. So yeah there are third party observers, like a government regulator on the fishing boat actually watching them do it. So they can’t just discard those ones over the side and say they never caught them, they are actually getting monitored.

Kelsey: If a fish is caught in a big net and the fishermen don’t want it and they throw it overboard, is it already dead? Is there a chance it will be okay?

Lyf: Ummm… both… Both. No it just depends. They could be alive and they could be dead. Most of them probably dead. So that’s why they have to be really specific about what areas you are fishing in, but once you are out there and you know the depth and you can see the topography you can definitely know where the areas are if you have been doing it for a long time.

Kelsey: Do you think there is a limit to the amount of fish we should eat per week to keep the oceans replenished? You don’t have to give me a very specific number, but if we go “hog wild” on a fish that in considered sustainable seafood we will still run out of it’s supply.

Lyf: So I think there are multiple things. So first of all I’ve done some work and different talks. Chef’s collaborative did a push on trash fish, which is just a slogan for undesirable species. So eating skate wing and sand ((dab)) and sardines and things that aren’t your salmon, cod, tuna, bass… you know your main fish that everyone wants. Well guess what? If everyone wants one kind of fish or five kinds of fish then those five fish are going to get depleted. So eating a bigger variety of species so there is not as much pressure on the single species. And then things like clams and mussels and oysters for example, those are cultured. They are sustainably cultured, farm raised, but they are actually a net positive for the environment because they are filtering, they are bivalves. They are filtering nutrients out of the water as opposed to a fish farm that is putting nutrients into the water. So those you can go hog wild, because they are a net positive for the environment because you are actually taking it out. So there are multiple ways to look at consumption, what it is that you are eating.

Kelsey: As far as farmed fishing goes can you tell me a little about how the difference between a sustainable farm and one that is not?

Lyf: Yeah sure. So Atlantic salmon are a good example of one that is not sustainable. Um, so they are like confined feed lots. Over stuffing these salmon in these pins and feeding, feeding, feeding. So there is not only a bunch of fish s**t coming out the back end, but then there is a bunch of unused feed the fish didn’t even eat that is falling onto the bottom. So then you get algae blooms and parasite issues. Because you have this big body of fish of course parasites are going to flourish in those areas. So then on top of that you have genetically modified grains that their feeds are full of. Another issue is that they are harvesting forage fish from the ocean for the fish feed for the farm fish. So we are harvesting the little fish from the ocean for the nutrients to put in the farm fish feed, and it takes more wild fish to make the farm fish so we are harvesting all these nutrients from the ocean and we aren’t doing it in the right manner. This compared to using a salmon carcass or whatever that we already caught while fishing, using that carcass and grinding it up for the fish feed. Instead we use the new, smaller fish for the fish feed. What is happening right now is we use that carcass, the bones, from the halibut and salmon and stuff to put in the fields for fertilizer, but not using it to feed the farm fish. [And ironically that grain that is fertilized by fish meal is being fed to the fish]. So we are going on collecting more wild, live fish instead of using those fish we already caught for the fish feed for the farm fish. So it’s just backa**wards. Our whole aquaculture for the farm raised fish is really really challenging.

There are a few farms, I sell a few sustainably raised farmed fish. One of them for example is up in Canada called Creative King Salmon and those are certified organic, no artificial color, no hormones, no antibiotics and lower stocking densities. So there are factors, you can sustainably raise fish. They are still using the wild forage fish for the fish meal. So that is one of the categories I don’t agree with, but I still sell that fish. But it is one area that as I continue to talk to more and more people about; it’s trying to bring more awareness to that. So from an industry standard we hopefully start to do something different someday, because that is a total issue.

Kelsey: Isn’t there a way to have a fish farm that’s just nets or something in the ocean that would just keep a diverse ecosystem within it so we don’t necessarily have to make fish feed to put in the farm?

Lyf: Right?! Yeah.

Kelsey: So do people do that?

Lyf: No, not yet. There is actually a trout, there is this place I buy trout from called McFarland Springs Trout and they are a full vegetarian feed. So they don’t get any forage fish from the ocean for the feed and they raise them all the way up, and they are an awesome product.

Kelsey: Is that a natural diet for trout?

