50 results for tag: Organic

Eco-Friendly Personal Care

Judaism teaches us to be sensitive as to how we treat the Earth and all of Earth’s creatures. When choosing personal care items, keeping this principle in mind can truly make a difference. It also can benefit your health to use natural rather than chemical ingredients whose long-term effects may not be known . Below are some tips for eco-friendly ideas for the purchase and use of personal care items. Many thanks to Jewish Environmental Initiative (JEI) Teen Group member Dena Selig for her contributions to this blog. 1. Make your own beauty treatments. This saves money and uses natural ingredients. You'll know exactly ...

Jewish Urban Farming Internship

Urban Adamah, based in Berkeley, CA, is a three-month intensive residential leadership training program for young adults ages 20-29, that integrates urban organic farming, social justice work and progressive Jewish living and learning. Twelve Urban Adamah Fellows are selected each season to operate an organic farm and educational center, intern with community organizations addressing issues at the intersection of poverty, food security and environmental stewardship, and learn an approach to Jewish tradition that opens the heart and builds joyful community. Applicants do not need any farming for Jewish knowledge to participate. Fellows come from a ...

Halfway Through the Food Stamp Challenge

I am at the halfway point of the one week Fighting Poverty with Faith Food Stamp Challenge. My personal challenge has been to spend the allotted $1.50/meal but with a twist: to eat organically. There is method to my madness. My understanding is that 46 million Americans live on Food Stamps to ‘supplement’ their nutritional needs. I imagine that many of these 15% of Americans live food insecure lives. This means that the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or the ability to acquire acceptable food in socially acceptable ways are limited or uncertain. My goals in taking the challenge were to ...

Hazon CSA potluck a success!

A great time was had by all at our third annual Hazon CSA Shared Shabbat dinner on October 25. Those attending feasted on dishes including spinach lasagna, Indian squash soup, roasted tatsoi, roasted vegetables and smashed potatoes. All dishes were prepared with organic produce grown by our local farmer. What a treat to celebrate the fall with food that is good for the land, good for the environment and good for your health! This year's CSA is over, but we look forward to another great year in 2012.

Living our Values at the Festival of Eden

Warm autumn sky, a mega-stage, bicycle-churned ice cream and over 450 people celebrating sustainable Jewish living.... On September 25, 2011, Eden Village Camp held our first annual Festival of Eden. The event was a tangible way for the community to experientially connect with principles of sustainability, environmentalism, and Jewish tradition. Eden Village Camp nourishes the connections between self, community, earth, and spirit with socially and environmentally conscious programming that is firmly rooted in Jewish tradition. The Festival of Eden showcased this philosophy through hands-on workshops on organic cooking, fermenting, keeping ...

Forest Gardening: A Living Sukkah

Sitting in our Sukkah at Eden Village, a hexagon of black locust from our forest, I can gaze in each direction and learn something about the place I am dwelling. I can look out to the east and see our production fields, mostly in covercrop of oats, with an occasional row of cosmos or cabbage, and behind the fields a cob oven, and behind that, our kitchen. To the south, a wetland and forest, from which we harvested the black locust and the invasive phragmites which we used as schach to cover our Sukkah. To the north, the office, theatre,and share circle, center of the creative cyclone during the summer camp season. But to the west is my favorite ...

Hazon Shared Shabbat Dinner

St. Louis JEI and our local Jewish Community Center sponsor a wonderful community supported agriculture (CSA) program through Hazon. Each week from May through October, those who have signed up receive a share of produce from a local, organic family farm. In addition to helping the environment by buying local and organic, being a member of the Hazon CSA introduces you to new foods you never knew you liked. This past August, members of the Hazon CSA had a shared Shabbat Dinner. Along with stimulating dinner conversation, we shared dishes made with fresh CSA ingredients such as gazpacho with fam fresh tomatoes and cucumbers and a southwest casserole ...

Where the Fruit Comes From

It's humid and in the 90s, the sun is high in the summer sky, and it's time for blueberry picking! We picked ours a couple of weeks ago, on an organic farm not too far from our house. I love picking fruits and berries in the summer, but I find blueberries most enjoyable. Maybe it's the way that the abundance of berries just falls into your hands; maybe it's that the bushes are at arms level. Or maybe it's just that it's the first fruit we pick in the season. In the hustle of beginning summer, we have to remind ourselves to pick before the season ends (in our area, by mid-July). When we're picking blueber...

Environmental Tip of the Week: Buy organic food!

Cross posted on Foodiscovery and Environmental Tip of the Week Yes, it tends to be more expensive but organic growing practices are much better for the environment, and for health as well. Of course, the environment and health are connected. Folks, I just learned that workers at non-organic ("conventional") farms have died due to constant exposure to chemicals! Have a look at this discussion on Facebook for more information, websites to look at, etc. Where to buy organic food? A lot of regular grocery stores, like my QFC at University Village, now carry some. You can also check out Whole Foods if there's one near you. ...

Bad few weeks on the Anti-GMO front, but its always darkest before the dawn.

Its been a bad couple weeks on the anti-GMO front. Last week the USDA approved the planting of GM Alfalfa without restrictions, and they are now poised to approve GM Sugar Beets as well. These approvals come as part of the efforts of the Obama administration to remove "burdensome" regulations, and are a sad betrayal of consumer's rights and environmental health concerns. Alfalfa, America's fourth largest crop, is planted on over 23 Million acres. What this approval means is that while currently 93% of alfalfa is grown without the use of pesticides, the approval of GM alfalfa will undoubtably increase the use of herbicides in ...