Lyf: Not necessarily, but I think [there are] ways we could supplement that. What do they use? I think they use yeast [it’s actually algae]? You can go on their website and check out their information, but I think they use a yeast that is basically the protein. That when they ferment the yeast it creates a protein that they utilize. I mean trout are used to eating bugs. Then you could also farm worms, you could farm maggots, whatever it is you could farm what is not another forage fish from the ocean. So there is a light in the tunnel for sustainable farm raised fish. It’s just there are only a few people doing it and it’s just overall new.

Kelsey; It’s really cool that you are educating people on fishing sustainability and actually trying to change these issues and bring them into awareness in the first place. You can’t fix a problem if you don’t understand it and the consequences of it.

Lyf: Or bring attention that it is just a problem.

Kelsey: Yeah exactly… Well, we need more people like you.

Lyf: Thank you. It’s challenging. Let me tell you, it’s not an easy cup of tea. Any of it. Running your own business, small business, fish, food in particular it’s all really really challenging. Consumers have certain grocery store expectations. Like they want their meat in the case the way it is at big box grocery stores, but like grocery store meat is always defrosted and it’s not actually fresh meat. It’s all this trickery; the regular food industry, they f*****g trick us left and right.

Kelsey: Oh, absolutely!

Lyf: And it’s just me trying to set up these sustainable models. It is really challenging, because people are so set in their ways and they want everything everyday available and guess what? Our farm doesn’t arrive with chickens until tomorrow and I’m not going to defrost frozen chickens so that you can have it today. If you want frozen chicken I have it here, but our fresh one doesn’t come till tomorrow, sorry. People don’t like that.

Kelsey: How do you educate people and teach them that their expectations come from an unsustainable business model?

Lyf: You just do it, and then they f*****g go somewhere else and buy it and hopefully they will come back next time, but it’s just a pain in the a*s. A total pain in the a*s.

Kelsey: It must be hard, because you don’t have time to educate everyone why it is important what you are doing.

Lyf: No, I don’t.

Kelsey: Or why it is important to pay a little extra for the things you are doing and your suppliers are doing. Like certifications, and hook and line wild caught fishing or low density farming, those things take longer and are more expensive for the producer, but if we don’t do it there will be no fish left to fish. I’ve talked to a lot of different businesses like restaurants and produce farmers and they all come into the same issue. They’re like, “This is what a Valencia orange looks like this time of year. It’s green because it is protecting itself from the sun, but it’s still ripe.” However, when you get it from the grocery store they gas it with ethylene to turn it orange. And unfortunately that is what we are used to and people don’t want to buy the green one, because it doesn’t look like what they expect it to be.

Lyf: Right! Exactly, they think it is supposed to be a certain way, but it was all a trickery in the first place! Yeah, all of this is a b***h.

Kelsey: Well I feel like I’m sort of a mediator between the public and the business owner that is trying to make these changes. If people can become educated through these interviews than they can feel empowered to actually understand what is going on since there is so much misinformation.

Lyf: Oh tons! Yeah, education is so key for that.

Kelsey: Just making it accessible and easy for people that don’t feel like they have to time to devote to sifting through the misinformation. So hopefully it will bring more attention to the kind of stuff you are doing.

Lyf: Definitely. Thank you.

Kelsey: I’ll let you get back to work, but it was a pleasure meeting you.

Lyf: I appreciate it.

Kelsey: Thanks for letting me interview you.

Lyf: Of course, thank you, take care, safe travels.

Well that’s it folks! Thank you for reading and if you have any unanswered questions about sustainable seafood comment below! I’ll be sure to get back to you.

The post Finding Sustainable Seafood with Flying Fish Co: Sustainable Seafood appeared first on Get Cultured Kitchen.

The post Cafe Phoenix- A closer look at supporting locally sourced restaurants appeared first on Get Cultured Kitchen.

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Last week my boyfriend, Ian, his sister, Rhianna, and I took a road trip to one of our favorite places on Earth: Arcata, CA. We all used to live there. Ian for three years, Rhianna and me for one. As per usual, I had the most magical, inspiring time there last week.

Let me set the scene for you.

Imagine waking up every morning to the excitement of knowing a luscious farm is waiting just outside your window! Full of sweet, crisp carrots, succulent strawberries, and the friendliest herd of goats you’ve ever encountered. Yes, you read correctly, I said goats. Sweet, sweet loving goats that let you feed them and nuzzle up to you. I realize now when I say “the friendliest goats you’ve ever encountered” that perhaps you have never encountered goats. I suggest you hop on the bandwagon kids, because you are missing out big time! Have you seen that episode of Modern Family where Gloria and Jay’s kid befriends a goat? Cutest thing ever. Nuff said.

Anyway, let me tell you why I took this very special road trip!!! As you may already know, a large part of this website is the interviews I conduct with ethical businesses and experts of sustainability. The interviews are there so we can all better understand various ethical topics. As the saying goes, knowledge is power! Arcata California is a model city setting the standard for what the global community should be focusing on. The businesses set an excellent example for us to learn how to sustain life for generations to come.

This post however, is about one specific, very special farm-to-table locally sourced restaurant I interviewed: Café Phoenix. The owners Conny Peña and Breon Hole source almost all of their ingredients locally. Basically every ingredient, (except avocado and bananas, which don’t grow in the region), come from local, humane family farms. Their menu changes everyday to reflect what is in season and at a reasonable price for their customers. There food is nutritious, literally as fresh as it gets and made with love and considerable thought. However, the coolest aspect of their restaurant is the back patio area where they grow most of restaurant’s organic vegetables.

HOW FANTASTIC IS THAT?!….?!?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I said the food you get there is literally as fresh as it gets, I wasn’t kidding. This is the wave of the future folks. Nothing beats the fresh taste of homegrown food made from scratch coupled with the convenience of not making it yourself. Hallelujah. Not only that, but Café Phoenix shares your ethical concerns. You can trust them instead of feeling obligated to ask questions about where they source the food. Everything thought out, from the food, to the environmental impact of the business, to employee treatment and waste limitation.

The two owners of Café Phoenix, Conny and Breon, were kind enough to sit down with me. We discussed the importance of sustainability and their locally sourced restaurant. Plus, what we as consumers can do to make a positive impact on the world. Below are highlights from the interview. They beautifully put into words concepts that I often struggle to explain eloquently. I was honored to talk with them. Both so entrenched and passionate about their careers.

*Disclaimer: Some of this content is paraphrased for clarity purposes. However, most of the interview below is composed of direct quotes from Conny and Breon.*

Interview at Café Phoenix:

Q: Did you plan on growing food for the restaurant? Or because of this space specifically you decided to start a garden?

Conny: Based on the space. Prior to learning about this space through a friend, I was about to sign a lease for a juice bar, which would not allow the space for a full kitchen. I would not have been able to do a full service restaurant. So when this place came along I didn’t even really want to look at it, but eventually I came and Breon met me here. As soon as we opened the back door and saw what was here it was kind of like, “Wow!”. The garden supplies us with a lot. Not everything, but a good amount and we pick from it on a daily basis. So it’s really nice to have that to branch into!

Q: What do you grow back there?

Breon: Right now I’ve got a bunch of strawberries and peas. The zucchini is starting to go off too. Herbs, we’ve got more herbs than we know what to do with! So we do a lot of dressings and pesto. We also make our own tea blends so we can add verbena, peppermint or nettles. The green beans are starting to come up; I have some berries that are starting to set on and beets and kale. So that’s kind of right now. It can ebb and flow a little bit depending on the season.

Q: How do you manage to source everything locally and sustainably? Is there anything that you don’t source locally?

Conny: There are some things. Like for the smoothies the bananas are obviously not local and avocados don’t come from here. But really there’s not a whole lot we can’t get from here. It definitely gets harder in the winter so we focus more on the grains and the greens; stuff like that. However, we do have to branch out a little bit just so that the menu can vary to some degree. But we can probably count on two hands the number of things we don’t get locally, so I think that says a lot about a restaurant and what we are able to do here.

Q: Do you think your ability to source locally is unique to the area because Arcata is so conscious and forward thinking about sustainability and organic agriculture or do you think it is something any restaurant owner can do?

Conny: I definitely think it needs embracing a little bit more on a local level. I think we are unique. People are a little more forward thinking here with regards to sustainability. Our goal was to create a role model for what can come out of here. Luckily we live in an area where there is an abundance of stuff.

Breon: Yeah, the climate up here really allows for a lot of food production. It always shocks me how few restaurants actually get food from here, because of the availibility. That’s a part of the experiment too, because for us it can get very expensive. It still costs a lot for the farmers to grow the food as well as a lot of time so then to put that out on the plates costs us a lot. You know, we still both work night jobs just trying to make ends meet, so it’s an experiment of the concept of eating farm to table and the reality of what that takes.

Conny: Unfortunately, it’s not always economical for a restaurant to source locally and I’m hoping that changes over time, but if we were really to put a price point on what our menu is costing us, most people won’t pay. Unfortunately, there is a good amount of people who don’t branch into or really look into what they are eating. It’s hard to educate and it’s hard to appeal to the mainstream. It’s a unique business in that regard, it can be really hard to stick to our guns with it, and buying local can definitely throw a wrench in our plans. It varies with the seasons. So we have to fluctuate constantly. A changing menu makes that feasible, but not easy.

Q: In our culture many people are really far removed from where their food comes from. It’s not necessarily that they don’t care, but they don’t do the research for various reasons. How do you get people pay a couple of dollars more to get something that is fresh and local? What can you do if you want to transition your restaurant or open one more locally focused in an area not as conscientious as Arcata, CA?

Conny: A big part of it is educating the employees, because there are people who will complain a little bit about the price point. As long as there is some point of understanding on the employees part they can give the customer factual information about where it came from and what’s going into the process. I mean it’s a quick serve so we can’t talk a person’s ears off to sell them any one thing, but we are also at a point where they are going to want it or they are not. Ya know? So we are going to appeal to them or we are not and hopefully our culture will develop a more open-minded point of view, but we are just trying to make the food as good as it can possibly be so that people want to come back again.

Q: Where do you get your meat from?

Breon: I work with a lot of farmers. Anyone who is going to be at the Farmer’s market I talk with. I communicate with a lot of farms that also don’t sell there as well. We try to have a diversity as far as talking to people and seeing what is available. That way when things are more abundant the price bracket is better as well. So if it is in abundance we are able to share it. Everywhere from Shake Fork Farms to Sevinski Farms, Organic Matters Ranch.

We’ve even had someone raise chickens for us on the terms that I help them slaughter the chickens. With chickens and rabbits and poultry you can use a commercial facility and legally process your own animals. Whereas with larger animals you have to take them to a processing plant so we have to buy from the farmer’s market which gets fairly expensive. We try to have smaller meat portions and we have been trying to use every part of the animal like in Latin America.

Q: What does Café Phoenix do to minimize their waste?

Conny: You know, I’ve been really impressed with how Café Phoenix has more recycling and compost then it does trash. More often than not when I’m taking the trash out once a week there is only one can of trash and two full recycling bins, and we have compost picked up everyday to feed pigs or whatever. So the biggest challenge is to-go stuff. There is really no way around it and people want it. We use paper and biodegradable as much as we can, but it is still not our favorite.

Q: What do you want people to take away from their experience with they eat at Café Phoenix?

Breon: Eating local and eating good food doesn’t have to be so bourgeois. It’s become so class oriented and bourgey to have a local salad. It’s crazy to me to see greens and kale that are being shipped up from central valley and then when it’s local it is this big deal, but really kale grows like a weed up here. I want to show people that eating local doesn’t have to be such a big deal.

Conny: When I decided to open another restaurant my thought process was really I just want to take the thinking out of what people are eating. I don’t want customer’s to have to worry about where their food is coming from or if it is good or organic. I just wanted to eliminate all of that process so that people know whatever they are ordering it is quality, well sourced and thought out. That was always my goal in opening another restaurant. Have a good meal and know that it came from at least a 200 mile radius. Plus, feel good about it when you leave. Especially in regards to meat. You don’t know where that animal came from or what it had to go through when you get a hamburger.

Breon: Sometimes people ask us if we are a vegetarian restaurant and we aren’t, but sometimes we might not have meat on our menu for 4 to 5 days in a row, because we are working on sourcing it and it takes time. We also want to find something that isn’t too overly expensive for the consumer so we have to consider that and factor in how much is available, what is available and what we can do with it. Having traveled around the world I’ve seen that it is common to have just a few things on the menu, because that is what is available or that is what they have in their backyard that day so we try to mirror that.

Q: What is one simple thing that consumers and restaurant owners could start doing today that would impact consumer culture in a sustainable way?

Conny: I would have to say that they would have to think locally and in a broader sense, not just in regards to food but in general. If we can focus on our local economy there is so much there. Granted we are spoiled here, but I don’t think we are unique in what we are able to produce. I know there are areas where that kind of agriculture doesn’t exist, but even a family being able to grow their own food as opposed to having a lawn; that’s a huge difference. I’m spoiled in having friends that are farmers and a CSA on top of this place.

I am from southern California and when I talk to my family about what we are growing and getting up here they don’t even know of half of the vegetables I work with, or what you can do with them, or how to prepare them. It opens up a whole other realm of cooking, and it’s not just vegetarian, but you learn a lot about yourself, what your appetite wants and how the seasons relates to how your body functions.

It just makes so much more sense when you can focus on what is able to grow in this area. It’s a really simple fix and I’m not sure why people are more concerned on having these pristine lawns. Even for a family of four it makes a huge difference to not have to go out and buy organic produce. It’s not to say that we shouldn’t be buying organic, we should, but growing your own food is so empowering and educational in a huge way.

Breon: I have to agree along the same scope. Becoming aware, thinking about the bigger picture. Being able to see and learn how something grows and what natively grows in your area. To start thinking about where all of our things are coming from. I think opening that spectrum is what is going to allow us to make the changes.

I can get overwhelmed by the topic easily. Sometimes I feel like there is no way we are going to make it out of this or make a difference, but my cousin said something to me a few years back that was really helpful. He said, “Start with what you know”. I have to remind myself of that regularly, even in my farming practices where I would love to be producing my own till and making my own nutrients for this and that but sometimes you have to start with what is realistic and what you know. I feel a lot of people get overwhelmed even with the idea of doing a planter box, but I believe it is inherently imbedded in us.

Putting our hands in the dirt and watching food grow, even if you mess it up you learn something from it. I think that we all instinctively know more about plants than we realize, like when something is healthy and when it is not. Just start planning with that, you know. Even if it is a box with some parsley plants in your front lawn so you can have fresh parsley on your salads. I’ve lived in places where I had a yard that didn’t get enough sun so I put a kitty pool on the roof with some soil and plants. There are options, just be aware and ask questions. It’s time to start thinking about the changes we would like to see for ourselves and our kids.

Contact:

Café Phoenix needs all the support they can get! Please go and like their Facebook page to show some love. They are supporting local industries by sourcing locally. You can support your local economy too just by supporting businesses like them. The more we shop at places like Café Phoenix the more of a space they will have to thrive. And we will see more businesses like them spring up. So don’t forget every time you spend a dollar, it is a vote for what you want to see in our communities. And if you are ever in Arcata, CA definitely stop for a bite at Café Phoenix; it’s a really special place.

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The post 5 Things You Should Be Doing in Your Garden with Karen Snook appeared first on Get Cultured Kitchen.

This summer I had the honor of interviewing Karen Snook, the Executive Director of non-profit Kindred Spirits Care Farm at John R. Wooden High School. The farm is sanctuary to several rescue animals including alpacas, pigs, goats, hens, ducks, geese, rabbits and more. They also grow a variety of mostly edible plants in the garden, and are only expanding. Furthermore, the location is a school that involves the students in the farming. They learn about business, environmental science, and most importantly the responsibility and love involved in caring for other living beings. Karen has been pouring her heart and soul into the kids and the farm for the past 3 years without pay. She is truly inspirational and what she has accomplished at the farm will touch anyone’s heart.

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In this interview you will learn how to:

1. Optimize space in your garden for highest yields
2. Bring nutrients back into the soil without relying on chemical fertilizers (and a new way to look at weeds)
3. Start an edible garden in a strict neighborhood
4. Attract diverse life into your garden for healthier plants and soil
5. Prepare dry, barren soil for planting with materials you might be able to get for free

Interview:

About the Garden:

 

Nourishing the Soil:

A New View on Weeds:

Natural gardening:

A Vision for the Future:

 From Death to Life:

Permaculture Mindset:

How to decide what to grow in your garden:

A Helping Hand?:

Get Cultured Ktchn

Get Cultured Ktchn

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